The Loser’s Curse of Wearing a Jersey

I have a fairly extensive collection of sports jerseys from various sports, thought I rarely actually wear them. Of all sports, I think the soccer jersey is the best for wearing in normal every day life, especially as jerseys in other sports tend to be oversized for the average American male. Player-level (what they wear) jerseys tend to go as small as 40 (men’s medium), and I’d normally wear a 36 (small).

That said, I do like to wears jerseys to support my fandom, either going to a game (rare now) or watching key games from the team on TV. Unfortunately, I’ve convinced myself that my jersey wearing is strongly correlated (if not causal!) to my team losing.

I don’t remember a win while watching a game on TV with a jersey. Some of the brutal losses:

  • Warriors lose to Cavs in 2017 Finals, Game 7
  • 49ers lose to Chiefs in 2020 Super Bowl
  • 49ers lose to Ravens, this past Thanksgiving, the only time I wore a jersey this year.

I am sure there are a few more, because this guilt has been building over time. Am I typically superstitious? No. But last night went too far.

I wore my Patrick Willis jersey watching the 49’ers fall behind 24-7. I decided to take off the jersey, just in case.

The 49ers went on to overcome the largest half-time deficit in NFL conference championship history. It didn’t even take the full game, it took 12 minutes, less than a quarter. to overcome the curse.

No jersey wearing for the Super Bowl.

The Outdoors is Expensive

This year, our family committed to doing more in the snow. Lake Tahoe is about 2 hours away, and we wanted our kids to take advantage of winter activities that neither my wife or I were in a position to do from our youth until really, now.

I wanted my oldest son (5 years old) to start snowboarding so that I could learn as well, but little did I know what I was actually getting into. – I thought cycling was expensive, but it turns out most of the outdoors is expensive. Here’s a breakdown of the equipment we had to buy:

Keep in mind I spent over $2k for myself and him, even after over 30% in combined off-season discounts. This also doesn’t include the family pass ($450 for a season, considered to be a bargain) and one time private lessons at $200.

Going for the 1 Hour mark at the 2024 Mt. Diablo Challenge

A couple of weeks ago, I raced the Mt. Diablo Challenge for the first time. I finished:

I finished in the top 27% overall and top 23% in my age group doing 233 watts, about 3.45 w/kg. However, I don’t have any doubt I can finish in one hour with possibly a top ten finish. Before I talk about why, here are my impressions of the event:

  • Mt. Diablo is a well known San Francisco Bay Area Climb. But most of my riding has been in the South Bay (Mountain View to Morgan Hill) and Sacramento. It was my first time riding this famed climb.
  • Driving into the parking lot at 7:30AM reminded me of when car enthusiasts get together to show off their cars. Even though I’ve been to plenty of mass rider events, I felt such a strong concentration of “Wow, that’s a $10K bike! There’s another…and another”
  • The view going up and down was great. I really enjoyed the descent, riding with a hundred other people down the road, just awesome views and a happy feeling traveling with so many people. I don’t do a lot of social riding, and even then I’m not a talker, but just being with so many people not needing to talk fulfilled my togetherness quota for the year. As you near the finish line, those who finished before you are waiting to urge you in the final (super steep) section. That’s me below watching (yes, eyes are closed) the people climb up.

Now here’s why I am confident about achieving the 1 hour mark (you get a special shirt for it too!) next year:

  • I participated in the Sacramento Century (100 miles but less than 1000 feet climbing) the day before. While my IF (intensity factor) was a relatively conservative .64, this turned out to be my highest all time power for the 5hr 10 minute ride. My back was hurting during the ride and my legs were a bit worn even after the night’s sleep. Clearly, I didn’t come in fresh. I thought I’d warm up and feel good after starting the ride, especially with a boost from caffeine, but I felt the effects of the previous day throughout and I started losing a lot of power in the second half of the climb.
  • Why was I silly enough to schedule two events like this back to back? I actually didn’t know they were back to back until about a month prior – I had already been signed up for a few months at that point. I would have preferred to do Mt. Diablo first, but that wasn’t up to me. I decided to keep the century ride because I thought my pace would be casual enough so I’d be ok for the race. I knew there was a risk but I just wanted to keep both events since I’d never done either before.
  • The week before the race I had done 269 watts over 28 minutes on a simulated Zwift climb. People like to say FPT power is the theoretical max 1 hour power someone can produce. If you don’t want to do a hour hour test, they’ll take 95% of a 20 minute test. Using that 28 minute power, my FTP should have been at least 255 watts. My guess is that I am closer to 260 watts. This is BestBikeSplit’s guess for what I could do at that rate. Looking at this year’s results, top ten finishers are right below the one hour mark.

