Factor SLiCK slips in updates to split downtube TT & Triathlon bike
Just like the new ONE aero road bike last week, Factor also has sped up their split downtube SLiCK TT/Tri bike. The latest iteration of the bike evolves aero to the next level, including a healthy dose of triathlon-friendly integration.SLiCK, split downtube carbon TT & triathlon bikeThe big updates to the Slick further integration targeted at the triathlete. The new triathlon-specific accessories also now come stock with the bike. The storage system dubbed ‘StoraPak’ centers on the aero-shaped carbon box that attaches to the seatpost, with room for two tubes, tire levers, two CO2s & an inflater, plus a multi-tool. It also includes new toptube bosses and a between-the-arms (BTA) drink system mount on the aero bar’s upper bridge.Widely set fork legs and seatstays carry over on the UCI approved frameset, to allow smooth air movement around the wheels. The asymmetric Twin Vane Evo split downtube also remains unchanged, as does the split in the lower seattube which is said to prevent air pressure build-up where the spinning rear wheel tucks into the seattube.The bike is designed to clear 28mm tires front & rear. While you don’t see many riders racing against the clock on wide tires yet, their proven lower rolling resistance likely makes them a great choice, especially on the rear wheel where frontal are of the tire is not a concern. The Slick also features a removable front derailleur hanger for clean & aero 1x drivetrain setups. And it has its own cam-activated direct mount brake hidden in the fork, but easily accessible for servicing.51 Speedshop Mono-Riser Aerobar adjustabilityFactor paired with the new global fit collective of 51 Speedshop to get buyers of the Slick on their bike optimized for the best balance of comfort, pedaling output, and reduced aerodynamics. Together Factor developed the cockpit for the Slick with 51 Speedshop to build in fine-tuning and integration.That mono-riser aerobar system plays a big part in fit, offering a wide range of adjustability in stack, reach & arm position. The bolt-on 51 Speedshop Mono-Riser Aerobar features a Kamm tail carbon base bar, 142-255mm arm pad width options, 0-60mm stack adjustability, and three different extension shapes. Add that to a 0mm or +40mm integrated stem to fit any TT or tri setup.AvailabilityThe Factor Slick is available in a four size (S-XL) range, and with 0 or 25mm offset seatposts. The bike is available as a framekit including frame, fork, seatpost, handlebar, stem, headset & BB for $6300€. Or you can get it as a $8100€ rolling chassis including Black Inc 80mm deep carbon wheels. Complete bike builds are not currently available.With the new iteration of the Slick, Factor is even bringing the updates to earlier customers. It seems they had a number of back orders for the previous generation TT bike, and those buyers were the first to get the newest bike from its first production run a couple of weeks ago. A second run bringing availability to Factor’s full dealer network was said to have gone out this week.FactorBikes.com
What does the future hold? August 15, 2011 Managing Editor Regular News Record number sit for bar exam ‘Wal-Mart efficiency with Neiman Marcus feel’Mark D. Killian Managing EditorThe practice of law is destined to become more commoditized and competitive in the years ahead, and a lawyer’s understanding of the nonlegal parts of a client’s problem will often be more critical than his or her legal understanding. “It’s what will set a given lawyer off as special,” Thomas Morgan, a law professor from George Washington University, told the Board of Governors and the Young Lawyers Division board at their recent joint Palm Beach meeting.There will also be fewer jobs for lawyers.Firms will still exist, and some will be big, but, Morgan said, more will stay — or become — small and will partner as needed with others throughout the state, the nation, and the world.Lawyers also will find themselves working on nonlegal as well as legal questions and will bill based more nearly on “value added,” which also will raise independence issues to new levels.The lawyers who succeed will combine “Wal-Mart efficiency with Neiman Marcus feel,” said Professor Morgan, who teaches antitrust law and professional responsibility at GWU and is the former law dean at Emory University.For a century or more, what it meant to be a lawyer seemed fairly stable, but in reality, the dynamics of the profession have been slowly changing for the past 40 years and have become increasingly more noticeable since the recession.“First is that lawyers no longer make the rules governing lawyers, or at least we don’t exclusively do it,” said Morgan, noting federal and state courts have assumed jurisdiction to annul traditional rules.As examples, he said for many years, it was unethical to engage in group legal services or for lawyers to advertise. But those prohibitions have all fallen by the wayside, as have minimum fee schedules, as courts have held that attorneys operate in the commercial world, which has been exacerbated by the quadrupling in the number of lawyers since 1970.There are now 1.2 million lawyers in the U.S., about 1 million of whom practice.