Permalinks

After much internal hemming and hawing today, I decided to update the URL structure of the log posts on this site: URLs no longer include the publish date.

It’s my hope that this will look cleaner, and that it will encourage me to write with mindful attention to the name in the URL. Having the publish date in the URL was also redundant, as all log posts display the publish date below their respective titles. Matt Gemmell offers some more good reasons why this format is superior.

For the time being, a 302 redirect is in place for links using the old URL format. After some time, I’ll switch to use a 301 redirect.

My apologies for the RSS clutter — this will hopefully be the last time that happens for a while.

My Cycling Story

Note: I had originally written this back in early 2014, but it was never published.

On May 24, 2008, I bought my first road bike at the age of 26, a brand new white Specialized Allez with triple chainrings. For over ten years leading up to that point, I had not ridden a bike at all.

Site Redesign

I spent nearly all of my time this past weekend working on switching this site to a new and updated framework: just plain old Jekyll.

(Apologies for any RSS migration issues. I’m 301 redirecting the old atom.xml to the current feed.xml.)

Race Report: Driveway Series Week 28, 3/4

I finished 19th in a cat 3/4 race! (Sept 17th)

Amateur bike racing is split up into categories (cat) based on experience and skill. I was able to upgrade from the entry category of 5 to cat 4 earlier this year because I had done 10 races as a cat 5. That’s really the only requirement for moving up to cat 4. So even though it’s a higher category, the ability of cat 4 racers varies wildly. However, the racers are generally more safe to be around than the cat 5s. What makes cat 4 interesting at the Driveway Series races is that they combine the categories. So you have a race for 4/5, a race for 3/4, and a race for pro/1/2/3 (among other age and gender combinations). Because of the way cat 4 is grouped, I currently have the choice of doing two races each week. As soon as I upgraded to cat 4, I began doing both races each week: 3/4 followed immediately by 4/5.

Why I Hand-Write Business Cards

I give out hand-written business cards. I’m told that when people first look at them their first reaction is something along the lines of “That’s an interesting font”, followed by “Oh wow, this was written by hand. That’s weird and different.” Then eventually, “This is actually really cool.”