Cycling, More Cycling and My Doubt

Yesterday morning I went for a ride at Rose Bowl. I drove there since I got up pretty late and I didn't want to be squashed in the traffic. After a week of not cycling due to the weather I was pretty happy to get back on the bike. There were tonnes of cyclists there and I was surprised that I was passing everyone. Looking at my speedometer I was doing 17mph on the ascent part whereas before I did 13mph. In total I averaged 20mph without much effort whereas my previous time was 17.5mph. I wonder why?!! I think it's due to a combination of the following

1. My pedal stroke is getting better (I realized that I was ankling before)
2. My new awesome tires with low rolling resistance (they are also super grippy such that they grip up bits of gravel which in turn splatters all over the place including onto my body ahh)
3. I increased my saddle height
4. What can I say? I'm just getting fitter :P

5. I've been working out in the gym the past week

The last time that I went to Rose Bowl I was already aware and was changing my pedal stroke, as well I've already had my new tires. Hence it's not due strongly to reasons 1 or 2. 3 and 4 are continuing in the background. The only difference is thus reason 5. I think the reason that I was able to do GMR on my first ride was because of my gym training. I remember some cyclists were so curious and thought that I have a secret formula - well, the formula is - gym, specifically the elliptical machine. In any case, it's always nice to spice things up a bit, if you just ride then you will always be using the same muscles, whereas if you incorporate other activities then you will strengthen other muscles. And since muscles are interlinked, then strengthening the other muscles will indirectly strengthen and support the muscles used for cycling - it's quite logical :)

Ok, enough blabbing, now that winter is coming in, I will be riding less and most probably do Rose Bowl during weekdays (I'll drive there since I have no intention of competing with rush hour traffic) and maybe the mountains on the weekend if weather is good. I'll also go to Chantry once in awhile to see how I'm progressing. In between, I will be going to my beloved and trustworthy gym.

This morning, I drove up to Glendora and did the GMR-39 loop. I wore my new Campagnolo outfit which looks quite nice :) The ascent was easier than I remembered from last time (around 1 month ago). I bumped into a cyclist whom I met before and we chatted a bit. I'm actually faster than him, it's probably because he doesn't get out often and age is catching up with him. But I really like him, he is very humble, nice and is softly spoken. I think life would have been quite different if I had someone like him for a father...

During the ride, I've been hearing a clicking sound when I'm on the lowest gear. My biggest fear is that my bike may break apart while I'm riding it so I'm pretty paranoid about its maintenance. Hence after the ride, I dropped by my LBS. Everyone there remembers me since I've been there 3 times or so in the past month. They made me look quite stupid because the clicking sound simply comes from the pedal hitting an 'extension cord' (not sure the proper name). I also asked them to help me fix the shifting because it was getting stiff (apparently the derailleur was slightly bent inwards most probably due to my multiple crashes), replace a missing bolt on my rear brakes and exchange the worn out saddle bolt. And all this - for free! It's not really the money (although I'm always short on money) but more the generosity that I'm thankful for.

On a different topic, I should never have doubted whether my mum cares about me or not. She is a very busy mum to my three younger siblings and need to take care of the house and also the business when dad is away. She places a lot of responsibility on herself and overly stresses about things which is bad for her health :( But sometimes I get quite lonely and I focus on myself rather than thinking in other peoples shoes. It's true that my mum can be quite quick tempered and is stubbornly conservative but no one is perfect and she is my mother. When I get home, I will try to take care of things so that my mum can relax and take it easy. I got her some bath bombs (amongst other things) so that she could relax in the spa. And I will try to find some baking recipes for diabetics and bake for my mum since she loves sweet things but can never enjoy them :)

Let's All Feel Superior - by David Brooks (NY Times)

First came the atrocity, then came the vanity. The atrocity is what Jerry Sandusky has been accused of doing at Penn State. The vanity is the outraged reaction of a zillion commentators over the past week, whose indignation is based on the assumption that if they had been in Joe Paterno’s shoes, or assistant coach Mike McQueary’s shoes, they would have behaved better. They would have taken action and stopped any sexual assaults.

Unfortunately, none of us can safely make that assumption. Over the course of history — during the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide or the street beatings that happen in American neighborhoods — the same pattern has emerged. Many people do not intervene. Very often they see but they don’t see.

Some people simply can’t process the horror in front of them. Some people suffer from what the psychologists call Normalcy Bias. When they find themselves in some unsettling circumstance, they shut down and pretend everything is normal.

Some people suffer from Motivated Blindness; they don’t see what is not in their interest to see. Some people don’t look at the things that make them uncomfortable. In one experiment, people were shown pictures, some of which contained sexual imagery. Machines tracked their eye movements. The people who were uncomfortable with sex never let their eyes dart over to the uncomfortable parts of the pictures.

