A few weeks ago the nice folks at Tech4o, dropped a Mens Accelerator Running Watch in my mailbox for a review. Since its arrival I have been putting it through the Dukes of Flatbush torture tests and am ready to report. For the rest of this post I will refer to the watch as the Accelerator, because it is shorter and sounds kind of cool.

For me the gold standard of running watches is the Garmin 405 , and was my baseline for comparison and testing for the Accelerator. The first impressions of the watch are that it is a nice fit and of course much smaller than the Garmin. It sits nicely on the wrist and the display is just OK. It could be a little sharper and is probably a level below a Timex Ironman and without the Indiglo feature, so a little tough to read at night, but adequate.

Now lets get to the fuctionality of the Accelerator. My main test of this watch was to see the accuracy of the distance measured against the Garmin 405. For most runners, any watch can tell time and do laps, but the distance measured is the key feature we are looking for. Let me begin by stating I did not really read the manual too well so not sure if I needed to calibrate the watch, but to tell you the truth it did not really matter.

My first run was an easy 4 miler, that wound around Volunteer Park in Seattle. The results were Garmin 4.01 miles, Accelerator 3.98 miles. Not too bad. The second event was a walk around Vancouver BC and the Accelerator and Google Maps both were within 5% of each other. Since I am never sure how accurate Google Maps are, I consider this a win in terms of accuracy. The third and fourth runs were 5 mile runs around Seattle and both times the results were the same. Garmin 5.02 miles, Accelerator 4.97 miles.

So in terms of accuracy, I can say that the Accelerator worked and for a runner that is looking for a general range of distance and is not obsessed like your truly, it is an excellent lower cost alternative to a Garmin. I think the Accelerator is around $70, so compared to $350 for the Garmin, so a pretty good value. The Accelerator has a bunch of other features such as steps, calories burned, dual time and a countdown timer, but I cannot account for how accurate the calories burned works and a timer is a timer and there was no chance I was counting steps.

I will keep the Tech4o in my watch rotation along with the Garmin 405 and a couple of Timex Ironmans

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A bunch of kids in Queen have been outfitting their bicycles with car batteries, amps, computers, DVD players and huge bass cabinets. Talk about rolling thunder. It’s all documented in a movie called Made in Queens - could be worth checking out…

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Few things in life turn out to be as good as their name, but Punkin Chunkin is definitely one. Every year, a bunch of people get together to see just how far they can throw a pumpkin. You are probably thinking it’s a strongman competition where giant Swedes throw gourds over a 20 foot wall. No. It’s much better than that. The classes in the competition merely hint at the insanity - Air, Centrifugal, Catapult, Trebuchet, Human Power, Human Power Centrifugal, and Torsion Catapult. I could go on, but a picture is worth a thousand words. Check these out…

Just how far are we chunkin these punkins? The world record currently stands at 4434.28 feet, a little under a mile. Are you kidding me? The event is held in Bridgeville, Delaware from October 31 - November 2 this year. Count me in. I’ll blend in perfectly…

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Radiohead just came out with a new video for their song “House of Cards” off the album In Rainbows. The interesting thing about the video is that no cameras were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. “Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.”

Watch the Making Of Video:

Watch the Video:

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I’m absolutely sick of Hollywood blockbusters. They always show off awesome futuristic crap that you simply can’t live without. I grew up with 8 tracks and wired remotes. My grandchildren will be rocketing around on hoverboards while having sex with a virtual Carmen Electra. I mean it’s good for them, but can I get a little love?

Well, it’s far from Carmen Electra, but I just ran across a browser plugin that simulates an effect we all came to know and love in Minority Report. Remember when Tom Cruise was using that bitchin’ 3D interface to solve crimes? Well, a plug-in called PicLens allows you to search Google and Flickr images, YouTube videos and Amazon products using an exceedingly cool and useful interface shown below. I won’t search those sites the same way again - see for yourself.

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The “New York City Waterfalls” exhibit opened this morning. For those of you who aren’t in the know, an artists named Olafur Eliasson was able to raise $15.5 million and secure Mayor Bloomberg’s help to install 4 waterfalls across the New York Harbor. I like the look of the one directly under the Brooklyn Bridge.

