Cycling

Lots of F5ers log at least 5 rides in the 5th month.

Dan Matte — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:45:24 GMT

For the past 3 years people at F5 have participated in "The Commute Challenge" that is organized by Seattle's Cascade Bicycle Club. When people accept the challenge, they agree to ride their bike to work at least 5 days during the month of May. It's a great way to get people out on their bikes for some exercise and save a little gas while they're at it.

Some of the highlights for us this year are:

147 F5ers signed up
21,443 miles ridden (which equates to roughly 21,443 fewer pounds of carbon dioxide generated)
1,354 days ridden
114 people rode 5 or more days during May
F5 ranked 7th for # of days ridden out of all Seattle organizations
F5 ranked 8th for # of miles ridden out of all Seattle organizations

A hearty congratulations go out to everyone who participated!

Say It Ain't So

Dan Matte — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:21:37 GMT

The Floyd Landis verdict just came in: guilty.

Floyd maintains his innocence. This is depressing.

Back in the Saddle Again

Dan Matte — Thu, 10 May 2007 23:48:13 GMT

May is national Bike to Work Month and this year we have 70 F5ers who are signed up for something called the Commute Challenge. The Challenge is basically to ride your bike to work a minimum of 5 times during the month.

So far our riders have ridden more than 3,400 miles over about 250 round trips.

The response has been so good that we had to get additional bike racks installed to have enough rack capacity.

We try to make it easy to use alternative forms of transportation while working at F5. Here are some of the things we do:

Bike racks are in our underground garage next to a manned parking attendant booth for added safety
We have lockers, shower facilities and possibly the best thing of all, towel service at our existing offices
The new facility that is under construction as part of our campus on Elliot Ave West will have a gym as well as more locker and shower capacity
We have a massage therapist on site twice a week that many of our cyclists take advantage of
Employees can receive up to a $300/month stipend for not driving a car to work
For the Commute Challenge:
- Riding Day “Feed Zones”. We’re providing an assortment of goodies such as energy bars, breakfast bars, fruit, energy gels, etc. for people who ride their bikes to work whether they are part of the Commute Challenge or not.
- “Biker Fridays”. Each Friday in May we are also adding bagels to the goodies available to anyone who has ridden their bike to work.

F5 Investor Conference 2007 and Other Stuff

Dan Matte — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 07:33:00 GMT

Many of the people on my team are in the middle of a pretty hectic travel season - myself included.

After being in England and France two weeks ago, this past week I presented at the Thomas Weisel conference in San Francisco on Monday. As an aside, the firm's founder and namesake is a cyclist and big cycling supporter. At age 66 Weisel is listed as part of the Discovery Masters Cycling Team.

From there I went to New York on Tuesday for F5's analyst day presentation that took place on Wednesday. I'm writing this as I'm sitting at the Narita airport in Japan on my way to Singapore for meetings on Monday and Tuesday. From there it's on to Seoul for a couple more days of business and then back to Seattle.

There's a new gadget at the Narita airport security screening checkpoint when you arrive. It's a device that is designed to scan bottles and, surprisingly, cans to ensure that their contents are safe. My curiosity about the machine yielded a quick demo by the security person on a bottle of water that had been confiscated. I didn't notice who manufactures the machine so my Google search on drink scanners didn't turn anything relevant up.

The F5 Investor Conference is something that we do about every 18 months or so. Our last one was held November 2005. Attendance at the one this week was great - just under one hundred people were there. Next time we do it I want to have more F5 branding visible as it is becoming a larger event.

We presented our finances which didn't have any new information with the exception of providing additional detail on some of the expenses behind the GAAP non-GAAP debacle we had on the heels of our last earnings release. That additional information is something all the analysts were asking us to provide ever since our earnings call so that they can continue to model our company in their non-GAAP world. One investor told me that his company was unable to invest in F5 due to the information void - that is really frustrating. Hopefully we've got the issue behind us and will be able to disclose enough on our earnings call to not run into the same problem in the future. We also talked about the market, competitive landscape, how were're going to market and gave more details about our roadmap.

The questions we got were mainly around growth of the market and people trying to identify what catalysts are out there that may alter our growth rate. Overall pretty positive tone from the conference and the analyst notes that came out after it were all upbeat.

I'm looking forward to some chili crab in Singapore.

Helmet Use Less Prevalent in England?

Dan Matte — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 09:57:00 GMT

Yesterday I did a very informal and unscientific study of helmet use by cyclists in London.

My methodology was simple - I just counted the number of cyclists I saw and kept track of how many of them were wearing helmets.

Cyclists counted: 48
Total Number wearing helmets: 13
Couriers Wearing Helmets: 0
Helmet Wearing %: 27%

Observations were made between Paddington Station and Soho during the afternoon. Riders were roughly 3/4 commuters and the rest bike couriers. I was surprised by the low percentage of people wearing helmets.

