Need A Chain Watcher?

Do you often find yourself watching the race pass you by because of mechanical problems?

Maybe you need a chain catcher.

A chain catcher's job is pretty self explanatory - it catches your chain if you force a shift and drop it. If you've ever slammed your chain from the big ring into the small to attack at the bottom of a climb, at the pivotal moment of a race, and heard that sickening crunch of your chain digging itself between your chainrings and BB, you know how important this can be.

There is a dizzying array of options for you to choose from - some attach to the downtube, others to the front derailleur. but all of them will save you from potential disaster.

1. Deda Dogfang
Probably the best-known of all chain watchers, it's also cheap and easy to install. You see them on pro bikes all the time. Basically, a hunk of plastic attaches to your downtube and pushes the chain back into place. It's easy, it only costs 12 bucks, and it looks nice. What's not to love?

Well, it doesn't fit on not-circular downtubes. Which includes ovalized or aero-shaped tubes, which describes most carbon bikes out there. As a general rule - if you have a braze-on front derailleur, you probably can't use this.

2. K-Edge Chain Catcher
So what do the aero-tube-shape loving cyclists of the world do? They turn to Kristin Armstrong's elegant solution. Armstrong's dropped chain in the 2006 World Time Trial championships almost cost her a gold medal, and she vowed to never let that happen again. So she and her mechanics developed a machined aluminum arm to catch the chain before it makes a break for freedom - and the best part is, it attaches to your front derailleur. If you have a front shifter, you can use this.

Armstrong and Co. haven't decided on a price yet, but it will most likely be less than 20 bucks. It will be available May 1st at your LBS.


3. Do it Yourself
In this economy, not everyone has the cash to spend on fancy bike parts, especially ones that are not strictly necessary. You can always make one yourself out of whatever you've got around the house. Like this guy did.



AP Photo/Roberto Bettini, VeloNews/Zach Vestal

Rad Light Cameras Will Bust You

The Chicago Tribune ran an article today about red light cameras in Chicago. It had some very interesting information about how the cameras work, but lacked info about the revenue these cameras pull in - which is what I wanted to know about in the first place.

As it turns out, the cameras are very sophisticated - a series of magnetic sensors leading up to the intersection senses whether or not you're running the red light, then takes a photo and a 12-second video if you run the red. There are no sensors in the intersection, however, so if you are already past the line when the light turns (say, waiting to make a left turn), you won't be ticketed.

Weekends are the busiest for the cameras, particularly Saturdays. On an average weekend, there are about 30,000 violations collected, according to RedSpeed, one of the two operators of Chicago's cameras. In Illinois, however, unlike some other states, these violations don't end up affecting your license or insurance. But if you speed up every time that light turns yellow, you still need to be careful - just like with parking tickets, the city can move to suspend your license with too many unpaid violations.

And most intersections see a 40 percent decline in red light citations within 90 days of a camera's activation. As a result, they move cameras around when their rate of return decreases.

But the Tribune article doesn't really address what I actually wanted to know, which is how much of the revenue from tickets actually goes to the city. Redflex, one of Chicago's red-light enforcers, charges a flat fee of $24,500 for installing and maintaining each unit. RedSpeed, however, charges a monthly fee of $1,500 per camera as well as a percentage of each ticket issued. That fee ranges from 12 bucks to almost $36, "depending on the customer support the company provides." And RedSpeed gets more if you call to discuss of contest the citation.

The reason I mention this is because cities generally don't make much money on red light cameras. Part of this is because the cameras deter infractions and, as a result, they become less effective over time. But part is because in general, companies like Redflex or RedSpeed get more money per ticket than the city does. In California, where violations can cost you as much as $435 (seriously - my friend got a ticket that big for running a red), the state auditor reports that "red light cameras were not generating large amounts of revenue." In addition, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported in 2003 that red light camera installations only broke even in 40 percent of jurisdictions, while the cameras cost more than they gained in revenues in 60 percent of their locations.

Just think about that the next time you get a red light and curse the City of Chicago - they're not really making any money on you. Curse RedSpeed instead.

AP Photo/Jim Mone

No More Boring Burials

Bill Bramanti loves a cold beer. His favorite? Pabst Blue Ribbon. And he wants everyone to know it.

That’s why he crafted a custom coffin for himself – a giant can of Pabst.

The 67-year-old Bramanti doesn’t plan on climbing in anytime soon – except to try it out (“I actually fit, I got in there”) – but he is getting his money’s worth. He likes to throw parties, invite a few buddies, and fill the coffin with ice and – what else – Pabst Blue Ribbon.

