Published on 12, July, 2020
Im curious to know what other peoples interests/hobbys are. Recently I have been studying/growing mushrooms/mycology.
Before that, it was keeping/breeding tarantulas and invertebrates. I also have a vast knowledge of insectivorous plants. As a kid, i practically knew every football player who played in each team. Was obcessed. Not so much now.
So, what is everyone else like to study or spend time one?
My current special interests are cycling race parcours and volcanology. I've been interested in cycling for a decade now so that one is not much of a surprise. Practically any major mountain pass in the Alps / Pyrenees, I will know the elevation / length / gradient. For example off the top of my head the north side of Col du Galibier is 17km long at 7% gradient rising up to 2642m. Since I know the geography of the major mountain ranges I find it easy to spend countless hours making my own Tour de France routes. Just recently I made some stages for a Vuelta Espana route, I will give more detail at the end of my post!
My other interest as I mentioned is volcanology. This one is more periodic, with my level of interest in different areas fluctuating over time. I used to find super volcanos really interesting but more recently I've been watching lectures on Large Igneous Provinces - the debate on their formation (mantel plume model vs tectonic processes) and their impact on ecosystems across the planet (they are largely associated with Earth's major extinction events, even in the case of KT extinction which is largely attributed to an asteroid hitting just off the Yucatan peninsula.) I'm currently planning on studying Natural Sciences at Cambridge University so this may be an interest that turns into a career later on.
My historic interests have been sinking ships and planes, as well as Minecraft and my plush toys (that one isn't really historic I guess, given I spend so much time doing world building and making them in my cycling games!)
Back to cycling routes, here is my logic behind the design of this stage:
The opening climb to Erlaitz allows for the formation of a strong breakaway. Basically the team controlling the leaders jersey has two options - try to control the breakaway to stop stronger riders getting away but in doing so burn up domestiques leaving the leader isolated later on, or climb at a pace the weakest team riders can keep up with so they maintain a numbers advantage but a large dangerous breakaway gets away. Of key importance is the idea of satellite riders. These are riders sent up in a breakaway by a team leader so that when that leader attacks they have a team mate ahead of them to join up with, who can then do the pacing allowing the leader to rest a bit.
The next 3 climbs are there to whittle away at the peloton and make it smaller, and to allow for teams to set a really high pace and break up things early on if they want chaos.
Starting with about 60km to go, the hardest climb of the stage begins. It serves as a launchpad for long range attacks from team leaders, who can then join up with satellite riders ahead of them. This is the moment to attack if you are too far down on GC to wait for the final climb.
After the descent of the first climb of Bizkaia, the terrain until about 10km to go is all rolling up and downhill therefore it won't be easy for a chasing group to reduce a gap to an attacker with satellite riders. This again puts more pressure on the race leader - if its been hard all stage then the GC leader might be forced to chase on his own with no team mates left around him, putting him at an obvious disadvantage to his competitors. The final climb is a stepped ascent which masks its difficulty. All in all the final 5km of uphill terrain on the stage average an eye-watering 11-12%! (for reference one of the hardest climbs on the Tour de France, Col du Granon which blew things up this year, averages only 9%.) This is where an attacker with fresh legs who sat behind team mates up the road gives everything to eek out as much of a gap as possible to try and overturn the GC!
To summarise: hard opening climb makes controlling the race difficult, sequence of hard climbs will potentially isolate race leader, hardest climb coming early allows for long range attacks, taking advantage of team mates who were able to get further up the road in the chaotic opening kilometres. Final climb can be the nail in the coffin of the original GC leader if tactics are perfected and he ends up isolated riding in the wind alone while you sit in the draft of a team mate.
Some of the cycling related terminology:
breakaway - group of riders who attack away from the main peloton, usually at the start of a stage
domestique - a rider who takes relays in the wind on behalf of a team leader, so he can save energy for later on when it matters most. They are very much selfless and highlight how much of a team sport cycling is.
satellite rider - a team mate you send into the breakaway so that when you launch an attack from the peloton, you can bridge over to him and he can provide draft for you in the same way a domestique does in the peloton.
GC - stands for general classification. In cycling, the winner of a stage race (race of multiple days) is the rider who completes the course in the lowest cumulative time. Whoever finishes the entire race in the least amount of time wins.
Gradients - are measured as %s. Think of it like this: if a climb averages 12% in gradient, it means that for every 100m you travel horizontally you will gain 12m of elevation. If we take alpe d'huez which is 13.8km at 8.1%, that means that in total you gain roughly 13.8 x 10 x 8.1 or 1120m of elevation
I love plush toys. What ones do you have?
The latest ones I got were a snowy owl, a barn owl and a beaver!
I think he's quite funny with his big teeth haha. The owls come with me on car journeys to school, and they sometimes comment on my mum's driving, especially when she accidentally stops in the middle of a yellow box!
I've done a lot of world building, based on things my brother and I made up as younger kids. Here's a map I made of the "Lions Kingdom" (who would have though it would be a country made up of lions.) Unfortunately I am not as creative as I used to be with names so I used a name generator which comes up with names based off places in Italy. There are quite a few suspicious ones like Rivenna, which I suspect is based on Ravenna!
My shite costs £2K storage unit fee PA. It's just dumb, but I get anxious (very anxious) about throwing away a) history, b) anything that might one day be useful. So I'm pretty buggered really.
We have so many I think I may need an extra bedroom for them lol. I cant resist them when I see them in charity shops
I have WAY, way to much from when I was little. Hoarding tendency / unable to give-up on the past.....it runs in the family, so I have generations of stuff. Frigging nightmare - and one I need to overcome.
My penguins called ping so thats quite a basic name too. I have a penguin called Puddles! I got him sent to me from Australia by one of those sponser a penguin things. He has a wooly jumper that keeps falling off.
I have a snowy owl too. He was being sold as a doorstop but hes big and fluffy so I make him a cuddly toy
Thats nice you have one from your granny. I have some from when I was little too
I have a bit of a tradition of coming up with very basic names (a lion called Liony, and owl called Owly, and a cow called Moo.) I was going to call him Beavery but I ended up going with Puddles.
I can relate to having to sew / fix some toys, my oldest one is a rabbit that my granny got for me when I was just born. He's quite grey now! The snowy owl had a hole that was fixed about a year ago but it recently reopened so I will have to fix him again when I can find the time.