A SLAC bike rider at the top!
Friday, September 12, 2008
 We've got at SLAC many people that are in love with the "little queen," the nickname in France for the bicycle (la petite reine). And some push that love to the top of competition.Within the LCLS group, bike fans have been riding together during lunch. We have a mailing list, "the SLAC noon riders," where whoever wants to ride e-mails the list to find a partner for a loop. The surroundings of Stanford are a dreamland for bikers!  I prefer climbing, and there are plenty of nice climbs here; but one of my colleagues, Tim Montagne, is a "tracky" (a competitive track cyclist). The track ring is his domain, but he rides with us from time to time to build up endurance. In early September I went to see Tim race for the US Masters National at the San Jose velodrome. It was a long preparation for him since early in the spring. (Like for the LCLS X-FEL project, before using the beam for real experiments you have to go through very long commissioning runs and fine tune all parameters!) Tim and his two team members were registered in the +40 age group Team Sprint race. Those guys were freaking fast! Like bullets they did three laps around the ring: Tim was leading the first lap from a standing start, then his two partners did the second lap and the last racer Bobby finished the last lap alone in 1:07.19. That was the best time among the other competitors, winning them the Gold medal! Great victory for the LCLS somehow... I watched the Pursuit race too. It's like a team time trial but on the track. Four bikers follow each other in a straight line as much as they can and as close as possible (like the width of the tires) to fight against air resistance. Pretty nice, and a good example too of team spirit. posted by Philippe Hering @ 12:00pm
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