Lockies

Coburg Cycle Club criterium (10/11/2012), random race report

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 10:37:00 +0000

Northern Combine race earlier in the year, I love my black kit.
Photo thanks to Jo Upton Photography.

Skies looked a little gloomy this morning, had me wondering if we’d get a race in or not. Nonetheless I jumped on the bike and rode over to National Boulevard; a first for me, till now I’ve always driven over. As per usual my legs felt fairly average after a week of commuting, the half hour ride over seemed to loosen them up a little.

Registration desk is now based inside a little cafe which works quite well. Arrived nice and early this week, even managed to score number 4. Abby informed me they’d be running a full 4 grades + juniors. Also mentioned I may be better off in B, pffft. D grade certainly looked well graded with the exception of the guy who won (he was a strong rider last week[1], but that’d be hard to see from the sidelines). I believe C inherited a few B graders, but they seemed well matched.

Killed some time on FB/Twitter/etc, then figured I should get warmed up (again). Mate rolled up about the same time so we latched onto a passing group for an easy few laps of the circuit. With 10 minutes before race start I pulled over and pulled off all the various warmers, ditched the second bottle, and performed the customary pre-race “nature break”. I positioned myself at the rear of the C Grade group. A gets set off, then B, now it’s our turn.

First bend, through the roundabout, and BAM. Five guys off the front, me I’m at the back still thinking that could be the winning move right there. But it wasn’t. And that was the story for the rest of the race, break after break, they all got reeled back in. One even consisted of half the peloton; a sure winner I thought. Given my lack of sprinting prowess, I was certainly keen to jump in one of these breaks for a chance to win, so try I did. Couldn’t make anything stick single-handedly and had a hard time getting anyone else to roll through for a turn. Wondered if some of the guys had ever participated in a working group rolling turns, or maybe they were just keen to ensure it all came down to a bunch sprint. Throughout all this I’d managed to keep myself up the pointy end of the field, top five or so. This position was fairly easy to maintain provided I was willing to do a fair amount of work up front.

Lap timer clocked up our 45 minutes, well 43 and a bit as I’d forgotten to start it, and sure enough next time around we were shown the three-to-go sign. Now the race really starts. Pace stayed down for the 3rd last lap, in fact it probably dropped off a little. Two laps to go and a wave of riders moved up and around the outside, I picked up the pace and merged in near the front least I find myself in last position on the final lap. It’s ok riding at the front, just keep enough in reserve to be able to counter such moves[2]. Last lap just past the roundabout and a rider punches it off the front. Damn, he looks strong. Riders in front let him go and I couldn’t give chase either. Surely it was too early. Down the back straight and I once again find myself up the front. Some wise words get shouted up from behind about not doing too much work[3], sage advice, I pace myself up the slight incline before the final bend. One, two, … , eight riders stream past me as I struggle to get up to speed and grab a wheel. Oh, and that rider that went “too early” well he still had a good 50 meter gap. The Coburg criterium circuit has a long, wide final straight; race wasn’t over yet. I pull back three riders and roll past another by half a wheel or so over the line. 5th place, nice[4]. Mr “too early” took first place, with the other top places being filled with some familiar legs.

Rolled around a little to cool down before pulling off the circuit to watch B and A grades finish up. B finished up without issue, A wasn’t quite so fortunate with one of my mates coming down just after the final bend. The sound of carbon bouncing down the road has quite a distinctive note.

Strava link

He gave me a great lead out coming onto the final straight, unfortunately I lost out badly in the sprint rolling across for 8th or so. ↩
Yeah, learnt that the hard way. ↩
The older racers are great at offering up race tips. Kudos guys, this really helps those of us lacking in race-craft skills. ↩
Best criterium result so far. ↩

Learning the ropes

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 11:44:00 +0000

I missed writing up a few race reports, so figured I may as well merge races 3 & 4 together. Both races seemed to revolve around the same theme of learning the ropes, and similar results.

Race 3 saw me starting of with a new group of guys; Foxy, Glynn & Christie and a new handicap (Chopping block/2nd Scratch). Quick introductions were followed up with a few pre-race questions; “So you’ve never rolled a turn before”, that’s right, “you’ve ridden in a group before though?”, well kinda . The thing is, despite winning the first 2 races I didn’t actually learn a lot about racing; the lessons were about to start.

In the first 5 minutes it became fairly apparent that I wouldn’t be riding off on these guys, in fact just staying with the group was going to be tough. I’d work my way to the front pushing hard into the red zone, only to back off (never enough apparently) just long enough to blast back into the red zone. I was iterating between two states; suffering and suffering a little more. Oh, then it rained, then it hailed, then it rained some more. At the same time I was trying to hold a consistent speed whilst in the pace line, then rolling off the front. Rolling turns, it’ a simple concept, but hard to master. Fortunately the other the guys were all fairly supportive of my newness.

We passed a few groups, then a few of the stragglers that had been dropped from there own respective groups. It was then that we saw scratch bearing down on us. Wasn’t until the final kilometres that they eventually caught up, with them were the remnants of another group we’d previously passed. Managed to grab a wheel and hold it, no mean feat when moving along at +50km/h. Thankfully this bought up the finish line rather quickly, those that could sprinted towards the finish line. Me, well I was happy to roll across the line for 9th. While not as glamourous as the first places of the previous two weeks it certainly helped a lot more in my development as a racer.

Race 3 Strava link.

Race 4 was almost a mirror copy, except that Seymour had put on a glorious day. First ride without a jacket or arm warmers in months. It was also the same day as the Melbourne to Ballarat Open (a race I'd like to complete sometime), of course this meant all the previous weeks scratch riders were absent, in fact scratch was down to a single rider. I was set off in the same bunch (Glynn, Christie, Foxy), with the same handicap (Chopping Block) as the week prior. This week the race consisted of 4 laps round Schoolhouse, my first race had involved two laps so it would be nice to race a familiar course.

We rolled off from out front of the Glenaoura CFA and straight into the rolling turns. This course is somewhat more undulating, made setting a consistent pace that little more difficult. It certainly felt like the pace was a little easier than the week prior, I put this down to a better technique in the group and/or that the course was better suited to myself.

The corner marshals were giving us regular time splits throughout the race; while the gap was coming down, it wasn’t coming down quick enough. The few minutes we needed on the final lap seemed unlikely to be pulled back. Glynn smashed out a TT like turn at the front pulling in two riders before the line. I rolled across the line at around 11th position (out of 21 riders).

