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The Water Cooler, Scuttlebutt, Chit Chat Thread

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The Water Cooler, Scuttlebutt, Chit Chat Thread

Old 01-04-22, 01:47 PM
  #6751  
hubcyclist
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we were supposed to go to my in-laws over xmas, but everyone got covid the week prior, sister-in-law and her family got it and spread it to her parents. Everyone is vaccinated so it was ok, from all accounts but anecdotally it seems like this variant is spreading really easily even among the boosted. Silver lining is I got to train at home over xmas week lol
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Old 01-04-22, 03:04 PM
  #6752  
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The vaccines are clearly not preventing infection - at all. Canadians are highly vaccinated (~80%) and we are seeing 400% more cases per day than any previous peak.

I'm not getting a 3rd shot until they reformulate it.

Last edited by Enthalpic; 01-04-22 at 03:07 PM.
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Old 01-04-22, 03:10 PM
  #6753  
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Science-y guy writing that is a bit of a kick in the groin.
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Old 01-04-22, 03:12 PM
  #6754  
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Originally Posted by gsteinb
Science-y guy writing that is a bit of a kick in the groin.
Seriously.
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Old 01-05-22, 04:04 AM
  #6755  
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Originally Posted by Enthalpic
The vaccines are clearly not preventing infection - at all. Canadians are highly vaccinated (~80%) and we are seeing 400% more cases per day than any previous peak.

I'm not getting a 3rd shot until they reformulate it.
I'm going to dip my toe in this one, but as we move from pandemic to endemic, I don't believe that positivity rates are going to be the metric of choice for much longer. Digging into the numbers, while positivity rates are up ~400% in some areas, hospitalizations are only up 45-50% due to the sheer volume and the death rate is down significantly from last year and flat compared to the delta variant. The majority of those in the hospital and dying are unvaccinated. I also believe that like the flu, there will be annual COVID shots to chase whatever the current variant is. The flu shot is reformulated each year based on the current strain and as we learn more about COVID, we will become more efficient at producing the necessary booster for the current strain just like the flu, but we aren't there yet and what we have is effective at keeping people from dying and that is a good thing.
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Old 01-05-22, 11:28 PM
  #6756  
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Originally Posted by ntnyln
I'm going to dip my toe in this one, but as we move from pandemic to endemic, I don't believe that positivity rates are going to be the metric of choice for much longer. D....
They never should have been measuring cases.
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Old 01-05-22, 11:33 PM
  #6757  
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Adding....
20% of local (SoCal) hospital staff are out due to laws that if you were with someone that was positive you are to quarantine for 10 days.
Got that? You are fine. You test negative. CA law says for a healthcare worker - you can't work.

Then, the mandatory testing has emergency rooms filled with those needing tests.

Not so hard to figure out what falls from all that. Don't crash your bike too hard (in CA) right about now. You might be waiting a bit to get put back together because non-sick healthcare folks adhering to CA laws are not working.

Last edited by Doge; 01-05-22 at 11:42 PM.
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Old 01-06-22, 11:55 AM
  #6758  
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Is it ok to crash your bike hard anywhere, ever? Asking for a friend.




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Old 01-06-22, 02:52 PM
  #6759  
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Welp. Now my wife has it. Pretty mild symptoms so far: cough, headache, fatigue, general flu-ish feeling. She's been boosted. Super frustrating. So far, my son and I remain negative and we're isolating in different parts of the house, but I just have a feeling that it's an inevitability at this point.
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Old 01-06-22, 06:33 PM
  #6760  
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My wife is an RN/Manager in an immediate care. Their patient load is 200% their normal load. All covid. Few hospitalizations. Most are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. Only reason most are there is so they can get tested for school, work, travel, etc. as there are no home tests available and most testing facilities here are out of tests.

So she's "exposed" or at risk of exposure with 60-120 patients a day. 80-90% are testing positive. ....but.... we decided to go to a PSIMET co-worker's house to spend new years with those two and 2 of our friends who were back visiting from Iceland. Had a blast. Icelandic friends call 2 days later, "our entry test show we are both positive."

It's been so mild for so many that most of us have either already had it or have passed it through. My wife took 2 tests and rapids are negative and waiting on the PCR from her work. Regardless we are 6 days from exposure without major symptoms.. for all we know we gave it to them.

