The Case for Time Trials

The race against the clock should be a part of every serious road racer’s calendar. Often shunned, these events edge out yet another training ride for its benefits. Here are 5 simple reasons to register for the next time trial.

1. A Race:
Typically, the winter months are spent in long, slower rides. Hour after hour. The goal is to build base fitness in order to increase the athlete’s lactate threshold. By late Winter, the training events are more intense with the goal of building higher end fitness and skills.

Yet, the only true race is a race. And a Time Trial is a race. If you are at all skeptical about that statement, just show up and observe the hundreds of athletes who nervously warm up on trainers before the event. Donned with team kits, these men and women are all too serious about the event before them and concentrated only on the best possible performance.

When the official indicates “Go”., the race is on. Although it is a race against the clock, you are still racing to catch the rider in front of you and to stay away from the rider behind. With no wheel to suck, it is as if you are alone in a break, a break that is interminable. Mile after bloody mile. Make no mistake, a time trial is competition and let’s face it, competition is what marks a competitive cyclist. No matter how fast one goes on a training ride, it is still just a training ride.

2. A Yardstick:
Fitness is elusive. This is partly so because it is difficult to gauge your fitness. Even with the best of intents, it is too easy to ease up on a trainer or even in a training ride. Time trials are different. The game is on. Assuming an athlete competes in Time Trials as a regular part of their race season, then competing in and noting performance in a successive years helps the athlete gauge fitness. Though wind and atmospheric conditions vary, the course usually does not. A time trial will help the athlete answer the question: how am I doing?

3. A Certain Peace:
With all of the above said, Time Trials are not as intense. Time Trials are not as nerve racking. Before jumping in the season’s first pack race and all of its inevitable crashes, try an early season Time Trial. Time trial offers the athlete exposure to the competitive environment and allows one to size up the competition in a relaxed, contemplative way.

4.  A Process:
Time trials has the same process as a road race. This year, at the opening time trial, I simply forget to bring recovery food and drink. Big mistake. I was noticeably fatigued and run down the following day. The early season time trial is a great way to ease back into the race checklist: shoes, helmet, kit, trainer, GU, race license. You get the picture.

5. A Scene:
I save the best reason for last. If you race long enough, you will get to know people. Some of these people will not be on your team. Eventually, you will make friends with other racers. The atmosphere of a Time Trial is more conducive to chatting. Most of your buddies will be there. After the race, it is just great to catch up. Who said road racers can not be social?

For these reasons, the serious road racer should embrace the Time Trial.

You Give Pick Up Drivers a Bad Name

I, like you, have had my share of abuse from motorists. But, here is a new one. 


Yesterday, I was commuting on Levy Road trying to get from Tacoma to Puyallup. Levy road is good and bad. Good because it has light traffic that goes slow. Bad because there is NO shoulder. I was hugging the right edge of the road and looking as submissive as you can on a bike. The few vehicles that passed me gave me plenty of room. All in all, a good day. A good day until a large pick-up truck drove alongside me with his window down. (Why are all pick-up beds empty?) I saw that the driver's lips were moving. I thought, "here we go." But, the driver did not look particularly pissed. I thought that maybe he was lost and asking for directions. I decided to do something other than ignore him, which is my usual practice, and here is what he said to me: "You give bike riders a bad name." 


Hmmm. Ok, I'll bite. "How do I give 'bike riders' a bad name?" Now, to engage this man in this conversation, I reach out and am hanging on his open window of his truck. We are literally driving along Levy Road at about 20 MPH debating his world view. (Don't try that at home). I asked him if he has ever ridden a bike and he claimed that he rides bikes and it was people like me that made it harder for guys like him because I - you guessed it - give bike riders a bad name. His argument was that my route selection was bad. He thought Levy Road was too dangerous and I should ride on River Road. I told him I thought River Road was dangerous even for cars and I sure as heck would never ride a bike on River Road. Back and forth. I concluded by saying: "Thank you for your input. I am doing the best I can and just trying to get to work." 


Here is what bugs me. What is it about riding a bike that makes everyone feel like they need to express their opinions. I am 45 years old. I am an attorney by trade, have two kids. I served in the US Army for several years. On and on. In all of my other realities, guys like that don't come up and tell me they think I am wearing the wrong suit, or playing the wrong game with my kid. I know it sounds arrogant, but in my other, non-cycling life, bloated, pickup driving men between the ages of 18 and 55 know better than to debate with me. Yet, on a bike, everyone has an opinion and they express it. I hate that! Another thing, they treat us like we are kids. Hear is what I have heard while riding my bike: "You riding too fast. You are riding to slow. Get off the road. Get off the sidewalk. Don't turn left." 


