Small "group," flat roads

The Sunday group this morning was just Olaf and me, which made me realize that another reason for feeling so-so on the bike is the switch from real group rides in Milwaukee (5-10 or even more people). Here, the largest group I've been in has been four, and often it has been less than that. So you spend a lot more time with your face in the wind, which makes it harder. This combined with the relentless flats, which causes you to sit in the same position, in the same gear, for mile after mile. The hardest is when you go into the new land, the new polder, where there are few towns, and lots of long dikes and country roads. Even less reason to stand up, shift, or otherwise change your rhythm. My mom lives in the polder, so I've had the pleasure of riding there several times already, including today. (On the up-side: the views are great, and even better is the lack of traffic). Today Olaf had to go one-way to Zwolle, in the "near East," as they used to say at my dad's company, Stork Werkspoor Diesel in Amsterdam. The wind was out of the east, so I let him draft most of the way to our coffee stop, given that I could ride home with the tailwind whereas he had to continue on his own into the wind. The last five or so miles to the restaurant (at the Harderwijk bridge), miles 29-34, were pretty uncomfortable, and so was the first half of my ride back. To bolster my theory, I had a section through the town of Blaricum, where there were two "hills" in quick succession, followed by some twisting and turning through Bussum. Leaving that last town behind, I realized that the discomfort I had felt earlier (especially lower back) and virtually disappeared. It is a beautiful day, for a change, and I learned that on nice Sundays here, you should try to finish your ride by late morning, because that's when the retired couples come out to ride. They ride side-by-side, taking up the better part of the bike path, and sometimes they're so slow that they can't go in a straight line. So you're constantly calling out warnings, hoping that they move over in time. Sometimes, they do something unexpected almost causing an accident. This morning I was motoring on the left half of the bike path past an old guy who out of nowhere swerved well over into the left-lane. I could just avoid hitting him and a bad word came out of my mouth (it was one of these situations when the language comes out long before you can consider what words to use). Grandpa seemed to have something smart to say in return nonetheless. Still, overall a pretty nice day. 68 miles with an average of 19.3 or so.

Krauthammer on Palin

In today's Washington Post he suggests that this pick is exactly the opposite of what McCain needed because it is already putting the breaks on the momentum his campaign has created in the past month or two: through some questionable tactics (my view) the Republicans had succeeded in making the campaign about Obama: his background, his ideas, and his qualifications to be president. It was working. This choice by McCain will, Krauthammer argues, focus the debate on Palin's experience, her qualifications to be one heartbeat away from the Oval Office, and, most significantly, McCain's judgment. I think he's right. See also Andrew Sullivan, who after taking in all kinds of perspectives over the past 24 hours now seems to be settling on his own, final verdict.

Five Notable Things about This Morning's Ride

1. It was to return my mom's car, so I got two cups of coffee from my mom (nice, big, whole wheat cookie with each--I probably would have been kept to one when I was growing up, but I get the idea she's happy I'm back)
2. No wet roads, no rain--in fact, seven miles into the ride home, I got warm enough to take off the vest, and later the sun even came out (I jerk your beefaroni not)
3. Rode part of the course of this weekend's Almere Ironman, including the start-finish area with the gates and bleachers all set up; also saw several competitors exploring the courses (including the swim course)
4. The big Hollandse Brug was temporarily closed to bikes, so I had to take the special ferry. It slowed me down, but it was fun to be on the water
5. Coming off the ferry, I jumped on a passing moped (he had been on the ferry too). This is when I realized that I don't have legs. It should have been fairly comfortable, doing 30 behind the old guy's large coat, helmet, and saddle bags. But it was hard. Breathing the exhaust didn't make it any easier, but mainly I think the problem is that I haven't done this kind of riding in a while. I let him go after about a mile, maybe even less. I think I need more slow rides, and more rides where at times you have to turn your lungs inside out, switch off your brain, and push the legs to the point where they're about to fall off.

