BLACK

With a 'forced' weeks holiday from work nothing left to do but ride and race.. not quite a Belgium Holiday calender of races over the Christmas period but so far i've managed 2.. CXNE RD 9 on Boxing day and Macclesfield Monster on 28th..

CXNE RD9 was a local affair.. only 10 miles from my house.. the event had been upgraded from a fun race to a league event and I had convinced a visiting friend, Ian, to race on a borrowed bike.

The course I had pretty much ridden a few months prior but the sloppy mud had been replaced snow and Ice... the car park was filled with riders having ridden a lap putting more pressure into their tyres.

The start was one of the best I have ever had.. although the front rows were gridded I found a cheecky hole in the middle and was up into the top 10 off the start and holding the pace well.. by the end of the first lap the top boys superior bike handling had seen gaps opened.. a rushed mount after a short run up saw my unship my chain and lose 5 places trying to wrestle it free from the chain device :(

The rest of the race saw me clawing back the places I had lost seeing me finish back in 12th ... Paul Oldham took the win chased by Steven Ward.. Ian Bibby after a heavy first lap fall was back in 6th.

After the race I packed up the car.. fired home.. put more bags and the whippet in the car and drove to meet Grace at her parents in Manchester.. as well as the excellent meals and coffee's on offer at her parents it gave me chance to fit another race in just a few days later.

The Macclesfield Monster is the first race in the North West leauge after Christmas so the turn out was good... as well as a leg stretching it offered a chance to catch up with a friend I hadn't seen for 10 years.. Duncan Astle.. creator of Here Come the Belgians.. after a quick chat we lined up for another kicking.

The conditions at Macc were the opposite of CXNE race.. raining, sloppy mud and greasy corners... the course was fantastic.. some great little climbs.. boards up for dismounts and run ups and some off camber corners from hell :)

The gridding at this race went league top riders first then national points leeaders so I was a fair bit back... with the National Cross Champs looming alot of the big hitters were out.. Oldham, Bibby and Craig to name but a few.

Straight into the race I was into a battle with 4 other riders as we switched places so many times I lost count.. and when I thought I was clear the slightest mistake and a rider would pop past..






My first mistake was a late dismount before a board and I slid shin first into it.. ouch!! ... I still maintained contact with the little group I was riding with.. next I washed out my front wheel on a corner and unshipped my chain again although this time it went on quicker but a gap had opened.

As the race progressed I noticed that I was running wider and wider into the turns t bottoms of descents.. my brakes were almost non existent.. with 3 laps to go and just before I was lapped by Nick Craig as he rode to 3rd place I started a little descent that went into an off camber 45 degree left.. Nick Craig railed it.. I went for some brakes to check my speed and both levers came to the bar and I accelerated into the corner.. I briefly held the drift before the front wheel washed and I was left comically sliding down the hill on my back.. wet grass offering no resistance to slow me down.

At that point I called it a day and accepted my second DNF of the season.. too many cheeky descents to ride with no brakes.

Not the most productive races with a 12th and a DNF but entertaining all the same.. the only downside being a sore throat and cough I have so training will be minimal and hopefully I will be good to race again on Sunday 2nd :)

The Welsh FA have pre-warned the likes of Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey ahead of the 2012 Olympics that should they decide to participate they will be banned from appearing again in the Welsh side.

The fact that this is the year for Euro 2012 and that the Olympics will be sandwiched by the Euros and the new Premier League season 2012/2013 will probably make this element of the Olympics a non-event.

The British side would look good with Bale complimenting some of his Premier League colleagues...wouldn't we want to see it in action? Are the Welsh FA being a little bit harsh?

My "off season project" is near complete. I have essentially burned my physical video library of DVDs to a 1.5 Terabyte external hard drive as a backup against scratches or loss.

It may seem like a lot of unnecessary work, but searching, organizing, and keeping up with over 453 NCAA/NFL game film DVDs (plus a few hundred clinic discs) can be tedious and subject to error. I had no real feasible method other than to store the discs on large disc spindles, which began taking up more and more physical space. It was herding cats to find a disc (even after having grouped spindles by categories), then to go through the process of creating a copy was worse.


Now, once I receive a disc, I just pop it in the drive, rip the ISO image to my portable hard drive and store it away as a master disc.

It also makes providing copies for other coaches that much easier, too. I just pull from the ISO image catalog, pop in a blank disc, and burn....done. This way, the bookshelf full of DVDs, the entire collection is available on a paperback-sized drive, available to take with me anywhere and burn (dvd-ready discs) anywhere with a DVD-RW drive.

Jacob Fuglsang Mikkelsen talks about electric cars and such with
British environmentalist Tony Juniper (special adviser for The Prince of Wales' Rain forest Project and University of Cambridge, long-time CEO of Friends of Earth, has lead campaigns for The Green Party, etc.) and the Danish author and professor Bjørn Lomborg "The Sceptical Environmentalist", Copenhagen Consensus.


