Meeting the Challenge in 2020

Strava put up a nice piece on how athletes adapted to the constraints of COVID-19 in 2020, and it's an interesting read. The thing is, somewhere in my early 30s (I'm in my mid-60s now) it hit me that it's no one else's job to keep you fit and healthy. If you want that for yourself you better learn to be selfish and make that time, because nobody else is going to make it for you. 

I upped my game a LOT in 2020, setting a ton of new PBs since retiring in SoCal, more than doubling my mileage in 2020. A big part of that was being able to do much longer rides after buying new wheels and finding the truly wonderful Conti GP5K TL tubeless tires, which do an excellent job of shaking off all the cactus needles and goat-heads here in the high desert that used to ruin my rides all the time. 

Part of it was buying better bib shorts, and now tights, so I can ride those miles, and part of it was going back to a solid seat from one with the center cut out (YMMV, but for me the extra surface area combined with better chamois did the trick). 

I also found new, remote routes, found ways and places to relieve my bladder without going into enclosed places, minimizing the time inside closed places, carrying a mask with me for when I was inside a bathroom or stopped getting water inside, and finally, just finding hydration that didn't require going into enclosed spaces. 

The political horror show that was POTUS Trump and the gut-wrenching, grim toll of COVID were also motivation to get out there and burn off some angst. Finally, as friends and loved ones were slowed due to age and disease my gratitude for being  healthy enough to do lots of long rides got me out the door on days I might have otherwise stayed home. 

For 2021 I think I'm going to up my climbing a bit, and maybe even ride fewer miles. I'd like to spend more time with my wife and our dogs, one of which is a working dog and needs a LOT of exercise to stay happy and healthy. At a certain age you stop taking loved ones for granted, because in a 55+ community people keep disappearing every week, and it drives home the point that tomorrow is promised to no one. 

Get Some!

Riding in the age of COVID-19

One of my favorite destinations is the Apple Valley Airport, which currently requires face-masks, which I cannot wear while riding, so I can carry one in my jersey pocket, or stay outside. The Cafe is open again, and while I love having it there, in spite of copious signage now making masks mandatory, this common-sense measure is being universally ignored, so I have been looking for ways to mitigate my risk when at the airport.

1st, I started rolling up to one of the two covered picnic tables behind the building, well down-wind of the cafe, depending on wind direction. I stop long enough to catch my breath and take a couple of good long pulls off my waterbottles in anticipation of refilling them inside from the water cooler, which has bottled water on tap.

2nd, after catching my breath, usually early in the morning, sitting in the sun, letting mother nature's UV rays kill CVID-19 and everything else, I roll inside though the back doors, pass the entrance to the cafe, and tank up.

3rd, I roll the bike down a long hallway to the bathrooms, relieve my bladder, and wash my hands thoroughly, and then leave promptly. Clean hands are a must when eating my rice-puck with my fingers, so I prop the door open with a door stop and keep my right hand clean as I exit, using my left to operate the door.

 Adaptation:

I noticed, new, more aggressive signage yesterday, stating in no uncertain terms that masks were required. Nobody was wearing them, and I forgot  mine. (distracted by a sore knee, which required adding a leg-warmer over my L knee to keep it warm in the morning cold) Turns out there's a BBQ area 100ft or so downwind of the main building with seating for ~ 50, AND, it has running hot and cold water in a stainless steel sink with a plumbed drain.

Sink with running H&C water in deep background

I was able to re-wash my hands, and rinse them as well after eating my rice. It got me thinking though, most days, if I carried a small amount of soap I could skip the trip indoors entirely! I might have to water the cactus discretely somewhere down the road, but there isn't much out there anyway, so no problem. Like so many aspects of social behavior post-COVID-19, safety seems more important than a discrete pee on the side of a dusty rural road.