Just an average Sunday ride in Pittsburgh

The Leechburg ride, admittedly a good one even for Pittsburgh standards. It's hard to look at a graph like this from a flat place like Holland. My only choice is to become really good in fast, flat crits, so that the next time I ride with/race against privileged folks from places like Pittsburgh I'll be able to give them the kind of treatment Dutch racers have become known for in the States (remember Freddy Troost? Pelle Kil? Harm Jansen?). I know I'm really a climber, and I'm getting very old too, but my new cycling life starts Saturday, when I'll check out the weekly training ride of de Eendracht (Loenen)--the club "my" cardiologist also belongs to. Stay tuned.

My take on Obama's struggles in the polls

This week in the papers of the GDP (if you read Dutch)--Brabants Dagblad had it today:

http://www.brabantsdagblad.nl/algemeen/opinie/3610074/Obama-is-wel-toe-aan-een-oppepper.ece

Cable modems work in mysterious ways

So first I order the wrong internet service: they say it takes 2-3 weeks to hook up (long already) but when I call, it turns out to be five. I go to someone else; they come in a week. The modem won't turn on. The installation guys comes back the same day, can't get anything to go. The next day they call to see if anything has changed--it hasn't. The next day the repair guy comes, but he's powerless too. Today, the repair guy from the next level (with the extra fancy tools) shows up and determines there's something wrong with the part of the cable that's under the street in front of our house. He'll have to order the construction crew--maybe they can still come this week. He leaves, we're resigned (for the moment) to more waiting, more commuting to family computers in neighboring towns. Then I just happen to glance over at the modem, and suddenly all the little lights that should be burning are buring. And lo, I can initiate the modem from our computer and we're on-line IN OUR OWN HOUSE!! Mission accomplished within a month. If only customs would release our container...

A messed up Sunday ride

I've lived with an irregular heartbeat issue for a while now (known about it for eight years). As a cardiologist in Milwaukee explained after a battery of tests, it's wiring issue that can create a feedback loop to put your heart in overdrive. It's well-known, and since my first episode (on the Port Washington hill in July 2000--I rode home after it, Dave may remember chasing me down that day) I've only had two or three more, the last one three years ago (at the Wisconsin State Road Race in Spring Prairie). But today was another one, triggered the usual way (intensification of effort, in this case accelerating up the "Stichtse brug" near Huizen). On the way down I started to feel the symptoms: slight pressure on the chest, slightly more difficult breathing, and a loss of power and energy. I limped behind our little group for a few miles, then decided that it would be better to get off. Problem was, it was also pretty chilly (I hate Dutch summers!). Sitting down sweaty and a little cold to begin with made me even colder. We also had a doctor on the ride who suggested the same thing my cardiologist in Milwaukee had advised: if you're near an emergency room during an episode, see if you can get a EKG made because that will provide more precise information on the kind of wiring problem. There was a hospital not too far away, and we rode there doing about 15 m/h. When we got really close, however, we came upon a railroad crossing where a freight train was blocking the way. So we had to take a 10-15 minute detour, and at the end of it, I suddenly began to feel better--not great, but better. Stupid train. At the hospital, the machine didn't show any significant deviation any more, but they took me up to cardiac care anyway. When they took my temperature there, it was 35 centigrade, a good two degrees below normal (and this was after I had been inside for 15 minutes or so). No wonder I felt crappy on the way in. The cardiologist who came to see me turned out to be a bike racer too. He confirmed the story from my Milwaukee cardiologist (and mentioned a race for September 7--which I will not enter) and thought it good to do a new series of test, just in case we can get more information. I doubt if there will be anything significant, given the way I beat up on myself on a regular basis, virtually always without any problems. I felt good under the hospital blanket, also because the nurse had gotten me a cappuchino (Dutch health care!). And it was nice to meet another bike racer, in spite of the unusal circumstances. What wasn't so nice is that this thing screwed up our Sunday ritual, less than five miles from the habitual coffee with apple pie. I'll have to make it up to the guys.

