Wondering if anyone is planning on tweeting or otherwise posting live updates about DD current location throughout the day. I'll be trying to drag my almost 5yo out to catch a few hills, and windows of opportunity will be hit or miss. Having a clue about where everyone is headed would be awesome.
Good luck to all who are going for the ride!
Last year I did a live blog thing but have since moved away and I don't think there's any organized effort to do it again this year. But you can check those times, they will be pretty similar. Be careful if you drive to one of the spots to stay out of the way.
I don't tweet, but plan to get to at least the first few hills. I can plan to post periodic updates on this thread. At least you'll have an idea as to what hill is next. Does that help?
Why isn't your 5 year old doing the dirty dozen? Gotta start them young
Thanks Swalfoort... I'll check here 
Stefb... thanks for the lol! She loves her bike but so far no love for the hills.
She will learn
10.30 riders have topped hill 1
How big is the field? I'm going to start cheering at Canton.
Over Ravine. Looks like 125 or so. Wild guess.
11.20 are climbing hill 3. Ernst next up
11.40 have completed most of high street..millvale next is food break at park before or after Logan?
Break before.
11.55 at food break, millvale park....
12.30 riders on rialto
Logan was the worst in my opinion when I thought I was gonna do the ride and was doing practice runs.
@marko from what I saw has to be at least 200 riders
Lucia posted on Facebook 300. Weather sure is nice
1.45 waiting for them to arrive for climb on Canton,riders still a few minutes away.
2.50 arriving at boustead
Top of Eleanor
A big thanks to swalfort & quizbot for pseudo-tweeting the race progress here & to greasefoot for posting route tips. I watched from Canton. I was impressed by the wide range in age of the riders & their equipment. So much fun watching everyones' faces as they conquered the last bit of the hill! Congratulations to everyone who finished all of the hills...
chew said at the beginning, there were 300.
individually, i always thought logan was the hardest. but today, boustead felt the worst. still, it was one of the few i wasn't last on!
Good weather brings out a ton more people.
Did anyone get the final points tally?
Any idea of demographics, specif gender & age? It'd also be cool to know how many were first timers, out of towners come in just to ride this, etc.
Does anyone know the make/model of the dayglo orange helmet one guy was wearing? I want one. I think it was this one (second closest guy, seen from behind):
that's the best picture I could find.
there was a fella on the ride with a day-glow orange helmet that was clearly spray-painted, if that's the one you're talking about. i don't remember seeing any other helmets that color.
@stu: chew usually posts those sorts of stats. he asks for everyone's age and how many times they've ridden before at sign-in. that info for past rides should be up on his web page, and for this year's should be in the coming weeks.
I've got a ton of photos that I am currently downloading to flickr. I have a photo of a guy in a dayglo orange helmet who is wearing a white jersey. It might be the same guy abra caught, minus the jacket. As soon as the photos finish uploading, I'll post the link and post the helmet photo here.
Video by Matt Dayak of Canton: http://vimeo.com/32720991
Mad props to the guy at 2:10. It was his first dirty dozen and he did it with BMX platform pedals.
I figured it was spraypainted. I'm doing to do that.
@robjdlc - thanks for posting that awesome video!
@abra: I noticed that helmet, too. please be cautious about spray painting your helmet, though. the solvents will damage the styrofoam... dunno why there aren't more hi-vis helmets out there...
I was going to guess catlike.
Careful, I dont think that they are ANSI and
SNELL approved.
I'm almost positive that is a Bell Sweep painted orange, the little oval in the front is the right shape for the Bell logo.
Most awesomely, he's running Suntour XC Pro thumbshifters.
Those are Shimano thumbshifters, which are not at the same almost perfect level of form/function ratio. I've been thinking about using an XC pro shifter for the dropper post on one of my bikes, no one makes shifters like that anymore.
I saw this helmet. It was an orange rattle can job.
And Eric is right about those thumbshifters. Nothing beats the Suntour XC Pros, though the Paul's mounts and Shimano levers are just a hair away from perfection. Have a set of each in active duty.
Some nice photos up on the post-gazette web site: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11331/1192940-491.stm
funny, I've been using the same set of shimano thumbshifters for 18 years and never once in all that time that they've been shifting my gears did i realize how inadequate they were.
Nice story in the Post-Gazette here.
Totally off topic... Lots of people are riding the same rusty old Schwinn that their parent's had and are perfectly happy with it, but that doesn't mean there aren't nicer bikes out there.
Nothing inherently wrong with the Shimano thumbshifters, just saying that it is Eric and I's opinion that the Suntour XC Pros are the best thumbshifters ever.
@BradQ - I think I met you on High & Sycamore St watching the DD Saturday.
I have a decent set of used old Suntour friction sifters (with the cables and down tube clamp). I was going to use them on a project that I lost interest in. If someone wants to check them out send me a PM.
Red Schwinn, chrome fork guy? Knew your way around Etna?
Yea that was me. It was good to meet you.