“It makes it harder to know each other,” Morgan said.“The reason we didn’t see that growth and experience as a challenge up to now is the growth in legal business can be most readily tracked according to the amount of economic activity in the country,” said Morgan, noting if there was a 4 percent growth in GDP, a corresponding 4 percent increase in the number of lawyers could be absorbed.Not so when the economy tanks.In 2008, when the country saw a 4 percent increase in the number of lawyers and a 4 to 6 percent decline in GDP, “We automatically minted a group of lawyers who didn’t get jobs in any significant numbers, and a number of existing lawyers lost their jobs.”He said large firms laid off more than 9,500 lawyers in 2009 and 2010, and only 87.6 percent of the 2010 law school class had jobs nine months after graduation. More importantly, Morgan said, only 68.4 percent had a job for which bar passage is required.“That is the phenomenon we have been experiencing lately and which has unnerved so many people,” Morgan said.Globalization also has had a profound effect on the challenges facing U.S. lawyers.“It’s the idea that the world faced by our clients is getting more and more complex, what they’re doing is getting more and more complex, and the difficulty of any single lawyer being able to address all of the questions that their clients may have.”That leads to a narrowing of a lawyer’s individual spans of expertise.“If you’re really going to be good, you’ve got to be good at less and less,” Morgan said.U.S. lawyers are finding that they are subject to more competition from foreign lawyers and nonlawyers alike and technology is changing how law is practiced.“The idea that you will not only be competing with and working with a larger number of new American lawyers every year, but you also will be seeing competiton from lawyers all over the world. This is a reality in which we have to deal.”Morgan noted Thompson Reuters recently acquired Pangea3, one of the largest outsourcing firms in India, and document review technology — at least in one test — required only about 1 percent of the lawyer’s time that traditional review requires.Work once new for each client has become commoditized and subject to competition from free information on the Internet.“The ability to recreate documents or sets of documents that you would use before and make them applicable to new clients means that it is tending to move more and more in the direction of a commodized service.”Personal, low cost service will be the basis for client choice, and lawyers will have to compete against the LegalZooms of the world and other vendors of online legal documents and services.“There are people who are marketing programs that will take your electronic discoverable files and review them for privilege, for smoking guns, for relevance,” he said, noting those are the responsibilities entry-level lawyers used to perform.Then there is the idea of “virtual firms.”“I ran into a lawyer the other day who lives in Florida and practices out of an address in a mid-Atlantic state,” said Morgan, adding the lawyer primarily deals with his clients over the Internet.Is that lawyer violating UPL laws?“I don’t know, but the point is you can do this, apparently, quite effectively — particularly when you’re talking about computerized documents and other things that he’s preparing for his clients,” Morgan said.Morgan said all these changes add up to a shift from the traditional model of practicing for individuals to practicing for corporate clients.“The people driving the demand for lawyers are less lay clients; they are more and more professional lawyers who are in-house for corporate clients who need our expertise.”Outside lawyers tend to be hired by other lawyers and tend to lose direct access to a client’s lay decisionmakers.To survive and thrive, many lawyers are becoming more focused and specialized and working to market or “brand” themselves — through blogging and websites — as the “go-to person” in a particular field.“It’s what you know about the client; it’s what you know about a particular issue that makes you the go-to person,” Morgan said. “Lawyers are ultimately going to succeed to the extent they add value to their client’s experience that is going to become the basis of billability.” What does the future hold?
NAI Global’s Chief Economist Peter Linneman released a white paper on Nov. 15 that addresses the slow recovery of the suburban office sector.The topics covered by “Suburban Office: A Dying Breed?” include:· If it’s true that suburban office space is heading toward disaster.· Why real rents in almost all MSAs are either at or very near their historic lows.· Why the middle class is forced to move to the suburbs.· Why the slow recovery of the suburban office sector is cyclical rather than secular.Read more.