My own tips for next year’s race:

  • I’m not doing 100 miles the day before the event. Complete rest at least 4 days before the event, focusing on good sleep.
  • I didn’t understand the bathroom situation so I waited in a long line where I picked up my packet. A few miles away at the race start, there are plenty of bathrooms. No more stress next time.
  • I’m taking off all my bottle cages and not bringing water. I brought one water bottle this time, but I didn’t need it, and it’s really hard to go all out and drink without losing momentum. I’ll drink during the drive over and then pee at the race start. That’s a saving of at least 1.5 pounds, almost 10% of my bike’s weight.
  • I’m not sure how far I want to go weight weenie, but I could also go with thinner tires. I went with 25mm/32mm front/rear since that’s just my normal setup, but I could see myself going 25mm/25mm just for the mental benefit. I’m curious about this cassette to save another .2 pounds, but I think that’s overkill and I’m worried about its reliability.
  • I am highly dependent on my Halo headband to absorb sweat and like an idiot, I forgot mine in the car. I was already miles away going to the race start when I realized this. Since the morning was cool (around 55F), I didn’t get affected by sweat too much, but it was definitely a mental stress and I did have to handle it a few times. Again, when you’re going full out for an hour, every little distraction can kill momentum.
  • I didn’t use sunglasses to avoid sweat and visibility issues (and a little weight) and that was the right decision. I was good with my clothing choice, and didn’t use gloves.
  • I had two caffeine bars (around 160mg total) but I think one would have been fine as I don’t consume caffeine often. I’ll test this a bit over the next year.
  • Training – I’ll work on 1 hr climbing over the next year and if I’m consistent I think I could gain up to 10 more watts (4% increase) and lose 2kg. The power gain is fairly modest.

Mazda CX-90 PHEV (2024) vs Tesla Y Electric (2020)

Last month, our family started a 30 month lease of the new Mazda CX-90 and it’s been an interesting experience after driving a 2020 Tesla Y Long Range for the past 3+ years.

The CX-90 is the PHEV (plug in hybrid) model, in the mid-level (if you can call $55,000 MSRP “mid”) Premium trim. No additional options other than the lovely premium Artisan Red color.

What I like about the CX-90 relative to the Tesla Y:

  • We’re about to become a 3 child, 6 person family so we needed a 3 row vehicle. Everyone is much more comfortable in the CX90 – all the passengers love it more. Bigger is better?
  • Mazda’s highway cruise control isn’t self driving like Tesla’s but its radar-based speed control is much smoother. It’s quite human or at least very similar to the way I drive in the way it accelerates and decelerates relative to other cars in the same lane. The Tesla Y, even when you put the distance between other cars at its max setting, is quite jerky.
  • The CX-90 is significantly quieter than the Y which is significantly quieter than a typical gas car, like a 2013 BMW 3 series.
  • My trim has an HUD (heads up display) projected on the windshield – it allows you to see speed, directions and cruise control settings without looking down or to the side (like on a Tesla Y). My biggest gripe, by far, with the Y is not having some centrally focused view for primary driving information.
  • The gas + battery combination on the CX-90 supposedly gets 450+ miles. When driving with kids, knowing you can take fewer stops so you can get home by bed time is a pretty big deal. We take trips that require 3-4 hours of driving round trip a couple of times per month – right at the maximum of the Y’s range. This was really stressful and often meant no deviations.