The Pabst coffin might raise a few eyebrows, but it’s part of a growing trend in Chicago. People don’t want staid, conservative burials anymore. They want something that shows their own personality, something that reflects the way they lived. And sometimes that personality is a bit eclectic.

Sports Fans, Represent

Dennis Mascari isn’t your typical Cubs fan. A typical fan wears a Fukudome jersey for a day, or slaps on a bumper sticker, maybe does some face painting. But even among the Cubs fanatics, Mascari stands out.

That’s because he’s building a Cubs-themed mausoleum.

“Beyond the Vines” is an outdoor, Cubbie-themed wall of cremation niches at Bohemian National Cemetery on the North Side. The wall, a brick mock-up of the centerfield backstop complete with a “400" in the middle, will hold 280 official Cubs urns. It’s got authentic ivy clippings from the field, a W flag, and a replica of the scoreboard . . . rendered in stained glass. Mascari has a larger goal in all this: to change to process of bereavement.

Mascari, a Chicago native and lifelong Cubs fan, hatched the idea nearly two years ago, after the death of his father. At first, he visited the cemetery often. But seeing “row after row of headstones, with names and numbers” eventually depressed him, and the number of visits fell off.

Mascari felt his father’s nondescript granite mausoleum didn’t communicate his personality. It was his father who brought Mascari to his first Cubs game at the age of five, when grandstand seats cost 60 cents.

“I think people should celebrate life, but also celebrate one’s passing . . . so when you go to a cemetery, you feel a lot less gloomy and depressed. You remember all the good times you shared together.”

Mascari’s monument opens April 14^th (coincidentally, the start of the baseball season), and he’s already got orders piling up.

So Maybe It's Not a New Concept . . .

Some people might remember the story of Willy the Wimp and the Stevie Ray Vaughn song it inspired:

Willie the Wimp was buried today,
They laid him to rest in a special way.
Sent him off in the finest style
That casket-mobile really drove 'em wild
Southside Chicago will think of him often
Talkin' 'bout Willie the Wimp and his Cadillac coffin . . .

Willy’s coffin was a sight to see – with flowers for wheels and a distinctive Cadillac grille in the front, Willy the Wimp’s burial is probably the most famous “weird” Chicago burial. And arguably, it was Willy the Wimp’s burial almost 25 years ago that gave rise to this growing trend.

. . .But It Sure Is Gaining in Popularity

Statistics for the number of offbeat burials happening in Chicago are hard to come by, because numbers aren’t kept for this sort of thing and people generally keep their own funerals private. But Rob Plumber, a caretaker at Bohemian National Cemetery, agrees that they are on the rise.

“Between the Cubs mausoleum and the [Pabst] coffin, there’s been a lot of interest lately,” he says. He says the number of “funny” burials at Bohemian has risen steadily in the past few years, citing people getting “more creative” with their funeral arrangements.

More Bang For Your Buck

One reason may be the sky-high prices of funeral services. Bob Kuenster, of Thompson & Kuenster Funeral Home in Oak Lawn, says a typical interment service costs a little under $5,000 - not covering the casket, vault, flowers, or other merchandise. A casket can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 – add in a headstone and a vault, and a burial can easily cost as much as a new car.

For this kind of money, people don’t want a cookie-cutter burial. They want to stand out. They want something special. And in increasing numbers, people want to stamp their own personality on their headstones.

But Mascari says there are limits. Many people have suggested that he build a White Sox-themed wall next to “Beyond the Vines.” Mascari draws the line there.

“I want Cub fans to rest in peace,” he jokes.

(AP Photo/Mary Compton)

The Crack in Armstrong's Comeback

By now you've all heard about Lance Armstrong's broken collarbone. He was involved in a pileup in the opening stage of the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon in Spain and was flown back to Austin, Texas, where he will undergo surgery on Wednesday.

Doctors said at first that it was not very serious, but it turns out it was "angulated and displaced," according to Armstrong's manager Mark Higgins. Armstong has, surprisingly enough, never broken a clavicle - despite the fact that it is the most commonly broken bone in the human body and is by far the most common serious injury for cyclists.

"Hurts like hell for now. Surgery in a couple of days," Armstrong said in his Twitter, by way of explanation.

It's a pain with which I am all too familiar.

Two summers ago, just two months into my racing career and fresh off double stage wins and an overall title at the Norfolk Classic, I crashed hard on a training ride and busted the holy hell out of my right clavicle. It displaced into my trapezius muscle and I had to have a pin put in. It was awful. I didn't ride a bike for three months, couldn't drive, could barely feed myself for a couple days and couldn't cut up my own food for weeks.

