North Korea plans long-range rocket launch

BEIJING -- North Korea announced Saturday that it will send a long-range rocket into space this month, trying to make up for a public-relations disaster in April when a much-hyped launch failed.

In the announcement attributed to a spokesman for the Korean Committee for Space Technology, North Korea said the rocket would carry a "polar-orbiting Earth observation satellite" for "peaceful scientific and technological" purposes.

Nonetheless, the launch is seen as a defiant move for an impoverished country that is already subject to a U.S. ban from developing nuclear and missile technology.

PHOTOS: North Korea's April launch preparations

The timing -- between Dec. 10 and 22, according to the announcement -- coincides with several sensitive dates on the Korean calendar.

On Dec. 19 there is a closely contested presidential election in archrival South Korea that could be swayed by the rocket launch. Perhaps more important on the North Korean calendar, Dec. 17 marks the one-year anniversary of the death of longtime leader Kim Jong Il, who is believed to have ordered the launch.

A successful launch is also seen as key to establishing the legitimacy of successor Kim Jong Un, the late dictator’s son who is still in his 20s.

North Korea had been in the midst of a propaganda campaign, claiming that it would become a "strong and prosperous nation" by 2012, which happens to be the centennial of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the dynasty’s founder.

PHOTOS: Rare glimpse of North Korea

"It seems like they are trying to keep up with their declaration that the year 2012 will be the first year of  'strong and prosperous nation,'" said Koh Yoo-hwan, North Korean studies professor at South Korea’s Dongguk University. "Because that had failed, they will try and finish the project within this year."

The earlier launch was an embarrassment for the regime, which had invited foreign television crews into North Korea to publicize the feat. But the rocket flew for less than two minutes before splashing into the Yellow Sea, close enough to South Korea that its intelligence services were able to recover pieces to analyze.

"The purpose of a rocket launch is for domestic politics," said another South Korean specialist, Baek Seung-joo at Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. "This is their chance to recover from embarrassment in April, and also to strengthen the Kim Jong Un-centered leadership."

In the announcement, North Korea said the satellite, known as Kwangmyongsong-3, meaning "bright star," had been "manufactured by its own efforts and with its own technology, true to the behests of leader Kim Jong Il."

"Scientists and technicians of the DPRK  [North Korea] analyzed the mistakes that were made during the previous April launch and deepened the work of improving the reliability and precision of the satellite and carrier rocket, thereby rounding off the preparations to launch," the statement read.

The April launch was the third attempt for North Korea, the last two having taken place in 1998 and 2009. This launch, like the attempt in April, is to take place from the Sohae military installation on the country’s west coast near the border with China, and is probably headed south toward the Philippines. The 1998 and 2009 launches, directed to the east, caused great consternation in Japan.

Technologically, launching an intercontinental ballistic missile or satellite is essentially the same, with the main difference being what the rocket is carrying. The fact that North Korea is simultaneously developing nuclear weapons has raised fears that eventually the United States could be within its range.

South Korea's first rocket from its own territory, Naro-1, was scheduled to launch Thursday, but was delayed until next year because of technical problems.

In a statement, the South Korean foreign ministry said Thursday that the North's planned launch is "a grave provocation and a head-on challenge to the international community."

The North Korean statement was not a surprise because satellite intelligence released in recent days showed a movement of trucks around the launch site, according to 38 North, a think tank affiliated with Johns Hopkins University.

"If Pyongyang follows past practice in preparing for a launch, it could be ready to fire a rocket as early as the end of the first week in December," 38 North said in the report released Wednesday.

Demick reported from Beijing and Choi from Seoul.

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Geek Culture's 26 Most Awesome Female Ass-Kickers

Angelina Jolie extends her reputation as filmdom’s most compelling ass-kicker, Female Division, when Salt opens Friday. Midway through a summer freighted with testosterone, Jolie’s lithe Agent Salt is a potent reminder of the power of feminine fighters.

A minority presence in sci-fi and action realms even in 2010, women warriors remain the exception to the guy-centric rule in film, TV, videogames and comic books. But that’s changing, according to Action Flick Chick blogger Katrina Hill, who moderates the "Where Are the Action Chicks?" panel Friday at San Diego’s Comic-Con International.

"Compare the original Predator to this summer’s Predators," she said in an e-mail interview with Wired.com. "The original film was a complete boy’s club, with the only woman in the movie being a hostage. Today, Predators has a kick-ass chick mixed in as an equal amongst these other badass men. So there are steps being taken in the right direction. It just takes time."