What I don’t like:

  • The CX-90 with Captain’s Chair second row is supposedly 7 seats but I think that’s a very hard sell. We have two child seats in the third row and there’s no way we could fit a third. Could you fit three 8 year old kids who don’t need booster seats? Maybe?
3rd row passenger room for 2024 Mazda CX-90.
  • The CX-90 supposedly accelerates pretty well (0-60 in mid 6 seconds) with 320+ HP but I don’t feel it driving in the real world. It could be that I’m too used to the Y and its insane acceleration and smooth power curve, but I don’t feel like I can count on the CX-90 to get me through a 50/50 yellow signal. I don’t really need to drive aggressively, so it’s not that big of a deal, but I never feel that the CX-90 is a powerful car – maybe I should try the sport mode.
  • Online reviews of the CX-90 highlight 1) nice driving feel 2) premium interior. For driving, I talked about acceleration already. Relative to the Y, I feel the CX-90 is always understeering. I think it’s because the CX-90 wheel has a much longer turn distance – you have to turn the wheel more. For example, if you try a U turn, you’re turning the CX-90 wheel a lot more than with the Y. This may mean the CX-90 feels more stable than the Y because wheel twitches do less in terms of changing the direction of the car but this also means I’m often underturning. It could very well be that the CX-90 drives better than a Telluride but when I drive the Y after the CX-90, the Y feels like a sports car – acceleration, agility. I don’t consider the CX-90 fun to drive.
  • The CX-90’s premium interior – I think it looks better in videos and photos than it is in reality. It’s definitely better than the Y, but is it that much better? I’m not sure if the seating is real leather (the Y has vegan / synthetic) and the paneling looks nice but I suspect is just some type of plastic. Is this worth $5-10K more relative to other cars in its class? Not to me.
  • The Mazda app is brutal to use. It’s slow, very unhelpful in sharing the status of the car and limited in functionality. I don’t have any doubt I could produce a better app. If you designed the app in 2010, we’d all be fine with it. But when you have examples like Tesla to learn from, there’s really no excuse.
  • The CX-90 can start without the key inserted, but this causes problems because you can leave the car with the key, and the car will keep running. If you don’t come from EVs, maybe this isn’t a big problem, but I am still forgetting to turn off the car. The CX-90 will make a sound if you do this, but if you’re distracted (by kids), you’ll forget and just walk away. There’s no reason why the car shouldn’t turn off on its own, especially if there is no key near the car for a certain amount of time (5 minutes) – it could just turn off and lock itself.
  • The hybrid portion of the car supposedly gets 30 miles officially, and 30+ miles unofficially through user comments. I get 20 miles or less. I feel like I have to charge the car every day that I use it even if the day was just for small errands like taking a child to school because it can’t last two days without depleting its battery. I’m not even using the hybrid-prioritized mode (in which I believe the battery is depleted first) in these cases.
  • The CX-90’s shift box in which the “top gear” is reverse and not park as it is on most cars can cause problems. It’s hard to understand why this deviation was considered a good idea.
Mazda CX-90's bewildering shifter. Note how the Parking position is not normal to most cars.
  • The driver memory settings for the Premium $55K trim won’t save the side mirror settings. Even Mazda doesn’t seem to know this – I’ve seen this confirmed by other owners, but Mazda sent me their official manual that suggests mirror settings are saved.
  • This trim doesn’t include a touch screen. At first, I was ok with this but manipulating the interface with a wheel button while you are driving (remember: no auto drive) is quite…dangerous. Overall, the car user interface of screen and buttons is slightly worse than Tesla’s extreme of no physical buttons.
  • The CX-90 trunk size is much smaller because of the third row, and that makes it a less convenient Costco vehicle. Don’t forget the CX-90 doesn’t have extra storage at the bottom of its trunk or a frunk like the Y.

Based on the list of issues, it probably seems like I don’t like the CX-90. I don’t hate it. The CX-90 is getting really nice reviews and I’d sum up those reviews as the poor man’s BMW in terms of a mix of looks, luxury interior and driving dynamics. A big part of why we got it is because there are no good 3 row EV options available right now. I am not the biggest fan of the Tesla Y, but the CX-90 gave me new appreciation for it. The reason I leased the CX-90 is it because it qualifies for the national $7500 EV rebate – you can roll that rebate savings into a 30 month lease but you can’t get that same savings if you buy the CX-90 because it’s made in Japan. I expect there will be better vehicle options with less rampant markup available in 30 months. However, I don’t think the hybrid portion of the car really offers that much. Yeah, if you have a shorter commute, maybe most of the time you’re running as an EV and using little gas. But that’s not the point of a car like this. If I could pick between any version of the CX-90, I’d like to try the gas-only Turbo S version – I suspect that has a smoother, more powerful driving experience.