If Omicron has burned through us then let me say it was nothing compared to some of the original Covid strains. The one we had in Nov 2020 messed me up bad. This... I haven't missed a beat if I have even had it. Spending the entire New Year's Eve sitting right next to my buddy - laughing and talking all freaking night though and he has it? Yeah I either had it and gave it to him or he gave it to me as there was no way that was being avoided. In either case if I in fact had it then it wasn't anything remarkable...for me. Lets hope its non-remarkable for as many people as possible.

I think the best we can hope for at this point is the pop and drop like South Africa. No one is avoiding this one unless they can truly avoid all human contact of any kind. IMHO of course.
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Old 01-07-22, 04:51 AM
  #6761  
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My wife had a meeting with the chief medical officer of their hospital network the other day. He said that while their total hospitalizations are not what they were at their worst, their staffing shortages make it an equivalent strain.

Some hospitals are canceling elective surgeries.

While deaths are not quite as high as they were personally I'm unwilling to accept 1000-1500 deaths a day as ok.Total US ICU occupancy is still roughly 1/3 off of where it was at peak, hospitalization are approaching the same numbers.
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Old 01-07-22, 12:21 PM
  #6762  
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Teammate broke her leg at Cross Nationals. Has been laid up at home. Just told us she is positive. Got it from her daughter as her daughter is positive. Daughter only goes to school. Masks the whole time.

Luckily they are doing fine.

I really don't see any possible way that people are going to avoid this unless they simply cut off all contact totally. I don't think it's acceptable but I have decided to be realistic about the inevitability. I mean I don't go licking hand rails in the best of times either but I just mean I am trying to plan for when everyone around me gets it instead of still hoping we stay clear.
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Old 01-08-22, 12:32 PM
  #6763  
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Re: vaccinations and infections.

I think infections are a poor barometer for evaluating efficacy. As someone else on this thread said earlier, this is going to be endemic and we need to plan for that. We're going to see reformulated boosters yearly just like with the flu except that with mRNA vaccines, it's honestly not that hard to change the code which is awesome.

The real metric we should be looking at is infections leading to hospitalizations and ICU stays....and death. I disagree with Enthalpic on this one, but mostly because I think everyone's going to get this eventually so I don't really care about infections. On a more nerdy bent, I think that viral evolution, if things like the history of myxomatosis are indicative, is that viruses get attenuated over time if they don't kill their host just about instantly (think ebola). Here's the wiki on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxoma...utionary_model

Searching for myxomatosis attenuation in rabbits will give more primary articles on it as this has been written about a lot.

The biggest issue continues to be the unvaccinated and as Psimet2001 said, the fact that HCW are ******g over this ****. We're not used to being political pawns in a system where we already feel ******g disenfranchised. Frankly, a lot of really experienced nurses and doctors and other medical staff quit because they were close to retirement age and they saw no reason to put up with this ****. I had some hopes that this would change the landscape for the better, but Americans are still too busy blaming each other, calling this a hoax, and other **** instead of trying to bring about systemic change. So whatever.
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Old 01-08-22, 12:33 PM
  #6764  
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I guess in the good news bent... I matched my first choice for child psychiatry fellowship and I'll be in Philly. GF and I are going to be in the same zip code for the first time in 3 years starting july. Proposal's been planned for next saturday for a while so it's kind of a relief to know that I won't have to up and move and end up long(er) distance. What a dang relief. Lets see how long it'll last before they find my body in a hospital closet since I'll be at the same institution as her.
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Old 01-10-22, 03:15 PM
  #6765  
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Originally Posted by gsteinb
...Some hospitals are canceling elective surgeries.
Yes they are.
And CA Patient's from surgeries may not be picked up by non-vaxed = those without 3 stabs.

The military....My son's test came back "Higher Than Normal" (that is what it said). So after flying a few days he needs to get clearance to fly and then maybe quarantine for 10 days. TBD if my wife needs to quarantine because she hugged our son goodby Jan 2. Until we find out, she is working, BUT...she might need to take off work Jan 11-21 due to a Jan 2nd hug.

Last edited by Doge; 01-10-22 at 03:21 PM.
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Old 01-12-22, 07:44 AM
  #6766  
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Picked up the Fuji Track Pro last night. It looks to be a 2006? It's the one where they didn't drill the front fork for a brake, but left the blank there.