Once again no glory, but learnt a lot. Chilled out with the locals for a while post race basking in some mid-Winter sunlight, it really is a great way to spend a day. Can't say how grateful I am to the Seymour Broadford Cycle Club for putting on these races.

Race 4 Strava link.

Race 2: Seymour - Bluetop rd - Seymour

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 15:19:00 +0000

John was quick to recognise me despite being only the second time racing with the Seymour-Broadford CC (second race ever for that matter). "Ah, Lachlan, I reckon we might try dropping you back a few groups this week" was the response from behind the registration desk. Couldn't argue with this given the result from last week, besides I thought it'd be nice to have someone to chase.

Pulled the bike out of the car and reassembled it whilst munching down on a pre-race peppermint Aero bar. Rode up and down the main street of Seymour to get some heat in the legs; wanted to avoid the tightening up I experienced last week. Chatted to a few of the locals, not too many ring-ins from the 'big smoke' this week. Turns out the Northern Vets were racing on our planned course, the one I scoped out on Google Maps/Streetview, and we'd be racing up some Bluetop rd. In short this meant hills...

Now thanks to a ~~carefully controlled nutritional plan~~ awful lot of cycling I've manage to scrape under 70kg, down some 10-12kg since Christmas. This has certainly helped my climbing so the prospect of another hilly race didn't seem so bad, in fact this was part of John's decision to drop me back a few groups. There is however a limit to my love of climbing, and on the ride from Burgess Signs to the start line there was talk of a 6% gradient for several kilometers with a few hundred meters of 11% near the top. "Hmmmm, that's pushing my comfort level".

Waited at the start line while the three groups were set off ahead of us. The four minutes between each group seemed like an eternity as they disappeared up the road. Then we were set off; this weeks group consisted of Aaron (last weeks second place), Peter, Justin and Myself. Of course we all had the best intentions of working together, didn't want a repeat of last week. I started off with reasonable pace, which was assisted with a few ragged turns by the others. Peter being probably the most experienced racer out of all of us wanted to smoothen things out a little, maybe get some rolling-turns happening. We all rolled through once, maybe twice, but then Peter was off the back. I waited up a little, hoping he'd grab my wheel so I could pull him back up to Aaron and Justin but alas we made contact and he wished me well up the road. A short sprint and I was back into our group of three, all of 5km into the race.

Pushed out some more of those ragged turns, all managing to do a fair share of the work. About the 10-15km mark, after one of my turns Aaron pulled up alongside "there's only the two of us", AGAIN, looked over my shoulder and Justin didn't look like he'd be joining on.

We reeled in a few of the group set off ahead of us, they didn't attempt to grab a wheel. Then past a young guy set off in the limit group. Still no sign of the leaders.

Road had started to pitch up by this stage, could hear Aaron breathing fairly heavily behind me, maybe regretting his decision to ride from Melbourne to Tallarook the day before. Wasn't long before he fell back a little, thought about waiting up but could see the lead rider up ahead so took off. I closed down the gap fairly quickly, sat on his wheel to get my breath back and raced off towards the top. Some sage advice was given by the marshal at the turnaround point, "don't let up, scratch will come motoring down this hill".

The good thing about an out-and-back type race is you can see how far ahead/behind the other riders are. Looked like I had a 5-10min lead on scratch, ok considering we were set off 8min ahead of them. Still had another 20km to ride, solo, AGAIN. Head down, drops, you know the drill...

Pushed out a decent pace till crossing the line in 1st, Aaron coming in second (again). Third place rider was one from the group set off 4 minutes in front of us, was a close'ish run in the race for second between him and Aaron.

Total ride time was an hour 14 min with an average speed of 35.7km/h (not bad considering the last half was solo), best for the race was a 1:09 by one of the scratch riders. Reckon I might find myself back a group or two next time.

We all rolled back to Burgess Signs for presentations and post ride recovery drinks straight from the esky. Great group of guys to chill out with for an hour or so. They didn't even seem to mind me taking the $20 for a second week running.

Kicking myself for not starting this years ago.

Strava link

Gone racing: Seymour Broadford Handicap 9/6/2012

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 12:16:00 +0000

I'd been meaning to give racing a go for some time now, it was always one of those things I kept putting off. It's also the last item on my original list of things I'd never do (along with wearing lycra, shaving legs, riding a 'proper' road bike, etc). Anyway, I've recently picked up a few mates already in the scene and provided the last bit of motivation I needed. Five minutes on the Cycling Australia website, $260 poorer (Race Masters 1 license) and I was ready to hit the road. Just needed to find my first race

Turns out the Seymour Broadford Cycling Club run a weekly road race, and in fact a few of my mates were already heading up to it. From there it just sort of fell into place; took Friday off work giving the legs a chance to recover, family duties were covered for the day, small town race means I wasn't racing with a large number of other riders.

Packing the bike into the car isn't something I do regularly, took an hour to get everything organised. Ended up taking almost every piece of cycle clothing I owned due to the inclement weather. Rained the whole way up to Broadford, fortunately dried out as I pulled into Tallarook (where the race was to start).

Number 42 was handed to me from the race organiser/handicapper. Explained I'd never raced before, but did a bit of riding, in hindsight I probably should have pushed this point more. Wasn't exactly sure what handicap group I'd end up in, just content to make sure I was near the start line at 1:30. Walked back to the car and got dressed, base-layer, jersey, arm warmers seemed to be 'the go' based on others. Also removed one of my bidons as no one else was taking two (a good move in the end). Rolled up and down the main street trying to get the legs warmed up, I'd been told that these races start quick. Quick pre-race nature stop and I rode over to the start line feeling just a little nervous. This was the first competitive sporting activity I'd undertaken since playing Soccer as a kid near 20 years back.

My name was called out for the limit group (first to head off), I lined up behind the four other riders in our group. There were a few other new-to-racing types, all with a few more races under their belt than myself. Asked a few questions as to the route, needn't have worried as the corner marshells did a great job. With a wave of the hand we were off and racing. I'd later find out that we had an 18 minute head start on Scratch.

I did seek some pre-race tactics from a few of my more experienced mates. Don't burn out too soon, work with the group, try to latch onto a faster group when it comes through. All sounded good to me.