So now I've talked myself into a requirement to carry a small bit of anti-bacterial soap. Not to worry, I repurposed a spray bottle of nasal saline, which holds ~ 1oz AFAICT (the label came off in the dishwasher)

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, or in this case, GU

So going forward, I think I'll just dig this bit of soap out of my saddle bag, wash my hands & faucet at the sink in the BBQ area, eat, drink, be merry (or tired), wash the sticky from the rice off my fingers, fill my waterbottle and move on. If I remember my mask and there's bottled water inside, maybe a quick trip through the lobby to refill and then straight out the door again. Limiting indoor time is critical to limiting exposure, which goes up 500+ fold sans sunlight and a cleansing breeze.

Skydiving for COVID-19

I'm a numbers guy, and always have been. One of the things I learned to do while writing statistical software for Wall St banks is compare statistics to each other to get a better idea of the scale of things. For example, what the US spends on defense is almost exactly our trade deficit. There's no cause and effect there, but it helps one understand the relative scale of these two things.

Skydiving, or bungee jumping, which have about the same risk, gives you 6 chances in a million of dying per jump. So what about COVID-19?

Looking at COVID-19 deaths in the US it struck me that my state, California, which has so far experienced 95 deaths per million people is much better (by no means the best) than NY, NJ, CT, RI which are well over 1,000 chances per million, AKA greater than 1/1000 chance you've already died, and we're only 4 months into this. So what about the future?

I ask this because the USN's "death ship" aircraft carrier has been reporting sailors who had COVID-19 have gotten it again, and this is also being reported by China and European countries. This means NO "Herd Immunity". Like the common cold, the flu, SARs, etc, there's no vaccine because the virus keeps mutating, rendering last year's vaccine useless.

We've already lost more dead to COVID-19 than the Vietnam War, WW-I, Korea and all but WW-II and the US Civil War, but again, we're only 4 months into this. I love liberty as much or more as any other American, but given the risk, and thinking about projecting this out 10, 20, 50, 100 years, we're being complete idiots in managing this risk. If I can trade a loss of privacy for another 20yrs of life, I'm in. Privacy loss is a theoretical threat. COVID-19 is real, present, and urgent.

Lets assume the virus doesn't mutate to make a vaccine useless, as this might happen. We might get lucky. Lets assume it takes 24 months to get a vaccine, so 6X as long as we've been fighting this battle so far. In "bad" places like NY, NJ we're running at a rate of 300 per million people per month, so in 24 months, 7,200 per million. That's more than 1,000 TIMES as deadly as sky-diving.

Assuming people can develop an immunity to COVID-19, but to do so everyone would have to get infected, we'd lose 6% of 350 million people, so 21 MILLION people. That's more than the ENTIRE population of New York.

We have no assurance that a vaccine is even possible. We have no idea what 'Herd Immunity" means for a mortality rate going forward. Other than social distancing, N-95 masks, improving ER techniques, bleach, alcohol, and anti-bacterial soap, most of which have been employed while the current statistics formed, we're pretty much defenseless.

The really bracing fact is, if we stay in the conditions we've been in for the last 4 months, COVID-19 over time will kill a large percentage of humanity. We won't be a planet of 8 billion people, we'll be a planet of 1 billion, or maybe less. With stone-age transportation, The Plague killed 60% of Europe's population. Given Earth's current population, that's almost 5 BILLION dead - and that's assuming stone-age transportation.

Think about it. Our response to date has been absurdly caviler.

COVID-19: Killing me softly with Far UVC

The human race has been taking some heavy hits the last 2 months from COVID-19, but we have bigger brains, so FINALLY, some good news. Researchers at Columbia University have spent the last 7 years working on a new spectrum of UV light that kills pathogens, but doesn't damage human skin nor eyes. They're calling it Far UVC, and it's really ingenious. There's also an industrial-scale working product already for sale, called Care222 (222nm is the wavelength of UVC). Didn't I tell you that sunlight kills EVERYTHING?

