The Kona Bike Count, Then and Now

As a cyclist, it’s hard not to be aware of triathlon. My fandom of the sport has waxed and waned over the years, but like the Tour de France, Ironman Kona is race that is hard to miss. Kona, Hawaii has long been the home of the world championship of Ironman triathlon. It’s a legendary race that (nearly) every athlete must qualify for, drawing in hundreds of committed swim-bike-runners each year. Read On →

The Odds Cav Defies

On Tuesday June 29, Mark Cavendish won a Tour de France stage for the first time since 2016. A week later, he did the unthinkable and matched Merckx’s record of 34 wins. As a 36 year old who had battled the Epstein-Barr virus, as well as other hurdles, few would have bet on Cav participating in the 2021 Tour de France. Fewer would have gambled on his chances to win a sprint stage against a younger generation of riders. Read On →

Which Bike Was It? Strava Ride Classification with R

Every month, Google gives me a summary of how much much I’ve traveled. It’s really cool to look at, but one creepy feature about it is that it gives me a breakdown of how much I’ve traveled by medium. There are even motorcycle riders’ blogs where discussions have taken place about how Google know’s they’ve ridden their motorcycles as opposed to their cars. Read On →

Light It Red: Exploring Bell Tower Celebrations with R

NC State Belltower Among the sights to see when taking a trip to Raleigh is NC State’s iconic Belltower. Erected as a monument to honor fallen soldiers of WW1, the memorial Belltower has become a symbol of pride for NC State students and alumni. On any given night, the bell tower might have a red illumination. Red bell tower lightings signify special achievements made by NC State organizations and staff as well as memorial holidays. Read On →

Analyzing US Research and Development Spending for Tidy Tuesday and SWD Challenge

I’m attempting to kill two birds (or two twitter hashtags) with one stone here. This is my first attempt at analyzing a weekly #tidytuesday data set; additonally, it’s my first go at the the monthly #swdchallenge. #TidyTuesday The data for week 7 of Tidy Tuesday is a group of datasets that detail US federal research and development spending by agency. ## [1] "department" "year" "rd_budget" ## [4] "total_outlays" "discretionary_outlays" "gdp" With there only being a a handful of features of the dataset, I thought first to see how R&D spending changed throughout time. Read On →

Getting Author-level blog performance from Google Analytics

Blogging has become common practice among businesses looking to connect with their customers. Behind every blogging operation though is a team of authors full of industry knowhow. Giving writers a way to track their performance can compel them to write better and more often. Using R and Google Analytics, I was able to aggregate blog traffic for my coworkers. Google Analytics is a commonly used tool for tracking site usage, and the googleAnalyticsR package is a great API wrapper for getting its data into R. Read On →