Sorry for not posting more recently. It’s been busy at work, and an accident on the bike (don’t worry, I’m basically ok) has limited what I want to say about riding.

But here are a couple of interesting things I’ve stumbled across. First, this excellent video from Mike Gravel, who I really like, even if he’s got no chance of being elected. Gravel tops my compatibility list on this candidate finder from glassbooth.org, but, that aside, this is kind of a neat video.

And, for a complete change of subject, those of you into cyclocross — particularly those who are racing in the Men’s B fields in New England — might be mildly amused by this ebay auction for Cyclocross Upgrade Points. It’s a little mean occasionally, and I think the auction’s criticism of our local officials is kind of unfair, since even they acknowledge that there’s a problem with the categorization guidelines for ‘cross in New England right now. On the other hand, it’s unquestionably unfair that some of these guys are racing in the B’s. Some of them are teammates — they’re good guys — and I don’t think they have any ill-intent. If you’re a cat 3, you have to race in the 3’s, right? What else can you do if nobody’s moving you up through the ranks.

So I’d like to believe this is an attempt to encourage USA Cycling to take some action, rather than a personal attack, but it does seem a little personal. But it does highlight a real problem with ‘cross categories, and it has a trickle-down effect, keeping 4’s from moving to the 3’s, making the race experience for 3’s less fun, and removing good competition from the A races. So I hope we’ll all find a way to work on addressing this problem.

Anyway, I can’t deny it’s also kind of amusing. Read the questions for the seller for some of the real yuks.