- Science Section - Dino Soft Tissue Found!

With races at the 508 using totems instead of numbers team tartan thought long and hard, conducted aerodynamic, psychological, and physiological testing, consulted with the experts and only then was the totem decided upon. If team tartan does one thing we race to perfection and in the case of the 508 racing to perfection means having the perfect totem!

With that the "Titanium Triceratops " was chosen the totem du jour for the 2006 508. But why was Titanium Triceratops chosen? Could it be its initials TT? Could it be for Time Trial? Possibly Team Tartan? Could it be due to Kenneth's childhood love for the dino's? Possibly that Kenneth rides a bicycle made of that oh so light material called titanium? Or possibly was it for those three points that will pierce the competition as team tartan rides past, rider up front, party wagon in back, blaring that disco beat that just goes thump, thump, at a cadence of 95. On the other hand, was it for some completely different reason?

In the spirit of the triceratops there is no way I could let the very recent discovery of "Soft connective tissue" from a T. Rex escape the science section. Yes that’s right 70 million year old un-fossilized T Rex connective tissue. For more info, I'd encourage you to head over to National Geographic.

Could it be chance that an earth shattering dino find happened on the eve of this years 508? The Titanium triceratops doesn't believe in fate but at this point things do look mighty sweet..

It's Tartan Time!

Science Section: Rain & Earthworms

It’s been a while since the science section was featured here in blog land. The other day while walking to the lab, for some reason my brain was wandering, and I started to think about our friend the earthworm. Popular culture says come spring time, earthworms surface post rain to avoid drowning as the water filters down through the ground. Now my thoughts were, if this were truly true then given the incessant rain we have been experiencing I'd expect one of two things to have occurred: The surface of the ground would be covered with worms, which hasn't happened, or that the ground would be totally devoid of live earthworms as all of them would have drowned.

Well, a quick Google search reveled the truth, earthworms breath through their skin and water doesn't phase earth worms a bit. Infact earthworms can live fully immersed in water for weeks assuming the water contains adequate levels of dissolved oxygen. The earth worms real enemy isn't water but a lack of water, dehydration. The reason earthworms surface post rain is because post rain the surface humidity increases to level worms can more safely travel above ground, just don't tell the birds.

First Race (North SeaTac)

On my first race, I had a great starting position and was actually the first rider to the single track. Being new to cross, I looked at my tires, they said 80 - 100 psi, so I pumped them right up to 100, and went.. Well at the first bump I was thrown from the bike like a PBR cowboy, pro bull rider. After the crashed I lost a few places and a ton of momentum. By the end of the race I ended up placing 18th, not too bad for a first race.

Science Section:
Back when I was taking a physics course at the University of Washington ( ~6 years ago), I remember seeing a brief discussion of the physics of a bicycle wheel in motion in, Halliday, Resnick. When a wheel spins in the air, no friction, all parts of the wheel move at the same speed. But what’s really cool about wheels, is that even though the rim is totally connected when the wheel is rolling over a surface with friction the bottom part of the wheel will go slower then the top. This is not so intuitive. In the picture above notice how the spokes on the bottom of the wheel are in focus, and those at the top of the wheel aren't. You can also see how the linear speed of the spokes changes as its distance from the hub increase.