As Daniel Goleman wrote in his book “Vital Lies, Simple Truths,” “In order to avoid looking, some element of the mind must have known first what the picture contained, so that it knew what to avoid. The mind somehow grasps what is going on and rushes a protective filter into place, thus steering awareness away from what threatens.”

Even in cases where people consciously register some offense, they still often don’t intervene. In research done at Penn State and published in 1999, students were asked if they would make a stink if someone made a sexist remark in their presence. Half said yes. When researchers arranged for that to happen, only 16 percent protested.

In another experiment at a different school, 68 percent of students insisted they would refuse to answer if they were asked offensive questions during a job interview. But none actually objected when asked questions like, “Do you think it is appropriate for women to wear bras to work?”

So many people do nothing while witnessing ongoing crimes, psychologists have a name for it: the Bystander Effect. The more people are around to witness the crime, the less likely they are to intervene.

Online you can find videos of savage beatings, with dozens of people watching blandly. The Kitty Genovese case from the ’60s is mostly apocryphal, but hundreds of other cases are not. A woman was recently murdered at a yoga clothing store in Maryland while employees at the Apple Store next door heard the disturbing noises but did not investigate. Ilan Halimi, a French Jew, was tortured for 24 days by 20 anti-Semitic kidnappers, with the full knowledge of neighbors. Nobody did anything, and Halimi eventually was murdered.

People are really good at self-deception. We attend to the facts we like and suppress the ones we don’t. We inflate our own virtues and predict we will behave more nobly than we actually do. As Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel write in their book, “Blind Spots,” “When it comes time to make a decision, our thoughts are dominated by thoughts of how we want to behave; thoughts of how we should behave disappear.”

In centuries past, people built moral systems that acknowledged this weakness. These systems emphasized our sinfulness. They reminded people of the evil within themselves. Life was seen as an inner struggle against the selfish forces inside. These vocabularies made people aware of how their weaknesses manifested themselves and how to exercise discipline over them. These systems gave people categories with which to process savagery and scripts to follow when they confronted it. They helped people make moral judgments and hold people responsible amidst our frailties.

But we’re not Puritans anymore. We live in a society oriented around our inner wonderfulness. So when something atrocious happens, people look for some artificial, outside force that must have caused it — like the culture of college football, or some other favorite bogey. People look for laws that can be changed so it never happens again.

Commentators ruthlessly vilify all involved from the island of their own innocence. Everyone gets to proudly ask: “How could they have let this happen?”

The proper question is: How can we ourselves overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive. That was the proper question after Abu Ghraib, Madoff, the Wall Street follies and a thousand other scandals. But it’s a question this society has a hard time asking because the most seductive evasion is the one that leads us to deny the underside of our own nature.

At least 8 children have lost their innocence, their childhood and if they are not strong-willed, the rest of their lives. Yet nothing was done to stop the perpetrator. Finally it's been investigated and by also punishing these who held back, Penn State is helping to promote a more transparent school and workplace. The two research experiments that Brooks gave in support of his view are hardly relevant, how can 'sexist remarks' and 'offensive questions during a job interview' compare in intensity with the rape of young boys?! What has happened, has happened, and what we can do now is learn from the past and hopefully improve for the future. To suggest that it is in human nature to turn a blind eye is no more than an excuse to help these people to sleep better at night. And to say 'let's all feel superior' because we think that we would have done something about it, is a major and misconstrued generalization. I for one would have intervened and stopped it before it went any further. Yes, I most likely would be scared to take on a man but I can recruit help, yes, I may loose my job but I can find another one (but the children can not find another life). And no, I wouldn't feel the least superior for intervening because it's in my nature to defend a defenseless child, and I'm quite certain that it is in the nature of many fellow human beings. This article should instead be titled 'Sleep pills for bystanders'.

Conferences, Location Choices, Bike Tires and Home

I've been thinking for awhile of going to conferences. Last week I decided that I really need to go to a conference, on the same day I found one and asked for approval and now I'm writing my abstract for my first conference! I'm stoked - I can't wait to go to my first conference and I will see if I can give a talk.

My plan is to also find a conference in Germany, so that I will get a chance to visit the country and decide if I want to stay there. If I choose to move to Germany, then I would have lived in 4 countries, China (9 years), Australia (13 years), USA (5 years) and then Germany (perhaps till the end of time). Life is full of surprises and I can't help but wonder what life would be like 5, 10 or 20 years from now.

I just changed my tires from Schwalbe Lugano to Michelin Krylion Carbon - I know, I know, I most likely put on less than 500miles on my old pair and it's a waste to change so soon. But I already had 3 flats and my tires are SO hard to change. Plus I just can't resist buying (and changing to) these new ones. I'm amazed at how smooth they look, but they do feel grippy and I will test out how they ride soon. When I say that I changed my tires, I should clarify that I tried to change them. I spent 20min removing the old tire and 30min trying to put on the new one to the point where my hands felt pretty bruised. I finally had enough and went to a LBS and gosh, he changed the pair of tires in 20min! But he did admit that they were very tight and we think that it's my wheels which are causing the problem and not the tires. I just know that if I ever get into the racing scene having a flat on my current wheels would equal a loss.