I sat fifth wheel for the first km, after which we saw our first crest which promptly opened up a gap of 30m between myself and two guys up the road. Feeling comfortable I rode back onto the lead group, didn't see the other two we started with till the finish line. Five was down to three, I stayed at the rear while the two guys in front took a decent turn each. We were about 10km in when I decided to help out, rode around to the front, flicked the cap up, reached for the drops and put the head down. Quads tightened up pretty much instantaneously, "damn, I'm in trouble" was echoing through my head. Looked over my shoulder to find a gap had opened up. Eased off the pace to let the others latch back on whilst simultaneously kicking myself. Easy goes, remember! This point was reiterated by one of the locals in our group, "we're 20km in to a 60km race and we've still got some decent hills coming up" (really only the one hill, but we looped around it twice).

We hit the climb, dropped into the little ring (probably didn't need to) and set a steady pace. Climb couldn't have been more than 2km at around a 4% gradient. Looked over my shoulder to find one rider not too far back, the other, well he was now a long way off. Let off the pace a little to let the nearest rider back on. Still wasn't halfway through the race and I really didn't want to go it alone. Unfortunately he wasn't up for pulling a turn, and when I dropped him on the same climb the second time around I figured I may as well just leave him. So there I was, 20km to go. . . solo.

And a miserable in-a-fun-kinda-way 20km it was, started raining, back was having a few issues (I've never pushed so hard, so long, in the drops before). Had absolutely no idea how far behind the other riders were so pushed out a pace I thought I could handle till the end. Couldn't see anyone behind, but with guys like Shane Miller chasing me down I figured if I looked back and saw him he'd be past in no time. Even had that trail of slober/sweat/rain hanging from mouth to top-tube at one point, glamorous stuff! Legs had pretty much stopped working, some bumps would see my speed drop below 20. Tail wind was much appreciated on the run back to the finish line, although I'm not sure who that helps more. There was at least one point where I swore my rear tire was going soft (and with no neutral support car in sight).

Rounded the final bend to see the checkered flag ahead, quick look back put my mind at rest as I crossed the line. Won my first bike race, which was great, just not as great as if I'd been back a few groups. Fairly sure the guy on the finish line wasn't serious, but "welcome to B-Grade" sounded a little ominious. Next time will be interesting. Second place went to the local I pulled around, third to Shane who'd eaten 10-15 minutes into our 18 minute head start! 4th went to the other starter in our group who'd made an unfortunate wrong turn that may have cost him 3rd. We apparently opened a bigger gap on two of the groups starting after, those others guys I started with are due up a grade too I reckon.

The Garmin showed a 34.5 km/h average speed which is faster than my usual rides; a quick one without traffic lights would usually be around 31km/h although usually a little longer with a few more hills. Still, there's an extra kph or two that came out for race day.

Rode back into town, chucked the bike in the boot and walked into the local pub where all were gathering for the presentations. Had a chat to the locals and other Melbourne racers, they didn't seem too annoyed with me, something about making up for it next time. Felt a little bad taking the $20, wasn't expecting any prize money. Had a great day out, I'd love to do it every weekend if the opportunity presented itself. If you're thinking about having a go I'd just do it.

Robot speaks

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 15:28:00 +0000

Wow, just looked back through the archives and found I’d left Robot silent since 2009 (the last redesign). Nothing a few lines of JavaScript didn’t fix.

I’d love to hear any suggestions on what you think Robot should say.

How

It’s all quite simple; the robot image remains unchanged while another image containing the speech text is overlaid on top.

This is what the HTML looks like. The original title bar image is part of the Blogger template, it remains untouched but is wrapped within a div. The second image is positioned using absolute coordinates so that it positioned within the speech bubble. As always stack overflow has some alternative solutions [1].

<div style='position: relative; float: left;'>
    <img src='original blogger generated code goes here'/>
    <img id='robotSpeaks' src='blank.png' style='position: absolute; top: 32px; left: 295px;'/>
</div>

And here’s the JavaScript that switches the images periodically. Once again thanks partly to stackoverflow [2]

//Changes image from list of hardcoded URLs
function changeImage() 
{
    //This array refers to a list of images hosted in my Picassa account
    var imageUrls = ["img1.png", "img2.png", "img3.png"];
    var imageUrl = imageUrls[Math.floor(Math.random() * imageUrls.length)];

    //grab the img reference using the id specified in the HTML
    var img = document.getElementById('robotSpeaks');
    img.src = imageUrl;
}

//Starts the timer that calls the change image function
function startChangeImage()
{
    changeImage();
    setInterval ( "changeImage()", 11000 );
}

//Hook onto the window onload event
if(window.attachEvent) {
    window.attachEvent('onload', startChangeImage);
} 
else 
{
    if(window.onload) 
    {
        var curronload = window.onload;
        var newonload = function() {
            curronload();
            startChangeImage();
        };
        window.onload = newonload;
    } 
    else 
    {
        window.onload = startChangeImage;
    }

}

stackoverflow: How do I position one image on top of another?, I opted for the simplest solution ↩
stackoverflow: Executing JavaScript after page load. It’s important to only switch the images after the page has been loaded to guarantee that the DOM contains the img. The solution shown above should also avoid problems due to conflicting Blogger onload event(s). ↩

Changing Wunderlist's minimum width

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:20:00 +0000

I recently decided to give Wunderlist a try as my Get Things Done app, unfortunately it takes up a significant chunk of my desktop I’d like to leave for nvAlt. A quick search showed I wasn’t the only one with this issue…

Now, this isn’t recommended, will probably break something, and will most definitely be overwritten by the next Wunderlist update. However, it has been working ok [1] for me the last few days.

Here’s how

Quit Wunderlist
Open the WunderList.app package
Navigate to the contents directory within the package
Open tiapp.xml in your favourite text editor. You should see a block similar to that shown below
Change the min-width value to something smaller (say 600)
Save the file and restart Wunderlist

<window>
    <id>initial</id>
    <title>Wunderlist</title>
    <url>app://index.html</url>
    <width>830</width>
    <max-width>3000</max-width>
    <min-width>600</min-width>
    <height>500</height>
    <max-height>3000</max-height>
    <min-height>400</min-height>
    <fullscreen>false</fullscreen>
    <resizable>true</resizable>
    <chrome>true</chrome>
    <maximizable>true</maximizable>
    <minimizable>true</minimizable>
    <closeable>true</closeable>
</window>

Wunderlist Version 1.2.4, Some of the icons on the lower toolbar will disappear when the width is reduced. ↩

Byword app

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 13:45:00 +0000

One of my work mates summed it up well; I'm currently in the "new laptop honeymoon period". It's that time where you don't mind trying out a few different apps, trying to get your personal workflows sorted out so as to be more productive.