In Seattle you still see people commuting and couriers riding without helmets but they are in the minority. I'd guess they make up maybe 10% of the cyclists I encounter.

It is extremely rare to see people out training without a helmet in Seattle. Since I wasn't in a part of London that lends itself to that type of riding due to traffic congestion at that time of day, I don't know how that group of riders would compare to those in Seattle.

I only saw a couple of people with lights on their bikes but it was still daylight.

Something I didn't think I'd see

Dan Matte — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 09:40:00 GMT

I was in Paris yesterday on Feb1, 2007 which happened to be the first day that France's new non-smoking law went into effect. It bans smoking from public places while bars and restaurants have another year before it kicks in for them.

No smoking in France? That is certainly something I didn't think would come about. Japan, Italy and many other countries where smoking is prevalent have also instituted bans. France has engaged 175,000 public servants to attempt to enforce the ban.

We'll see if they take it to heart. My hotel still had ashtrays out in full force throughout the lobby.

On a separate note, I walked around the Champs Elysees after dinner, to pay homage to the site of the finish line of the Tour de France.

Specialized Roubaix Comp Update 2006

Dan Matte — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 15:37:00 GMT

It seems like just yesterday that I wrote the post about my experience with the bike in Dec 2005 and minutes since the July 2006 update.

This year my mileage total on the Roubaix will be about 3,500 miles. Lower than last year but my business travel was significantly higher in 2006 and I did more mountain biking this year than I have in a long time. I did complete my first double century this year at an average of 18.8mph and felt good at the end of it so I was pretty plesaed with that.

Over the weekend I was getting my bike ready for a ride and I flipped it over to place a few drops of lube on the cable guides that are under the bottom bracket. Those guides are the source of some of the mystery creaks I have had over the past couple of years. Anyhow, the plastic guide appears not to be long enough to get the cable for the rear derailler to clear the curvature of the bottom bracket. As a result, all the shifting of the rear gears over the miles this bike has seen is causing the cable to act like a saw on the bottom bracket. At a minimum I am going to get a longer guide to eliminate any further damage and have the shop where I purchased the bike assess the situation. I am also going to let Specialized know as this is something that should not occur. The bike should not damage itself with regular use.

Floyd Landis Appeals to the Court of Public Opinion

Dan Matte — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 01:13:00 GMT

Floyd Landis posted some interesting information about his doping case recently. Since he was basically declared guilty in public I guess making his appeal public is fitting. It is also in keeping with his practice of publishing his training data - something most other riders would never do. The presentation focuses on exposing the inconsistencies in the testing process. When you look through it, it does look pretty bad - sample identification numbers apparently wrong, possible contamination of the sample, and 200%+ variation in test results for the same test on the same sample.

I really hope that Floyd is innocent of this but everything that has come out over the summer just makes me want to go and buy some "Dopers Suck" socks. If Floyd turns out to be innocent, I'll get some "Bad Labs Suck" socks go go along with them.

Four Words

Dan Matte — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 13:19:00 GMT

A couple of mornings ago my ride in was particularly peaceful. No one around and a light fog made things very quiet. These words describe my mood for that ride:

Solitude
Puddle
Tracks
Community

Another Cycling Tragedy

Dan Matte — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 13:52:00 GMT

On Wednesday of this week a woman who was riding her bike collided with a van when the van attempted to make a left turn in front of her from a side street. Yesterday morning news came out that the woman died from her injuries. She was wearing a helmet and witnesses claim that the van driver simply did not see the cyclist. This is a tragic accident and additional awareness can help to reduce the number of cyclists who are injured or killed each year.

To give you an idea of the impact, imagine Michael Johnson, the world record holder to the 200m race, running top speed into a brick wall instead of through a ribbon at the finish line. A cyclist travelling at somewhere between 15-20mph hitting an immovable vertical surface like a van would yield a similar type of violent deceleration.

As a cyclist, I try to be visible and predictable on the road. Most motorists are courteous but while on your bike you really notice how many drivers are distracted (cell phone), not paying attention, wearing headphones or otherwise not putting themselves in a position to notice things around them - like me on a bike.

It turns out that one of the people works works here at F5 was driving right behind the woman cyclist when the accident occured. A news crew from King 5 - a local television station came by to interview cyclists to get our perspective of what it is like to commute in Seattle these days. The team here brought up lots of good information some of which is in the piece but most of which is sitting on the digital equivalent of the cutting room floor due to time constraints.

Here's a link to the news segment that aired yesterday: http://www.king5.com/sharedcontent/VideoPlayer/showVideo.php?vidId=91244

Ride safely out there and if you're driving, please keep an eye open for people sharing the roads on their bikes.