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Felbermayr said that a total of 42 heavy-duty transporters were required to transport the LR11000 crane and its ballast weights to the construction site, from its previous jobsite in Romania.Günther Wimmer, of Felbermayr’s project division, explained that after being delivered by road to the port of Constanta, the crane parts were loaded onto a vessel and shipped to Bremerhaven, before being transported over 42 km by road to the construction site. Once on site the crane was equipped with a 78 m long Power Boom, in order to increase the machine’s load capacity, coupled with a 42 m long derrick boom and 66 m long luffing jib.The ballast assembly comprised of a 435-tonne suspended ballast, a 50-tonne central ballast and a 210-tonne superstructure ballast.With the crane reaching a hook height of 138 m, work began on the hoisting of the five steel towers, each of which weighed up to 174 tonnes. The crane then lifted the 194-tonne lower section of the machine housing, the transformer, gearbox and drive train, before assembling a helicopter landing pad at a height of around 130 m. The final part of the job included the assembly of the rotor, which included three 74.4 m long rotor blades, and the lifting of the 175.4-tonne unit to a height of 124 m. www.felbermayr.cc
Dave NatzkeEditorProgressive DairymanEmail Dave Natzkedave@progressivepublish.com U.S. dairy farmers have shown the capacity to turn on milk production quickly, but the pace of growth in recent months is the slowest dating back to lengthy stretches in 2011-12 and 2014. Monthly year-over-year output growth has now been under 1% for eight consecutive months, with production lower than the same month a year earlier in two of those months (March and May).advertisementadvertisementPrevious periods when milk production growth was less than 1% was in seven of eight months to end 2014, and nine of 11 months from June 2011-April 2012.May 2018-19 recap at a glanceHeavy cow culling and the onset of a spring flush slowed by weather and feed factors held May 2019 milk production below year-ago levels. Reviewing the USDA estimates for May 2019 compared to May 2018:U.S. milk production: 19.06 billion pounds, down 0.4%U.S. cow numbers: 9.333 million, down 89,000 headU.S. average milk per cow per month: 2,042 pounds, up 12 pounds24-state milk production: 18.13 billion pounds, down 0.1%24-state cow numbers: 8.793 million, down 55,000 head24-state average milk per cow per month: 2,062 pounds, up 11 poundsSource: USDA Milk Production report June 18, 2019U.S. dairy cow numbers reversed a four-month decline in May, rising to 9.333 million head, up 5,000 head from April’s three-year low of 9.328 million. The number of milk cows on farms in the 24 major states was 8.793 million head, also up 5,000 head from April.Nine states increased cow numbers compared to May 2018 (Table 1), with the largest jumps in Texas (+30,000 head), Idaho (+9,000) and Colorado (+6,000). In contrast, Pennsylvania (-30,000) and Ohio (-12,000) led decliners, with Illinois, Arizona, Virginia, New Mexico, Florida and California each down 7,000 to 9,000 head. Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin were down a combined 14,000 head.advertisementCows in six states yielded less milk in May than the same month a year earlier. (Table 2). South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Kansas saw declines of 20 to 30 pounds per cow. In contrast, California and New Mexico posted gains of 35 pounds for the month. Michigan led all states in milk production per cow for the month.Among all major states, Texas again led in terms of both milk volume and percentage increase in May 2019, up 61 million pounds (5.4%) compared to May 2018. Pennsylvania production was down 67 million pounds (-7%).Georgia added as a ‘major’The other notable number in the USDA’s Milk Production report is the addition of Georgia to the list of monthly reported “major” dairy states. The home state of U.S. Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue, Georgia joins Florida and Virginia in representing the southeast U.S.Based on 2018 USDA annual dairy statistics, Georgia ranked 25th in cow numbers, 23rd in milk production per cow, 23rd in total milk production and 26th in the number of dairy herds licensed to sell milk.advertisementDairy cow slaughter levels highU.S. dairy farmers continue to move dairy cull cows to slaughter at a high rate. Federally inspected milk cow slaughter was estimated at 1.135 million through May 18, 2019, about 63,000 head more than a similar date a year earlier, according to the USDA.Looking ahead, forage supplies and quality are raising longer-term concerns. The cool, extremely wet spring lingered into early June, putting planting season well behind schedule and delaying hay growers from taking a first cutting. Combined with severe alfalfa winterkill in parts of the Midwest, terms like “scarce” and “disaster” were being used to describe forage conditions – and raising prices.(Read: Hay Market Insights: Spring hay prices move to five-year high.)Previously, the USDA reduced milk production forecast for both 2019 and 2020, citing declining cow numbers and slowing growth in milk output per cow in 2019 and higher anticipated feed costs which are expected to weaken producer margins, limiting growth in the dairy cow herd and milk per cow in 2020.(Read: USDA cuts milk production forecasts.) Report adds to bullish outlookMay’s milk production decline has added some bullishness to the dairy market outlook. In his monthly Dairy Situation and Outlook, Bob Cropp, professor emeritus with the University of Wisconsin – Madison, said the June Class III milk price, to be announced July 3, should be about $16.30 per hundredweight (cwt). The Class IV price will improve about $16.80 per cwt.Longer term, Cropp predicts a Class III price in the low $17s by August and in the mid- to high $17s by fourth quarter. Others are predicting Class III prices may venture into the $18s. Class IV prices could be in the low $17s by July and in the mid-$17s in the fourth quarter, Cropp said.If those projections hold true, the Class III price would average about $16.30 per cwt for the year compared to $14.61 per cwt in 2018, and the Class IV price would average about $17.00 per cwt compared to $15.09 per cwt in 2018.Domestically, butter and cheese sales continue to show modest growth, but fluid (beverage) milk sales continue the downward trend. While lower than a year ago, dairy exports are supportive of milk prices. 