Latest on the list is Byword . It's a simple application that focuses on writing, and this it does well. Screen space is fairly important on an 11in screen, so to do away with any menu system whatsoever is quite welcome (Microsoft Word is not made for 11in displays). Byword implements Lion's fullscreen too, this seems to have become a pre-requisite for any of my app purchases.

Byword supports plain text, rich text, and multimarkdown formats. The motivation behind adopting a text based markup language was to aid the process of having multiple authors edit the same document. As the document is stored in source control, merging changes should be a simple matter of updating, resolving a few conflicts and committing. This is a far cry from the copy/paste nightmare required when working with some binary based document file formats. I'm yet to try the RTF support, and the purpose of a plain text mode seems a little lost to me (isn't multimarkdown just plain text).

Editing in Byword is a serene experience. Not much gets in the way; no menus, no need to select and format text, change page margins, update fields, etc. With focus mode on most text onscreen is dimmed allowing you to focus on the paragraph currently being edited; it's a nice touch.

And once you wish to view the final product simply press ⌥ ⌘ p to preview the current markup (as shown below). From there it's relatively easy to export to pdf, rtf, latex, html, and even MS Word.

Of course there's always just a few extra features that would make it the perfect editor.

Mutlimarkdown v3 support. Poking around in the .app package shows that the app is built with a MMD v2 distribution. Unfortunately support for captions wasn't added until v3, this is an issue in the documentation I usually write.

~~It may be a nice idea to let the user specify their own MMD install, providing a certian level of future proofing / hackability~~. Edit: As the Byword guys were quick to point out, all you need to do is install MultiMarkdown and Byword will pickup on it. The Byword preview is then generated using the new install. I tested the 3.1 beta which worked fine excluding a few discrepancies between the latex output exported by Byword vs the mmd2tex command line tool.

Search in the preview mode.
Removing the need to double click links in preview mode.
Code completion. I'd actually like to have word completion on all text, but I think offering completion for cross-references (footnotes, section references, bibliography entries) would be a great addition and adhere to the design ethos of Byword.
Better formatted export options. This is largely dependent on MMD, but I'd like to be able to format a PDF based on a CSS file specified via a MMD meta-data tag. I still need to investigate the latex export option as a possible workaround. To some extend this seems to go against MMD principals (complex formatting options)
When changing between from the edit mode to the preview it would be nice if the window scrolled to the current cursor location. Quite often I find I just want to preview a certain section, not having to scroll from the top of the document would be nice.

All that said, Byword was worth my $10.49 .

New Project Time: My Ride Log (working title)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 08:45:00 +0000

It's been a while since I've started something new...

One of my motivations in switching to OSX was the ability to build applications for the iOS platform. The main reason was that it weighed in at 1kg, making it very commuter friendly. After playing around with the iOS SDK for a few weeks I've covered the basics and am finding it's time to move onto something slightly more serious; building an app and getting it into the app store.

Introducing My Ride Log

It's a working title until I can think up something else, I'm open to suggestions (there's a comments section below). The functionality provided by the application will be quite simple, logging of bicycle rides with some basic synchronisation to a web-site. There's many apps offering the same functionality (and much more), but I'm hoping to pick up a few users by;

Restricting the scope of the application (I'm becoming a fan of simple and specific purpose apps)
Developing a nice user interface
Being cheap (free)

In scope

Logging data on individual rides with associated meta-data (distance, tags, description, date, bicycle, etc)
Bicycle details (these are then linked to specific rides)
Basic synchronisation to a web-service somewhere (at this stage the plans are too hook it up to the www.mycyclinglog.com website).
Basic chart generation. eg; total distance travelled over year.
Local data storage. For the most part this app will maintain its data on the client device with the option to upload/download from a remote site.

Out of scope

Anything to do with the GPS
Training plans
Lots of other things I haven't even though of yet

Getting Started

I find one of the better ways of starting out is to sketch a mockup of how I see the application. The underlying data structures can then be developed to suite how I see the user interacting with the app, or so the theory goes.

As the first two tab views show, I'm not aiming real high with this app it will be very basic. The main aim is to get something finished.

Edit (Forgot my manners)
Thanks to the Noun Project for the bicycle and stop-watch images as used in the icon and screen mockups. Its a great resource when you're after a simple image of something that you can actually reuse.

2011 Macbook Air SSD benchmarks with FileVault2

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 15:46:00 +0000

I've been a PC guy for many years now, but found it too hard to resist an Intel core i7 packed into a 1kg notebook. It is the ultimate (bicycle) commuters notebook.

The only benchmark I was worried about were the SSD read/write speeds after I switched on full disk encryption (FileVault2). Turns out I needed not worry, the results from my 2011 Macbook air still eclipse that of the previous generation.

The exact specifications are as follows:

Intel core i7, 1.8GHz
4GB RAM, DDR3 1333MHz
256GB SSD, SM256C (the apparently quicker Samsung SSD)

I ran the Xbench several times, the reported results were always faster than that shown above. Read/Write speeds were higher before encryption, but for the level of security provided I'm happy with this compromise.

Melbourne to Ballarat; the back way

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 13:35:00 +0000

If you keep reading blog posts about people jumping on a bike and riding across the countryside you too will find yourself blogging about your own epic journey. Read on and don't say I didn't warn you.

From Melbourne to Ballarat 2010

Since moving out of home I've always headed home to Mum & Dad's for Christmas eve. The thought of riding back to Ballarat had come up previous years, but was quickly dismissed as it just wasn't doable. This time was different.

If you don't mind mixing with the traffic there's always the freeway. Bicycles are allowed on the shoulder and it's quite wide in most places. Be warned however, it carries a lot of big fast-moving traffic, especially on Christmas eve. Needless to say I went 'the back way', see below;

View Melbourne to Ballarat in a larger map

Rolled out the door just after 7:00am. Ride across the North of Melbourne was generally fine, Cooper st has a decent bike lane that keeps you out from under the trucks. Unfortunately this disappears once Cooper changes into Somerton rd, traffic was somewhat down on what I'd usually expect so I didn't have any issues. It's not a road I'd suggest riding in peak hour.

I always thought the Western suburbs of Melbourne were relatively flat; to my surprise I found a few cuttings that have you dropping 20-30m in altitude only to climb back up again after the river crossing.

After Diggers Rest the route turns South. My original plan was to head down Plumpton then down Leakes rd, missing a turn resulted in me continuing down Plumption. Joined back up with Leakes rd after riding on the freeway for little over a km, this short stretch made me quite happy I'd planned my route along the back roads. Stopped off at the Rockbank general store to stock up on water and have a quick snack. Things got pretty rural from this point on; next shop of any form didn't come till Ballan.

