Monday, December 17, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
A little more specific
I wanted to elaborate a little more on some of my mountain biking tips since I realize just because I know what I mean, you may not! Just two small little comments.
When I say to lean back on the downhill, you should get in a tuck position. If you look at the photo of me on the right in my other blog(the action one), you can see I am ducked down on the handlebar, my face is kind of close to the bar, and I'm leaning my butt back. When I say shift your weight back, push your butt back. Another tip for downhilling-- keep your knees bent. Don't lock them up so they can absorb more shock. Also, if you are going over rock, use your arms. push down. It helps your shock rebound at the right time and gives you more control.
Another quick tip. If you're riding through a rocky section and you lose your momentum, but you can't pedal because the rocks are too high, backpedal about 1/4 of a revolution, then pedal forward. It doesn't give you much speed, but it will help you not completely lose it.
When I say to lean back on the downhill, you should get in a tuck position. If you look at the photo of me on the right in my other blog(the action one), you can see I am ducked down on the handlebar, my face is kind of close to the bar, and I'm leaning my butt back. When I say shift your weight back, push your butt back. Another tip for downhilling-- keep your knees bent. Don't lock them up so they can absorb more shock. Also, if you are going over rock, use your arms. push down. It helps your shock rebound at the right time and gives you more control.
Another quick tip. If you're riding through a rocky section and you lose your momentum, but you can't pedal because the rocks are too high, backpedal about 1/4 of a revolution, then pedal forward. It doesn't give you much speed, but it will help you not completely lose it.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Hold on to your switchbacks!
Waterbar switchbacks to be exact. Tuesday I headed out to Golden after teaching lab to rock my world. The Chimney Gulch, Apex, and Grubstake trails are a great time. They are rocky enough to feel like I'm working on my technical skills, steep enough for me to feel like I'm getting a killer workout, an definitely have lots of switchbacks that are steep and sharp. I love days where I feel like a rockstar on the bike, and Tuesday was one of those days. I had to go home because the sun was pretty much gone, but I would have loved to ride all night! I figured I would make a little post to remind you and me about some technical mountain biking skills. It helps me to repeat these in my head.
Downhill
1) lean back. like the rappers love to sing about. If it looks scary, shift your weight back and let the bike do the work.
2)Stay loose. The tenser you are, the more likely you are to crash. Think of yourself as water running down the trail. The more relaxed and calm you stay, the smoother you will descend. Sometimes if it gets really technical on a downhill, I feel myself holding my breath. I will exhale forcefully in short breaths as I go down. I sound like I'm in labor, but it really helps.
3) It's okay to brake. Use the front brake to control your speed, and the rear brake to control maneuverability.
4) If you're going off a huge drop off, pull up on the bars. If you drop your wheel down and it's too far, you will do a summersault and crash. I cracked my expensive helmet 2 years ago by making that mistake.
5) For rocky, technical sections-- flat, down, OR up, keep your momentum. Do not slow down!! Did you ever have a gyro-scope as a kid? -remembering that the faster it spun, the easier the gyro-scope was standing? Or a top- the kind you spin on the table. When that slows down, it falls. Same deal with bike wheels. If you are going through a rock garden and you start slowing down, it will be harder to stay up. Although it sounds scary, blast through it. If it's a flat or an up, PEDAL PEDAL PEDAL. It sounds silly to say "just pedal," but you'd be surprised to see when you stop.
6) For steep turns, take the outside. You want to turn the least amount possible, so going outside will shorten your radius. And of course, if it's uphill, don't stop pedaling.
7) Brake BEFORE the turn, not in it. Same with driving... I see people driving down the canyons, braking in the turns!
8) Don't be scared. The moment you think you can't do it, you probably won't. It's amazing how clearing something you are scared of boosts your confidence...and you riding ability.
9) Don't get discouraged. It's okay if you can't make it, or if you are riding slower than usual. It'll come back! Just have fun. That is most important thing. A lot of people (myself included) get upset when the ride isn't going your way.
Downhill
1) lean back. like the rappers love to sing about. If it looks scary, shift your weight back and let the bike do the work.
2)Stay loose. The tenser you are, the more likely you are to crash. Think of yourself as water running down the trail. The more relaxed and calm you stay, the smoother you will descend. Sometimes if it gets really technical on a downhill, I feel myself holding my breath. I will exhale forcefully in short breaths as I go down. I sound like I'm in labor, but it really helps.
3) It's okay to brake. Use the front brake to control your speed, and the rear brake to control maneuverability.