Filmed for the German/French TV channel ARTE

Thanks to *Coach Hoover for the heads up on this (and saving my ass)....Yahoo Video is removing all of its existing content in March.

http://www.techieinsider.com/news/4873

On December 15, 2010 the functionality to upload a video to Yahoo! Video was removed and a download utility, available through March 14, 2011, was added to users’ video profiles to allow retrieval of content. The user-generated content will be removed from Yahoo! Video on March 15, 2011. We apologize if this causes you any inconvenience.

Thanks, dickwads. Now my Yahoo account will only be valid for the annual fantasy football pastings.

So, my attempt at avoiding the issues I had with GoogleVideo (2006-2008) randomly pulling any game film I posted (not broadcast footage) have hit a brick wall. I am reluctantly migrating all my 500 some Yahoo videos into my Youtube account to conform to the Google monolith.

Change is good, I suppose, and this was something I was actually planning on doing anyway to make the content more accessible for mobile users. This affords me an opportunity to experiment with creating higher resolution game clips for viewing online. Oh well, you get what you pay for (both free...........for now). Also, likely unrelated, I'm itching for an opportunity to use my Captivate's TV-out function to record practice footage (in 720p) and connect it to a big screen with component cables after practice to go over coaching points (beats lugging around a camcorder).


*be on the look out for a moster project Coach Hoover is putting together in the coming weeks

another great blog worth checking out that just took off this past fall is

http://footballpressbox.blogspot.com/

The Milan CO2 tag - click on image to see larger size


The Milan flyer & poster


Videos about the day


By the Milan based production company Lunadavideo



Video by the Italian website LIFEGATE
The video is showing the pre-event before the cars went out on the "painting peformance" in the streets of Milan.



The above video with focus on a vehicle alternative to a scooter in Italy,
that can be driven from the age of 16.

The Milan version was done in collaboration with Ragnarock - Nordic Festival.
For more images, go to their Facebook page on HERE!

Its been 2 weeks since my last race... I was entered to race the Northern Champs race but after a Christmas party incident in a Paris bathroom left me with a very sore head I had to give it a miss.

Wasn't sure how I was feeling before this one... training is going pretty well.

The venue, Dalton Park, was almost free from snow but in leaving it left behind a pretty soggy mess so full mud tyres were perfect.

The course wound its way front and back of a big hill feature with a section along an exposed top... the climbs were pretty short, the descents nicely off camber or slippy.. all good cyclocross elements.

The start was on a narrow path on a slope only a few riders wide so the field spilled onto the grass either side and as we set off I was nicely cut up by a guy that came from above me.. with the anger of that move I was out the saddle on the first short climb and up into the top 5.. by the back half of the lap I had moved into 3rd with a clear view of 1st and 2nd riding away.. the severity of the start strung the field out quickly leaving myself and 4th place to battle out most of the race with 5th a comfortable distance behind and the guys in front now out of reach.

I love the intensity of cross racing... its something you don't get in endurance events... you ride the whole race with people breathing down your neck.. the pressure never lets up.




Towards the end of the race I notice 4th place wasn't there anymore and I got to relax a little and just maintain a gap... then the bell lap came and then it was done.. first top 3... now i just have to do it when there is no national on and the field is at its strongest.

Race Video

Chris Paine in Denmark on a Electric Nimbus, July 2010

As we all anticipate what should be an exciting match up between two explosive offenses in Auburn and Oregon for the National Championship, we may be able to glean some useful lessons from both these teams. Both represent fast-paced no-huddle offenses that are borrowing on basic concepts and adapting them as the lastest offensive innovation. Ironic or fittingly, I suppose, that we covered both teams offenses earlier in the Fall (Oregon / Auburn), but what stands out to most people about each is not their plays or scheme so much, as their method of operation...................fast. In this post, we will provide some insight into how one of these teams facilitates this tempo via sideline signal boards.

While it has garnered quite a bit of attention (and favor) with the BooYah Sports Network by featuring their self-heralded icons during Oregon games, Auburn's similar practice has been rather subdued. Both essentially share the system of communication, along with other offenses (Oklahoma State).

It may appear as complex chaos, the methodology is quite simple. You have a base offense and concepts that you run, all you are doing is eliminating the unnecessary huddle and parsing the relevant pieces of information needed on a given play. The no-huddle concept has been around for a while, but recently it has undergone more efficient tweaking, accentuating the irrelevance of the huddle. If you've ever spent anytime coaching offense, you'll know just how tedious and frustrating it can be dicking around "coaching" the huddle procedure ('YOU go here...you go there....no, no, no...you're supposed to face that way!").

To better explain this process, I've included examples of how this information would be coded and signaled to flesh out how it actually works. Lets explore what needs to be delivered to the players....

Formation
Motion
Play direction
Play Type

This is common information usually shared in the huddle, before anything is presented to the defense. What the no-huddle is doing is presenting a formation, allowing the defense to match it, then call an offensive play based on this information and/or change it (if necessary). All this can be accomplished outside the confines gathering the players together; just line up, get the play, and execute it.