The rise of the female fighter will be addressed at no fewer than three other female-dominated panels at this year’s Comic-Con (Thursday’s “Divas and Golden Lassoes: The LGBT Obsession with Super Heroines” and Friday’s “Girls Gone Genre: Movies, TV, Comics, Web” and “Women Who Kick Ass: A New Generation of Heroines,” which features Fringe’s Anna Torv and V’s Elizabeth Mitchell.)

Here’s a look at 26 sexy-fierce female ass-kickers who’ve relied on biceps and brains to periodically kick-start geek culture.

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Glen Campbell considering more live shows in 2013

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Glen Campbell may be wrapping up a goodbye tour but that doesn’t mean he’s done with the stage.

Campbell is considering scheduling more shows next year after playing more than 120 dates in 2012.

The 76-year-old singer has Alzheimer’s disease and has begun to lose his memory. He put out his final studio album, “Ghost on the Canvas,” in 2011 and embarked on the tour with family members and close friends serving in his band and staffing the tour.

Campbell’s longtime manager Stan Schneider said in a phone interview from Napa, Calif., where the tour wrapped for the year Friday night, that recent West Coast shows have been some of the singer’s strongest. Campbell will break for the holidays and if he still feels strong he’ll begin scheduling more shows.

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Online:

http://glencampbellmusic.com

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Small union is causing big problems for ports

The small band of strikers that has effectively shut down the nation's busiest shipping complex forced two huge cargo ships to head for other ports Thursday and kept at least three others away, hobbling an economic powerhouse in Southern California.

The disruption is costing an estimated $1 billion a day at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, on which some 600,000 truckers, dockworkers, trading companies and others depend for their livelihoods.

"The longer it goes, the more the impacts increase," said Paul Bingham, an economist with infrastructure consulting firm CDM Smith. "Retailers will have stock outages, lost sales for products not delivered. There will be shutdowns in factories, in manufacturing when they run out of parts."

Despite the union's size — about 800 members of a unit of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union — it has managed to flex big muscles. Unlike almost anywhere else in the nation, union loyalty is strong at the country's ports. Neither the longshoremen nor the truckers are crossing the tiny union's picket lines.

The strike started at the L.A. port's largest terminal Tuesday and spread Wednesday to 10 of the two ports' 14 cargo terminals. These resemble seaside parking lots where long metal containers are loaded and unloaded with the help of giant cranes.

The union contends that the dispute is over job security and the transfer of work from higher-paid union members to lower-paid employees in other countries. The 14-employer management group says that no jobs have been outsourced and that the union wants to continue a practice called "featherbedding," or bringing in temporary workers even when there is no work.

The two sides haven't met since negotiations broke down Monday, but they were scheduled to begin talking again Thursday night. The union has worked without a contract for 21/2 years.

The clerical workers are a vital link in the supply chain. They handle the immense flow of information that accompanies each cargo ship as well as every item in the freight. One shipload of shoes, toys and other products is enough to fill five warehouses.

Logistics clerk Trinie Thompson, 41, normally spends her days working with railroad lines and trucking companies to ensure that the right containers are sent along to their proper destinations. On Thursday, she was walking the picket lines at the docks.

"We will be setting up trains to Houston, trains to Dallas, to Chicago, to the Pacific Northwest," said Thompson, who has worked for 10 years for Eagle Marine Services terminal, which is affiliated with the giant APL shipping line.

"For a typical container ship, we will have to set up multiple trains. We might be sending 200 to 300 containers to Chicago alone, and there will be paperwork for all of them."

The strike comes at a time of simmering labor unrest at other U.S. ports, underscoring the unusual power labor holds in maritime trade.

On the East Coast and Gulf Coast, another group of shipping lines and terminal operators called the United States Maritime Alliance has repeatedly failed to reach agreement on a new labor contract with the International Longshoremen's Assn. A strike that might have involved dozens of ports was avoided only after both sides agreed to extend negotiations past the September end of their current contract.

A strike also was narrowly avoided at Portland, Ore., only a few days ago in a dispute between grain shippers and union workers.

Operations at Oakland International Airport and at the Port of Oakland, the third-largest port in the state behind Los Angeles and Long Beach, were affected by a brief strike this month.