4) If you're going off a huge drop off, pull up on the bars. If you drop your wheel down and it's too far, you will do a summersault and crash. I cracked my expensive helmet 2 years ago by making that mistake.
5) For rocky, technical sections-- flat, down, OR up, keep your momentum. Do not slow down!! Did you ever have a gyro-scope as a kid? -remembering that the faster it spun, the easier the gyro-scope was standing? Or a top- the kind you spin on the table. When that slows down, it falls. Same deal with bike wheels. If you are going through a rock garden and you start slowing down, it will be harder to stay up. Although it sounds scary, blast through it. If it's a flat or an up, PEDAL PEDAL PEDAL. It sounds silly to say "just pedal," but you'd be surprised to see when you stop.
6) For steep turns, take the outside. You want to turn the least amount possible, so going outside will shorten your radius. And of course, if it's uphill, don't stop pedaling.
7) Brake BEFORE the turn, not in it. Same with driving... I see people driving down the canyons, braking in the turns!
8) Don't be scared. The moment you think you can't do it, you probably won't. It's amazing how clearing something you are scared of boosts your confidence...and you riding ability.
9) Don't get discouraged. It's okay if you can't make it, or if you are riding slower than usual. It'll come back! Just have fun. That is most important thing. A lot of people (myself included) get upset when the ride isn't going your way.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Mindfulness
"Mindfulness is loving all the details of our lives, and awareness is the natural thing that happens: life begins to open up, and you realize that you're always standing at the center of the world." - Pema Chodron, Awakening Loving Kindness
Do you feel like you have no time to get everything done? No time for yourself? I'm reading this book on active spirituality. I don't meditate or journal because I never make time for it, although it is very useful to me. I find myself in other activities-- playing guitar, running, cycling... but sometimes being still is good. You are not distracted by anything.
How do we find more time? the book makes this suggestion, and I'm going to do it too. For a week, write down everything you do during waking hours and how much time you spend. Our perception is that we are busy busy busy. Add up the hours you spend on each activity each week, whether it be emailing, watching TV, showering, talking on the phone, etc. I think it will be enlightening to see where I could easily make time. I know personally that I spend way too much time on my computer chatting with friends online, checking email, etc. Let's do it together!
Do you feel like you have no time to get everything done? No time for yourself? I'm reading this book on active spirituality. I don't meditate or journal because I never make time for it, although it is very useful to me. I find myself in other activities-- playing guitar, running, cycling... but sometimes being still is good. You are not distracted by anything.
How do we find more time? the book makes this suggestion, and I'm going to do it too. For a week, write down everything you do during waking hours and how much time you spend. Our perception is that we are busy busy busy. Add up the hours you spend on each activity each week, whether it be emailing, watching TV, showering, talking on the phone, etc. I think it will be enlightening to see where I could easily make time. I know personally that I spend way too much time on my computer chatting with friends online, checking email, etc. Let's do it together!
Saturday, October 13, 2007
13 easy ways to go green
*taken from MSN
Still stalling on going green? Procrastinate no longer.
We give you 13 ideas for saving energy around your home that involve little or no installation and barely a bump in your routine. Individually, they cost less than $75. Collectively, they can save hundreds of dollars a year in household energy bills and thousands of pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions.
You have every reason to follow these tips and not a single reason to ignore them. Get cracking, folks.
1. Take a flier on fluorescents. They no longer buzz, flicker or turn faces blue, and they represent one of the brightest ideas yet for cooling down the atmosphere and your electric bill.
Compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) approximate the glow of incandescent bulbs and use 75% less energy. If every U.S. household replaced just one incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent, the emissions savings would be comparable to taking 3 million cars off the road for a year.
Don't let the price of CFLs -- as much as $7 each -- turn you off. The lights not only last 10 times longer than incandescents but also save up to $60 in electricity per light over their lifetime. Some utility companies subsidize the energy-sparing lights, reducing the tab to $2 or so.
* A bright way to cut your power bill
Not every CFL produces a warm, candlelight glow. To achieve that effect, look for one with a Kelvin temperature of 2,600 to 3,000, says Donn Davy, a home-energy consultant in Novato, Calif. Fluorescents that operate at higher temperatures provide hard, white light better suited for task lighting. Most compact fluorescents are spirals or U-shaped tubes, but you can also find them in bulb form. Some of the newer lights adjust to three levels or work with a dimming switch.
Fluorescent lights contain small amounts of mercury. In some communities, you'll need to dispose of them as hazardous waste.