Scientists have known for decades that germicidal UV light (wavelength around 254 nm) has the capacity to kill viruses and bacteria. Hospitals and laboratories often use germicidal UV light to sterilize unoccupied rooms, as well as other equipment. But conventional germicidal UV light cannot be used in the presence of people as it can cause health problems to the skin and eyes.

In contrast, Far-UVC light, which has a very short wavelength (in the range from about 205 to 230 nm), cannot reach or damage living human cells. But these wavelengths can still penetrate and kill very small viruses and bacteria floating in the air or on surfaces.

Far-UVC lamps are now in production by several companies, although ramping up to large-scale production, as well as approval by the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency, will take several months. At between $500 and $1000 per lamp, the lamps are relatively inexpensive, and once they are mass produced the prices would likely fall, Brenner said.

As for me, I'm getting my radiation the old fashion way putting in another 120+ mile week, while finding excuses not to do a video of how to wrap brake cable with wire so you can fish it through internally routed frames. (did I say that out loud? :O)

Also, finally, I got some cable sheathing, so I'll do a review of all that and show that method of routing cables through frames too.

Smile, there's hope for humanity after all! 

Cheers!

Sunlight Kills COVID-19 in THREE Minutes!

UPDATE: 9/24/2020

Sneezes and coughs are aerosols, and in full sunlight, in pretty cool conditions, even in dry climates (it was 80-90 degrees here yesterday, and over 90 today) sunlight kills COVID-19 in 1.5 minutes. Public drinking fountains have been kept sanitary by full sunlight for centuries, because sunlight, with enough exposure, kills EVERYTHING.

After 9/11 a govt lab was set up at DHS, the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center lab (say that three times fast), to test for biological weapons. They've done some preliminary testing on COVID-19. It's unclassified - but for official use only. SMH. WTF!?! So I want to emphasis the great officialness of this use!

I should point out that contrary to my last post's speculation, HIGHER humidity, not lower, kills COVID-19 faster, but nothing like sunlight's 3 minutes.

Anyway, here's the link to the PDF file. Sunlight kills COVID-19 to undetectable levels in ~ 3 minutes in full sunlight. Here in the high desert we're beyond "Full Sunlight", but the study includes definitions for Full, Half, and Quarter sun, so you don't have to guess without some guidance.

AFAICT, based on Weather Underground's real-time reporting of solar energy during the day, we have ~ 125% of sea level sunlight here at 3,000ft, although irradiance depends heavily on the exact wavelength of light. Shorter, higher energy wavelengths are not screened out as well by Earth's atmosphere as longer wavelengths are.

Simultaneously taken measurements of solar irradiance with high resolution spectrometers at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany (730 m a.s.l.) and Wank (1730 m a.s.l.), horizontally separated by 5 km, show a clear wavelength dependence of the altitude effect of the global irradiance: 9% per 1000 m at 370 nm increasing to 11% per 1000 m at 320 nm and 24% per 1000 m at 300 nm. The altitude effect of direct irradiance is considerably higher than that of global irradiance at all measured wavelengths.

Heat & Humidity reduce 18 hrs of required kill time indoors substantially - to less than 1hr at 60% RH and 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Note that some airline cabins are sterilized by UV-C lamps, a wavelength screened almost 100% by our atmosphere. UV-C kills almost immediately as air is channeled past a long irradiating tube, so air travel in that case should be safe WHILE IN THE AIRCRAFT.

Of interest to me, age plays a huge role in mortality, doubling twice between 60 and 89.

Worth mentioning at this point that I tried in vain a couple of days ago to ride while covering my mouth with my Turtle Fur balaclava, my lightest one, and was gasping for breath in 2 miles while sweating profusely in 80 degree weather. Knowing that sunlight kills COVID-19 in a few minutes, I will ride on sunny days with no face covering in remote places, bringing along a neck gaiter to cover my face if indoors.

Please do read the full report in the linked PDF file. It's quite helpful and short.

Stay safe, but get some!