Of course here was about the time the legs started to feel just a little tired and only 50km in on a 150km ride. Still I pressed on; worst case was that I give the Mrs a call as she too was heading up to Ballarat a couple hours later. Legs felt fine again after a few more kms, put the tiredness down to the snack break. Rolled on through the countryside, past the Melton reservoir with it's great bluestone wall then later past a long forgotten speedway (it looked a little creepy). Cars had all but disappeared by this point; it's where the photo at the top of this post was taken.

After many km of nothing but gentle rolling hills I started noticing the upcoming escarpment. The walls of the gorge start to close in from both sides with grand rocky outcrops. There's no avoiding it; Ballarat is a couple hundred meters higher than Melbourne and sooner or later you have to climb. These signs started appearing just as I was starting to wonder when the climb would come (about the 90km point). First at 14km, then at 7km, 1km and soon enough the road just points up...

From Melbourne to Ballarat 2010

I knew it was going to be a steeper climb than anything I had rode before. The gradient was sharp enough that I couldn't climb it seated so got off the saddle. Didn't take long for my heartrate to max out, struggled upwards gasping for air while moving at a pace that was probably slower than walking. Eventually stopped around the halfway mark to gather some composure. Getting moving again proved problematic; I'd push off only to start rolling backwards before being able to clip in. Resorted to rolling slightly down the hill to clip in, then turn the bike back up the hill to continue the ascent. About now is when I had a 4wd pull up next to me. Honestly didn't hear him approach such was my gasping. He slowed and muttered a few words of encouragement only to disappear out of view. Thought that was the last I'd see of him until I hit the top to see the vehicle on the side of the road. Turns out he waited to see if I'd make it. We exchanged pleasantries, mine no doubt garbled given the slobbering exhausted state I'd worked myself into.

Rolled onto Ballan helped along by a slight South-Easterly breeze. Felt pretty good chaining my bike up in the bakery, legs were tired but still had some life left and I was now definitely on the homeward stretch. Decided some 'energy supplements' were required for the last few km (Mmmm, donuts).

From Melbourne to Ballarat 2010

There were a few little climbs between Ballan and Ballarat, Mt Egerton being the biggest. The original plan was to stop here for lunch but I was informed the General Store had closed a few months back. Legs were cramping a little by this stage, fortunately this passed after a km or so. Eventually rolled up Mum & Dad's driveway feeling quite satisfied with myself.

Christmas day was spent with the family and one pair of very tired legs.

Bloody (Un)lucky v2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 03:41:00 +0000

After the last run-in, I didn't want to be posting up another set of photographs like this;

From Over it

It happened here. I was riding North out St Georges rd, heavy traffic going both ways. Car driving South down St Georges turned into Clauscen st into what they believe was a gap. Of course I just so happened to be in that 'gap'. A little time is all it would have taken, just to slow a little and check for traffic. Who cares if a few cars are held up for mere seconds...

So what's the damage?! Well the bike looks like it's been driven over by a car (which it has). I smacked my head on the ground which not only busted up the helmet but also required a few stitches to hold my eyebrow together. And not to mention a fair amount of emotional trauma for all involved, even the motorist was visibly shaken by the result of their incompetence.

Fortunately I just finished building up the Project Bike which has spared the SuperSix from commuting duty. Here's hoping the insurance works out ok and I can pick up another ride more suitable for the commute. The old Met helmet has been replaced by a Giro Ionos which is a vastly superior helmet in every respect.

Moral of the story. . . If you drive a large metal box around at speed you've gotta be careful where you point it as they are bloody dangerous things!

The Project Bike

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 02:41:00 +0000

I once owned a project car; it sat in my garage for a good year till finally being sold in the the same state it was purchased in. This left me a little sceptical as to what would become of this;

It's a 2003 Cannondale CAAD7, the colour wasn't my ideal choice but looks ok 'in the flesh'. The build took place over a month or two, most of the parts were sourced from the usual UK online bike stores; namely Chain Reaction Cycles and Wiggle. Wheels were sourced locally and paid for in full by the insurance settlement from my last motorist interaction. If you wish to see all the WIP build pics have a look over here.

Final build

Parts list

Frame: Cannondale CAAD7

Fork: 3T Funda Pro

Groupset: SRAM Rival (with Force cranks).

Seatpost: 3T Palladio Pro

Stem: 3T ARX Pro

Seat: Fizik Arione

Wheels: Mavic Cosmic Carbone SL

Handlebars: 3T ErgoSum Pro

All up it weighed in at 7.85kg, somewhat less than I was expecting. In fact it's only a couple hundred grams heavier than the SuperSix I purchased earlier in the year.

After a couple 100km on it I'm finding it quite nice to ride. Not as smooth as the SuperSix and doesn't seem to have the same 'go' about it, but still nice none-the-less. The SRAM Rival groupset is really impressive and in my opinion the shift action/feel is better than the Ultegra.

Now to keep scouring ebay for that Raw Six13 I've always been after ;-)

Slacking off, again!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 10:16:00 +0000

Four whole months since my last blog post! Must be getting lazy again, err, actually I'll list out the usual excuses; family commitments, too much work, etc, etc. Busy, busy, busy.

Still hasn't stopped me from riding though! In fact I'm clocking up more kilometres than I usually do.

From Ride 07/08/2010 Kinglake

Not all just the mundane commute either, its the type of riding I've always lusted after. For far too long I've been obsessing over pictures of those riders that come back from a jaunt up the nearest mountain side. Now I'm finally getting out there and seeing it for myself.

For now I've settled on an easy route up around the Kinglake area. Ride starts off heading out Plenty rd to Whittlesea, from there it's out to Humevale and up Humevale rd (as seen in above picture). The road undulates up and down from Kinglake West right through to Kinglake, on a clear day you'll get some nice views of Melbourne city way off in the distance...

From Ride 07/08/2010 Kinglake

...on the not-so-clear days you'll see something like the above (there's a city in there somewhere I swear).

The road down from Kinglake to St Andrews takes in some epic views; had no idea Melbourne had anything of the sort on offer. Would of taken a few pictures on the way down, but such a fast winding descent is no place to be fumbling round for the camera.

By the time the road flattens out my legs are pretty much toasted for the day. It's then just a gentle roll back home through Hurstbridge, Wattle Glenn and Diamond Creek.

So in case you didn't notice by this stage I've now gone full roadie. Yep, road bike, lycra bib-knicks and shaved legs. All the stuff I said I'd never ride, wear or do! It's really quite infectious, you should try it.