2. Vanquish the vampires. Remember James Thurber's story about the aunt who worried that electricity was leaking out of the wall sockets? She had a point, of sorts. Appliances that include a clock or operate by a remote, as well as chargers, "are all sucking electricity even when you're not using them," says Dale Bryk of the National Resources Defense Council. Of the total energy used to run home electronics, 40% is consumed when the appliances are turned off.
The obvious way to pull the plug on so-called energy vampires is to do just that -- pull the plug. If you don't want to keep rebooting your PC, you can reduce the juice to it by putting both the monitor and the computer itself in sleep mode when they're not in use. Computers operating on snooze control use about 95% less electricity than those running on full power.
To get yours to nod off, go to the control panel, where you will likely see "sleep" or "hibernate." The sleep mode powers down the computer, whereas instructing it to "hibernate" effectively turns the PC off while preserving your applications. Both modes let you resume work where you left off.
If your computer powers down by default, you can adjust how long it waits before going to sleep -- say, from 30 minutes to 15 -- or set the monitor to power down first. Don't bother using a screen saver, which neither preserves your screen nor saves energy.
To get all your devices on the same nap schedule, plug them into the Smart Strip Power Strip ($31 to $44). The strip senses when your computer or TV is asleep and electronically unplugs devices that depend on them, such as a printer or DVD player, until the controlling device wakes up.
3. Harness the wind. Once you've cleaned up your own act, help clean up the power grid by buying so-called green energy -- electricity generated by wind or solar power or a blend of renewable resources. You'll pay about a half-cent to a few cents more per kilowatt-hour for green-powered electricity compared with electricity generated from nonrenewable resources.
If companies in your area haven't yet gone with the wind, you may still be able to pay a small premium on your utility bill to support green power elsewhere. Or you can subsidize it separately, with so-called green tags or renewable-energy certificates.
To find certified renewable-power sources in your state, as well as programs that sell green tags or renewable energy certificates, go to the Environmental Protection Agency's Green Power Locator or to Green-e.
4. Insulate your water heater. The newest electric water heaters have plenty of insulation. But if you have one built before 2004, wrap it in an insulating blanket (under $20) and save 10% -- about $30 -- annually on your water-heating bill.
5. Cover the hot tub. Hot tubs lose heat even with the top on. Float a thermal cover ($26) under the hard cover and cut energy use by one-third.
6. Service the furnace. Have your furnace tuned every two years, and you'll save about 1,250 pounds of carbon dioxide and 10% on your heating bills.
7. Turn down the heat. For every degree you lower your home's temperature during the heating season, subtract 5% from your bill, according to the Alliance to Save Energy. An Energy Star programmable thermostat ($70) saves more than twice its price within a year.
8. Set the washer to cold. Use cold water to wash your clothes and save 50% of the energy you would otherwise use for hot water. Set your dryer on the moisture sensor, not the timer, and cut energy use by 15%.
9. Dim the lights. Install light dimmers, which cut electricity use by the same percentage that they lower the light.
10. Stop drafts. As your father would say, don't heat the great outdoors. Put weatherstrip around the frames of your front and back doors and save about $30 per year in energy costs.
11. Lower your water temperature. Set your water heater at 120 degrees. If your heater does not have a temperature gauge, dial down until the water feels hot, not scalding. (Before going too low, make sure your dishwasher has a booster heater, which gets the temperature back to 140 degrees, necessary for proper cleaning.)
12. Insulate pipes. Wrap precut pipe insulation around exposed hot-water pipes, including pipes traveling through crawl spaces.
13. Use timers on lights. Install occupancy sensors or timers on lights in areas you use only occasionally and for exterior lights, which tend to get left on during the day, says Crissy Trask, a green-living consultant in Spokane, Wash. Occupancy sensors start at $20 per switch, light timers at $7. Anyone with basic wiring skills can install them.
Still stalling on going green? Procrastinate no longer.
We give you 13 ideas for saving energy around your home that involve little or no installation and barely a bump in your routine. Individually, they cost less than $75. Collectively, they can save hundreds of dollars a year in household energy bills and thousands of pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions.
You have every reason to follow these tips and not a single reason to ignore them. Get cracking, folks.
1. Take a flier on fluorescents. They no longer buzz, flicker or turn faces blue, and they represent one of the brightest ideas yet for cooling down the atmosphere and your electric bill.
Compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) approximate the glow of incandescent bulbs and use 75% less energy. If every U.S. household replaced just one incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent, the emissions savings would be comparable to taking 3 million cars off the road for a year.