This installation is on the scale of “The Gates” by Christo and Jeanne-Claude that filled Central Park with saffron-colored fabric panels back in 2005. I wasn’t that excited to see “The Gates”, but was taken aback by the beauty and scale when I did make the trip. It was really extraordinary. Make sure you don’t miss this one…

Kudos to Mayor Bloomberg who helped the artists navigate the NYC bureaucracy to get over 30 separate permits to make this a reality. Well played sir.

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I’m trying a new feature called “stacks” at Search Me. It allows you to categorize and share a visual representation of your favorite sites. The end result is similar to an iTunes display. These are the gossip sites I can’t help but ping every day…

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Oh my god.

The Rock-afire Explosion was an animatronic robot band that played in Showbiz Pizza Place restaurants from 1980 to 1991. The show was created and manufactured exclusively for Showbiz by Creative Engineering, Inc. in Orlando, Florida.

Some guy bought one and is running current hits through it. This clip features the band performing Usher. The Gorilla in the gold lame suit and bowtie slays me, as does the Sun who sings backup. The most awesome thing ever.

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Well, the DOFB more than survived it’s trip to Laconia for Bike Week ‘08. In fact, a damn fine time was had by all on a ride that was, as any proper bike adventure should be, filled with hilarity, calamities averted and plenty of cold suds. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking, but first I’d just like to say a word or 100 about one particularly memorable event.

On the ride up I experienced one of those moments that every rider dreads, the kind of thing that puts a not in your gut just thinking about. I blew a front tire on the Merritt traveling at highway speed in failing light. Blowing a front shoe is one of those things you hear about happening but is by no means a regular occurrence. In fact, most of the folks I know who’ve been riding for a lifetime have never had their number come up. Let me tell you something - it is not a good time.

The tire went flat in about 10-15 seconds. Not with a bang or a pop…just all of the sudden the handling characteristics changed. At first subtly enough to wonder if it was odd pavement. And then, very quickly, the front forks started traveling about a foot in either direction, yanking the steering back, serpentining the bike and generally making it impossible to control. Mind you 75% of the braking on most bikes, and prob 90% on mine, is done with the front brake. So it was a pretty impossible situation to get the bike to rapidly slow while keeping it upright.

With mountains of luck, and a formation of Dukes behind me making sure I wasn’t struck by an oncoming car, I managed to keep the shiny side up and get to the shoulder. Where I no doubt would have remained if it weren’t for the formidable aid and patience of Sergeant Raymond LaPlante of the Orange PD. Ray pulled up on his police Harley to see what was doing and, over the course of the next 12 hours, not only helped us sort out local accommodations, sustenance/beverages and a great mechanic, but actually borrowed a trailer and, (on his morning off with his young son in tow!), pulled the wounded SuperBad from where I’d stashed her in the woods overnight to the shop for an early am fix that got us back on the road.

Ray’s effort not only saved our trip from ruin, it reminded all of us a bit about what’s so special about riding. That it’s appreciably different than traveling the roads in a steel cage. There’s a different connectedness to the experience of moving from place to place. You don’t always know what might happen (especially on an old bike), but that the journey in and of itself is adventure. And, more than anything else, the camaraderie of two wheels and that bikers look after one another.

So a hearty DOFB thanks and toast to Ray LaPlante. We sent many a cold beer to it’s maker this past weekend and damn it all if most of mine weren’t dedicated to his awesomeocity. Keep the rubber side down and looking forward to when we get to ride together!

The SuperBad being seen to by Art Handleman @ Valley Motorsports in Ansonia, CT. If you’re ever in a pinch with your machine in CT - Art’s the man to get you back on the road.
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Turns out - I had a “rust-based failure”. On older bikes that have seen weather at one point or another, the insides of the rims can get to rusting. Small metal filings eventually peel off and will, inevitably, roughly have their way with your tube. Here’s the shop tech de-rustifying the inside of my front rim.

