There is lots of advice out there on how to build a logo. One of the best blog posts I’ve read on the subject is on David Airey’s blog. 

To help kick off this logo I decided to have some fun with the images below. Thought it might make you all chuckle. If you want to do this to your own images I recommend checking out Dumpr.

Ride stats today

• 129 miles
• Fins to South Paris; completing 10 Degrees Latitude
• Our most gorgeous bike day yet, a suitable end to an amazing journey
• 0 sheep, 5 buguettes, 2 barets
• 2 huge smiles and cigars at the end

Our journey took us 14 days of biking and 1 day of swimming across the English Channel. This works out to be 1000 miles on bike and 25 miles in the water. It was gorgeous, stunning territory, and the good thing about traveling as we did was that we really got to enjoy the countryside, see the people and smell the smells (most were good).

We have so many people to thank. Our support crew made our adventure possible. Our bike crew (Flora and Bob), our swim crew (Tricia, Amy, Flora, Laura, Dave, Teresa, and the entire Ocean Breeze crew) and our home crew (Michelle, Andrew, Ava and Joshua) were awesome. Our Cadence Cycling coach Mike Kuehn was super supportive. Our sponsors are all amazing people. Everyone treated us so well through the entire journey.

Here are some parting pictures from our final days in Paris. We took our final pictures at the Arc de Triomphe. A fitting end to a stunning journey.

In mid/late December we finally got everything sorted out with a great sponsor – Gu Sports. We met one of their superstars, Holly Bennett at Interbike, and she’s been nothing but fantastic ever since. I have been a fan of Gu energy gels since I first started in triathlons almost 10 years ago, so Neal and I made a concerted effort at the trade show to seek them out and try and get them onboard. Gu has been extremely generous to us, and we couldn’t be happier to have them as a sponsor. Most people know them for their gels, but you have to try the GU2O. It’s got a much lighter and less syrupy flavor than Gatorade or Powerade, which is why I like it. It goes down much easier during a long workout. I’m normally a lemon-lime guy, but to be honest, not so much with GU2O. Although it’s growing on me. Right now Raspberry is what gets me through.

What’s your brand/flavor of choice? Post a comment and let us know!

Read the NPR article
Listen to NPR audio

Or better yet, listen to it right here.

In other (more germane) news. Adam and I swam some nice yardage today and tried out our brand-new Tyr swim trunks and Tyr Mentor hand paddles. Tip to all you swimmers out there — hand paddles make you feel like Phelps. I recommend them to anyone. They turn any swimmer into a rock star. And boy do they make your shoulders hurt.

We’re excited to announce a great commitment of support from a cycling industry heavyweight. Profile Design has jumped on board and we couldn’t be happier. Even if you only have a cursory knowledge of the cycling industry, you no doubt have seen Profile Design products in action. They truly hold a dominant market position in almost every product area they touch. They put extensive efforts behind product development, and craft some of the most light-weight aerodynamic components you can put on your bike.

I had a few conversations with the fine people at Profile Design throughout the summer, and finally had the opportunity to meet with them face-to-face during the Interbike show. I was very impressed with their professionalism and the attention to detail they put into the most minuscule aspects of their components. They have a first rate organization, and so for me it was clear that this was the type of company that I wanted 10 Degrees of Latitude to be associated with. They felt the same way, and the relationship was formed. I look forward to reviewing a lot of their product offerings and giving you the straight scoop on the good the bad and the ugly.

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Speed = a measure of the velocity of the bike, measured in mph or kph. Speed is not a good measure of exertion or intensity while cycling because it is greatly affected by opposing forces such as wind, grade, road surface, drafting, gravity (body & bike weight), aerodynamic profile and friction (drivetrain efficiency) as well as power. It is important to remember though, that races are won by the fastest rider, not the rider with the most power. Speed = Power – Opposing Forces (aerodynamic, gravity, rolling resistance) so in the end a rider must optimize this equation by increasing power and decreasing opposing forces as much as possible to produce maximum speed.

Intensity Factor (IF) = the normalized power for a ride with respect to the functional threshold of the rider = NP/FT. Therefore an effort at 100% of threshold should equal an IF of 1.0. If the rider has an IF of over 1.05 for over an hour, their functional threshold may have increased since the last test (or their power meter needs to be calibrated)

Functional Threshold (FT) = the maximum power a rider can produce for a period of 60 minutes. This can be estimated by completing a 60 minute time trial, a 60 minute “race-type effort” with a high normalized power (commonly a difficult criterium or fast group ride), by taking 95% of the power produced in a 20 minute time trial, 90% of the power produced in an 8 minute time trial or by completing a lactate threshold test in the lab.

