Indulgence - Anton Krupicka

Anton rocks.

Rocky Raccoon 100 Miler Video Start

I finally figured out how to post videos without it wrecking my blog. It only took 5 hours of upgrading and wanting to smash my skull into a truck bumper, but it's done.

This is a clip of the psychopaths joyful folks starting their 100 mile running event. Looks like fun? It has a 34% DNF rate. "Look to your left, look to your right. One of you won't finish. And the other two will wish they didn't."

Triathlete Recipes

I grew up cooking complicated meals in the Great Outdoors without much more than what you could carry in your backpack. I was a member of a fantastic high-adventure Scout troop and we would always try to outdo each other with the fanciest meals possible in the most extreme conditions. Lots of times ingredients would get lost, cooking fuel/gear would be compromised, or items would end up being eaten in a previous meal. Still, the judging would go on - with the treasured "Golden Spoon" as the reward. Suffice to say, we learned to whip up a three-course meal in terrible conditions.

As a result, my cooking style is quite bizarre. I can go in pantry, find the most seemingly disparate ingredients, and create some pretty interesting meals. I rarely measure anything because I've learned to eyeball it and I enjoy having the meal taste slightly different each time. My mad cooking skillz can sometimes irritate those that are used to making meals by the book. "How do you know how much to put in? You can't cook that way!" As proof that I'm not making this up, my brother was in the same Scout troop and he is in charge of meals and whatnot at one of the largest catering companies in Chicago. He is a fantastic chef. He cooks the same way.

I was tasked tonight to make dinner for us while my beloved triathlete wife was in class, so I did my typical "Make it up as I go recipe". It turned out tasty, so I thought I'd document how I made it this time and share a decent meal for endurance athletes with all you folks. Here is my humble, thrown-together masterpiece: Totally Aero Thai. Emily gave it the double-thumbs up and my three-year-old even liked it, so it can't be too terrible.

Nutrition is important to us tri-geeks. I'm going to add a page to this blog very soon and list recipes for us to chow down on. Please send me a link to your own. Mine was written and then published with Google Documents. Give it a try if you're looking for a way to keep track of your own recipes. Look closely and you'll see that I've added some triathlon-specific touches.

Safety in Numbers

Studies show that cycling was safest when there was the greatest number of people on bikes.  I can't remember the year, but in America, that was a couple of decades ago.  Drivers are more careful when they know there's a good chance there's a cyclist around.

Even though helmets are safer, lights are brighter, and most gear is better, YOU are still more likely to be hit than before because fewer people are seen cycling.

How do we change that?  By encouraging more people to bike more often for reasons other than just sport. 

People want to do this.  Zen and the Art of Triathlon is successful because we promote the lifestyle, not the winning.  Bike messenger culture is hot.  Gas prices are high.  Stress levels from dealing with traffic are crushing your spirits. (Yours, not mine.  I bike to work.)

I was delighted to see Lance Armstrong building a bike store in Austin that promotes urban and commuting cycling instead of just outright going fast on country roads.  This helps with all of our safety, and frankly, is what our country needs to catch up with the rest of the world.

I've been riding quite a bit with some entry-level cyclists lately and have been adamant about encouraging them to act like vehicles, not third-class psuedo pedestrians.  I show them how to NOT ride on the sidewalk and ride in the car lane instead.  I show them how to place themselves in intersections as vehicles and negotiate left turns across oncoming traffic.

I teach them this for two reasons:

• They have the right to ride their bike on the roads.


• By doing so, it makes it safer for all of us to ride on the roads.

Cars see more of us biking around on roads and the drivers become more cautious and respectful of bikers.
If they regressed and rode on narrow, bumpy sidewalk, drivers see that and begin to believe "Bikers belong on the sidewalk.  See!  There's one on the sidewalk right now!"

Do all of your cycling friends a favor and start riding in the road/bike lane/turn lane like you have the right.  If you wear bright clothing and don't ride like an idiot, you'll be surprised at how kindly car traffic will treat you.  Drivers appreciate it when you ride predictably and stop at all the same stop signs and lights cars have to.

Start biking around town to do errands.  Once you start, it becomes very addictive.  Get a junker bike, cheap lock, and a bike bag and live the urban cyclist life.  It will make you a much better cyclist when training and racing.

And don't forget, tell everybody that you bike around town.  When they joke about acting aggressively towards cyclists, remind them that they could hurt or kill a fellow coworker or somebody's friend or family.  Most importantly, if the cyclist gets their license plate number, they can be charged with attempted vehicular manslaughter.  That usually puts the joking to an end.

Bamboo Evolved

I got the following comment just the other day -

Hey Brett, I was wondering where you got the plan for the bike rack ... or are you coming up with it on the fly?

I found a stand of bamboo by my grandparents house in FLA and thought I would go 'green' with the rack idea. plus, a bunch of bikes leaning on each other doesn't look as cool. bikes lined up in a kick ass bamboo rack would look sweet!

Ben (Tri-Bagger)

I'm away from home right now, so I can't post a picture of how it turned out. Will do when I get back. This is what I learned about bamboo so far:

• Fire treating it takes forever. Yet, it is beyond awesome and looks super cool.


• I didn't have plans, but it was assembled by a Texas Aggie and modified by an engineer that builds skyscrapers. Said Aggie and engineer have a combined 80 years of knot-tying in the Boy Scouts.


• Aggies are renowned for being stupid and don't ever ask a skyscraper engineer to build anything less than 500,000 square feet or 40 stories tall.


• Give a Boy Scout a rope and you will get back either "I lost it." or "It somehow caught on fire."

But seriously, we did a pretty slick job of it. It's not as stable as I hoped, but it definitely works. Here is an actual useful list of what could be considered useful information:

• Fire treating the bamboo... it cures it instantly, but I ponder how "green" all the propane use is.  That being said, I didn't use very much propane.


• Bamboo as construction materials = green.  Bamboo as fabric (t-shirts, sheets, etc...) = very, VERY, not green.  They use some extremely toxic chemical to turn bamboo into a pulp for thread.  Stay away from bamboo fabric for now.


• Gorilla Glue is perfect for bonding pieces together.


• A fine-tooth saw can cut bamboo OK.  Use a larger-tooth saw and you're asking for fractured and blown apart pieces.

I'm at the stage of where I've worked with it enough to know how to fire-treat it, saw it, and seen how strong Gorilla Glue can hold it.  I think that's a good place to sit back and try to figure out more uses.  There is a real geometric problem in that the pieces are round, not flat.  It makes joining pieces together difficult because there is not contact surface area big enough to glue.

I've also seen several examples of people building bikes out of it using hemp or carbon fiber to hold the joints.  Joints are often lugged with steel or titanium.  Soooooo...  Basically I'm just sitting back and re-sizing the skill set and the situation before I plunge into it again.  I don't want to spend too much time on something and then realize I built it all wrong. Just writing this, I'm now wondering if a lugged bike rack would be more effective than the wired-and-tied-together model I built.

Anyway, picture and description of all the parts coming soon!