Don't let the price of CFLs -- as much as $7 each -- turn you off. The lights not only last 10 times longer than incandescents but also save up to $60 in electricity per light over their lifetime. Some utility companies subsidize the energy-sparing lights, reducing the tab to $2 or so.
* A bright way to cut your power bill
Not every CFL produces a warm, candlelight glow. To achieve that effect, look for one with a Kelvin temperature of 2,600 to 3,000, says Donn Davy, a home-energy consultant in Novato, Calif. Fluorescents that operate at higher temperatures provide hard, white light better suited for task lighting. Most compact fluorescents are spirals or U-shaped tubes, but you can also find them in bulb form. Some of the newer lights adjust to three levels or work with a dimming switch.
Fluorescent lights contain small amounts of mercury. In some communities, you'll need to dispose of them as hazardous waste.
2. Vanquish the vampires. Remember James Thurber's story about the aunt who worried that electricity was leaking out of the wall sockets? She had a point, of sorts. Appliances that include a clock or operate by a remote, as well as chargers, "are all sucking electricity even when you're not using them," says Dale Bryk of the National Resources Defense Council. Of the total energy used to run home electronics, 40% is consumed when the appliances are turned off.
The obvious way to pull the plug on so-called energy vampires is to do just that -- pull the plug. If you don't want to keep rebooting your PC, you can reduce the juice to it by putting both the monitor and the computer itself in sleep mode when they're not in use. Computers operating on snooze control use about 95% less electricity than those running on full power.
To get yours to nod off, go to the control panel, where you will likely see "sleep" or "hibernate." The sleep mode powers down the computer, whereas instructing it to "hibernate" effectively turns the PC off while preserving your applications. Both modes let you resume work where you left off.
If your computer powers down by default, you can adjust how long it waits before going to sleep -- say, from 30 minutes to 15 -- or set the monitor to power down first. Don't bother using a screen saver, which neither preserves your screen nor saves energy.
To get all your devices on the same nap schedule, plug them into the Smart Strip Power Strip ($31 to $44). The strip senses when your computer or TV is asleep and electronically unplugs devices that depend on them, such as a printer or DVD player, until the controlling device wakes up.
3. Harness the wind. Once you've cleaned up your own act, help clean up the power grid by buying so-called green energy -- electricity generated by wind or solar power or a blend of renewable resources. You'll pay about a half-cent to a few cents more per kilowatt-hour for green-powered electricity compared with electricity generated from nonrenewable resources.
If companies in your area haven't yet gone with the wind, you may still be able to pay a small premium on your utility bill to support green power elsewhere. Or you can subsidize it separately, with so-called green tags or renewable-energy certificates.
To find certified renewable-power sources in your state, as well as programs that sell green tags or renewable energy certificates, go to the Environmental Protection Agency's Green Power Locator or to Green-e.
4. Insulate your water heater. The newest electric water heaters have plenty of insulation. But if you have one built before 2004, wrap it in an insulating blanket (under $20) and save 10% -- about $30 -- annually on your water-heating bill.
5. Cover the hot tub. Hot tubs lose heat even with the top on. Float a thermal cover ($26) under the hard cover and cut energy use by one-third.
6. Service the furnace. Have your furnace tuned every two years, and you'll save about 1,250 pounds of carbon dioxide and 10% on your heating bills.
7. Turn down the heat. For every degree you lower your home's temperature during the heating season, subtract 5% from your bill, according to the Alliance to Save Energy. An Energy Star programmable thermostat ($70) saves more than twice its price within a year.
8. Set the washer to cold. Use cold water to wash your clothes and save 50% of the energy you would otherwise use for hot water. Set your dryer on the moisture sensor, not the timer, and cut energy use by 15%.
9. Dim the lights. Install light dimmers, which cut electricity use by the same percentage that they lower the light.
10. Stop drafts. As your father would say, don't heat the great outdoors. Put weatherstrip around the frames of your front and back doors and save about $30 per year in energy costs.
11. Lower your water temperature. Set your water heater at 120 degrees. If your heater does not have a temperature gauge, dial down until the water feels hot, not scalding. (Before going too low, make sure your dishwasher has a booster heater, which gets the temperature back to 140 degrees, necessary for proper cleaning.)
12. Insulate pipes. Wrap precut pipe insulation around exposed hot-water pipes, including pipes traveling through crawl spaces.
13. Use timers on lights. Install occupancy sensors or timers on lights in areas you use only occasionally and for exterior lights, which tend to get left on during the day, says Crissy Trask, a green-living consultant in Spokane, Wash. Occupancy sensors start at $20 per switch, light timers at $7. Anyone with basic wiring skills can install them.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Did you know....?