Social Distancing for Athletes

I am thrilled that others are starting to address the question of social distancing when exercising, especially where aerodynamics and drafting dramatically affect outcomes.

As cited in the above-linked article, published in Cycling News....

"In the absence of headwind, tailwind and cross-wind, for walking fast at 4 km/h, this distance is about 5 meters, and for running at 14.4 km/h , this distance is about 10 meters. Further work should consider the effect of headwind, tailwind and cross-wind, and different droplet spectra"

 Four things about this interest me.

1. 10 meters is ~ 30ft, which is more distance than the 20ft I recommended in my last post.
2. The distance to speed ratio decreases with speed, as 4km/h requires 5 meters distance, but 14.4km/h requires only 10 meters, not 18 meters, as 5/4ths of 14.4 would imply.
3. Humidity is expected to influence distance. (5 micron droplets have a lot of surface area for their internal volume)  
4. Transmission is heavily dependent on droplets for propagation, and being 5 microns, 2X the size of PM2.5, is why masks and HEPA filters will trap most of a COVID-19 viral load.

 The virus itself might be much smaller (btw, smaller particles are caught by diffusion), but the droplet it depends on to infect you will get trapped in ANY HEPA filter.

From Wikipedia...

 Filters meeting the HEPA standard must satisfy certain levels of efficiency. Common standards require that a HEPA air filter must remove—from the air that passes through—at least 99.95% (European Standard)^[4] or 99.97% (ASME, U.S. DOE)^[5][6] of particles whose diameter is equal to 0.3 μm; with the filtration efficiency increasing for particle diameters both less than and greater than 0.3 μm.^[7] See the Mechanism and Specifications sections for more information.

COVID-19 droplets are 5.0 micros in size

Again, cross-winds will sweep pathogens away between athletes, but head-winds and tail-winds will not. To point #2 above, I believe it is the amount of air mixed with breath and dispersion of air into a much larger body of air that result in a flattening of the curve as speed increases, where speed is your speed added to the wind's speed. Obviously, speed also reduces your time of exposure, limiting how much viral load you can absorb.Tail-winds are probably the worst of cross, head, tail, because it holds you in the contamination cloud the longest.

When riding alone in a tail-wind and encountering a group riding in a head-wind, remember you will be in their cloud for some time, especially if they are observing ~ 20 meters (65ft) of social distancing at 18-20mph. To mitigate your exposure consider holding your breath for a few seconds. With a closure rate of 35mph (50fp/s) you'll need ~ 1 second for each rider you pass in a paceline, assuming it's a pure headwind. Any crosswind component will reduce this requirement.


When stopped, whether riding alone or in a group, consider stopping on a side street or road where other groups are unlikely to encounter you when riding.

For cycling groups I would recommend breaking into groups of 3, and only regrouping at rest stops, being careful to keep a cross-wind between riders when stopped. Riding in large pacelines of a dozen or more seems reckless given what we now know.

One question I have not been able to answer is what happens to the COVID-19 virus/s in a droplet when the droplet dries up in the wind? I suspect that a mucus droplet protects and sustains the virus and when it dries up COVID-19 immediately starts to degrade and is more vulnerable to deadly UV rays, but I haven't been able to confirm this yet. 

Please be safe, but do get out there and ride to stay healthy. COVID-19 kills by taking your breath away, so keep those lungs and heart healthy!.

Got Balaclava?

Balaclava As N-95 Mask:

I was just reading the new dose of sanity - that ppl should wear mouth, nose & face protection when in public in the US. To that end I just wanted to remind everyone, if you have a balaclava, you have the best possible face mask. There's no leakage around the edges, because there are no edges. A balaclava covers your entire face & neck.

I have both the Barrier and the Thermal  Pearl Izumi balaclavas, but in warm temps I prefer the Turtle Fur balaclava. Wash in anti-bacterial soap containing BENZALKONIUM CHLORIDE, or soak in alcohol, or probably, just leave out in the sun for 4-6hrs.

