In the Red Corner: Dr. Frank Day. Finisher of the original Hawaii Ironman, former US Navy Surgeon, Naval Academy Grad, founder of Powercranks LLC and inventor of the Powercrank training tool that teaches your brain to pedal in circles and forces you to use your hip flexors more than you ever imagined possible. Valuable contributor to the multisport community worldwide !
In the Blue Corner: Mr. Rip Van Winkle. True identity unknown. Academic qualifications unknown, cycling ability unknown, contribution to multisport, unknown ! Ablity to refure any arguement posted by anyone in favour of view contrary to his, well known
Vote now for your favourite Slowtwitch Celeb now!
Secret draw for a trip to Tibbs velvet room for all voters !
As inflammatory as RVW can be at times, I think he has more than proven the validity of his opinions on several topics - he is not a troll, an idiot, or (well, much of) an A-hole.
Flame job hack nonsense like this thread is exactly why people are sometimes hesitant to post their real name/etc.
For some reason, PC threads always bring out this shit - it’s like talking religion, or politics, or anything else that is largely based on faith/belief. Yuck.
Can’t we please, finally, drop the whole damn thing? I, for one, vow never to talk about PCs again.
You may have asked two questions: Who is smarter? and Who is your favourite?
I don’t know who is smarter. I don’t know who is more stubborn, either I think I know who is more innovative in their thinking outside the box…and who seems to live by the Gospel of the Bible of PubMed. But, I’d have to say between these two, RVW is my favorite, because it is friction that sharpens the edge. Dr. Day and I agree on too many things for him to be my favorite…that can be boring. Now, if I were going to be pick a dinner companion or someone as a team-mate, I’d pick a porcupine over RVW…a porcupine is less prickly
We are each smart in our own way so I guess it is how one measures it. RVW is clearly very book smart so i will vote for him, as long as it keeps him around as I find the debates with him “fun” and his obscession with and ignorance of PowerCranks won’t let these threads die so he keeps the product discussion before the masses (at least the 20 or so who stay tuned)
I suggest they are the same person, RVW invented to keep all the chatter about PC alive and thus getting the product fresh in people’s minds so they buy it. Woah! Sorry if this sounds weird, i just got off of a really hilly 4.5+ hr ride, which i totally went too fast for the first 2 hrs, and thus am out of brain juice now…
as a mechanical engineer who would give his left arm for the opportunity to go to med school (im just too old and too stupid) i gotta give big props to frank!!
With Frank, in either a direct or 'round about way you’re going to get a shameless plug for PC’s. The next time he takes a position that even questions their value will be the first. If nothing else, he’s predictable.
With RVW, you get someone who will question what is commonly thought of as the “truth” or “fact”. This forum would lose much of its value if all we did was accept the word of some so-called expert as “truth”. If you look beyond the delivery and the times he get’s frustrated and backed into a corner and lays out 15 or so PubMed abstracts, you can always learn something from old RVW. I kind of admire that he keeps his identity unknown. That way, his arguments have to stand on their own and aren’t either credited or discredited by who he is. Anyone can stubbornly defend a postion to the end. But to do it well is something else entirely.
With all these debates, we’re not talking about something that if we dig hard enough and argue long enough we will somehow uncover the “truth”. It’s all simply theory to be either supported or disproven. It’s one thing to be able to read a book and simply repeat the information. The value of these debates is in taking theory or some opinion yet to be proven and use some sound logic and reasoning with a little original thought to support a position. Debate is not about what side you take, it’s about how well you can support your point of view. If you really know your sh*t, you should be able to take either side on many of the debates that spring up on this forum and do a half-way decent job of supporting it.
Mr. Bulldog, There were several “older” students in my med school class (30’s and 40’s). I personally think the best doctors are those who have some real world experience before going to med school over those who have only known academia. My engineering background stood me in good stead in medical school (and in medicine). Don’t be afraid to give it a try if you really want to.
Tough call. Frank wouldn’t exist with out Rip. I admire Frank for his obvious intelligence and creativity. As a salesman, I also admire his tenacity and consistent promotion of his product. He really believes in PCs.
Rip on the other hand, is the guy in the back of the room of the room who yells BULLSHIT when the rest of us are nodding our mesmirized heads as Frank gives his sales pitch for PowerCranks. He keeps Frank and the rest of us honest.
In a way, Frank is “The Man in the Arena,” from Teddy Roosevelt’s famous speech at the Sorbonne. He puts it out there for all of us to criticisize.
For his endless optimism, and courage I would have to go with Frank.
I think you guys are on to something. Rip Van Winkle, Chameleon and Perfection are all likely employees of Powercranks LLC.
My personal favourite slowtwitch celeb is slowman, but given my posting, I’ll have to go with RVW since he keeps me more entertained than anyone on this forum
**You’ve brought up a good point about the anonymity of cyber triathletes (“geeks”) on slowtwitch. Before RVW pointed out that I was all wrong I didn’t know that 98% of the anounomous tri-“geeks” that post here had not only finished an Ironman in under 10 hours but most had won IMH at least a couple of times. **
He’s my pet hate ever since TripleThreat’s eclipse. For every argument, he’s got a webpage ready, he needs a 1Gb disk just to keep his bookmarks!
The ONLY good thing about Rip is that he’s not in the forum in order to promote his business, so his opinions don’t have an economic bias to them. Which is a good thing, since more and more people in the tri biz are coming here to the forum in order to promote themselves and/or their products. Some of them have been here forever, some haven’t…
Perfection’s identity is known and he is all about promoting the Anquetil pedaling technique.
Chameleon and RVW are very similar, quite possibly the same person. Both have struck me a slightly more abrasive Andrew Coggan. Who knows, maybe Andy posts under these names when he is in a bad mood?
Chameleon and RVW are very similar, quite possibly the same person. Both have struck me a slightly more abrasive Andrew Coggan. Who knows, maybe Andy posts under these names when he is in a bad mood?
RVW will back up his arguments with specifc papers. Chameleon will simply make statements and then instruct the doubters to “read the whole literature” without backing up his assertions.
Even though both cite scientific papers often, Rip and Andrew are exact opposites. Andrew Coggan is the perfect example of the scientist that tries to have a language understandable for everyone and is a good vehicule for the promotion of science. I would call him the Carl Sagan of triathlon
I think I know who is more innovative in their thinking outside the box…and who seems to live by the Gospel of the Bible of PubMed. But, I’d have to say between these two, RVW is my favorite, because it is friction that sharpens the edge. Dr. Day and I agree on too many things for him to be my favorite…that can be boring. Now, if I were going to be pick a dinner companion or someone as a team-mate, I’d pick a porcupine over RVW…a porcupine is less prickly 