The season opens tomorrow with the Bahrain Grand Prix and, regrettably, I won’t be home to watch it. I don’t have access to SpeedTV so I’ll have the watch the replay once I get home.

Never-the-less, some things to note:

- My pick for the winner of the 2010 championship Sebastian Vettel proved that he and his Red Bull-Renault are so far up to the challenge by taking pole position in qualification today. So now we know that the car goes well when it’s hot (his team mate Mark Webber finished 6th today), the Australia GP will show if the car goes well in the cool temps. If so Vettel will be hard to beat this season.

- Felipe Massa proved he is back in the game following his horrific accident last year. Very good to see his 2nd place performance today and it’s a nice reward to the Ferrari team who stood by him.

- Ferrari also has to be pleased by the 3rd place qualification of former world champion Fernando Alonso. Alonso is the best driver in Formula One and now that he is in a top car he will only get better as the season goes on. Vettel and the rest of the field better hope they stay on sharp edge of performance if they have a hope of keeping up with Alonso once he is fully integrated with his car and his team.

- Lewis Hamilton has to be breathing a sigh of relief following the disastrous debut for McLaren in 2009. While a 4th place qualification is still not up to his standards it is certainly an improvement from last year.

- 41 year old Michael Schumacher proved his can still hang with the younger drivers by taking 7th in qualification today. It will be interesting to see how he holds up during the course of the season. He’s motivated to win another championship but time will tell if the rest of his body can match the enthusiasm of his brain and heart.

- Last year’s champion Jenson Button is not happy to be qualifying in 8th place. He complained about the car today, we’ll see how the race goes tomorrow. It could be a long season for Button if he and his team can not get things figured out.

- Robert Kubica may prove again in 2010, as Alonso did in 2009, how well the Renault car can do under the pure force of will on the part of the driver. 9th place qualification could be as good as we can expect to see with this car.

- Adrian Sutil was the last driver to make it through all three rounds of qualification today. The fact that he did it in the Force India shows this team is building upon the success they found in 2009. The other Force India car qualified 12th which is a steady improvement from the days when these cars were lining up each race at the back of the grid.

One aspect of the racing that I am really looking forward to seeing this year is the lack of refueling and how this affects the pit stops. Cars are required in 2010 to have all the fuel they need for the race loaded at the start. This means that pit stops will only be used for tire changes. Timing will be even more critical in the pits than ever before and some teams have been clocked executing their tire changes in under two seconds. The fact that teams will no longer be waiting on the refueling crew to finish their work before releasing the car from the pits, which usually allowed plenty of time for the tire crews to get their job done, means that all the pressure is now on the tire crews. This will make pit stops even more pivotal in 2010.

Crisis Garden!

Indestructible Survival Seed Bank Can Be Buried To Avoid Confiscation.

What the fuck are you waiting for?

I’m riding the Tour of Flanders this year.

It will be my first time riding in Belgium since the the last time I rode in Belgium.

That was in 1991. My understanding is that nothing has changed over there.

Jeeze, almost 20 years ago. I was younger then. It’s probably going to be a lot harder to ride those climbs than it was when I was 22 years old.

But I will have a GPS unit and a heart rate monitor so I will have that going for me. Maybe it won’t be so hard after all. Maybe it will be totally easy.

Probably not.

Maybe we should have a jump ramp at State Champs next year…

Television journalism today is really pretty terrible.

Registration will open at 9pm in the infield, once riders are registered they can have access to the field for warm ups. Racing will start around 9:30pm.

Show up early!

Registration opens at 10pm and closes at 10:50pm. Events run from 11:15pm to 12:30am. Registration is $15 for men and just $10 for women.

Come on out and ride indoors, get a great workout and have some fun.

Tonight’s events will include the Open Indoor Field Racing World Championships Race complete with rainbow jersey awarded to the winner!

More prizes will be on hand for those who show up. This is the last Bike Nights for 2010, don’t miss out!

Chart from the 2008 American National Election Study.

Turns out when the rubber hits the road conservatives don’t really want to cut federal spending on much of anything.

They just want to cut taxes and pass the bill on to their children and grandchildren.

I guess being a Republican means never having to apologize for total and complete hypocrisy.

Easier for me to type as compared to the iPhone interface.
Screen is beautiful.

Software does what I want it to do without janky modification.

All in all pretty great so far.

More to come soon.

This one?

Or this one?

Take your time. Choose carefully.

(hint, it’s not the picture with the scary black dude in it.)

I never had any issues with the RXS pedal design, entry was easy for me, flotation was great. I rode the RXS for many years with no problems. But once the i-Clic was available I figured I would give it a try.

Installation was a slam dunk since the platform height is the same. This meant that all I had to do was change the cleats on my shoes, no saddle height adjustment was necessary. As is typical I had to play around with the cleats a bit to get the ball of my foot over the pedal where it felt right as well as adjusting the toe in/out of each cleat so that my feet felt natural in the “neutral” position on the pedal. All in all set up was very easy.

Once engaged into the pedal they feel pretty much like the RXS with the exception that the platform feels larger, like it’s providing more support to the shoe. Maybe it’s just the feel of the interface between the cleat and the shoe but it really feels like there is more surface area to absorb the power transfer from shoe to cleat to pedal.

Where there pedals really stand out is in the engagement process. Due to the unique engagement mechanism design almost zero pressure is required to clip into the pedals. The act of disengaging from the pedal causes the retention mechanism to “cock” and wait for the cleat to hit the surface of the pedal for the next engagement. When the cleat comes into contact with the surface of the pedal the retention mechanism “fires” and grabs onto the cleat. Easy. Riders who have had problems with the amount of force required to overcome the retention spring on previous Time pedals will find no such issue with the i-Clic.

Apart from the pedal spindle, the small bar holding the retention clip in place and the bolts that attached the cleats to the shoes every part on these pedals is made up of either carbon fiber or plastic. These pedals are very light.

I’ve only had the chance to ride these on the trainer but I am looking forward to getting them out on the road once spring arrives.

Pretty cool idea and all, but what about…

The Battery? – If I run the screen on my iPhone non-stop my battery lasts about 45 minutes. I don’t go on many 45 minute rides.

Weather Proof? – I don’t like to get caught in the rain. I like even less if I get caught in the rain and soak my $500 doosh phone. Is there something that prevents water spray from getting inside the phone?

Security? – How firmly does this thing lock onto the phone? If I wreck, or almost wreck, am I going to have to go search the ditch or the woods to find where my doosh phone got launched off to?

I’m sure this thing is going to be kick ass once it comes to market. I just have these questions.

Someone will probably tell me that there are people working on it that are paid to think about it and that I should just STFU about it…

The rumors are true: No Super Rookie this week!

Registration opens at 10pm and closes at 10:50pm. Events run from 11:15pm to 12:30am. Registration is $15 for men and just $10 for women.

Come on out and ride indoors, get a great workout and have some fun.

More prizes will be on hand for those who show up, don’t miss out!