How information is being communicated (the huddle is a waste of resources)

As the offense nears the spot, they will assume the same formation as the last play (though nothing really changes for the offensive line, quarterback, and fullback on most every play). The formation will be signaled (usually by a sideline player) as soon as the previous play ends along with any pre-snap movement until that formation is achieved. Next, the play type will be given to the players. The quarterback will begin the cadence, repeating the playside/series code, and snap the ball. Once the play ends, the next begins and the process repeats.

This necessitates an offense to develop its own language, with multiple terms (and signals) to deliver the same information, so the code cannot be easily ‘cracked’. This is achieved by concept association and by allowing the position units to devise the terms they want to use (ownership of association).

Sideline Communication
The sideline usually features up to four different signalers consisting quarterbacks, receivers, graduate assistants, assistant coaches, and coordinators. These players will be signaling something every down, though not every signaler will be ‘live’ (will be signaling bogus dummy calls). The common method is broken down as follows;

Play Caller: coordinator / coordinator assistant
Signaler: position coach (runs, play action, screens)
Color: player (black or blue = right / white or gold = left / red = play change/check)
Signal Board: GA (passes)

All these individuals will present their signals to the on-field players until the ball is snapped to ensure that no player did not receive the information. So once a play ends, the 'next play' begins with the entire offense setting up on the spot of the ball, looking to their sideline for new information.

The real key to the team of signalers is the Color designator. Colors will determine if the signaler is hot (or the board is hot) as well as reinforce what the playside will be.

Black, White, Green, Pink, Brown – Signaler is Hot
Blue, Gold, Red – Board is Hot

So by this example, after a formation is given and the sideline player signaling “Black” (right is playside / signaler is hot) the players on the field will look to the signaler for the play. If the color signaler is delivering “Blue”, they can understand that the playside is right and the board is hot (i.e. pass routes) and disregard the signaler.

To better explain this process, I've included examples of how this information would be coded and signaled to flesh out how it actually works. Let’s explore what needs to be delivered to the players....

As you can see by the charts above, the no-huddle concept of signaling can deliver this information quickly through association and will generally only affect the 5 specialists on offense.

Next, the play type (run, play action, screen, or pass) can be delivered. The key is to group the play type by genus or series.

“If the reference is X, I will know that the play is going to be ‘this type’, now all I need to know is which one”

In our examples we can classify the play types as;
Runs are represented by NFL teams (or mascot)
Passes are represented by College teams (or mascot)
Play action passes will be represented by the run action signal with a (color) tag
Screens are based off locations (city or state)

We saw this earlier (and it is quite common) during the write-up on Louisiana Tech’s first few practices last spring as well as Bo Pelini’s base defense concepts, where commonly used categories represent different types of plays.

Take these examples for instance;
I=draws the association of “I for IZ” that is commonly tied to the NFL team, Indianapolis Colts, so any horse reference would be able to convey a zone run.

P=draws the association of “P for Power” (i.e. NFL team with a ‘P’ is the Patriots), so all you would have to do is deliver an iconic symbol of what people would associate a ‘patriot’ with.

During this entire process, the quarterback can eyeball the sideline while ‘translating’ audibly to the line and backs…. “Blue, Blue….Cowboy! Cowboy!” (right counter) without the defense really having any idea of what is going on. Alternatively, the very next play could be called “Black, Blue….Dallas! Dallas!”, and still be running the same play.

With passing plays, it is the same process, but this is where the boards come in. If the board is 'hot', the bogus play type will be called out and let the offensive line know it is not run-action, so they will need to listen for the protection. The fullback will then call out a play-specific protection on every down (much like the TFS system will have the back make a 'roger' / 'louie' call each play).

When the board is ‘hot’ the quadrants will represent primary and secondary receiver routes based on the route tree used. So, you could have your passing concepts represented by both associations (NCAA teams/mascots deliver a passing concept) as well as number representations (“20” / “97”). See below for a standard chart for passing concepts and marry them up with the included passing tree.

If you are calling a smash concept, you could just call "Razorback" (Arkansas) or the "20" (or "90"). The "2" in this call would represent the initial read side (right) and the "0" indicates primary receiver running the hitch.

>> No.1. Sack a manager with a firm pedigree in achieving top half finishes.
>> No.2. Appoint a flakey manager with a history of walking out if things get tough.
>> No.3 Piss off said flakey manger by appointing Dennis Wise above his head, or by just appointing Dennis Wise full stop.
>> No.4 Act all surprised when said Flakey manager flounces off.
>> No.5. Appoint a manager with a history of heart problems.
>> No.6 Act all surprised when said manager has heart problems.
>> No.7 Appoint a former player who has taken charge of 0 games.
>> No.8 Act all surprised when you get relegated.
>> No.9 Under no circumstances entrust the team to the highly regarded no.2.
>> No.10 Wait until the highly regarded no.2 has got the team into the top half of the table and has the team settled, playing well and liked for the first time in years and sack him.
>> No.11 Act all surprised when you get relegated.