It doesn't seem like Lance's break is that bad, though, because he's still going to race the Giro, according to his manager Johan Bruyneel, and he doesn't think it will affect his Tour de France at all.

I did some reading on surgical repairs to broken collarbones - about 1 percent of all breaks necessitate surgery, but that figure is much higher for cyclists, who need their clavicles to heal as quickly and efficiently as possible. Recovery can be much quicker with surgery - most impressively, six-time world pursuit champ Rebecca Twigg broke her right clavicle less than two weeks before the 1995 Worlds, had it repaired with a titanium plate, and set a new world record 11 days after surgery.

What a badass.


Image courtesy of VeloNews

Five Ways Obama Has Changed Campaigning

Presidential campaigns are always a big show. There’s the 24-hour breaking-news cycle, there’s scandal, there are attack ads. But this election cycle was something special. We witnessed the birth of a new type of campaigning – led by the Obama campaign’s embrace of high-tech.

He Used the Web
Many businesses and media outlets have grasped the power of the Internet. Most politicians haven’t. Obama was the notable exception this election cycle – but from now on, politicians will need to use the web to win.

“The internet is a great platform for politics,” says Pete Giangreco, senior partner at Chicago’s political powerhouse The Strategy Group. “YouTube can keep you accessible, and blog posts keep you in touch with your supporters.”

YouTube is just one way Obama rose above his rivals. The official videos the campaign created for YouTube were watched for 14.5 million hours. Buying that kind of time on broadcast TV costs $47 million.

And most of his fundraising was done online – of the $750 million raised through the campaign cycle, $500 million of it came through online donations.

And, as Giangreco says, it keeps the campaign accessible – when attacks on Obama’s association with controversial pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright were revisited throughout the campaign, voters could easily re-watch Obama’s speech on race. To date, over 6.7 million people have watched the 37-minute speech.

He Integrated the Media
One reason for Obama’s success is his approach to integrating media. He wanted his media managers working together across platforms.

“From the start, this campaign was organized so the forms of media would not be in different silos,” says Giangreco. “It was a very integrated campaign.”

This integrated approach allowed the Obama campaign to make important announcements on the official website and send millions of text messages to supporters – notably Obama’s announcement of Joe Biden as his vice presidential pick, delivered via text message.

He Changed the Math
Giangreco says clinching the nomination hinged not on much-hyped Super Tuesday as much as smaller caucus states, where a few volunteers could make a huge difference in every county. “And that required changing the math.”

“Caucus states gave us the advantage. While other candidates were focused on primary states, we looked at Idaho and Utah, caucus states where we could make a huge difference with fewer supporters.”

The earliest, and arguably most important, example of this strategy came in Iowa.

“In Iowa, we knew most voters were older, dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. We also knew these caucuses were small, maybe 20 people at a time. So if we got some younger Dems to come out and support us, we could sweep more counties with limited resources.”

He Used Volunteers
The Obama campaign’s approach to volunteers was original in presidential politics. Obama made call lists and scripts available for download from the website – making it easy for volunteers anywhere to make calls from home.

“It was training, training, training,” says Giangreco. “We never stopped with training.”

This campaign was the only one where volunteers could make calls, throw parties, and organize fundraisers – all without ever meeting an Obama staffer in person.

He Organized for the Future
All this organization won’t be left on the campaign trail. Obama plans to use this “standing army” of volunteers to help pass legislation and promote volunteering efforts. The new White House website change.gov was recently rolled out, along with a personal message from Barack Obama imploring visitors to engage in volunteer work.

The Week in Cycling...

It's not a Slanket

It's a Snuggie!

If you watch cable TV, especially at odd hours of the day/night, chances are you've seen the Snuggie. It's a simple solution to an everyday problem - people want to be warm and tucked in under a blanket, but also want to use their hands. So along came the Snuggie . . . the blanket with sleeves!


(My favorite part is "Great for outdoors!" at about the 1:15 mark - what would you do if you saw a Snuggie-clad family at a sports event? If you said run, you are correct)

An earlier edition of this very same product, the Slanket, has been sold in SkyMall for years. I've laughed about it on countless flights. The brilliance of that name alone made me want to buy one. Apparently ridiculous TV ads are more useful in persuading buyers, however, as there are now over 4 million Snuggies in living rooms across the country.

Of course, the TV spot above has a few spin-offs - including one scored by "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana.

There's even . . . wait for it . . . a Snuggie pub-crawl in Chicago this April. I can just picture a cultish group of Snuggie-fans, dressed in their ankle-length druid robes, hailing cabs on Division.