For $250 it seemed a steal to me. Not stolen though. Legit local cyclocross racer guy I've met before. The nice crankset on it. Bars on it are some throwaway city flat handlebars. But I have my old TT basebar, stem, extensions to go on there for "free". Also have my old TT spare saddle to go on there.

I'm just surprised in this day and age you can buy a used bike for that that has two wheels, cranks, that you could ride instantly for that low a price. Especially a name brand fixie.

Today at lunch it's cold AF but will take it out in the work parking lot that's empty to spin around at a nice slow safe pace.

Then I'll get to setting it up.
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Old 01-12-22, 09:36 AM
  #6767  
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Originally Posted by burnthesheep
Picked up the Fuji Track Pro last night. It looks to be a 2006? It's the one where they didn't drill the front fork for a brake, but left the blank there.

For $250 it seemed a steal to me. Not stolen though. Legit local cyclocross racer guy I've met before. The nice crankset on it. Bars on it are some throwaway city flat handlebars. But I have my old TT basebar, stem, extensions to go on there for "free". Also have my old TT spare saddle to go on there.

I'm just surprised in this day and age you can buy a used bike for that that has two wheels, cranks, that you could ride instantly for that low a price. Especially a name brand fixie.

Today at lunch it's cold AF but will take it out in the work parking lot that's empty to spin around at a nice slow safe pace.

Then I'll get to setting it up.
That does seem like a good deal. Is fixie culture still what it once was? Or have people moved on and left the track bikes to the track racers?
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Old 01-12-22, 02:23 PM
  #6768  
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I want an FTP frame for $250... My alu Dolan isn't very exciting
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Old 01-12-22, 02:25 PM
  #6769  
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Originally Posted by Flatballer
That does seem like a good deal. Is fixie culture still what it once was? Or have people moved on and left the track bikes to the track racers?
Around here the real track bikes seem to be drifting back into hands of trackies and fixie folks buying dedicated fixie brand city style bikes. You'll see some All City and some State Bicycle stuff all over, but not really seeing the Fuji, Dolan kind of stuff.

Tonight is an off night riding/running, so will be putting my old stem, basebar, extensions onto it. I'll leave the rear wheel alone for now but front is getting swapped. Front tire is a Gator and I have a decent road front wheel with a GP5000 on it. Rear I'll swap the tire to a spare GP5000.

There won't be a soul out where I'm riding this thing. Just cows and fields for miles. In town, it's too dang hilly and traffic for a fixie with any fast gearing where you're not pegging 120rpm to go 25mph.

So nothing out of pocket other than the original bike to have a decent little pursuit bike to try out and see what I think.
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Old 01-12-22, 05:46 PM
  #6770  
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burnthesheep is there a track nearby?
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Old 01-12-22, 07:23 PM
  #6771  
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That seems like a great deal. I've had FGs before, but never a true track bike.
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Old 01-13-22, 07:44 AM
  #6772  
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Originally Posted by TMonk
burnthesheep is there a track nearby?
Task 1 is to get some "fun, IDGAF" miles onto that bike. Probably after getting the cockpit and saddle transferred over will do some 3min VO2 work on it at my lunch hour on the flat/straight/easy roads by work. Just have fun wringing it out!

Yesterday, riding it was easier than I thought to stop it quickly. I certainly would NOT ride it up and down the local 6% grade hills in town without a brake!

But yes, Rock Hill is a solid drive but doable. 4 hours drive? If I feel like it's something I could do, I'll go take the class to be able to ride Rock Hill..........then maybe try it once at some point for a race.

If there's anything pursuit wise, I'm sure I could do OK. Being a decent time triallist with pretty good 30 second power also.
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Old 01-13-22, 12:15 PM
  #6773  
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Rock Hill is closer to 2.5 hours away. It's just south of Charlotte.

The intro class there is great. Wait until it is warm tough. It gets really cold in there.

Also, what gearing do you have on the bike?
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Old 01-13-22, 01:26 PM
  #6774  
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Rock Hill is awesome. I really enjoyed racing there while I was able.
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Old 01-14-22, 12:18 AM
  #6775  
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Anyone else watch cricket? We have ESPN+ now because of our phone plan, and I've started watching it. I really enjoy it. It's relaxing in a similar way to baseball.
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