If you are headed for a high-risk situation you can't avoid, like taking someone to or picking them up from a hospital, you can tape a HEPA filter vacuum cleaner bag over the mouth with duct tape.

I suppose a cotton balaclava would be best, but that wouldn't be at all warm, so guessing nobody has ever made one. I guess you could boil it to shrink to fit tighter, but if there's any kind of elastic in it boiling it will ruin it. Ditto for bleaching.

Turtle Fur Balaclava

When I ride, and I DID ride, ~ 100 miles last week, you can pull the hole down under your chin for unobstructed breathing. If you stop to talk to someone, pull the mouth cover up, and keep the wind blowing BETWEEN you, so whatever comes out of your mouth or their gets blown away by the wind.

If you ride in a group you'll be inhaling the breath of everyone in front of you UNLESS you have a crosswind. I'd RX a min of 20ft of distance between riders if riding in a group, and practice rigourous pace-line rotation to min the risk. When in front you should be in clean, sterile air. Not so much the further back you go. Line up to get a crosswind between everyone when stopped.

Up here at ~ 3,000ft the sun is roughly 30% more intense, so that and a strong, dry wind make it hard for any micro-organism propagated in a water droplet to last long, but the best protection for me as a rider is there are plenty of places to ride where you won't see a living soul, or perhaps one just in passing.

When passing a rider, assuming a closure rate of 30-40mph, that's  ~ 50ft/sec, so you'd be in a "danger zone" for ~ 1/10th of a second. You aren't going to get much of a viral load in a tenth of a second, and if you and they are healthy enough to be out riding at that pace, not much chance of infecting each other with ANYTHING.

This is more true when there's a crosswind, because then the "window" is narrower than 5-6ft. With head or tail winds you might want to hold your breath for a few seconds just as you pass, but still a very tiny chance of getting infected by anything.

Cologne As a Distancing Indicator:

I was riding down Apple Valley Rd here and came up behind a ped up-wind of me in a 25mph wind who was wearing a ton of cologne. It occurred to me that if you can smell someone's cologne or perfume you're probably getting too close. I did, for about 5 seconds but the wind still mixed a lot of fresh air with his breath.

Do consider wearing cologne when on a group ride, and explain the logic of it to the rest of the group. This idea could be a break-thru in public health. Maybe someone in the group could bring a spray-on bottle to share. Rotate that duty.

Be safe, and exercise to stay healthy!

PS:
Dead Wrong about no cotton balaclavas. Tons of them out there - some as cheap as $3.00. Just Google it. This will scare the crap out of the kids!

Cotton Balaclava from Amazon

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Killing COVID-19

In my last post I made a claim that BENZALKONIUM CHLORIDE probably kills COVID-19. I am happy to report that I have found solid confirmation of this claim by the Canadian Government.


Benzalkonium Chloride kills COVID-19. It's found in most common antibacterial soaps. This was also very interesting to me, confirming that corona viruses are actually EASY to kill. 

Coronaviruses are enveloped viruses. This means they are one of the easiest viruses to kill with the appropriate disinfectant product when used according to the label directions.

Walmart's house brand Anti-bacterial soap - also  kills COVID-19

Note that hydrogen Peroxide (typically a 3% bleaching agent), "bleach" (sodium hypochlorite), alcohol and the ingredients in Clorox's disinfectant wipes are in the list too. Usually, a 50% solution of Ethanol (not commonly found, except at drug stores) is as effective as 60% Isopropyl alcohol, so look for ethanol if isopropyl isn't available. Bacardi 151 should work beautifully! :)

 Chlorhexidine gluconate also kills COVID-19. Worth noting here, chlorhexidine gluconate has a wonderful property, unlike most items on this list which kill almost everything on contact, it soaks into your skin and continues to kill for up to 4 hours - which makes it my favorite road-rash soap.Walgreens sells my favorite version of this soap as it's cheaper and smells better.