Maritime unions "have successfully organized one of the most vital links in the supply chain, and it's a tradition they nurture with all of their younger workers," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a UC Santa Barbara history professor and workplace expert. "They have a very strong ideological sense of who they are, and for now they are strong."

In Los Angeles and Long Beach, the 800 clerical workers have been able to shut down most of the ports because the 10,000-member dockworkers union is honoring the picket lines. Work continues at only four cargo terminals, where the office clerical unit has no workers.

"Longshoremen stand up when other workers need our help," said Ray Ortiz Jr., a member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union's Coast Committee. "Sure, it's a sacrifice to give up a paycheck when you refuse to cross the picket line, but we believe it's in the long-term interest of the Los Angeles-Long Beach harbor area to retain these good local jobs."

Stephen Berry, lead negotiator for the shipping lines and cargo terminals, said the clerical workers have been offered a deal that includes "absolute job security," a raise that would take average annual pay to $195,000 from $165,000, 11 weeks' paid vacation and a generous pension increase.

At a news conference Thursday, Berry denounced the tactics by the clerical workers, calling them "irresponsible."

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Incoming Jets Animate Atlanta Airport's Epic Data-Driven Sculpture

Dan Goods has a pretty cool day job managing communications for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, but he's got a really cool hobby: The Pasadena brainiac makes data sculptures on an epic scale.

In collaboration with designer Nik Hafermaas and programmer Jamie Barlow, Goods' latest piece, airFIELD, installed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, runs flight data through an app that spits out "on" or "off" signals to Frisbee-sized discs of liquid crystal suspended from the ceiling. Each time a jet takes off or lands, passengers are treated to a cascade of overhead lights synced to the flight's trajectory.

"We're not working with major data sets," Goods says. "It's basically: Have the planes landed? Have they taken off? And how far have they gone?' But it's interesting information and we're trying to show it in a poetic fashion. If you're sitting there waiting for two hours for your flight to Switzerland, then it gives you a sense of the heartbeat of the airport."

Prior to airFIELD, Goods curated Pasadena Museum of California Art's 2009 Data + Art exhibition, then joined Hafermaas and Google's Aaron Koblin to complete a San Jose International Airport installation in 2010. Titled eCLOUD, the piece uses weather data to activate thousands of hanging "smart glass" tiles that shift appearance every 20 seconds to reflect changing weather conditions.

Citing an MIT experiment that used solar wind activity to spin pinwheels, Goods says, "I liked the idea of taking arcane, weird data and making it into something physical. That kind of ambient data I think is really interesting because there's only so much you can see on a screen. I like the idea of experiencing data as something that's all-encompassing. How can you listen to data? How can you sense the physicality of data?"

Check out gallery for images, video and text deconstructing airFLIGHT, eCLOUD and other data-driven projects.

Images courtesy Dan Goods except where noted

Above: Arrivals and Departures Activate Atlanta Airport's airFIELD

Produced by UEBERSEE, the installation runs data provided by FlightAware tracking service through Dan Massey's custom C++ program. The application transmits electrical charges that instructs each single-pixel disc to become either opaque or translucent. "We were thinking about fluid dynamics, like grass blowing in the wind, and it had to work in three dimensions. It took a while to get the piece to feel like the airplane has just flown over your head, because that's what we wanted. We wanted it to feel as if you were standing at the end of the runway and these flights are flying over you and you're physically seeing the fluid dynamics of the aircraft as they go by."

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Producer sues Pythons over ‘Spamalot’ royalties

LONDON (AP) — It’s no joking matter.

A producer of the film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” is suing the British comedy troupe over royalties from the hit stage musical “Spamalot.”

Producer Mark Forstater wants a bigger share of proceeds from the show, which is based on the Pythons’ 1975 movie spoof of the legend of King Arthur.

Lawyers for Monty Python are contesting Forstater’s claim and will present their arguments later. Python members Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Jones will give evidence during a five-day hearing that began Friday at London’s High Court.

Forstater is suing the trio and the two other surviving Python members, John Cleese and Terry Gilliam. The sixth member of the troupe, Graham Chapman, died in 1989.

Forstater’s lawyer, Tom Weisselberg, said that under an agreement made when the film was produced, “for financial purposes Mr. Forstater was to be treated as the seventh Python” and entitled to the same share of “Holy Grail” merchandising and spin-off income as the other members.

But the lawyer said Forstater had not received his fair share of royalties from the stage show, which has been a hit around the world. It ran on Broadway for almost four years to 2009 and is still playing in London’s West End.

