In my experience, the error is prevalent among people who measure things frequently, such as contractors or furniture makers. I suppose they say ‘length, width, depth and breadth’ and assume that all dimension names end in ‘th’.

The surprising thing is the way the error has taken off over the past decade, spreading like a virus. I estimate that a minority of people still say it correctly. They must have corrected their pronunciation to match that they were hearing frequently. Thus the mistake is passed from person to person and quickly looks like an epidemic.

I fear that within a decade dictionaries will be forced to adopt the error as it’s use will be too common to ignore.

At least it will go on record that I fougth it.

We started out at the same time, and finished within a few minutes of each other I was very happy with my final time of 5 hours 40 minutes. I had a good day, pacing with some fast guys and I only dropped at the final 2 mile climb to Spooner.

The weather was perfect - slightly cool but sunny and with lots of snow still visible on the peaks.

I saw several people riding the 100 mile version on unicycles:

Apologies for the poor image quality. It was taken with my iphone while I was riding.

The ride stops were well organized with great food. Italian goodies at the Calfee factory, and they showed off their bamboo bikes. Crepes and pies at Gizditch Ranch.

My overall time was a disaster. I was very slow at the start, didn’t ride in a group much, took way too long at the rest stops chatting with people and 10 miles from the end I witnessed a crash and stopped to administer first aid.

It was the first time I’d ridden over the hill, and I babied my strained knee. I took Mountain Charley Road, knowing it’s one of the hills I’ll cover in the Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge, assuming I feel strong enough to tackle it. Reaching the upper sections of the road I was amazed by this structure

It turns out it’s a residence. Some careful Googling uncovered a fascinating story about this Santa Cruz mountains landmark

My final time was 6 hours 51 minutes, which was slower than I was hoping for. I’m fairly sure I could have gone faster, but the rest of my team might argue otherwise.

Waiting for the start

The first riders stream past while we wait our turn

Carrying our bikes across the first dry river bed

Fuelling up

Crossing the finish line. I’m second from the left.

Seth, Tom and myself, as featured in Cycling news coverage of the event.

Lisa did well, with a time of around 9 hours. We’re both hoping for faster times at Tahoe Century.

Lisa crosses the line

Impressive finish from a younger rider

]]> http://deverse.com/jbm/2007/11/23/el-tour-de-tucson-finished/feed/ http://deverse.com/jbm/2007/11/06/80-miles-new-bike/ http://deverse.com/jbm/2007/11/06/80-miles-new-bike/#comments Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:09:01 +0000 jbm http://deverse.com/jbm/2007/11/06/80-miles-new-bike/ Saturday Nov 3rd was our final training ride before El Tour De Tucson. 83 miles around Almaden valley.

I completed the ride in about 5 hours, and I’m pretty happy with that. The time doesn’t include the 4 flats we got (2 mine, 2 Seth’s).

Lisa did fine and we now consider ourselves trained, though I’m fairly certain to get some more significant climbs into my legs before we depart. We can’t ride for a week before the event because our bikes will be in transit.

I bought a new bike which I’d been thinking about for some time. I found a buyer for my trust Trek 5200 OCLV, precipitating an urgent search for a replacement. My requirements were carbon frame and Dura-Ace components. Many people on the TNT ride have exotic looking bikes and my Trek seems quite ordinary by comparison and I was tempted to get something unusual. However, I needed to get something quickly if I was going to have enough time to get used to it before Tuscon so I went for the Trek Madone SSL, knowing it has very similar geometry to the OCLV and thus would fit. I bought an 07 model on sale from the best bike shop in Santa Cruz.

Interestingly on my first ride I cut 5% off the time I did the day before on my OCLV. Identical bike computer, weather, shoes, pedals etc. Only the bike and tires were different.

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