Rose Pedal Climb

I really can't believe that a half-dozen hacks sitting around a table last July turned into the event pulled together on April 18th. (No offense intended at the other hacks involved.) Over 230 riders came to an inaugural event. I'm still completely floored at the amount of support, volunteers, and enthusiasm that showed up on a perfect Saturday morning.



There are a lot of things we could control and several that we have no influence on. The weather is a big one and it was perfect. So although we didn't do anything to bring on the great weather, I expect people to be talking for months (if not years) about how perfect, beautiful, and comfortable the ride was. So, so cool.

I spent about 3 hours driving the course and taking pictures. I'll be posting a set on the Rose Pedal site by early May '09. Also, if anyone wants some awesome Rose Pedal gear (jersey and/or bib shorts), let me know. We're placing an order on May 1.



The MINI got into the action, too.

DC Madness

I spent most of last week in DC for a conference for Down syndrome leadership. As with most assemblies involving hundreds of people, most got along, some dissented, and a few ideological bombs were tossed. No offense to organizers or attendees who may stumble on this note; the highlight was Sunday morning, 6am, as I stood on the mall alone with the MCS.



55 minutes of no-traffic, all-green lights, light snow, empty city driving can feel like Midtown Madness. A lot like it, in fact, right down to the red-with-white-top MCS that my son and I always drive.

'08 MCS swap

So I've got an arrangement with my MINI dealer wherein every several months or so we trade cars just for fun. They let me drive a new MINI for a day and I give them my Chili Red Cooper S. The last time we did this, they lent me a Tan '08 Cooper. This time I got a metallic Black Cooper S with bonnet stripes. They replaced my MAP sensor just for fun.



I actually like these one-day swaps for the opportunity to try out a car on more than a fixed loop within spitting distance of the dealer. It's not about unwinding the thing on the freeway or straightening a curvy mountain road. I enjoy the subtle nuances of starting the engine after a cold night and seeing how long it takes to warm up. How does it handle under the 90% driving style that doesn't resemble a test drive? How's that turbo lag when I'm stuck in stop-and-go traffic in town? With what name will my 6-year-old christen it?*

Without rehashing the interior changes from my last evaluation, I tallied a few notes about the differences in pre-'07 vs. post '07 S models (to wit, Supercharger vs. Turbo).

THE BAD
The turbo lag is there. Start softly and it audibly winds up, start a little more aggressively and it jerks on. It kicks in at lower speeds than the turbos of yesteryear, but every time I had to get moving from a standstill I could feel it.

The fuel gauge still drives me nuts. Why, oh why did they use a digital display that is less accurate than the analog? As the candy corns disappear, there is no correlation to how much fuel is left in the tank. For this I had to look at the computer display which shows the remaining distance on the fuel in the tank. They should have stuck with the remaining distance display and dropped the candy-corn gauge altogether.

The aforementioned computer display is really ugly. I really didn't like looking at it. It's not polished; it's not anti-aliased; it's not symmetrical. It doesn't look MINI. It's certainly no deal breaker, but I can't shake the feeling that the designers at MINI didn't design it. More likely, some VP got a really good deal on a bunch of them from a guy he knows.


THE GOOD
It's quick: noticeably faster than my supercharged example. It feels faster (torquier) and is just plain quicker. Passing speeds are excellent as the turbo spools and then jumps, even at freeway speeds. It's really, really fun to drive at 30 or 60 miles-per-hour and then accelerate 20 mph faster.

It likes to go fast. At 75 mph, it seemed really eager to jump up another 5 or 10. The supercharged version isn't sluggish at these speeds, but the turbo was clearly communicating that it wanted to go faster. I found myself driving at average faster speeds with the same amount of feedback; it just feels lighter.

The Sport mode works. I'm guessing it either keeps the turbo running or dials it in sooner. When I drove with Sport mode on, the response was quicker and it felt much more like the go-kart I expected. It's noisier this way, but I didn't press the Sport button in order to take a nap.

The gas mileage is better than the supercharged version. I observed an average of 29.7 over 85 miles with all sorts of driving. I'm not going to expound that last statement, suffice it to say that I expect 29.7 would be the worst mileage I'd have if this were my daily-driver.