The other thing was this. I actually let the guy get to me. I tried to find a different route home. I ended up on a creative combination of Pioneer Ave, side roads and even River road. I am lucky to be alive. I ride my bike continually. Nearly every day. I knew darn well that Levy road was the only road and yet, I was trying to be accommodating and almost orphaned my kids. Levy road is the ONLY way to ride to Tacoma and every reasonable bike commuter knows that. 


I realize I am preaching to the choir and I do feel better. From now on, I am going to ignore all motorists who try to say something to me. I just hope they don't express themselves through mass and the velocity of their steel wrapped frames. 

Starbucks Rider Injured And It Gets Worse

I was horrified to learn that a racer from the Starbucks Race Team was almost killed on Saturday.  A King 5 Website described the accident as follows:

The Washington State Patrol is seeking witnesses to a bicycle accident on SR 202 east of Redmond Saturday that left a 49-year-old Seattle man seriously injured. The State Patrol says at 11:45 a.m., a group of about 10 bicyclists with the Starbucks Racing Team were traveling westbound on SR 202 near Ames Lake Road when one of the riders was forced off the road and into a ditch to avoid being hit head-on by a minivan.

Witnesses said the red minivan, possibly a newer model Honda Odyssey, was traveling eastbound at an extremely high rate of speed as it crossed the yellow center line and passed several eastbound vehicles while in the westbound lane.

The minivan forced the westbound bicyclist to take evasive action to avoid being struck.

This reported version sounds less alarming than the version reported to me by my former team mates.   Starbucks Race Team, soon to be SCCA Race Team (Seattle Cancer Care Alliance), rode on the shoulder of SR 202.  They only intended to use 202 as connector for a few miles.  They, as typical of this well drilled team, rode in a rotating paceline, i.e., single file.  The driver of a red van passed traffic coming from the opposite direction and veered over the fogline into the shoulder where the team road.  According to a Starbucks team member, the driver “quite literally just about killing all of us in the pace line as he had drifted over the fog line into the shoulder while accelerating close to 70 mph.  It was friggin scary.”

On the King 5 website, readers were able to post comments.  Several of the readers’ comments are truly shocking.  The first reader to comment, wrote “Give the guy a medal for trying to clear the road of irritating vermon.”   

Another wrote “I would have more sympathy if bicycle riders did not act like they own the road. . . When you ride on a two lane road with no shoulder then you risk getting hit or run off the road. There are plenty of bike trails . . .”

The one that bugs me the most is this one: “Sorry people, but if the road was not built to accommodate bicycles then your taking your chances. Ride at your own risk.”

In the early 1900s, one of the most popular spectator sports in America was cycling. There were hundreds of velodromes across the nation.  Thousands trekked to the races and cheered as enthusiastically for the racers as any Superbowl.  Now, cyclists are “vermon”, worthy of being run down like dogs. There are clearly some who clearly believe that if someone kills or injures a cyclist, they should be given a medal.

What happened to the American respect for human effort?  One answer is simply that Henry Ford invented the automobile.  From that moment, the thrill of watching machines race with far less effort but at much greater speeds captivated America.  Bicycle racing became a footnote.

I recently viewed two photos of Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle. One was taken in the 1900s and the other by the Google Maps cameras recently.  The architecture is the same. The lay out of the streets is the same. The difference is the girth of the people in the photos. People in the 1900s photos were rail thin.  The people in the modern photos were, well, large.  Let’s face it -  Americans are becoming obese.

According to a Time magazine article,  “[j]ust two decades ago, the incidence of overweight in adults was well under 50%, while the rate for kids was only a third what it is today. From 1996 to 2001, 2 million teenagers and young adults joined the ranks of the clinically obese (see "What Is BMI?"). People are clearly worried. Here is the link to the article. http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/covers/1101040607/article/how_we_grew_so_big_diet01a.html

There are many causes of obesity in America but one of them is the automobile.  At the time thin Americans enjoyed bike races, it took much more effort to do everything.  Work was hard.  Obtaining and preparing food took effort and there was far less of it.  Today, we can literally drive our cars, stop at places that give us food in our cars and actually arrive at our destination with a net GAIN in calories. 