Sure feels nice to be alive.

Non-boring Wedding Program

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 10:25:00 +0000

Funnily enough the reception centre we held our wedding at put something together for us, we didn't know they were going to do this for us though. So out came my favourite graphics programs once more; GIMP and Inkscape. There wasn't enough space for a follow-up story to the invites, but we did want something similar in look.

In case you couldn't tell from the above, our wedding had a butterfly theme and Carissa's flowers were Frangipanis.

Bloody (Un)lucky

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 08:48:00 +0000

Unlucky to be hit, lucky I could walk (ok, hobble) away.

I'm a bit slow to post this one, the incident happened back on the 19th of February. Initially I was going to wait a little while till the whole situation had been resolved, but it's now been just over a month and I'm still waiting on an insurance company payout.

The incident is easy to explain, I was riding straight through an intersection (see here) on a green light. Motorist was approaching from the opposite direction but turning right. On seeing the motorist I slowed like I always do just in case they haven't yet seen me. In this case the motorist slowed and looked at me; we made eye contact. This is what I took to mean they had in fact seen me and were yielding as they should. It wasn't until I was directly in front of them that the car started accelerating. Fortunately he missed hitting my body, but the bumper of the car hit the rear of my bicycle with some force sending me to the ground with it. See the damage below;

It all happened in slow motion, I still remember looking back over my shoulder and seeing the car take out my bike. I've even got some idea about how my calf made contact with my chain-ring; didn't hurt that much initially. First reaction was to jump up off the road, using my better judgement I remained sprawled on the road in the middle of the intersection (after having a quick look for other traffic). Distinctly remember checking to see if my limbs still operated and were reasonably straight; that checked out so I proceeded to sit up. By then I had a nice little puddle of blood on the road from the bite mark left by my chain-ring. Knee was a little sore, but worked well enough to hobble off the road.

On reaching the footpath I found there were several people offering assistance. Happy to see the driver had returned to the scene of the indecent. In typical fashion I tried to downplay the situation, "I'll be right. Na don't worry about an ambulance. I'm ok". One of the witnesses played it by the book and I'm thankful she did. Can't remember exactly what she said, but it was something like "I've witnessed an accident, you're quite clearly injured, it's my duty to call the police. You may be in shock.". I then shut-up. The ambulance and police arrived a short time later.

The Ambulance Officers carried out an inspection on my back, pressing down on the different vertebrae and asking if I felt any pain. They then had a look at the serrated cut on my leg, presumably to ensure I didn't loose too much blood. Finally came a series of questions; who's the Prime Minister of Australia, what day is it, where are you? I think I passed. I denied the offer of a ride to hospital, but not before they gave my leg a good clean up and appropriate dressing.

Why do cyclists shave there legs? Well I think the look on my face when the nurse removed this bandage would offer a good explanation.

After the Ambulance officers had finished up the attending police came over and recorded my version of events. This was validated by the accounts of the other witnesses and the motorist was charged with failing to give way. I remained in the back of the Ambulance till my girlfriend arrived, it wasn't till then that emotion really started to creep in. I tried my best to reassure her that I was ok, but I don't think anything could really prepare you for the sight of a loved one in the back on an Ambulance. The Ambo's were great at explaining I would be fine, thanks guys.

Next step was onto the nearest hospital for another checkup (as was strongly recommended by the Ambulance Officers). I was also after a tetanus booster given how much grease/oil was embedded in the wound.

Took the day off work and went home to feel sorry for myself whilst holding an ice-pack to my knee.

The Scott SUB10 bore most of the impact force, it was immediately evident that it was a write-off. Obviously I needed a quote for insurance purposes so took the battered bike into my local bike shop where my assessment was confirmed. Faxed the quote for a new bicycle to the motorists insurance company and started playing the "waiting game". They keep telling me that they need more information from the driver, I believe that's code for "they haven't paid the excess yet". The whole process has me thinking about taking out insurance on my bicycles for the sole reason of getting motorists to pay up. Anyway, I guess this marks the end of my first adult bicycle, may you RIP SUB10 and the roads in "bicycle heaven" be car free. Yeah, I know it's just a bike, but I'd be lying if I said it had no sentimental value.

Ride safe all.

Non-boring Wedding Invites

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 06:34:00 +0000

Ok, it's really just a sensationalist title. I don't really find the average wedding invite boring, quite the contrary; most are very well designed. However when the time came to start organising our own invitations I started thinking of something a little different.
The end result;

What can I say; it was a labour of love! The story is not 100% accurate, but is pretty close.

As for the details. All image manipulation was carried out using the GIMP, generally the background of each scene had the contrast reduced and brightness increased. This was done to make the foreground pop out more. The final halftone effect was achieve by using this plugin. Once each photo was suitably comic'ified they were copied into Inkscape for composition. Inkscape was also used for the borders and various text-boxes.

From what I've heard the invites have been well received. Most got a laugh out of it which is what I was really aiming for. More-so I hope it's something we can look back on after 40 years of living "Happily ever after" and smile.

New Toys: Arduino and Wishield

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 03:42:00 +0000

As a long time user of open-source software I've always kept a keen eye on the emerging open-source hardware movement. I guess the Arduino is what you'd call a poster child of this development. For those that don't know the Arduino is a "physical computing" platform, that is to say you can make a computer do something "physical".

It consists of two parts; the Integrated Design Environment (IDE) and the actual hardware. The IDE is really quite simple, you type in your code, compile it and upload it straight to the hardware where it begins executing immediately. It also provides a serial output display for the board which I'm sure will come in extremely handy for debugging. The hardware is somewhat more of a mystery to myself, given my lack of a strong electronics background. What I do know is that it provides a series of analogue and digital input/outputs that can be controlled programmatically. It's this point that really attracted me to the platform, I can forego learning about electronics and jump straight into controlling hardware.

Some financial investment is required to purchase the hardware, although Arduino systems are cheap. The IDE is of course a free download and runs on most platforms, I have no problems running on Ubuntu Karmic Koala. If your located in Australia I'd have a look at the Little Bird Electronics web-store, my box of toys showed up 3-4 days after ordering and just in time for the weekend.

Below you'll see my first successful attempt at tinkering with the Arduino.
It's a simple light circuit, albeit a little more complex than the blinking LED demo everyone starts off with. The LEDs on/off state is changed by the push button, and the potentiometer controls the LED brightness. Changing the brightness of an LED is no simple task as it turns out, you can't just reduce the current applied as you would a conventional light globe. Instead you have to flicker it on and off fast enough so that the human eye cannot perceive it is being turned on and off (persistence of vision). Fortunately the Arduino handles this task, a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) signal is sent when you set an analogue value to a digital pin, tricky eh ;-) . Turns out the setting up of the circuit and programming took less time than it has to write this blog post, yep it really is that easy.

