posted Mar 9, 2010 5:35 AM by Martin Kell
Arnaud Borner getting respect on Velonews. |
posted Mar 8, 2010 8:31 AM by Martin Kell
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updated Mar 8, 2010 9:15 AM
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Daddy joined us for dinner.
Well, this weekend was the first race of the season. The Rutgers Collegiate Road Race weekend. There were 3 races over the weekend an ITT, Crit, and Circuit Race. On Saturday  I finished 15th in the ITT not to bad being that it was only 2.6 miles and everyone was fairly close. Then later in the day at the crit I road like a totla idot for the first 15 minutes didn't get any prems and blew myself up and dropped out. Later that night we refueled at Stuff Your Face a fine food establishment with an impressive strombolie menu. The next day at the circuit race my goal was to ride smart and stay in the pack. Well, so much for that I got bored after 15 minutes attacked and next thing I know I'm 20 seconds off the front sole for 1.5 laps, luckily 3 others came to join and I then had a group we stayed away for about 45 minutes till some others joined. These gave some teams 2 people in the group and things started to go bad, I ended up getting dropped from that group but led another chase group and won the sprint for 9th. 9th doesn't sound to great but I'm really happy about it. One of my best finishes and I'm sure I did the most work of anyone in the race. It was a good weekend in all for Penn State are team took 4th and Arnaud won the B circuit race. Race recap can be found here http://ecccnews.wordpress.com/race-reports/week-1-rutgers-frozen-toed-season-opener/mens-a-circuit-race-report/ .
Top results were posted by me and Arnaud the only two to order an 18inch bolie. Fuel is important. These Guys look way to euro to be racing collegiate.
Drew making us sandwiches after loosing bet on who would be slowest in TT.
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posted Mar 4, 2010 4:24 PM by Martin Kell
Collegiate Road at Rutgers |
posted Mar 4, 2010 2:45 PM by Martin Kell
What country has the best bike races?
What country has the highest taxes?
The three countries with the highest tax rates are Belgium, France, and Germany. All three of these countries are also notorious for cycling and having great bike races both road and mountain. Makes you wonder if there is some corelation between this or if its just random. I think that there is a reason for this and that reason is the "Tragedy of the Commons" a theory proposed by Garrett Hardin in 1968. Hardin used this theory to explain the overgrazing of cattle on public lands. My comparison may be a little off but I think it fits. When you have a bike race who benefits other than the riders, well sponsors get exposure but its limited and as we know so far it isn't covering the cost. The others who benefit are the local community. When a big race is put on it brings lots of racers to a town and even spectators if your lucky and these people spend money. The spend it on hotels, restaurants, nick nacks, and they may like the area so much the move there. So the community benefits and the should pay the bill, but how is this done. Well we could ask local businesses for sponsorships. You have to hope that the business has enough perspective to see the benefit and great if they do but what about the ones who don't and just free ride and rep the benefits thats not fare. This is where local government and chamber of commerce have to step in, just as they do to provide snow removal and park maintenance. They collect taxes from everyone and then redistribute it so that hopefully everyone benefits. Back to the chart at the top, where is the US fairly low and most of the taxes are coming from corporations and that could be a whole other story on how that drives investment away from the US, but the point is people don't like to pay taxes especially in the US(Generally). One example is the Omega Pharma-Lotto the Belgium pro road team is supported by the Belgium lottery. The whole reason that I got thinking about this was an article on pg 75 of the March issue of Velonews titltled "Why UCI". This article talks about the problems the US national mtb series is having and what the big deal is about UCI races. In the article it talks about the large cost of putting on a UCI race. It goes on to talk about how the Canada Economic Development organization awarded Mount St Anne $200,000 to put on its races, this is a perfect example of a government organization stepping into support cycling and in the end benefiting the community. Its stated in the article that the 2008 my Saint Ann world cup brought 71,000 visitors to the area and generated 11.5 million dollars, not a bad return on a $200,000 investment. Canada is also expecting $17 million form the World Championships this year. I also ready another article about how Bend OR benefited a lot form putting on Cyclocross nationals, I can find the article now to cite but it had some great stats on the economic benefits of a large bike race. So in conclusion I guess if you want better races in the US you better be ready to pay more taxes or maybe we need to just get better at lobbying local govt and chamber of commerce and selling the idea of a bike race. Im sure there are lots of other factor playing not the popularity of bike races in Europe rather than here, but tis not just bike racing to, did you see the video clips of ski jumping in Austria that nbc was showing during the olympics. They had more people there than a major league baseball games. Every sport is more popular in Europe it seems well maybe not Nascar but the have Formula 1 which is way cooler.