That for every mile you ride your bike instead of drive your car, you save one pound of carbon released into the Earth's atmosphere?
Did you also know that having an average size solar power system is like planting an acre of trees?
Did you know that CFLs (compact fluorescents) save you tons of money on your electric bill and cut down on coal burned?
Did you know that 8 1 mile trains full of coal need to come to Colorado coal power plants just to power us for one day?
Did you also know that having an average size solar power system is like planting an acre of trees?
Did you know that CFLs (compact fluorescents) save you tons of money on your electric bill and cut down on coal burned?
Did you know that 8 1 mile trains full of coal need to come to Colorado coal power plants just to power us for one day?
Reduce stress with your diet
I am taking a Leadership and Management course right now and this article I am reading has to do with stress, what it does to people,and things you can do to curb it.
One contributor to extra stress is diet. I pulled a piece from this article, "Overloaded Circuits" for you to read.
Diet also plays a crucial role in brain health. Many hard-
working people habitually inhale carbohydrates, which
cause blood glucose levels to yo-yo. This leads to a vicious
cycle: Rapid fluctuations in insulin levels further increase
the craving for carbohydrates. The brain, which relies on
glucose for energy, is left either glutted or gasping, neither
of which makes for optimal cognitive functioning.
The brain does much better if the blood glucose level
can be held relatively stable. To do this, avoid simple car-
bohydrates containing sugar and white flour (pastries,
white bread, and pasta, for example). Rely on the complex
carbohydrates found in fruits, whole grains, and vegeta-
bles. Protein is important: Instead of starting your day
with coffee and a Danish, try tea and an egg or a piece of
smoked salmon on wheat toast. Take a multivitamin
every day as well as supplementary omega-3 fatty acids,
an excellent source of which is fish oil. The omega-3s and
the E and B complex contained in multivitamins pro-
mote healthy brain function and may even stave off
Alzheimer's disease and inflammatory ills (which can be
the starting point for major killers like heart disease,
stroke, diabetes, and cancer). Moderate your intake of al-
cohol, too, because too much kills brain cells and acceler-
ates the development of memory loss and even demen-
tia. As you change your diet to promote optimal brain
function and good general health, your body will also
shed excess pounds.
If you think you can't afford the time to exercise, think
again. Sitting at a desk for hours on end decreases mental
acuity, not only because of reduced blood flow to the
brain but for other biochemical reasons as well. Physical
exercise induces the body to produce an array of chemi-
cals that the brain loves, including endorphins, serotonin,
dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, as well as
two recently discovered compounds, brain-derived neu-
rotrophic factor (BDNF) and nerve growth factor (NGF). control.
One contributor to extra stress is diet. I pulled a piece from this article, "Overloaded Circuits" for you to read.
Diet also plays a crucial role in brain health. Many hard-
working people habitually inhale carbohydrates, which
cause blood glucose levels to yo-yo. This leads to a vicious
cycle: Rapid fluctuations in insulin levels further increase
the craving for carbohydrates. The brain, which relies on
glucose for energy, is left either glutted or gasping, neither
of which makes for optimal cognitive functioning.
The brain does much better if the blood glucose level
can be held relatively stable. To do this, avoid simple car-
bohydrates containing sugar and white flour (pastries,
white bread, and pasta, for example). Rely on the complex
carbohydrates found in fruits, whole grains, and vegeta-
bles. Protein is important: Instead of starting your day
with coffee and a Danish, try tea and an egg or a piece of
smoked salmon on wheat toast. Take a multivitamin
every day as well as supplementary omega-3 fatty acids,
an excellent source of which is fish oil. The omega-3s and
the E and B complex contained in multivitamins pro-
mote healthy brain function and may even stave off
Alzheimer's disease and inflammatory ills (which can be
the starting point for major killers like heart disease,
stroke, diabetes, and cancer). Moderate your intake of al-
cohol, too, because too much kills brain cells and acceler-
ates the development of memory loss and even demen-
tia. As you change your diet to promote optimal brain
function and good general health, your body will also
shed excess pounds.
If you think you can't afford the time to exercise, think
again. Sitting at a desk for hours on end decreases mental
acuity, not only because of reduced blood flow to the
brain but for other biochemical reasons as well. Physical
exercise induces the body to produce an array of chemi-
cals that the brain loves, including endorphins, serotonin,
dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, as well as
two recently discovered compounds, brain-derived neu-
rotrophic factor (BDNF) and nerve growth factor (NGF). control.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