In addition to purchasing a "Getting Started kit" I picked up a few servos, some additional sensors and a Wishield. The Wishield plugs into the top of the Arduino board and gives it capability to communicate with a wireless access point. The "Getting Started with Arduino" book is also a great little read, it starts off really simple and brings your knowledge up to the point where you not afraid to do a little tinkering by yourself.

So the big question is, what to build now? Don't worry I've got a few ideas that I've been thinking of for a while now.

Shimano Alfine Hub Gear Rebuild

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:34:00 +0000

I remarked about some noticeable friction in my Alfine hub gear during the last update on the Bad Boy. About a week later an intermittent squeal started emanating from the hub, that combined with the increased friction had me thinking it was about to die a horrible snap-crunch-bang death at any moment. It was quite literally screaming out for some love.

	Shimano Alfine before rebuild
From Shimano Alfine Rebuild

Before starting your own rebuild I'd strongly suggest you take a trip over to the Alfine Hubstripping page. I found the hub strip series of pictures extremely helpful during disassembly.

I won't detail the process as the pictures and various service manuals on the aforementioned site do such a great job. I will make a few remarks though.

In order to remove the cog from the hub you will need to pry off a cir-clip like ring from just above the cog (assuming hub is orientated drive side up). This ring is hidden behind a cover that simply clips on. This had me stumped for a while. Best approach to removing the cir-clip like ring is with a very small bladed screw driver.
Once the cog has been removed the drive side dust cover can be taken off (the large plastic cover). Shimano state that a special tool is required to remove this part, however I found that the part could be unscrewed using my bare hands only (you might want to put a rag over to unscrew like a jam jar). Note: look at the tightening directions printed on the dust cover, from memory I believe it is reverse threaded.

	Shimano Alfine "guts"
From Shimano Alfine Rebuild

Once I had the internals removed the problem area was immediately noticeable. The ball bearing race to the right hand side of the above picture was dry with a slight amount of rust. The two sets of roller bearings on the other side of the hub looked fine as did the grease in the traditional cone/cup ball bearing arrangement that is present on the non drive side of the hub.
To better access the ball bearing race I needed to split the hub into its two major components as shown below. To do so simply remove a c-clip from the non drive side, the two parts then slide apart easily.

	The two main components of the Alfine hub internals. This is a far as I ventured.
From Shimano Alfine Rebuild

Once the internals were halved I could clean and re-grease the bearing race, I also applied new grease to any exposed gears I could access. The two halves were then re-assembled. This is a little tricky as you need to align a key and key-way slot before the two parts can be pushed together (just look inside the LHS component to see what I'm talking about). Even with the key lined up the two parts may still not press together, this will no doubt be due to the gears not being aligned. Try rotating the planetary gears of the LHS component, the two halves should click in together allowing re-assembly.
Next I applied yet more grease to the exposed roller bearings and dunked the whole assembly into automatic transmission fluid. Yeah, I wanted to make sure I won't be pulling it apart for another 15000km's.
The assembly process was straightforward, just make sure you line up the dots of the shifting mechanism.

	Old and New Alfine cogs. You should replace the Alfine cog more often than this! My last chain lasted only 1000km before wearing out.
From Shimano Alfine Rebuild

Of course if your rebuilding the hub, it may be worthwhile changing the rear cog also (they're relatively cheap). Interestingly I had to remove the plastic chain guard seen above from the new cog to fit it back onto the hub. The Bad Boys chain-line setup requires the cog be orientated so that the teeth are further from the center.

Since the rebuild I've probably traveled another 1000km and I'm happy to report the rebuild was a success. I now have a more pronounced ratcheting sound when freewheeling in some gears, but I don't believe this is something to be concerned about. It's most likely due to the less viscous lubrication of the automatic transmission fluid. Shifting was also as good as before the operation, not that this was suffering beforehand.

Homemade PowerLink remover

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:50:00 +0000

So those SRAM PowerLinks are a joy to use on a nice clean chain, they really do open effortlessly, especially when compared to the replacement pins used with Shimano chains. Only problem is my chain is rarely clean and these PowerLinks can be a real pain to get off. I mustn't be the only one who has troubles as Park Tools make a special set of pliers to remove the more stubborn links.

I'd usually resort to cleaning the area of chain around the link then wiggle it back and forth a little followed by much exertion and resultant swearing. You can try a normal set of pliers but you'll find that the compressive force only serves to shoot the chain out the end. Also it'll really only work with needle nose pliers as you need to grip the rollers, compressing the side plates won't help at all.

It was after 5 minutes of messing round that inspiration struck, why don't I just bend the end of the pliers around to better grip the cylindrical rollers? Well I didn't want to sacrifice a perfectly good set, but I did have a busted cir-clip tool. It only took 15 minutes with the Dremel to get some suitable shaping at the end of the pliers, you can see the results to the left.

You need to make a few considerations when attempting such a modification; the pliers need to be slim enough to slot into the chain, there needs to be some cutout to grip the rollers (see left) and finally be sure to not grind away too much material, this would weaken the tool.

The final hack worked extremely well on my extra gritty chain today. Although its not the prettiest tool in the box I think it's a great addition.

Maybe now I'll start cleaning my chain more often. I just checked the one on my bike at the moment and its only just inside tolerance after a month.

McKimmies rd bike path

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:19:00 +0000

I've been watching a new shared (pedestrian/ bicycle) path being constructed along part of my commute. It's great to see the local council investing in such infrastructure. Usually such facilities are only found closer towards the city, excluding those bike paths built along side freeways (required by planning legislation).

The only mention I could find of the bike path on the City of Whittlesea website was regarding the 2009/2010 budget (Scroll down to the Mill Park section).

$290,000 pathway construction

A shared concrete pathway will be constructed in McKimmies Road, Mill Park between Garden Grove Drive and the Darebin Creek.

By my measure the total length of the path is 1km, that's $290 for every meter! I guess it's not that shocking considering Eastlink (a major tollway in Melbourne's east) cost $55000 per meter.

View McKimmies rd Bike Path in a larger map

So will I use it once complete? Maybe. Heading West I'll probably stick to the road shoulder, during peak hour traffic it simply wouldn't be possible to cross McKimmies rd at the point the path ends. It may come in handy heading East though. The road shoulder on that side of the road is poorly maintained and covered in a thick layer of gravel deposited by the many large trucks leaving the adjacent quarry. It's dangerous to ride on and gets my bike all dirty too ;-) .