Becca Taylor, Pitcher of the Week For the fourth time this year, University of West Florida pitcher Becca Taylor was named the Gulf South Conference Pitcher of the Week on Wednesday. Taylor, the league leader in wins (23), now has more weekly conference honors this season than any other softball student-athlete in the GSC. Taylor would be the first Argonaut pitcher to lead the GSC in wins since Amber Browning had 35 victories in 2005. The honor comes after Taylor tossed her 22nd and 23rd wins of the year against Lee in the final series of the regular season. The Panama City, Florida, native threw 11.1 shutout innings against the Lady Flames, picking up her GSC-best fifth shutout of the season on Saturday. Taylor allowed just seven hits and held Lee to a .179 batting average on the weekend. For the year, Taylor also leads the conference in batters struck out looking (36), ranks second in innings pitched (175.2) and total strikeouts (124), and ranks fifth in opponent batting average (.230) and ERA (2.07). She is third in UWF history in walks per seven innings and ranks in the top 10 in wins, games started, and innings pitched. About the GSC Tournament PENSACOLA, Fla. – With a 23-9 Gulf South Conference record, the 10th-ranked University of West Florida softball team enters the GSC Tournament in Huntsville, Alabama, as the No. 2 seed. UWF will open tournament play against Shorter at 11 am on Friday, May 5, at the Huntsville Sportsplex, and the Argonauts will play either Mississippi College or Lee at 2 pm on Friday at the same location. About Shorter, Again #ARGOS#Print Friendly Version FULL PDF NOTESVIDEO/STATSGSC TOURNAMENT HOMEPAGE Tournament action will move back to Charger Park on the campus of tournament host Alabama Huntsville on Saturday and Sunday. Daily pass prices for each day of the Tournament shall be $8 for adults, $5 for children 6-17, $5 for students (with GSC Student ID) and free for children 5 and under. All ticket revenue is retained by the GSC. All Tournament passes can also be purchased for $20.
The 10th-ranked University of West Florida softball team saw five student-athletes earn All-Gulf South Conference honors on Wednesday. Becca Taylor, Rhiannon Sassman and Jacey Castro were each first team selections, and Caitlin Steel and Meghan Toney were second-teamers. UWF’s five All-GSC selections are the most for the program since 2009, when the team also had five honorees. West Florida now has 88 all-conference performers in its history. Becca Taylor was a four-time GSC Pitcher of the Week selection during the year and led the GSC in wins (23), batters struck out looking (36) and shutouts (5), while playing a role in five other UWF shutouts in the regular season. She also ranked in the top 5 in the league in innings pitched (175.2), total strikeouts (124), ERA (2.07) and opponents batting average (.230). Taylor strung together 31.1 consecutive scoreless innings from March 12 through March 30, a streak that ranks 10th in conference history. This is Taylor’s first all-conference honor, having posted career bests in ERA, wins, shutouts, strikeouts and opponent batting average. Rhiannon Sassman picks up her second All-GSC honor after being an all-conference third baseman as a freshman last year. The shortstop from Orlando earned an at-large spot on the first team this season. Sassman was named the GSC Player of the Week on March 21 and ranks 10th nationally with seven triples on the year. Those seven three-baggers lead the conference, and she ranks in the top five in the league in on-base percentage (.505), slugging (.678), batting average (.403), walks (29) and runs scored (47). She reached base in 23 consecutive games to start the year and topped 100 total bases for the year against Lee last weekend, becoming the first UWF player to do so since Shannon Miles in 2009-10. Jacey Castro was selected to the first team as a DP/utility player, after splitting time in left field and first base during the season. The senior has been a defensive asset at both positions, with a combined .981 fielding percentage in 51 games. Castro ranks sixth in the conference in hits (64) and ninth in batting average (.381), and leads UWF with 19 multi-hit games on the year. She has found a home at the leadoff spot in the lineup, hitting .391 and slugging .600 with nine doubles and five home runs from the top spot. Castro picked up her 100th career hit against Delta State on April 14 and is a career .339 hitter over her two years at UWF. Caitlin Steel led all GSC catchers in batting (.343) during the regular season, adding seven doubles, two triples and a home run at the plate. The Concord, North Carolina, product has also established herself as one of the top defensive players behind the plate in her time at UWF, leading the GSC in runners thrown out (25) and percentage of runners caught stealing (32 percent) over the last two years. Meghan Toney earned All-GSC honors for the second time