Weisselberg said Forstater, who was declared bankrupt earlier this year, had been forced to go to court because of his “difficult financial circumstances.”

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ranbaxy, a Generic Drug Maker, Stops Making Cholesterol Pill

Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals, the largest producer of the generic version of Lipitor, has halted production of the drug until it can figure out why glass particles may have ended up in pills that were distributed to the public, the Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday.

The agency said it had not received any reports of patients being harmed by the particles, which are about the size of a grain of sand. Earlier this month, Ranbaxy recalled more than 40 lots of the drug because of the glass contamination.

The company has declined to say where the drug was manufactured or why the problem occurred, but a spokeswoman for the F.D.A. said Thursday that the company would stop making the pill’s active ingredient, which is made in India, until the investigation is completed.

The contamination was the latest episode in a history of manufacturing lapses at Ranbaxy, which is a subsidiary of the Japanese pharmaceutical company Daiichi Sankyo. The company has been operating under a court-ordered consent decree since January, one that federal authorities have called “unprecedented in scope,” after they identified a host of manufacturing problems at the company’s plants in India and the United States, and concluded that Ranbaxy had submitted false data in drug applications to the F.D.A..

The decree prevents Ranbaxy from manufacturing drugs at its most troubled facilities until it can show it is meeting United States standards, although it was allowed to continue making products — including the generic version of Lipitor — at other plants.

The F.D.A. spokeswoman, Sarah Clark-Lynn, said the affected lots were not made at “the same facilities whose conduct gave rise to the consent decree.” Nonetheless, she said in an e-mail Monday, “the consent decree provides the F.D.A. with additional tools to address violations for other Ranbaxy facilities.”

A spokesman for Ranbaxy declined to comment beyond an informational statement on the company’s Web site.

Some drug manufacturing experts said Ranbaxy’s latest troubles highlight the disparities in oversight of plants in the United States versus those overseas. “I have pretty good faith in companies and plants that make drugs in this country because I know from my own experience that they try to do a good job,” said Prabir K. Basu, executive director of the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology and Education, who previously worked in manufacturing and global outsourcing for pharmaceutical companies, including Searle and Pharmacia. “But my confidence is not that high when we are getting products from outside the country.”

He pointed to studies that have shown the F.D.A. inspects foreign generic manufacturing plants about once every seven to 13 years, compared with once every two years for domestic manufacturers. A law passed over the summer will eventually require the F.D.A. to apply the same standards when inspecting all manufacturing plants, regardless of which country they’re in.

Allan Coukell, director of medical programs at the Pew Health Group and an expert on drug safety, said the new law would level what he described as an uneven playing field, but “it’s incumbent on F.D.A. to hire the staff and to make the shift to a risk-based inspection system.” Under the law, fees collected from generic manufacturers will help pay for more inspectors.

Mr. Basu said the law, called the Generic Drug User Fee Amendments of 2012 and known as Gdufa (Gah-doofuh) was a step in the right direction, but fixing the problem would require more than simply hiring more people. “This is a very difficult and complex system, and how do we ensure the integrity of this supply chain?” he said. “I don’t know how much Gdufa will help.”

Ranbaxy has held a significant share of the market for generic Lipitor, also known as atorvastatin, since it became one of the first companies to sell it after Pfizer lost patent protection for the top-selling drug last November; another company, Watson, sold a generic version that was authorized and manufactured by Pfizer. In October, Ranbaxy’s product accounted for 43 percent of prescriptions for atorvastatin, a widely used drug to lower cholesterol levels, according to an analysis by Michael Faerm, an analyst for Credit Suisse who used prescription data from the research firm IMS Health.

In its statement on Thursday, the F.D.A. said it did not expect a shortage of atorvastatin. Erin Fox, who tracks drug shortages as director of the Drug Information Service at the University of Utah, said drugs in pill form have long shelf lives and suppliers can keep large quantities in stock. Other generic manufacturers with approval to sell the drug include Apotex, Dr. Reddy’s Labs, Mylan, Sandoz, and Teva, according to the F.D.A. Web site.

Ranbaxy has posted a list of the recalled lots on its Web site, and has warned that patients should not stop taking the drug without guidance from their doctor. The lot numbers are found on the side of Ranbaxy pill bottles and the company advised patients to check with their pharmacist if customers received pills in a container dispensed by the pharmacy.

The agency said the potential for injury because of the contamination appeared to be low and “if any adverse events are experienced, they would be temporary.”

