andy reagan only the interesting stuff

What a week!

The first week back from Thanksgiving Break was excellent, and although was buried in the books for most of the day, I was able to get out pretty much every night. First for the cycling meeting and to play basketball with Professor Norton on Mon night, to the tri meeting on Tuesday night, the TruGold Roller races Wed night, the Betty Crocker Cookoff on Thurs night, then the Biro D'Italia on Fri night , the Putnam Competition and race some Cyclocross Saturday!

Woo! Well it's back to books again on Sunday, so perhaps I'll write more about these events later. (If I do, it'll be appended below).

TruGold Racing

Scotland Leman is a professor at Virginia Tech who used to race bikes, and is now getting back into racing and very involved with helping out the team. This includes an awesome series of roller races that he's put together, under the name "TruGold." Basically, we gather in a room in Randolph Hall, and torch our legs on some rollers with head to hear races! Here's a video to better explain:

http://player.vimeo.com/video/32296678?autoplay=1 (notice my red Chris King hubs at 35sec)

getting set up for the races

This past Wednesday's races were highlighted by a bike domino crash, and a heck of  a lot of racing. Jacob Aber pushes the line between going fast and staying on the rollers to the going fast side, and in his first race he came off the rollers. He fell into Naik who was on his right, who fell over. I was so distracted by all of the crashing that I didn't pay attention to the fact that I was riding on rollers, and looked down to realize I was no longer on mine. I fell right into Mike, who was on rollers, who fell right into Justin, also on rollers. It must have been pretty hilarious to watch, by the end half of the room was on the ground tangled in bikes. I felt bad to knocking Mike and Justin over, but no bikes (or people) were damaged so it was all good, I suppose. There were a few more falls in the night, resulting one busted tire (Zach), Jacob later broke his shifter, and broke the cable on one of the rollers.

The racing consisted of two double elimination events, the 500m (scary fast) and 2km distances. The 500m was scary because was a sprint, on rollers. Scotland (the fastest) was seeing speeds in the mid 40's on rollers. And these aren't just any rollers, they're TruTrainers. Super nice rollers. They have resistance, and a flywheel that allows you to coast. The coasting is really cool, and even more like real road riding than any other roller out there, but there is nothing less that I want to do than coast without slowing at 40MPH after a 30sec sprint. The 2k races were more reasonable, as I was only holding close to 30 (although Scotland held 36MPH for the 2k). I was happy to get Mike and John G in my first 2k race, but after that my legs were pretty cooked. We races from 7PM-11:30PM, and I took a ride home from John G which was much appreciated.

Betty Crocker Cookoff

Aaron Bradner hosted a tri team potluck, this time themed as a cookoff! There was a category for deserts, and as it turned out, everyone made deserts. Which is certainly not a problem. I made my Mom's PB No-bake cookies, and now realize why my Dad can't eat them anymore but boy are the delicious. But they're all sugar, butter, and cream haha. Guess I just better keep up the running.

cookies!

Research Group Final Presentations

Friday afternoon our research group under Reinhard Laubenbacher gathered for our end of semester meeting, and this time our assignment was to prepare and present a concrete five-year plan. I wore a button down every day this week it felt like, and Friday I went one higher with the suit! I volunteered to present first, and having put a lot of thought and effort into this very difficult assignment, was very happy how it went. It was perhaps the first time I've presented with Reinhard in the room that I felt like I had prepared 100% and was on task; perhaps that's a sign that I'm maturing in my presentation abilities. Without the actual presentation, I don't think that these two slides mean too much, but here they are: Andy 5 Year Plan

Biro D'Italia

I was only able to stay at Reinhard's after meeting happy hour for about half an hour (after biking up Brush Mtn with Jason to get there), and was headed back home for the BIRO D'ITALIA. The brain child of Bradner and I, as an addition to the tours of Blacksburg's already famous Tour de Franzia, it came together beautifully. I was still figuring out where the stops were during that day, and we had a changed of route approx 5min before the race began, but dang it was actually pretty smooth. First, check out this awesome flyer (yes I spent an hour on this, but consider that I don't have TV):

The route was all together about 12 miles, and the way we decided to run it was a group ride (staying together, although riding quick) out to the Foxridge stop. Then, it was race on. And it worked out perfect that way, because we were able to have fun riding together, then lay the hammer down on the last two stops. Racing at 25MPH for the final 6 miles, immediately after beverage 4, with beverage 5 in the middle, and beverage 6 immediately after was pretty darn challenging. Really, my stomach was just pretty full, trying to stay in the drops in the big ring.

The three awards went as follows: with the first place finish, Andy Wentzel donned the Maglia Rosa. A strong effort and smart choice of route won the Aggresivo Maximo for Christian P as he was first to the Martini Party, and the Intoxica Suprema awarded to Greg P for a tough finish at Stage 6. The Intoxica was the toughest award to give out, because also Jan G's carbonated beverage of choice was Brooklyn East India Pale Ale, but he had no problems with this choice.

My finish was 3rd place, behind Bill Lucy and right ahead of Mike B. David H rounded out the top 5. Somebody has a picture of the whole gang, but I don't know if I'll be able to find it haha.

Here is the garmin race data (includes stops): http://connect.garmin.com/activity/132353786

the podium

Putnam Competition

As studies have shown, I was really at no disadvantage on the Putnam after the Biro D'Italia. However, if each of the Grand Tours happened every semester (which they don't), I would be in trouble.

If you don't know what the Putnam is, I can't really summarize it better than Wikipedia.

During the exam, it became clear why one correct answer (of 12) would land a taker in the top 28%. It's tricky. I submitted 7 answers, although I'm fairly certain that I over-simplified two of them. So, I'd be pretty happy with the median score of 1 really, but I hope to have done better. Had I been smarter and focused on two problems per 3-hour session, I probably would have gotten a higher score, but had less fun. (Because there's almost no partial credit).

Tech Cross

At the same venue (same event) as my first event with the cycling team, I headed over to the cross races after the Putnam. I brought my shoes, jersey, shorts, and helmet just in case, but didn't really plan on racing since I didn't have a cross bike. Jaber was nice enough to let me borrow his nice Felt cross bike though, and not more than 15 minutes after being in a windowless room for 6 hours doing hard math problems, I was willing pain into my legs whilst riding a confused road mountain bike child around in laps. I didn't want to mess Jaber's fit, so I didn't move his seat up, and I'm pretty sure that riding a seat 4 inches too low didn't help me put down too much extra power. I still rode as hard as I could, and finished like 7th? It would've been nice to be able to open it up on the flats with a full leg extension, but it was still a bunch of fun, and I didn't break Jacob's bike (although I did get some sweet air on it, don't tell him).

Well, suppose that's all for now actually.