Fukuyama adds a perspective

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/opinions/?nid=top_opinions

His piece isn't really about the way states are now likely to interact, but one particular passage does add an angle I had not included in my previous post. After discussing the various dictatorships in today's world (and their differences), he concludes:

"All of this makes our world both safer and more dangerous. It is safer because the self-interest of the great powers is very much tied to the overall prosperity of the global economy, limiting their desire to rock the boat. But it is more dangerous because capitalist autocrats can grow much richer and therefore more powerful than their communist counterparts. And if economic rationality does not trump political passion (as has often been the case in the past) the whole system's interdependence means that everyone will suffer."

Its how "globalization" cuts two ways (at least): on the one hand, countries with different histories, worldviews, and systems of government are increasingly forced to interact (or: clash), on the other, growing economic interdependence places limits (not absolute, as F also mentions) on the extent of the acrimony.

The many layers of "Georgia"

I'm preparing for three courses this fall: The Global Cold War and the Making of our Times; Cold War Crises (in Dutch); and Germany between East and West in the Time of Stalin, 1923-1953 (not sure what language). The Georgia crisis is relevant for all in ways that are too numerous to discuss in a single post. How the crisis can be connected to the Cold War (and how it came out) I've discussed already, but one element has struck me in particular. Reading a long string of op-eds (for example by Mikhail Gorbachev and foreign minister Segei Lavrov), it has become even more clear to me now how Russians of all stripes have felt humiliated by the defeat in the Cold War, the disintegration of the Soviet/Russian empire, and by the way the West has expanded its influence. Many Westerners believe this last element should not irritate Russia, as it's not meant as traditional power politics or as directed against Russia. But we've learned by now that what we in the West view as benevolent change--even necessary reform of international politics (the creation of more open societies and their integration with a larger, collaborative international "order"), to Russia(ns) actually represents a threat. Same for China. Given the importance of these two powers, and other, even less benign regimes around the world, those who assume that the way the West has evolved in the last half-century (exemplified by European and Atlantic integration, and its expansion) can and should be the model for the rest of the world will have to rethink. Not that a new world order on this model would not be an improvement, and not that we should not try to maintain it as a goal, but it's just not going to happen in our lifetimes. Why? Mostly, it seems, because for this to progress, you need genuine, stable democracies. We thought we were getting one in Russia, but instead (as explained in last week's excellent Economist three-pager) we're getting an increasingly nationalist, corporatist, expansionist Russian state, one most Russians do not seem to oppose. We may think China is on the right path, but that may be wishful thinking also. Perhaps there are ways Westerners can promote the growth of democracy in dictatorships such as these two, but it appears that at best we can tinker a little on the margins. Which takes us back to good old power politics as at least as important a factor in international relations as the many celebrated, but perhaps not as influential forms of "soft power."

Cycling as transportation

This is how you can get time on the bike if you're busy. Holland is both an excellent place for this, and a bad one. It's good because it's extremely bike-friendly, with lots of bike paths--not just alongside major roads, but also all by themselves, away from the cars, out in the country or alongside waterways. Earlier this week I rode into Amsterdam from our new (old) hometown of Nederhorst den Berg for the first time. It was on my brother's three speed city bike (heavy, fat tires, with the seat a little too low, and not enough gears), wearing my regular street clothes, and it was a wet, windy day. All the way to my building in the city it must be about 15 miles, which took me about an hour each way. The route was the good part, aside from the fact that I got two hours on the bike: along the Vecht river and through the fields to Weesp, and from there on a bikes-only path straight to Amsterdam along the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal (a small "climb" along the way as you get across on a bike lane they built when the built a new railroad bridge a few years back--imagine that: when you build a piece of traffic infrastructure, you also accomodate bikes). You basically reach the city at the edge of the old eastern dock area (transformed during my time in the States into a cool-looking residential neighborhood), and there you're less than two miles from the Central train station. Even once you're within Amsterdam city limits, there are hardly any stops (at least no lights or other obstacles I can't get around), so it's just a nice, mostly traffic-free, hour-long ride. I did get wet on the way home, but wait until the old green/yellow Trek gets here, and I'll do it in 45 minutes. The next day, I got to pick up my mom's car, because she's going on a short vacation (on her bike, of course [it's actually her first cycling vacation in a long, long time]). She lives about 30 miles away, in the newest new land, ("polder") we have here. Her town, Zeewolde, was founded about 25 years ago. As I took the bike out, there was a intense but short rain shower, but after it passed I made it over to her house without getting rained on (roads were mostly wet, though, and it was a good thing I had brought my little clip-on fender). Even though I was riding the Klein in my IS-Corp outfit, I didn't push it, as it was early in the morning and a fairly short ride. But again, pretty country roads and paths, including a long bike path along the Gooimeer. Tailwind to boot, and I just beat the next shower to my mom's, averaging just under 20 m/h. It's not racing, but it's certainly riding.