Good to put a face to the name! Did you make it to any further hills? We split from Sycamore and got a late lunch at Emilianos.
Yea, I went across the top of Mt Washington and thru Allentown to check out the finish line at the top of Eleanor St. It was maybe 2.5 miles from Sycamore.
Steevo is right. The helmet is a Catlike Whisper, in Euskatel Euskadi colors (it's a professional cycling team from the Basque country). I think there is now a US legal (if that's the right terminology) version available, and being sold by places like Competitive Cyclist...but I doubt you'll find the Euskatel color in the US.
Plus Euskatel is now using a different helmet (made by Orbea).
Lastly, I also saw the Bell one up close, it was very much spray painted.
http://www.competitivecyclist.com/product-apparel/2011-catlike-whisper-plus-helmet-7857.2805.0.html
Oops. I stand corrected.
I personally love XC Expert shifters; I have 3.5 pairs of them (ended up with an extra left somehow) that I've found over the years. I rode 8 speed thumbies with mostly Shimano RD's for 15 years until I finally went 9 speed with my FS bike.
I am about to tear apart an old hardtail I found on CL and get the Experts back into action and make the whole bike circa 1994.
Is there any way to tell if a helmet is ANSI/SNELL approved? If the manufacturer doesn't say so, should I assume that they are not? Is CPSC good enough?
@abracadabra: Is CPSC good enough?
You can check out the CPSC standards here; but, in general, the test procedures for meeting the standard involve dropping a helmet with an 8.8 pound weight for distances of 2-5 feet onto various flat, curved, and angled surfaces.
I'm too lazy to look up the Snell standard, but I seem to recall that it was almost identical to the CPSC, just using slightly more force. (6-foot drop versus 5, kind of thing...)
So, short answer: "good enough" depends on what kind of protection you're seeking. I'd guess that CPSC or Snell is fine for minor impacts, but no more.
OK. I read here too: http://www.bhsi.org/standard.htm and it sounds like they are all roughly the same. Snell has a list of helmets here: http://www.smf.org/certlist/std_B-90A_B-95A_B-90C_B-95C
Here it says "For the US market the CPSC standard is required by law for any bicycle helmet." http://www.bhsi.org/helmet11.htm which makes me think that as long as it is sold in the US it is essentially Snell/CPSC/ANSI approved. Please correct me if I'm wrong. It doesn't seem like there is any certification that guarantees anything substantially more than CPSC, so it seems like any certification is only going to guarantee that the helmet "is fine for minor impacts, but no more."
Also BHSI has information on painting helmets. http://www.bhsi.org/paint.htm
It doesn't seem like there is any certification that guarantees anything substantially more than CPSC, so it seems like any certification is only going to guarantee that the helmet "is fine for minor impacts, but no more."
'Tis my understanding as well.
I've not investigated in any depth, but I suspect one would need to start looking at downhill or motorcycle helmets before you really start getting into reasonable levels of protection.
I just know that you cant race in America wearing catlike helmet, or do any event where the insurance requires all helmets to be approved. This is trivial and most officials would not know.
Catlike did get the latest version of the Whisper approved by CPSC. So if you see one it may or may not be legal. Could be interesting if an official wants to make a thing out of it. When was the last time you looked for the CPSC sticker inside your helmet? I'm guessing it's gone or unreadable.
I remember back in my BMX/freestyle days, it was actually a Big Deal if your helmet had a Snell sticker v. ANSI (Snell was better).
EDIT: Removed redundant link.
This won't help solve any of the helmet questions, but last night I developed and scanned the bit of film I shot at a few hills this year.
http://randomprecisionphoto.com/2011/dirty-dozen-2011-with-the-horizon-202/
All these photos from your weird Russian camera make me wonder if the USSR wasn't as miserable as it always looked in photos, their cameras were incapable of anything other than gritty, grainy desperation.
"In Soviet Russia, film develops you"
@brad brilliant. for some reason it never dawned on me that I don't need a full blown dark room to develop my own b&w and scan it. seems like a great combination of technologies.
+1 reddan. That made me LOL
Awesome photos Brad. I've got a bunch of expired medium format film, I need to motivate myself to shoot something with it.
I was reminded of something when I ran into Scott earlier today. I meant to tell all the DD riders that I appreciated all the great comments they made to the course marshalls. I started out as an observer, and ended up as a marshall. I generally saw all the riders, but usually passing by me at a high rate of speed. I was very pleasantly surprised at the number who thought to say "thank you" as they passed. It wasn't just a random rider or two. In a pack of 300, it was often 30 or more who would say it at a given location. While it was nice to be appreciated for what I was doing, what I find most "rewarding" about the experience is the realization or confirmation that the DD participants were just a really nice, considerate group of people. It reinforced a lot that I had already come to know about the cycling community in Pittsburgh. As a group, they may be considered by motorists and other non-cyclists as scofflaws and menaces, in actuality it's a pretty considerate and nurturing group. Thanks for that reminder!
^^ second that!
