What's the little round thing at the top of the grave marker??

Correct, a man of integrity, unlike virtually nobody today.

I figured that's what you were going for.

A thing to hold flowers?

Flynn could take a lesson.

I always wished Powell would run for president, but understood why he would never want to.

I am not seeing it, but I will take your confidence as a definitive answer.

Possibly.

They don't really need it, because if they don't have stuff like this, they'll make it up.

You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. - Apparently NOT Jonathan Swift, though he expressed a similar sentiment.

I assumed that it was for flowers, too. The little lid is so that it doesn't get filled with debris and stank water, but it was chained so that it wouldn't go missing.

Lplo

Since he was slated to die a painful death from cancer, he may likely be thankful he died from "complications from covid".

Multiple Myeloma patients have a particularly poor response to the COVID vaccines, which isn't surprising. Age, and treatment are among the factors that correlate with worse response.

I see people calling MM a "blood cancer", but more specifically, it's a cancer of the immune system, which makes it all the worse for responding to a vaccine, especially because a number of the treatments for it are immunosuppressive. Think about it - you're trying to suppress the growth of cancer cells that come from the immune system. Add to that the fact that most chemotherapy drugs mostly kill off fast dividing cells, like tumor cells, but also hair follicles, immune cells, GI lining cell, etc. And when your immune system is responding to disease, you need to be able to ramp up the production of specific B-cells (for antibodies) and T-cells (to tell the body to ramp up the B-cells and to more directly attack the virus).

But he was vaccinated and died anyway, so obviously the vaccine doesn't help, because one example of a famous person is more important than all the statistical significance in the world.

Well, duh. I mean, obviously.

Humanity at time shows such promise, but at others we demonstrate that we are descended from poop-flinging monkeys.

Or maybe poop flinging monkey are descended from us.

News stories are already coming out to quell the outrage.
Colin Powell's death doesn't contradict efficacy of coronavirus vaccines, experts say (yahoo.com)

Then there's this.

• Fox News anchor John Roberts tweeted that Powell's death "raises new concerns" about vaccine efficacy.
  
• Roberts then deleted his tweet amid criticism, clarifying that he was "excited to get vaccinated."
  

bampilot06 - continued from Strava:

Yeah, you're not a plebe anymore - train by power, not HR :p

On your Garmin, or Garmin Connect, input your FTP and let it calculate the zones for you. Until you're feeling fit enough to really give it a good go with some hard efforts, I'd just pop in something in the region of your estimated FTP, erring on the conservative side.

If you really want to, you can track down some widgets and screens on Connect IQ for your 530 for nice visual representation while you're riding.

Nice tape job.

One warning, if you do the Zwift Ramp Test for FTP - don't do any "leg openers" during the warm up/free ride at the start. The algorithm calculates FTP from whatever minute has the highest average power, whether it's during the ramp or not. I was trying to warm up my legs and lungs and did a hard 45 second effort above 400w during the free ride, and it gave me an FTP number of over 350. My FTP is NOT over 350, not by a damn sight.

Looks like the bar top is wrapped back to front, and the tape isn't unravelling, no matter what VV's info source said.

IKR. Looks like a classic ends-to-stem without reversing direction. Also, not figure-8? Maybe.

Yeah, we were talking outdoors rides; I wouldn't recommend indoor testing for outdoor training or vice versa. Let them live in their separate worlds. Anywho, he's up and running on Intervals, and some good, hard efforts of 3+ minutes should get him in horseshoes and hand grenades territory, even without a super structured (or even terribly deliberate) test.

But this does remind me that I should do the Zwift ramp test sometime during this trial period. I hate FTP tests. :notamused:

I've been trying to find shock mount bolts for my mtb. No luck and the dealer I got it from has changed hands and they weren't sure how to get them but I told them to hold off for now. I wrote an e-mail to the company (KHS) and a guy from there called me today to discuss things and told me he would send out some bolts, no charge.

Excellent service!

I've been looking at the free trial of Wahoo's Syst'm, what with it's 4DP test. I need to decide what the goal of my winter riding will be. Previous years, I just kinda stopped riding after October, made a few half-hearted efforts at riding on a dumb trainer, maybe a couple Sunday rides under 30 miles and then started rebuilding fitness after DST started again and I could ride after work. Last winter I rode through the whole time, and in fact since July of 2020 I have not fallen below 20 hours of riding/ month. But there's been no structure. So, do I WANT structure? And if so, to accomplish what, exactly? Previously, I never had to think beyond building my my fitness over the summer, losing it during the winter, building it up again next summer. And Now I'm facing the reality that you don't just keep getting faster and faster, that there will be some sort of periodicity to it.

Life was less complicated when I was lazier.

Yep.

Now align the B's on the top cap properly, please. It looks like the Cane Creek is OK as long as it's Cane Creek on both sides.