in her career on Wednesday, after ranking sixth in the GSC in stolen bases (22) and totaling 13 multi-hit games for the Argonauts. Toney led conference second basemen in batting (.356), stolen bases, assists (84) and double plays (14), while ranking second in runs scored (29), on-base percentage (.401), and putouts (107). An All-South Region selection in 2016, Toney and Sassman are the first UWF student-athletes to earn two All-GSC nods since 2011. Our All-GSC Honorees Shorter enters the tournament playing some of its best softball of the year, having won six of its last eight games including a victory over UWF. Shorter had three All-GSC selections, in Ericka Bynum, Kalei Clark and Tiffany Holland. Bynum hit .371 with 10 home runs, earning an at-large spot on the first team, while Holland hit .365 with 26 stolen bases and Clark posted a 2.84 ERA in 26 games as a relief specialist for the Hawks. Missing from the all-conference team was Kameron Carter, who hit .424 with 9 home runs and led the league with 15 doubles. UWF and Shorter are quite familiar with each other by now, matching up six times in UWF’s final 12 games last year and meeting in Rome, Georgia, just two weeks ago. West Florida holds the series lead 5-3 over the last two seasons. The Hawks were one of Rachel Wright’s favorite teams to play last year, as the Tate HS product hit .478 with three home runs, two doubles, eight RBI and a .957 slugging percentage. That included a two-homer game in the GSC Tournament. No. 10 UWF is going for its fourth Gulf South Conference Championship and is making its 20th appearance in the GSC Tournament, and the Argonauts have the fourth-most wins (42) and the fourth-best winning percentage (.609) in the tournament’s history. Eight teams make up the GSC Tournament field, with Shorter, Mississippi College and Lee joining UWF in the bottom half of the double-elimination bracket. Host Alabama Huntsville, North Alabama, Valdosta State and West Georgia make up the top half. The two sides of the bracket will not meet until the GSC Championship game on Sunday. West Florida is 5-3 against Mississippi College, Lee and Shorter this year, most recently sweeping Lee at the UWF Softball Complex. The Argonauts have out-hit those three opponents .308 to .274 and outscored them 37-18. The UWF pitching staff has also outdueled those three, posting a 1.92 ERA and striking out 36 batters in 51 innings. UWF took three wins in the tournament last year, defeating Shorter twice and knocking out Alabama Huntsville with a 9-1 win. The Argonauts fell twice to Valdosta State before getting revenge in the NCAA South Regional. Rachel Wright and Kathleen Smiley earned spots on last year’s All-Tournament team after going a combined 18-for-36. Wright hit .526 over five games and led UWF with 10 hits, 3 home runs and a 1.053 slugging percentage. Smiley added two bombs and led UWF with nine RBI. Caitlin Steel and Meghan Toney also stood out, hitting .467 and .400, respectively. Toney had a team-high six runs scored in Florence, Alabama, and steel picked up seven hits. In the South Region Rankings Live stats and video will be available for all UWF games this weekend, and links will be made available at GoArgos.com when possible. Friday’s doubleheader will be streamed at the video/stats link above. UWF’s sweep over Lee last weekend was enough to push the team to No. 1 in this week’s NCAA South Region Rankings. UWF has also jumped up to No. 10 in the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Top 25 poll, which is the program’s highest ranking since 2005. West Florida has been No. 2 in the regional rankings in each of the first two polls, and this is the first time UWF has held the top spot in the region since entering the NCAA Tournament at No. 1 in 2005. The region rankings are filled with teams from the Gulf South Conference, as Alabama Huntsville, Valdosta State, Mississippi College, Lee and North Alabama were ranked third through seventh. Shorter came in at No. 9, while Sunshine State Conference schools Saint Leo, Palm Beach Atlantic and Tampa were Nos. 2, 8 and 10, respectively. The South Region is made up of the Gulf South, Sunshine State and Southern Intercollegiate Athletic conferences, with eight total teams reaching the South Region Tournament. Each of the three conferences earns an automatic qualifier, leaving five at-large bids for the remaining spots. The GSC has sent the region’s representative to the Division II Softball Championship every year since 2009, with a GSC team making an appearance in the national championship in six of those eight seasons. Valdosta State (2013) and North Alabama (2016) have won national championships. UWF ranks third in GSC history with 22 wins in the NCAA Tournament, averaging two per trip. West Florida ranks seventh or better among South Region teams in winning percentage (first; .765), shutouts (first; 14), ERA (fifth; 2.36), and batting average (sixth; .323).