The Starbucks rider who was almost killed was 49 years old.  He has a broken left clavicle and rib along with fractured radius and a fractured wrist.  Before he was injured, he was training with his team and burned, on average, 750 calories per hour.  Had he not been injured, he would have been on his bike for at least three hours.  He would have burned in this one training event as many calories as the caloric budget of the red minivan driver for the entire day.  Yet, this is the guy who should get a medal?

Several days ago, an Al Queada operative attempted to ignite a bomb on a jet.  It has been said to re-focus America’s efforts on the fight against terrorism.  Several millions, if not billions of dollars, will no doubt be directed to Yemen to fight the extremists who are training there and planning new attacks on Americans. 

In 2008, 34,017 Americans were killed by automobiles.  I understand that this is too simply stated but check out the more detailed statistics at this link.  http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

In contrast, 2,973 people were killed on September 11, 2009.  I am not comparing automobiles to terrorism but it is strange that Americans are essentially of like mind when it comes to fighting terror, yet 32,000 more American are killed every year by cars. 

Cars have changed us.  Our nation is different because of them.  We are fatter because of them.  Many of us are killed or injured because of them.  Worse, they have changed our national character.  Think of the last incidents you have had in the last year in which you felt incredible stress or extreme rage and chances are the incident involved a vehicle.  Cars have made us obsessed with ease, convenience and speed to the point where it is more important to us than human life. Anyone who gets in our way is “vermon.”   Here is a quote from a reader on the King 5 website:  “I have no empathy for the riders who force everyone else to slow down for them as if they think they have the right.”

What happened to us?

Twenty Opportunities in the Winter

What exactly is competitive cycling?  In the broad sense, the term refers to any event in which participants are riding a bicycle to win a prize.  The word "athlete" comes from the Greek word "athlos", which means prize.  Those who competed in the pan hellenic games, our modern Olympics, were athletes because they threw down to win something.  In road racing, I have seen grown men almost kill themselves, risking injury, to win beef jerkey.  I guess that makes us "athletes."

In the actual race, there is absolutely no ambiguity.  Otherwise sane men and women, gather behind an imaginary line on a road and roll out.  Within the pack, the goal is clear - win the race.  Often, at some point wheels touch and riders almost or do go down.  The goal then becomes to stay upright.  By the last third of the race, as your heart pounds out of your chest, your goal too often is to just survive.  A few lucky ones have the chance to contest the sprint.  

What is clear during the races season becomes ambiguous during the off season.  In the cold and rain, sometimes snow of winter, the first race in March seems a long way away.  Personally, I struggle.  I hate riding a stationary bike.  Lifting weights is as bad.  This year, I have tried power cranks to break it up a bit. 

For me, the salvation is the team ride.  Our team meets at a coffee shop.  I bet every team meets at a coffee shop.  If the weather is good, we roll out fifteen minutes late.  If it is bad, 30 minutes late.  

Let me say for the record, I believe in base training.  I believe in going slow in the Winter to go fast in the Spring. At the same time, I value team rides because it is one of the few times the team is together.  Unlike the pros, amateur bike racers are distracted by full time jobs, family and life.  Race season runs from March to August.  There is essentially no opportunity to train together then - just race together.  Most serious racers are burnt out in September and focus on fun rides for themselves.  That leaves October through February to train.  That is about 20 weekend rides.  20 opportunities to bring a bunch of guys together to learn and practice the skills required to be a good road team.  While I like base training, wasting 10 of those opportunities in zone 2 double pacelines hour after hour seems inefficient.  I would propose that base training is for each rider during the week.  Base training is also appropriate for the first half of the team ride. The other half should be dedicated to skills development. 

This brings me back to the original questions:  what is competitive cycling?   Put differently, what skills must a good road racer possess that is different than a good recreational rider?  Recreational and competitive cyclists both need to be fit.  They both train hour after hour in zone 2.  Hopefully, both categories of riders can paceline without taking out the line.  Double paceline work is nice but still pretty basic. 

In my limited view, one of the most important skills of a bike racer is what I call "extraction." Extraction is particular to racing and it is extremely difficult to pull off in an amateur bike race.  It is difficult, in part, because amateur teams rarely if ever practice extraction in the winter.  

Extraction is my slang for the need to pull team mates out of the pack and execute as a unit for a particular purpose.  For example, often a break will occur in a road race. If it is large enough, chances are riders will attempt to sit on at the front of the pack to slow it down to the benefit of the break.  Packs can be large, say 30-40 racers.  The trick is to know where all of your team mates are in the pack and to get them out of the cluster that is sometimes the amateur pack and out in the front to chase.  Once "extracted," the chase will need, of course, good base fitness and pacelining experience.  I would not characterize these basic skills as particular to racing because fitness and paceling are also characteristic of a recreational cyclists.