Normalized Power (NP) = calculated power over a given duration that better takes into account non-steady state efforts. Average power will decrease if there are significant recovery periods during warmup, cooldown or in between efforts but the stress of the ride does not necessarily decrease (think of driving a car… you can average under the speed limit but it doesn’t mean you won’t get a ticket). Therefore, average power is not a good measure of exertion for non steady state efforts such as races, hilly rides and many group rides. Normalized power should reflect the actual intensity of the effort. It is calculated by taking a 30 second rolling average of the power values, taking these values to the 4th power, averaging these values and taking the 4th route of this number. Therefore, when the power spikes very high, these spikes will be given exponential weighting. For example, a criterium may produce an average power of only 160 watts (due to the regular periods of coasting) but the same race might yield a normalized power of 280 watts (due to the many accelerations). Though normalized power is a very good measure of true exertion, because NP works on a 30 second rolling average, rides with power spikes of less than 30 seconds may not be weighted as highly as expected and likewise other rides that contain maximal efforts of 30-60 seconds may be weighted more highly than expected.

We are headed to Las Vegas to attend the world’s largest bicycle trade show. The conference is called Interbike.These trade shows are amazing, 22,000 attendees, 9000 brands, all under one roof. They are a critical event for those seeking sponsorship (like us) and a lot of fun too.

Both of us are going. We will be in Las Vegas for about 18 hours, so it’s all about the time management.

Goals
1. Find a bike frame sponsor.
2. Lay groundwork to raise $30,000.
3. Meet some nice people.

Wish us luck!

What Motivates Us

We asked each other what we wanted from an adventure:

• I said I wanted it to have a defined goal, which basically meant it couldn’t just be a hike. I like things that are measurable and have defined ends. I like the sense of accomplishment that comes from finishing a project. Mountains are pretty good that way. The summit is the goal, so you know when you’re done. And you know when to celebrate.

• Adam said he wanted a project that let him see the world at his own pace. I got the sense that his travels with our nation’s military allowed him to see the world, but he didn’t get to choose when he came and went (and I’m projecting here, so it might not be totally accurate). I’ll addend this blog story after I ask him if this is how he actually feels about his military travels.

Swimming the English Channel

We both liked the idea of swimming the English Channel. It is a 21 mile swim in 56-degree water. Swimming the channel traces its history back to 1875 when Matthew Webb (a naval captain). Wearing a wetsuit is considered “unclassy”, as is taking more than 20 hours to complete the swim. Only 811 people have swum the channel.

Biking 1000 Miles

Somehow we got to thinking that swimming the channel was a good start, but couldn’t be the whole adventure. Firstly, it’s only 20 hours. Secondly, it didn’t fulfill Adam’s desire to “see the world”.

I’ve always had a personal fascination with Edinburgh. It is such a green city, and the home of the world’s first medical school. I knew I wanted to visit it again. So I asked Adam if adding a hugely long bicycle tour to our expedition would be a clever idea. He thought it sounded crazy, and fun.

We were almost all the way there…

Naming Our Baby

Adam noticed that the northern most part of Scotland was at the 58th Latitude, and Paris was at the 48th Latitude. That was 10 Degrees of Latitude. We thought to ourselves, wow that is pretty cool.
Together we decided to name our expedition 10 Degrees of Latitude. The name stuck.

10 Degrees of Latitude visits the 7 Continents

As some of you might know I set out a number of years ago to climb the tallest mountain on all seven continents. I finished this goal in 2005, after climbing Mount Everest. It was an amazing journey, and one that I would love to repeat, with a twist (and with Adam).

Every year 10 Degrees of Latitude will be visiting a new continent. Our first continent is Europe in 2008. Every year we will invite more participants to join us in our journey. We will raise money for important causes on each continent, visit with locals, and experience the world’s cultures first hand. Join us!

One Last Thought

It is fascinating to think we will be traversing distances that are so vast that they are visible on a map. Makes me shiver.

We figured he would know a thing or two about swimming in general. It also happens he had some specific advice for distance swimming training techniques. We came away from the conversation with so much good advice that we thought we would share it with all of you.

Tips from Mike:

1. Keep heart rate below 130 bpm for as long as possible. Endurance training is all about conserving energy. See how long you can keep heart rates below 130, start at 1000 meters, then 2500 meters, then 3000 meters. Keep working up until recovery time is instantaneous.
2. Distance swimmers avoid kicking hard. The distance swimming kick cadence is half the racers kick cadence.
3. Train at least 5 days per week.
4. If you try to just swim for 2 hours straight you’ll die of boredom. It’ll be like banging your head against the wall. Swimming is all about mixing it up. Mix it up with the pull buoy, kickboard. Do sets of 200, 400, or whatever. Mix up strokes and set length. Keep it fresh.
5. Keep rest between sets below 30 seconds, if you need more rest then you are already working too hard and your heart rate is too fast for ideal endurance training
6. Find outdoor swims to train. He recommended Sunkist in Atlantic City to us or swims during the winter in Florida (although this requires travel for us).
7. Pools should be kept between 78 and 83. He has his pool hot because “his boys are fat”. The hotter the water the more you sweat. This struck me, since I don’t feel myself sweating when I swim, but I guess we all do. Makes me think the water is probably pretty close, but I guess there is no sense dwelling on this since I’m going to swim anyway.
8. Distance swimmers typically do 7000 meters daily and 12000 on a double day. 6-7 days per week.

Mike starts and ends every discussion with us by saying “you guys are nuts”. He’s a totally good guy.