To recap = small metal filings + rubber innertube + highway speed = bad. Put it on your list of shit to think about if you have a late model ride.
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Sergeant Ray and his awesome little boy Nathan flying the DOFB flag after dropping our side-show off at the shop. Nathan’s already bewitched by bikes and shows great promise. Rumor has it Ray may be heading up to NH this weekend as well. Boundless thanks to both of them for spending their morning sorting us out - couldn’t have done it without you fellahs. Have an awesome ride to the granite state Ray!
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Th big man…..Emperor of the Rage Hut, host for this Bike Week jaunt and head of the New Hampshire DOFB Chapter. Not a finer NH specimen to be found.
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Ride on Winni to the Wiers for a peek around, some grub and one (read:10) Margarita.
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Graham lends a helping hand to a parched Hombre
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2300 CC Triumph Rocket Sled….daaaaamn.
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Sweet trike art - Rowwwrrrrrr.
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The next day the Big Man took us on an epic ride up over the Sandwich Notch road, around through Waterville Valley and back over the Kank. Being dirt, recently graded and pretty steep in many places, The Notch road was especially challenging for some of the bikes. Fritz on the Yammie FJR1300 gets the hero’s salute for muscling that beast all the way through safely. That bike was built for smooth speed and she was more than a little ornery about the conditions. He rodeoed it though and, in exchange, was treated to a singular adventure through pristine NH back country. Nice work man.
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Big and mean never goes out of style in NH.
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DOFB, now with more Back Road Action!
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Juanito going native. The arm stripes perhaps suggest some sort of vestment. A man of the cloth? A country bishop perhaps?

Subsequently gathered evidence would seem to contravene this hypothesis.
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Graham loves it.
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Like Rodin’s thinker, this Duke too is made of granite. NH Chapter member (and lead carpenter) Whitney on his KLR. The KLR really is a perfect match for this guy and his natural surroundings.
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Top of the Kank….one of the best roads for riding on the East Coast and my personal favorite. The Dukes relay team will also be running the Kank this coming fall in the “Reach the Beach” 200+ mile relay. A painful reality not lost on those of us who’ll be on the squad as we climbed upward for 13 miles….
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Stop in Chocorua to visit the DOFB patron Saint - Ghee. Here’s she’s getting her annual ride around the block on the back of the Guzzer.
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Fritz on the Yammie. Can you believe he just took that 600lb beast over 20+ miles of mushy dirt logging roads?!?
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Heading back into the Wiers we start to get a taste of the action.
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Bike traffic for miles.
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Some local fauna met in traffic. The lady on the front claimed to have been arrested at last year’s bike week for mistakenly slugging a cop. Oops. Things can get a little dicey at Bike Week but come on ladies. These two sisters seemed a wee interested in a certain debonair Duke.
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This guy - can you believe it? No accounting for taste I suppose…
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Sunset at the rage Hut
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That pretty much concludes our trip. There were some other adventures had…a visit to the Franklin Girls’ natural lair, a few ‘old bike’ struggles with the Guzzi, electrical gremlins with the Triumph and many many coordinated high speed drifts to the curb of the highway for one dangling plate/about to be lost luggage/ atomic wedgie or another. But you’ll get that on these rolling thunder jobs.

Next year we’ll hope to have a bit more time and get a little more submersion into the epicenter of Bike Week. But I know I wouldn’t trade the ride we had on Saturday for much of anything - pure magic.

Thanks to everyone who was involved in making it happen this year…Ray and Chris especially!

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Just ran across this footage of trucks dealing with the silt during the 2007 Baja 1000. It’s the best video I’ve seen that illustrates the insanity of those sections. Also has some crashes that make a brother say “awoooooogah” - enjoy!

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We’re fresh back from the Laconia Motorcycle Rally in New Hampshire. After a weekend of riding, wrenching and communing with Gilford Girls, one’s thoughts naturally revolve around the simpler things in life. I don’t know about you, but I love a nice fire. I have fond memories of a friend’s farm in Virginia where we’d spend the day clearing dead wood with a tractor and building enormous bonfires. Today, I’m lucky enough to have a house in the country where I can stack a few cords of wood and indulge my inner pyromaniac. I ran across a great article on 9 ways to start a fire without using matches. They put it best “There is a primal link between man and fire. Every man should know how to start one. A manly man knows how to start one without matches”.

Learn for yourself!

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I was down in Baja doing a 1,230 mile training run from Ensenada to Cabo San Lucas, and quickly came to terms with how brutal the terrain is on both yourself and your motorcycle. One minute you are blazing along and the next minute you’re changing a flat in the middle of nowhere under a 100 degree sun.

It takes about 30 minutes to change a front tube and about 45 minutes to change a rear one, and that is by someone who really knows their stuff. The Baja 1000 is a timed race where the possibility of not finishing is quite real. In fact, only about 35% of teams finish the race each year. Each second is precious so you want to avoid flats at all costs.