I have seen extraction in amateur bike races.  Almost always it is accidental.  Occasionally, it is irrational.  A break goes and some super fit dude thinks he can bridge up to it. He jumps and a team mate is near and tries to go with him.  Problem is, other racers go too and they are not on your team.  More often, the entire pack goes, including those who are sitting on to help the break.  As such, the train doesn't leave the station.  

I acknowledge that extraction may not be a necessary skill in my hypothetical because, even in amateur races, breaks rarely succeed.  But, what of the attack?  In 2005, a pod of 4 racers from Byrnes Specialty Glass Team dominated that Cat 4 Tuesday Night races at PIR in Kent.  Race after race, they schooled us on extraction.  A surge would occur, and the Byrnes pod would extract when the pack sputtered.  As we gasped, they attacked.  Four of them would catapult out of the pack but the last of them would fade.  This fourth man would allow himself to become absorbed by the front of the chase in order to slow it down.  They operated as one unit. They always knew where each other sat in the pack.  They were good enough that they always moved within the pack as one unit. 

This is winter.  Extraction should be practiced now.   Training rides should dedicate the first hour to the mob.  Free and easy. Everyone chatting and warming up.  The second part of the ride should have a particular purpose.  No missed training opportunities to build a strong road team.  

My call for extraction practice pre-supposes that the team knows itself.  On my team, I know that I can race in either the Masters C/D or Cat 4 category.  I am new to the team and do not know everyone yet.  In fact, I know about one third of the team.  Some of the guys I know will race in a different category.  It is not terribly productive to practice extraction with a guy who will not be in my races.  Assuming that you can dialogue about who is who and what categories will be filled, team rides should be organized around those categories.  On my team, I can think of 4-5 guys who are roughly my peers in terms of fitness and experience. Half of those guys can not race in Masters.  Assuming we all agreed to discuss this and agreed to race in Cat 4, then we should become extraction experts.  On group rides, we should move as a unit - always together.  We should tell the Cat 3s to attack and we should practice extracting from the pack.  Out from the others and, in our case, occasional recreational rider who have invited themselves along.  Then, we should go.  

This brings me to the other competitive cycling skill - "exclusion."  Recreational riding is about having fun.  Everyone pulls.  Hand and arm signals at every rock and twig.  On and on.  Exclusion is a skill particular to road racing.  When chasing, you often DO NOT want help.  The guy on your wheel has a team mate in the break.  If he gets into the rotation, he will break your momentum and sit on.  In other situations, exclusion comes into play when you come off the rotation and are gassed.  You look back and the rotation is 20 guys long.  Hangers on.  But, your team has the first five places.  Exclusion is the most common skill required for racing and it is about stopping someone from taking a wheel or forcing yourself onto a wheel.  It some cases, it takes nerves of steel.  In the chase scenario, it takes practice.

Back to the winter ride.  Practice this. A pod of guys attack.  The team lingers for a moment, and your pod extracts. A glance, a yelp, a scream.  Whatever it takes to get your pod motivated.  Route selection is key.  Unlike recreational rides, in races, you are often looking for a path upon which to extract that is shoulder to the right but imperfectly paved. To say the least.  Or, you might have to go up the middle between lines.  As you clear the front of the pack, your pod of extractors must surge to clear the pack without an unwanted guest latching on.   Then, go like you stole it. 

Practice communicating.  If you look back and see an adversary trying to hook, tell your pod.  If you hear it, repeat it so the guy at the front knows.  If you come off the rotation and feel gassed and notice a wheel sucker, it is a perfectly sound exclusion tactic for you, the last man, to detach from the pod so that the wheel sucker can not be a part of the attack.   

I also envision but have never seen a “reverse rotation.”  A reverse rotation benefits the team mate who has just rotated off but finds no opening because an aggressive wheel sucker is on the last friendly wheel.  He lingers out in the wind trying to rehook a friendly wheel.  One easy solution is to move up and your team mate pauses to let you in.  A better tactic is to yell “left” to your team mate (assuming you are to the left).  Your well trained team mate communicates that command up to all of the team mates.  Each moves to the left.  The end result is that your team mates have all moved so that they are in front of you and have re-formed a paceline.  Best of all, the wheel sucker suddenly finds himself in the wind wondering what just happened.  This clearly takes some practice.