One thing I should have taken advantage of more while in Milwaukee

Getting my butt out of bed on Saturday morning and head over to Transition for a Doc ride.

Swimming in the Spiegelplas

This is another great benefit connected to living in Nederhorst den Berg (one of the others being that it's only 15-20 miles from downtown Amsterdam, and yet completely separate). It's also something that connects me directly to my youth, because growing up, I also lived here (1971-1983) while my parents remained until 1989. I've spent countless hours in or on this lake. We used to have sailboats, and there was a time I'd spent just about every free minute at the marina or on the lake. I also used to frequent a small beach--currently a ten-minute walk from our house. The lake was created by decades of pumping sand out of it, and in places it's more than 50 yards deep. It has a connection to a neighboring river, but it's mostly self-contained and thanks to its proximity to a nature preserve also very clean. I used to swim at the marina, or simply off our boats, but my best swimming memories are of going to the little beach at the end of the day with our dog and a waterpolo ball. With the ball in between my arms (just in case I'd need a flotation device, out there all by myself) I'd swim across and back, sometimes throwing the ball ahead of me and chasing it down. The dog, meanwhile, would patrol the little beach for snack items left behind by day-time users. Since our arrival, we've been there twice, although I haven't made it across yet. This weekend is pretty nice, so I'm thinking we may head down to the beach again tomorrow.
This isn't much of cycling or Cold War posting, but you've got to respect your readers.

Riding in Holland

At least in my part, it's very flat. This can easily lead to the same kind of riding, in the same position, with the same cadence, for an entire ride. The result is often a painful back and lazy legs. So you have to use the tools handed to you by traffic enigneers (things like roundabouts, viaducts, tunnels), other bikepath traffic, and the weather (mostly wind) to keep it lively. I try to use every slowdown enforced by traffic furniture as an opportunity to get out of the saddle and quickly accelerate back to my old pace--or a little faster. (This I learned the hard way as a novice to the sport in the 1980s, trying to ride with my cycling mentor Thijs, an ex-amateur of some repute). Same after passing slow bicyclists on the narrow bikepaths, which happens frequently. Every viaduct and tunnel I use to get out of the saddle also, maybe shift to a bigger gear, and stand up the entire way, preferably accelerating at the same time. If you hear a moped coming up from behind, check its speed and see if you can't jump on its wheel, if only for a little ways. The wind you can use to simulate hills: get in a gear that's a little too big and just make yourself turn it over. Last night, on the Wednesday ride, the three of us integrated this kind of stuff into our ride, thereby creating a pretty good interval workout. There was the bridge over the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal (the canal that connects Amstedam with the Rhine river, or Waal, as it's called once its main branch enters the country) at Breukelen. Then a tunnel-viaduct combination at Niewer-ter-Aar, followed a little later by a headwind section just before Vinkeveen. Riding the tailwind through Vinkeveen we got on a moped, which upped our speed from about 24 to 28 (close to the end of the road, I briefly pretended the moped was our lead-out man). And crossing the canal again at Loenersloot, we did our final hard effort. (If you don't know this region near the Vecht river, just go to Google Maps, and look for Nederhorst den Berg, our new hometown--this will also prepare you for a future visit).