The steering feels tighter. This could be due to the newness, but I doubt it. My MCS feels plenty tight; the '08 felt just a little stiffer.


THE VERDICT
It's an excellent car. I do love the MINI. After spending a day with this one, though, I still wish they'd kept the simplicity and arrangement of the prior version. I can't imagine an S lasting as long if I had to run it in Sport mode all the time, which is the only time this car felt superior to mine.

*She named this one "Olivia."

Lights

A brand-spankin' new A4 passed me on the freeway today during the frigid, morning commute. As it moved up from behind, all I could focus on was the band of lil' dipper-style lights. My first impression in the flesh is favorable; this sedan looked really good in motion.

The Amazing Nuvi

Reaching the conclusion of my mileage documentary, the results are quite anticlimactic. At 50,000 miles I pulled out of the extended-stay parking lot at Hartsfield-Jackson Int'l.



The cool thing about this picture is that although my Nuvi can't actually find the fastest way to my home, it apparently knows where the aisles are in the economy parking lot. That empty space was dead on and I didn't hit a single car on the way out.

Flying hazards

The Seattle Times reports on the problem of increased air traffic by both planes and 10-pound birds.

The dramatic landing of a US Airways passenger jet in New York City's Hudson River on Thursday has focused attention on potentially catastrophic bird-versus-plane collisions, said Sea-Tac biologist Steve Osmek. US Air Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson after Canada geese apparently were sucked into its engines, disabling both.

I'm uncertain how they ascertained the geese were disabled. That assumption aside, the man of the hour appears to have been preparing for this his entire life. Impressive and congratulatory. I predict this story turns into a bestseller.

Notably New in 2008

Few roller coasters have excitement and disappointment rivaling 2008. I confess that dusting off my post-graduate degree in Mountaineering and Hermitology was a temptation I resisted exactly seven times. The drops and dips are like children—uninteresting if they're not your own. So here are a few things that went very right in 2008.


Best Album born from an Uptight NYC University – Vampire Weekend

Dripping into the public consciousness with the release of their self-titled album, this group of Columbia-bred musicians mix so many ideas into their music that I feel I'm witnessing the creative process of a multi-possessed Paul Simon. My favorite from the album that is still in frequent rotation? Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.




Most Maniacally Depressing Bad Guy of whom I Wish There Were More - The Joker

I caught Dark Knight on a weekday trip to SLC when I had a few too many canceled meetings in a single afternoon. Stuck in one spot with a three hour gap, my iPhone yelled that I could catch the movie at exactly that time. (God bless technology.) "No problem," I thought, "I'll just watch this flick to reset my frustration and show up to my next appointment ready to work." Apparently I hadn't seen the trailer.

Two hours later I stumbled out of the theatre physically shaking and astonished that I could love the involvement of darkness and myth. The genius of Mr. Ledger's performance isn't that he made The Joker sympathetic; rather he convinced me that The Joker was more intent toward his objective than any other villain I've seen.




Most Ignored Car that we will come to Wish We Hadn't - 2008 M3 Sedan

Despite a waiting list longer than ten long things for the coupe, BMW apparently couldn't move the four-door variety M3 fast enough to avoid offering ridiculously low financing to anyone with a pulse, à la Ford Motor Company. The 2008 M3 sedan will stick in BMW's memory as a classic told-you-so that we, the enthusiast, will regret for years to come.

You see, after the E36 sedan failed to sell in sufficient numbers BMW pulled the option for the E46 and we missed out on a generation of four-dour sleepers. For years, the Letters section of Roundel lit up with complaints about our gracious German overlords neglecting our tastes. Fences were mended, the M3 sedan returned, and we, the consumer, didn't max out our home equity lines at a sufficient pace to satisfy supply. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the suits in Munich decline to give us another chance. Enjoy your E90; it may well be the last.




Most fun I've had on a Project This Year - TheEndOfRodneySmith.com

The combination of talent between Rodney Smith and David Meredith mean that I have a hard time saying, 'no.' To promote his new compendium, my little company built the very beautiful microsite at TheEndOfRodneySmith.com. My hat is off to Mister S and David, who handled the design.