Competitive cycling is a different and unique style of riding.  Many athletes can win a road race on individual fitness.  Many more can be dropped due to a lack of fitness.  For the rest of the pack, being part of a well organized and coordinated team can sometimes make the difference between just one team mate finishing well and most of the team finishing in the top twenty.  Or, in my wildest dreams, sweeping!

OK, ow!

I recently started using power cranks.  Power Cranks are simply bicycle cranks that are independent of one another.  When I pedal on power cranks, one leg can not rely on the other to finish the pedal stroke.  If you ever have ever pedalled a bike with just one leg, you know how hard it is.  Now, imagine pedalling with one leg for your entire ride but with both legs.  Voila! You have power cranks.  They are simply brutal.

On my very first power cranks ride, I lasted an hour.  This was pretty good since I thought I'd only make it thirty minutes.  The next ride I rode for two, easy hours.  The third ride I could only do fifteen minutes.  I could barely walk the following day.

Power cranks make you feel like a duck out of water.  For the first time in a long time, I had the fear of falling when I started or stopped.  This is simply because the cranks does not come up when you start to roll - it just hangs there, looking for some attention.  You have to try to clip in while the other leg stokes the engine.  A bizarre sensation.

This unusual sensation has one beneficial side affect.  When I roll from a stop sign or light, motorist seem to pause.  Too often, the rednecks throw beer cans.  The hilarity of a cyclist with an apparently broken pedal causes a certain cease fire from the revving machines of steel.  That is nice.

I was also amazed to discover that my pedal strokes were lame.  About every eighth stroke, my kick over the top just sort of petered out.  Power cranks are unforgiving.  If your stroke falters, the bike will sputter.  You realize that each stroke is part of the engine and if one of two pistons stops, the machine backfires. 

This, of course, is the point.  I have heard the experts talk about "pedal efficiency."  It is hard to understand that concept with normal cranks because one leg can so easily depend on the down stroke of the other to help it over.  With power cranks, one learns immediately what is meant by pedal efficiency. 

There is also a balance thing going on. I have not quite figured it out.  I will report back but I noticed that the power required to stroke with power cranks sometimes causes my knees to go in a weird direction.  Not every stroke but when I am fatigued. 

The best thing of all is that power cranks is time efficient.  Training is the cold and rainy weather sucks.  A two hour ride feels like a three hour ride or more.  Makes sense.  Candidly, I would much rather suffer like an animal on cranks in the rain for two hours than spend fifteen seconds on the trainer indoors.  Just me.

In any event, check out power cranks.  Here is the site.

To Acknowledge or Not to Acknowledge

I received a settlement demand today from an attorney who argued that the disputed lease was unenforceable because it was not acknowledged pursuant to RCW 64.04.020. This statute provides that “[e]very deed shall be in writing, signed by the party bound thereby, and acknowledged by the party before some person authorized by this act to take acknowledgments of deeds.”

Yet, courts in Washington have generally held that an unacknowledged deed or mortgage is valid between the parties. Skagit State Bank v. Rasmussen, 109 Wn. 2d 377 (1987). It is true that a county recorder is under no duty to record an unacknowledged deed. Eggert v. Ford, 21 Wn. 3d 152, 154 (1944). However, if it is recorded, an unacknowledged deed will impart the same notice to third persons, from the date of recording, as if the instrument has been executed and acknowledged as required by law. RCW 65.080.030.

This makes sense. In conveyances of real property, legal title passes from Seller to Buyer for consideration, i.e., money. There is often a mortgage and old liens are paid off. A lot of moving parts. Suppose a parcel of real estate is sold through financing but somehow the lender's Deed of Trust was not notarized. (See note on acknowledgement). Recording the Deed of Trust gives notice to the world that the property is mortgaged and that, upon default, the proceeds from a foreclosure will be paid in the order that the liens were filed. It would be an injustice to disallow a valid claim because the Deed was not notarized. It has long been established that partial performance takes the parties out of the statute of frauds.