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Consumers Cut Spending in October

WASHINGTON — Americans cut back on spending last month and saw no growth in their income, the Commerce Department said Friday, reflecting disruptions from Hurricane Sandy that could hold back economic growth in the final months of the year.

Consumer spending dropped 0.2 percent in October, the government said. That was down from an increase of 0.8 percent in September and was the weakest showing since May.

Income was flat in the month, following a 0.4 percent rise in September.

The government said work interruptions caused by the late October storm reduced wages and salaries by about $18 billion at an annual rate. Hurricane Sandy affected 24 states, with the most severe damage in New York and New Jersey.

Consumers may also be worried about automatic tax increases and spending cuts that will take effect in January if lawmakers and the Obama administration fail to strike a deal before then.

The depressed spending figures suggest economic growth are likely to be weak in the October-December quarter. Consumer spending drives nearly 70 percent of economic activity in the United States.

Discounting the effects of the storm, income growth would have risen a still-weak 0.1 percent. After-tax income adjusted for inflation fell 0.1 percent, while spending adjusted for inflation dropped 0.3 percent.

The saving rate edged up slightly, to 3.4 percent of after-tax income in October, compared with 3.3 percent in September.

The government reported Thursday that the overall economy grew at an annual rate of 2.7 percent in the July-September quarter, an improvement from the 2 percent rate of growth initially estimated. However, economists believe the acceleration in activity will be short-lived.

Many of them predict growth is slowing in the current October-December quarter to less than 2 percent, a rate that is too weak to make a significant dent in unemployment. But they expect growth to rebound in the New Year when the rebuilding phase begins in the Northeast.

In October, spending at retail businesses fell 0.3 percent, the first drop after three months of gains. Auto sales dropped 1.5 percent, the biggest decline in a year.

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British judge urges new press regulator due to hacking scandal

LONDON – In a highly anticipated and lengthy report, a senior judge Thursday recommended that a new, independent regulatory authority be set up to monitor Britain’s raucous press and to crack down on media abuses such as phone hacking and other unethical newsgathering practices.

Justice Brian Leveson said such a regulator was necessary because the press had at times “wreaked havoc in the lives of innocent people” through its intrusions on privacy and relentless pursuit of scoops.

The new regulatory body should be backed by law, but it should not include any politicians, in order to avoid government control of the press, nor any editors, in order to maintain full independence, Leveson said.

The regulator would replace a previous press complaints commission that is widely recognized in Britain to have been a failure, particularly with regard to the phone-hacking scandal. Evidence has emerged that hundreds of high-profile figures may have had their cellphones tapped by the now-defunct News of the World tabloid.

The scandal gave rise to a months-long, government-commissioned investigation into media culture and ethics by Leveson, who heard testimony from more than 300 witnesses.

The recommendations in his 2,000-page report are likely to please some hacking victims and satisfy demands of some lawmakers who say that Britain’s media, in particular its sensation-seeking and gossip-hungry tabloids, have been allowed to run amok.

But the news organizations themselves have expressed alarm over any form of regulation that has its roots in law and that, they fear, could be the first step toward government censorship. Although they recognize the need for oversight, many news outlets have pushed for a better system of self-regulation with no legal underpinning.

Leveson was eager to emphasize his respect for a free press and denied that his recommendations represented any threat to it.

“The press operating freely and in the public interest is one of the true safeguards of our democracy. As a result, it holds a privileged and powerful place in our society,” he told reporters. “But this power and influence carries with it responsibilities to the public interest in whose name it exercises these privileges. Unfortunately, as the evidence has shown beyond doubt, on too many occasions those responsibilities … have simply been ignored.”

The report has been eagerly awaited for months. As its release date neared, politicians and high-profile individuals dug in on either side, calling for laws to regulate the media or warning against them as an unacceptable infringement on a free press.

“As parliamentarians, we believe in free speech and are opposed to the imposition of any form of statutory control,” said a letter signed by 86 lawmakers. “The solution is not new laws but a profound restructuring of the self-regulatory system.”

A recent poll, however, found a majority of Britons in favor of some kind of regulation of the media backed by the force of the law.

The witnesses who appeared before Leveson included some of Britain’s best-known public figures, such as Prime Minister David Cameron. Actor Hugh Grant and "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling denounced media invasions of their privacy. Media baron Rupert Murdoch and other newspaper proprietors spoke about newsgathering practices.