It's always all about oil

A faithful reader sent me the following about a McCain adviser:
"Scheunemann, a bearded, pear-faced gun geek who looks like what might have happened to a GI Joe doll if it had spent years stuffing its face at pricey restaurants while power-schmoozing politicians and petty dictators, also worked for recently-disgraced Bush fundraiser Stephen Payne, lobbying for his Caspian Alliance oil business. The Caspian oil pipeline runs through Georgia, the main reason that country has tugged the heartstrings of neocons and oil plutocrats for at least a decade or more." http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/ames
Oil always seem to come into everything, certainly for the "it's all economics" crowd over at The Nation (the quote actually comes from my wife's grandmother, an immigrant from Russia and a life-long communist who late in life cheered on Khrushchev in front of the t.v. during the latter's visit to the United States). Oil is relevant here, but it's only one element. Making it the thing that explains everything would be committing the fallacy of always explaining the world with the U.S. at the center. And we can turn it around also, namely by arguing that precisely because of Russia's clout on the oil and gas market, especially vis-a-vis Europe, and lately certainly also because of Putin's gangster-like behavior (go ask, for example, in Estonia, Ukraine, Poland, and, of course, Georgia) it is just common sense to find outlets for the energy resources around the Caspian Sea for which the Kremlin does not control the switch. Let's also give the Georgians credit for their efforts--imperfect, to be sure--to establish the foundations of an open society on the rubble of the Soviet era. Finally, oil really wouldn't matter so much if we in the West, especially the U.S., weened ourselves off it. This would indeed involve a change in our way of life, but a change is gonna come anyway. A change could have come after the first oil shocks of the 1970s, but (except perhaps for countries like Denmark--see T. Friedman's columns, last week) we chose carry on pretty much as usual.
At the request of another faithful reader, I will make my next post about the Wednesday ride (as in cycling)--about to begin, in spite of the howling wind and in defiance of the chance for showers.

Russia, Georgia, the West, and the Cold War

The Cold War was its own thing, and it's really over, but it is still a recent epoch, and as a result we hear echoes all the time. The other day, Vladimir Putin referenced (imprecisely) the U.S. habit during the Cold War of supporting anti-communist thugs in Latin America. Putin's aim was to say that the West may have hoped to do the same with Georgia's current leader, but that this is not the Cold War any more. One of several historical imprecisions here is that during the Cold War the West rarely, if ever, protected any leader in Moscow's sphere of influence, but this doesn't mean that Putin's reference to the Cold War (and how the conflict came out) isn't deeply meaningful. His statement (and a big chunk of the way Russia has handled Georgia the past decade or so) emerges directly from the way the Cold War came out (the Soviet Union lost, and it fell apart) and the way the victorious West, especially the United States, has dealt with Russia and the newly independent states since. Russia has felt doubly humiliated: by the loss of the Soviet empire, and by the way the West has embraced the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The West (EU, NATO) is doing it for the right reasons, but that doesn't make it right in Russia's eyes. In Russian eyes, NATO and EU enlargement are anti-Russian policies, "encirclement," and not a few people in Eastern Europe would say that's exactly right--and quite necessary to boot. I don't want to commit the fallacy (all too common still in analyses of world events) of blaming everthing in the world on the West in general and the U.S. in particular. Most, if not all of the blame for the current shooting goes to Georgia, Russia, and the South Ossetian fighters, and the reasons behind it are complex. And I don't think we should cut Putin (speaking of thugs) any slack either for the way he has reasserted Russia's international position and suppressed domestic dissent. (The West has a role, of course, and it's certainly necessary to evaluate it critically.) All I'm doing, I suppose, is argue that the Cold War indeed continues to be the pre-history of our own time. For someone who is getting ready to teach a couple of courses on the Cold War this fall, perhaps that's acceptable.