What does that mean? the Washington State Supreme Court has long held that an agreement to convey an estate in real property, though required by RCW 64.04.010 and 64.04.020 to be in writing with the formal requisites specified for a deed, may be proved without a writing, given sufficient part performance; and that specific performance will be granted where the acts allegedly constituting the part performance point unmistakably and exclusively to the existence of the claimed agreement. See, e.g., Mobley v. Harkins, 14 Wn.2d 276, 128 P.2d 289, 143 A.L.R. 88 (1942); Richardson v. Taylor Land & Livestock Co., 25 Wn.2d 518, 171 P.2d 703 (1946); Granquist v. McKean, 29 Wn.2d 440, 187 P.2d 623 (1947); Ormiston v. Boast, 68 Wn.2d 548, 413 P.2d 969 (1966); Ferguson v. McBride, 69 Wn.2d 35, 416 P.2d 464 (1966); Beckendorf v. Beckendorf, 76 Wn.2d 457, 457 P.2d 603 (1969). This, the doctrine of partial performance, exists as a means of removing an oral contract for the lease or sale of real property from the statute of frauds. The doctrine requires at least two of the following elements:

(1) delivery and assumption of actual and exclusive possession; (2) payment or tender of consideration; and (3) the making of permanent, substantial and valuable improvements, referable to the contract. Powers v. Hastings, 93 Wn.2d 709, 717, 612 P.2d 371 (1980). The part performance doctrine also applies to written agreements failing to satisfy the statute of frauds. 2 A. Corbin, Contracts § 420, at 452-53 (1950) ("Being sufficient to enable the plaintiff to prove all the terms of an oral contract, it is necessarily sufficient to allow the use of oral testimony to supplement an existing memorandum that is deficient in some material respect."). Kruse v. Hemp, 121 Wn.2d 715, 724-25, 853 P.2d 1373 (1993).

Thus, even though a lease is technically a conveyance and the Statute of Frauds applies, that the lease was not notarized means nothing. As a common practice, business leases are never recorded. They are not recorded because they do not involve mortgages subject to foreclosures. There are rarely competing security interests. Thus, why record them? Even if they were recorded, case law is clear that a breaching party can not escape liability just because of a simple notary defect. Further, the court can look to the performance of the parties to determine whether a conveyance or a contract existed, in this case a lease.

I guess opposing counsel thought I just fell off a turnip truck. Bizarre expression.

Note on acknowledgments:

RCW 64.08.010
Who may take acknowledgments.

Acknowledgments of deeds, mortgages and other instruments in writing, required to be acknowledged may be taken in this state before a justice of the supreme court, or the clerk thereof, or the deputy of such clerk, before a judge of the court of appeals, or the clerk thereof, before a judge of the superior court, or qualified court commissioner thereof, or the clerk thereof, or the deputy of such clerk, or a county auditor, or the deputy of such auditor, or a qualified notary public, or a qualified United States commissioner appointed by any district court of the United States for this state, and all said instruments heretofore executed and acknowledged according to the provisions of this section are hereby declared legal and valid.

Fee Simple Absolute

I read a case today that stands for the proposition that a court will construe a deed of conveyance as a fee simple absolute and not a lesser estate unless there is language in the deed that clearly states otherwise. King County v. Hanson Inv. Co, 34 Wn. 2d 114 (1949).

It had been since law school that I had thought about fee simples. But, in law school, a great deal of time was wasted on it. The great legal authority of modern times, Wikipedia, had this to say: "If previous grantors of a fee simple estate do not create any conditions for subsequent grantees to own the conveyed property in fee simple title, which is commonly the case these days, then the title is called fee simple absolute. Other fee simple estates in real property include fee simple defeasible (or fee simple determinable) estates. A defeasible estate is created when a grantor places a condition on a fee simple estate. Upon the happening of a specified event, the estate may become void or subject to annulment. Two types of defeasible estates are the fee simple determinable and the fee simple subject to a condition subsequent. If the grantor uses durational language in the condition such as "to A as long as the land is used for a park" then upon the happening of the specified event, the estate will automatically terminate and revert to the grantor or the grantor's estate; this is called a fee simple determinable. If the grantor uses language such as "but if alcohol is served" then the grantor or the heirs have a right of entry, but the estate does not automatically revert to the grantor; this is a fee simple subject to a condition subsequent. In the United States many of these concepts have been modified by statute in some states."

That last sentence encapsulates the difference between the practice of law and the study of law in most American law schools. We spent hours parsing different types of estate interests. I suppose the point was made but I recall those sessions as being agonizing. As between listening to my property professor quizzing us about future interests or eating glass, I'd just ask that the glass be ground fine and served with a martini. In Washington, the rules are laid out in the Revised Code of Washington, most notably Chapters 64 and 65. In my practice, I have never seen a "fee simple determinable." We spent hours on the rules against perpetuities, yet the Revised Code of Washington abolished the rule. One little tidbit my trusts and estates professor omitteed. Same with the Rule in Shelley's case.

Alas, if only I knew then what I know now.