The inquiry was launched last year after the hacking scandal exploded in the public consciousness with the revelation that the News of the World had tapped the voicemail messages of a missing 13-year-old girl, whose body was later found dumped in the woods by her killer.

Like a fast-spreading fire, the scandal quickly engulfed key pillars of British public life, putting the heat not just on tabloid newspapers but also the politicians who cozied up to them and the police who offered scoops in hopes of flattering coverage. Within days, the head of Scotland Yard resigned, as did one of Murdoch’s closest confidants, and the 168-year-old News of the World was shut down.

Three separate police investigations – into phone hacking, computer hacking and bribery of public officials – were spawned by the affair. Dozens of people, most of them journalists at Murdoch-owned publications, have been arrested.

Only a few hours before Leveson’s report was released, the former head of Murdoch’s newspapers in Britain and a onetime senior aide to Cameron appeared in court on charges of paying public officials for information.

ALSO:

Three managers arrested after deadly Bangladesh factory fire

Outgoing Mexican President Felipe Calderon heading to Harvard

Google opposes German push for search engines to pay newspapers

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Making a Dirt Dog, Vol. 4: As the Bike Turns

Editor’s note: For those of you joining us late, Peter Rubin’s a roadie making his first foray into mountain biking. He knows nothing — seriously, zero — about that side of cycling, so he’s chronicling his adventures in the hope that others might learn from his inevitable mistakes.

It’s Day 2 at Gene Hamilton’s Better Ride skills camp. After a day in which I spent close to eight hours in a parking lot and about 15 minutes riding on a trail, I can’t say I was all that excited about waking up at 7 on a Saturday for more of the same. But there I was (albeit in a different parking lot). And this time, we were learning how to steer.

No, really.

So here’s what you don’t do on a bike when you want to go around the corner: turn the handlebars. Well, kind of. Under 6 mph or so, that’s really the only way to do it. But once you’re going faster than that, wrenching the wheel in a given direction means you’re about a half-second away from kissing pavement. The front wheel will just keep turning in that direction until it hits a right angle and you fly over the handlebars. Don’t believe me? Try it yourself.

Done?

What happens, you no doubt noticed, is that you didn’t kiss the pavement. Your bike actually swerved in the opposite direction. That’s because your body, purely instinctively, counteracts what your brain thinks you’re trying to do. (Give it up for self-preservation!) All of this is to say that turning the wheel is not how you turn. The thing is, you already know that — at least, your body does. You’ve internalized what’s commonly known as “countersteering,” which essentially means initiating a turn in one direction with the intention of going the opposite direction. But as Hamilton, who founded Better Ride, and coach Dylan Renn pointed out, it’s not so much steering in the opposite direction as it is applying pressure in the opposite direction. That is, if you want to make a sharp left turn, you apply pressure on the left handlebar. That initiates a turn to the right, after which your bike will lean left to compensate, and you can lean into a sharp left turn.

Now, this is no secret among road cyclists and motorcyclists. But the effect on mountain biking is a bit more pronounced because the crux of MTBing is to stay balanced above your bike no matter what. From front to back and left to right, your mass should be centered above your bottom bracket. That means that if your bike is going to be leaning to the left for a sharp left turn, you separate your body from the bike and allow it to lean without leaning along with it. Which leads us, conveniently, to the Better Ride cornering method.

1. Attack position. Always attack position.


2. Look into the turn. Building on the vision drills of Day 1, we learned how to look at the apex of the turn as we initiated cornering, so that we’d be looking well past the turn by the time we were actually mid-corner.


3. Initiate cornering via counterpressure.


4. Separate from the bike by straightening the arm to the inside of the turn, and rotating the outside hand forward over the handlebar just enough so that the outside arm is bent at a 90-degree angle. (If this sounds confusing, see this image from Better Ride’s Facebook Page).

After lunch, we took to the trail (only five hours after the day’s class began!) and climbed through Pearson-Arastradero Preserve to the top of a series of sweeping turns. They weren’t switchbacks — that’s a whole ‘nother set of skills, and one I’d learn on Day 3 — but certainly tight enough that going through them with a good head of steam would press into service all the techniques drilled into me in the parking lot. Dylan stood at the apex of one, Gene at the apex of another, and we took turns bombing down through the turns. And then again. And again. Attack position. Counterpressure. Separate from the bike. And I swear to you, every time I headed down anew, my smile was bigger than the time before.

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