Ahhh I hate the coldness, before I didn't really care and I liked the the rain because it's refreshing but now that I do cycling, it's hard to get out in the cold and I'm never going to ride in the rain. So I've been thinking of getting a trainer for my bike. I'm looking forward to going back home to Perth, where it's warm and sunny and that's perfect for cycling (I may even not be too unhappy about getting tan-lines because I'm aching for some sun). Apparently, there are many nice places for road cycling in Perth. I will rent a road bike since it costs a fortune to ship mine over (such that I may as well buy a new one there)! :)

My first German essay (after 6 weeks of study) :)

Ich heiße Han. Meine Adresse ist 130 Michigan Straße. Ich bin 26 Jahre alt. Ich komme aus Australien. Meine Telefonnummer ist 626-818-xxxx. Ich studiere Chemieingenieurwesen als Hauptfach, Chemie als Nebenfach. Ich bin 1,68 Meter groß und Ich wiege 55 Kilo. Ich bin aufgescholossen, fröhlich und spontan. Ich fahre gern Rad und Auto. Auch, Ich interessiere mich für Natur und Musik.

Es gibt 7 Personen in meiner Familie. Ich habe eine Zwillingsschwester, eine jünger Schwester und 2 jünger Brüder. Mein Vater heißt Jian, er ist 57 Jahre alt. Meine Mutter heißt Yu, sie ist 50 Jahre alt. Meine Mutter ist zuverlässig, gut und konservativ. Sie ist interessiert mich für koch. Meine Vater ist konsequent und unorganisiert. Meine Zwillingsschwester ist Advokat. Sie ist hilfsbereit und reich, aber unsportlich. Meine jünger Schwester und Brüder sind humorvoll und laut.

A Chilly Ride

This morning I went up Angeles Crest with a couple of cyclists. They are quite experienced and have been in some races. As we were nearing the 2, I realized that it had become harder to push than before...I had a flat damn! I told the others to go ahead without me while I change the tube because I feel bad for them to wait on me, but they stayed to help. My tire is notoriously tight and they each tried but had a hard time removing it. I tried and I took it off the wheel quite fast - don't know why, must be because I've done it twice before and/or because of my strong hand muscles :)

Now that I have a speedometer and cadence meter I can keep track of how I am doing. During the initial climb, my cadence was around 70rpm, then after Clear Creek it had decreased to 60rpm. Apparently the optimum cadence is 80-100rpm. I will shift to lower gear next time and try to build up my cadence.

It was a cool day and going up I wasn't particularly tired but I was still quite slow compared to the other cyclists. At Red Box, we decided that we weren't go up Wilson cos it was too cold. I was ok either way, I'd like to finally do Wilson but I know that the descent would literally freeze my fingers. It would have been so true, because the descent from Red Box was already super chilly and my hands felt like cold water has been splashed on them and left there to freeze. Thankfully, it warmed up soon. We didn't descend as fast as I had liked, we were doing around 30mph (I did 32mph last time). Based on their experience I'd think that they would go faster, maybe they were going slower to accomodate me which was thoughtful of them.

Although I felt that I did badly in the climb, they said that I was very good at cycling for doing it for just 4 months. One guy said that I have good form and have great potential in cycling. All I have to do is adjust my seat and get professionally fitted. He also recommended me to later get a cycling coach! I'm surprised that experienced cyclists think that I am good at cycling, I've been told that I must be a natural at endurance sports, that I must be very fit to ride up GMR etc. Of course, being new at this I can't really tell how good or bad I am myself. I'm happy that I am good at cycling and I'm not sure where this comes from because I've always been terrible at sports growing up. I guess it was because they were mostly or actually exclusively sports involving balls. I never get the big deal about chasing around after a ball - it's all so futile and pretend to me. So I was never motivated to do the chasing game and I have been known to score for the other team. Along with cycling, I've also been told that I am natural at horse riding. So it seems that I'm good at what I like doing - which is always nice!

When I got home, I went for a hot shower and it felt so nice after the chilly descent that I didn't want to come out :)

Happiness

They say that happiness is 50% determined by genetics and the rest is how you perceive your situation. I have always viewed the glass as half full and I've generally been a happy and carefree person. I have learnt to appreciate what I have, the situation that I'm in and the simple things in life. And when things don't go my way or how I'd like them to turn out, I try to think in other peoples shoes and think positively. But there are of course things that make me sad. Some things that I know are out of my control and some things which I have done that I wish I could take back. Regret is the worst thing to have in life and it's being so true for me :(....Yet it's also true that when happiness comes after a period of sadness it would be that much stronger, so maybe it's ok to be sad and sadness is perhaps an integral and necessary part of life. I wonder if there would be happiness if there is no sadness?