Why The Economist is indispensable

Just got this week's issue today. Haven't read anything yet (instead I've been learning about the Dutch health care system, which has been interesting; they also delivered our washer and dryer, and I made an appointment to go see the immigration service folks to apply for a residency permit for the wife--at some point I need to start thinking about the Cold War again), but the cover alone is worth the price: "Speaking Truth to Power" over Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's picture. Other than that--and in case anyone thinks I'm just in bureaucratic hell--let me report on the Saturday ride with Olaf. It was just the two of us, he half-wheeled me the entire, beautiful way to Oudewater (Breukelen, Portengen, Haarzuilens, Harmelen, Montfoort, Polsbroekerdam) where we had coffee and apple pie right downtown this pretty old city. The coffeeshop's terrace was over a small canal, with (very) old houses all around, only a few other visitors, and preciously few cars. I felt a little better on the way home (Woerden, Kanis, Wilnis, Vinkeveen, Baambrugge, Loenersloot, Vreeland), and yesterday did my first ride in Holland that wasn't a coffee ride.

Beijing smog; Friedman columns

Most people who know about this stuff believe that the global climate crisis is a lot more serious than even concerned folks in the developed world are willing to accept. _Accepting_ [am using a weird keyboard--for me] means significantly changing the way you live your life, which we're not doing in the West--not in so-called enlightened Western Europe, and certainly not in the U.S. There are changes, but it's too tepid, too slow. Meanwhile, newly rich and developing countries don't seem to take their cues from the way the West has industrialized and post-industrialized but instead seem to be going down the same path (i.e. first get really dirty and wasteful, and only then get worried about the effects and begin to change). See the Beijing smog saga of this summer; see also a report (I forget where I saw it recently) on how a newly proseprous, Western country like Poland (yes, it's all relative) seems mostly unaware of things like environmentalism in general, and something like recycling in particular. Of course, there are counterforces, and sometimes certain events trigger disproportionate reactions. I'm not talking about the columns Thomas Friedman is penning from Greenland at the moment, even though yesterday's piece was particularly troubling and Friedman on the whole deserves credit for his relentless current focus on the problem. But maybe the endless stream of images from Beijing (I mean the smog, not the Olympic festivities) will cause people around the world to make a few connections. Something has to, if I believe the experts, and it has to happen soon.

Yesterday we got the (Manchester) Guardian

Which was interesting and not entirely useless. It did have an awful column (almost a page long--I didn't recognize the author's name and can't remember it) on the occasion of the Hiroshima anniversary, but it also had Anne Applebaum's excellent rememberance of Alexandr Soltshenitsyn and a sensible editoral on Iran. The day after the WSJ scoop, it also reported on Sadr's apparent strategy shift in Iraq. Still, giving the better part of an opinion page to such a terribly one-sided, anti-American and anti-Israel diatribe is a bad sign. But we'll get it again, some time, just to get a better sense, just to be on firmer ground to criticize, just in case.

The Presidential Race Now, from Holland

You can get the Herald Tribune here, and the European Wall Street Journal, although purchasing them at the newsstand every day will probably be too expensive. But until we get back on line at home they'll have to do, together with several other international papers. That's one great thing about Amsterdam: you can get your reading materials from all over the world fresh, daily. Relying on just the Dutch media won't do: there's not enough regular coverage, and it's not all good. About the race: how can it be so close? There's something one could talk about to local observers, many of whom seem to think an Obama victory is virtually assured. Part of the answer (as I wrote for the GDP papers last month) is that McCain has indeed gone negative now. Other reasons will have to wait, because at my Amsterdam coffeeshop I just get a warning that there's just 90 seconds of internet time left.

Orderly Holland

One of the first things that always strikes me arriving in Holland from the U.S. is how orderly things are here. That's both a good thing and a somewhat confining thing. You feel it in your interactions with most people (even though everyone has been extremely nice, welcoming, and helpful) and you notice it everywhere in your physical surroundings. It's not a criticism of either the U.S. or Holland, just one way in which you see this major difference between these cultures manifested (simplified: individualism in the U.S. and the constant attention to the common good over here). On the bike: lots of little roundabouts, intersections, bikepaths, and other potential hazards. It's fine.