Maybe ill just move peace. Its spring break time. |
posted Feb 24, 2010 7:42 PM by Martin Kell
I'm working on an international consulting project for Sherwin Williams to expand to Thailand and then I have an English paper to write after that. Once I finish these I will have a real good post on the economics of mountain bike racing, how it relates to taxes, and why sports in general appear more popular in Europe. Until then you will have to settle for a youtube video. ENJOY!
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posted Feb 23, 2010 4:33 AM by Martin Kell
Hopefully this week will conclude this winter weather. I cant wait to start racing. I will start on the road this year, racing for Penn State. Hopefully I will race my self into shape by the time the meat of the mtb season comes around. |
posted Feb 17, 2010 4:13 PM by Martin Kell
Before I was a bike guy, I was really interested in cars. Never really worked on them to much or anything, but understood how they worked and was really interested in specs and other stuff. So, I'm going to give you my list of cool cars to watch for. Hopefully I will be able to Purchase one soon. The old Accord is over 170,000 and has some do it your self body work and a big hole where the stereo should be.
Audi A3 TDI You probably saw the super-bowl commercial but if you didn't I included it in this post anyways. Great looking car and gets better mileage(42mpg highway) then most hybrids. Yea it probably is a turd with only 140 hp but thats more then my current car, and since its diesel its torque makes up for the power. If the Audi is out of your price rang there is also the VW version. Very cool car.
Honda CRZ, This one is cool but yet kind of disappointing. It looks awesome borrowing styling from the crx (one of my favorite cars) of past. The let down is that its a hybrid, yea that means its good for the environment well not really, the mileage isn't that great(well i just read 40 but thats not what I saw earlier). 140hp as well for this car. The big problem with this one is that it will probably be rather expensive but no price has been released yet. Tired of writing so I will just list the rest. Volvo C30 Looks like cool sporty hatch backs aren't just for Europe anymore. Hopefully Ford will get the picture and bring this Focus stateside. That brings up another thing, if you don't watch top gear you should. Best show on TV, well TV everywhere else but the US. That concludes my car list for now. Maybe next I will do dream cars.
Making pasta primavera with chicken right now, maybe ill take a picture for you. |
posted Feb 16, 2010 5:45 PM by Martin Kell
Big week for "Operation Find a Job". Lets start with the weekend though. Had a good Valentines day weekend with Logan. Went to her game on Saturday, then had a nice dinner, did a little shopping then headed home. Driving across Interstate 80 from about Hazelton to State College has to be one of the most boring drives. They really need to do away with the speed limit. Its not necessary there is no one else on the rode especially at night and the rode is fairly straight. I also feel that driving the speed limit only escalates the chances of falling asleep at the wheel, if you were actually driving fast there would be more excitement and reason to pay attention to the rode and therefore less of a chance of falling asleep. Back to the Big week. I had an interview today for an internship that seems fairly promising. Then on Thursday and Friday I will be going to a two day event with a potential employer that I already interviewed with. There will be several interviews Friday morning so hopefully I can bring my A game and bag a job offer.
Training wise I'm just trying to focus on getting good quality workouts. I don't have the time, nor the proper weather to do any real long training. I have also been throwing some lifting and running in the mix too.
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posted Feb 9, 2010 4:01 AM by Martin Kell
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updated Feb 9, 2010 4:09 AM
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Yes, this was my nick name as a young lad.
A lot of the same recently classes, job stuff, and trying to stay in shape over winter.
Lil Wayne's Rebirth album was rather disappointing, but what do you expect form a rock album by "the best rapper alive". Supposedly he has enough content already recorded for Tha Carter 4 but who knows how long we will have to wait for that since he goes to jail today for 8-12 months.
Oh yea, going to the gym here in a while then Borner and I are headed to Denny's for free Grand Slams, won't help the weight loss goals but hey it's free. |
posted Feb 1, 2010 7:33 PM by Martin Kell
After being postponed for over a year Lil Wayne's new cd The Rebirth is coming out.
Got a second interview. OH YEA. |
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