One thing I heard repeatedly in Baja was that you should run a Michelin Bib Mousse on your front tire and a heavy duty tube on your rear tire. I would nod in accordance all the time thinking to myself, what the hell does a Bull Moose have to do with any of this?

Once I got the spelling right, I found out that it’s “a foam insert that can replace conventional inner tubes in off road motorcycle tires. It is a ring of butyl honeycomb foam with its cells filled with nitrogen. It has a smooth-molded outer skin that is designed to slip into specific size off-road motorcycle tire. Bib-Mousse have a considerable advantage over normal inner-tubes, as they do not and cannot be punctured or burst.”

I have never ridden on this type of tube, but was told that it rides differently than a regular tube. It feels heavier and carries more momentum which can take some getting used to, especially as you come into corners. I have seen some disclaimers that it shouldn’t be ridden on hard surfaces for more than 20 miles at high speed which presents a bit of a dilemma since the Baja 1000 contains longer sections of pavement that connect parts of the course. I guess you grin and bear it. Certainly beats a flat…

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Sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do and, I guess, this is one of those times for our beloved admin, erstwhile coach, training partner extraordinaire and certified master of the grill Jeff. He’s packed up the shop, loaded what’s important and is redeploying to the left coast in search of fortune, adventure and cracked crab. As we all navigate the fog caused by last night’s sayonara wumpus, I’d just like to pause for the cause and give a hearty HUZZAH to our partner in crime.

Fare thee well sir. You’ll be sorely missed but we’ve every confidence you’ll quickly get to holdin’ it down out there and swelling the ranks of the Dukes West Coast Chapter. Write when you get work and we’ll come inspect your beachhead.

Vaya con dios y un gato en tu pantalones Amigo.
-mismanagement

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Here are my initial thoughts and a quick review of the Garmin Forerunner 405 with HRM. This is my first Garmin Forerunner so I cannot compare usage against previous generations on usage but……..

The Garmin 405 is way smaller than the 305 or other previous generations. I do not have a big wrist and this watch felt “normal” on my wrist as opposed to an alarm clock on my wrist, which is how I would describe the previous generations when I tried them on. You can wear this watch on a daily basis and not notice it.

Now comes the interesting part, figuring out how this works:

Setup - The Garmin walks you through a menu set up and is very simple to get set up. Piece of cake

Satellites - I am not sure if it is NYC or this watch, but acquiring satellites for the first time took a few minutes. Once acquired I think I lost the signal a few times as the time on the watch showed a half hour before actual time. It took about 25 minutes for the correct time to appear

Screen - I have not gone through many screen, but viewing the screen was easy. I know there were worries that the screen size would be too small but I could see all readouts simply. The other cool thing is if you touch both sides of the bezel at the same time the backlight will go on, super simple and easy. This is a great feature when running at night.

Bezel - I am still working out how the bezel works and it is not that simple. The first thing I did was shut off the beeps for each touch of the bezel, it will drive you insane. Going through the menus is simple but figuring out what to do next and programming is not easy, but a few days with the manual and I think it will be OK.

Heart Rate Monitor - I have not tried this part out yet, so TBD

Pace Accuracy - I ran a route that I know is 5 miles and the Garmin came back with 5.01 miles, so pretty good there. I felt a ran a solid 7:40/mile pace and the Garmin told me I was running a 7:37. Unfortunately the pace was not accurate the whole way through as the satellites went in and out.

Overall I am a big fan of the Garmin 405 and if you do not mind spending (it is pricey) then pick one up if you can find it

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As many of you have read here multiple times, I never run with music and really believe nobody running outdoors should run with music. It throws off your balance, keeps you from focusing on your stride and is technically illegal in most local racing events.

Now to step off my preachers box and explain why this new product from Nike makes me happy, which is strange since I really do not like most Nike running gear.

The Nike + Sportband is the first product that allows runners to use the Nike + system without having to use their Ipod Nano at the same time . So this means you can use all the cool Nike systems without having to listen to music while you run.

Below is the info from Nike and their marketing wizards:

Nike+ SportBand allows runners to see their distance, pace, time and calories burned when they run, in addition to gaining access to all of the features and tools on nikeplus.com. Designed for runners who choose not to run with music and for those times when you can’t use music, the Nike+ SportBand provides all the benefits of Nike+ technology, but opens up the Nike+ experience to a broader audience of runners. Runners who enjoy that extra motivation, or who are music fans, can continue to hear their run details through an iPod nano system.

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