There's also some issues with the entry point to the path that I hope will be resolved. As it stands I would have to stop on the road shoulder and lift my bike over the gutter and then navigate through the small gap in the crash barriers. I'm assuming the hole shown in the picture to the left will also be paved.

Overall its great to see such developments, there's also been a few other bits of bike paths pop up here-and-there. It represents the beginning of a change in mindset towards cycling. I can only hope such facilities encourage more outer suburban cyclists as they are a rare sight at the moment.

Miss Cariss: Business cards

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:37:00 +0000

Artistic is not a word I would use when describing myself. However, more and more I find myself coming to appreciate good design work. If you want to check out what I'm talking about head over to Core77 and Smashing Magazine, both excellent resources and provide great inspiration.

So that leaves me in a limbo of sorts, I know what looks good, but couldn't produce it myself. This begun to change after chatting to a design guy at work who imparted some wise words "Design is a skill, and as such it can be learnt". So there we have it, I can remain devoid of artistic ability and still hope to design something respectable. Easy, I guess. It wasn't until my ~~girlfriend~~ fiancee started her own hairdressing business that I had a chance to exercise this new found confidence. See the results below.

I kept the business card simple and clean, less to screw up that way ;-) . I quite like the final product. The design was sketched up using Inkscape a great open source vector graphics program I've played around with before. In case your interested the font used is titled Miso sourced from here, it not only looks great but is free for commercial use.

For printing we used Salt Print, the whole process of getting these cards printed couldn't of been any easier. Just make sure you follow the design guidelines, export the front + back to PDF files and upload to their website. Select some finishing options such as a matt/gloss and square/round corners (I opted for the rounded corners as they complemented the design well) and click the go button. A day or so later the proof was emailed as a jpg image, this looked fine. Less than two weeks later the box of cards arrived.

Must say I quite liked the process of creating something tangible for a change.

Now for that website . . .

Bike Weights

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:09:00 +0000

I've read it's a slippery slope to becoming a gram counting weight weenie and it all starts the first time you weigh one of your bikes. Still, having recently purchased a set of scales I found the temptation too great.
Here are the results:

Manufacturer	Model	Year	Size	Weight (kg)
Scott	SUB 10	2007	Medium	11.2
Cannondale	Bad Boy 8	2008	Medium	11.2
Merida	S-Presso 500D	2008	Small	11.7

Note: all measurements were produced by weighing myself on a set of common bathroom scales, then repeating with the bicycle in hand. The results shown above were then calculated by subtracting the former from the latter. Please don't expect a great level of accuracy, +/- a few hundred grams.

Must say I was pleasantly surprised with the weight of the Bad Boy, I honestly though it was heavier than the Scott by at least a kilogram or so. The Bad Boy no doubt feels heavier when you pick it up given the weight concentration towards the rear of the bike (due to Alfine hub).

Now to go buy some lightweight carbon bits ;-)

Cannondale Bad Boy 8 after 1 year (and 13000kms)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 10:40:00 +0000

Was always planning to post an update on the Bad Boy (BB) after a year, was pretty surprised when I realised its already been 13 months. That roughly correlates to some 13000km of commuting (and a few recreational rides), it's a decent number of kilometers for a bicycle.

And here she is, one year later.
It's Winter here at the moment, so you'll have to excuse the state of the BB. While I do clean the chain pretty much every week, it seems a little superfluous to wash the rest of it.

So how has the first year with the BB worked out? Fairly well, but could be a little better. I guess the best way to start off is to explain what's different about the bike and why.

New seat-post and saddle
The fizik saddle just wasn't agreeing with my butt, I subscribe to the theory that saddles are a very person specific item and this was not the one for me. Easy fix, I swapped it with the SDG model that was on the Scott.
Unfortunately the soreness remained. It was then that I started tweaking the angle of the saddle with limited success. The standard seat-post is a single bolt arrangement with a series of splines on the two mating surfaces to stop slipping. Not only was it a pain to adjust, but I found that one setting would point the nose too high and the next increment was to low.
Obviously the solution was to invest in a nice "blingy" Thomson elite seat-post. After that I managed to get my position sorted.

Grips
Like any other set of standard handlebar grips I've tried, these slipped off too. I've heard hairspray on the inner surface works well, but I quite like the ODI lock on grips I have on the Scott, so picked up another pair.

Rear wheel
After 6 months I started breaking a lot of spokes. I'd have one go every fortnight or so, in total I replaced about 5, after that I'd had enough and got the rear wheel rebuilt. At the same time I opted to upgrade the rear rim as the standard BB rims are about as heavy as they come.
The new rim is a Mavic tn719, its a nice rim intended for a 29er MTB so should be able to take some big hits. The tyres do take a significantly greater amount of work to get on/off though.
My bike shop (LBS) said the breakages were due to the alloy nipples corroding the spokes, hence the new wheel was built with brass nipples. I've since had one spoke break, but am putting it down to an isolated incident. *crosses fingers*

Chain-ring / Bash guard
There's a significant jump in gearing from 5-6 on the Alfine hub gear (more on that later), with the standard 38 tooth chain-ring I found I was constantly shifting across this gap, often finding that I was missing a gear. By putting on a 42 tooth ring I spend more time in 5th and less time wishing there was a 5.5 gear.
Of course with the larger ring, the bash/chain guard thing was somewhat smaller that the actual ring. With some shorter chain-ring bolts it was removed and I haven't really missed it. In fact not having it there makes cleaning a whole lot easier and I'm sure loosing the 100 grams has cut my commuting time by 0.5 seconds ;-) .

So that's all the new stuff, excluding the typical expendables (tyres, brake pads, cables, chains). Now on to the next points.

Eccentric Bottom Bracket (EBB)
Most certainly the Achilles heel of the BB8, or any other Cannondale with an EBB I'm guessing. I found it to be so problematic that it deserved its own post. A quick look down the comments of my first BB post shows that I'm not the only one. I won't explain the issue again, just say its pretty annoying. BUT, it has been relatively well behaved in the last 6 months, no slipping, no creaking and just the occasional adjustment to account for chain wear.
BTW, yes I cleaned my chain before riding again.
Another point to consider is that adjusting chain tension does affect your bike fit. I run the EBB in the bottom position and find that from a new chain through to a worn out chain I'll have to move my seat down by some 5mm. Usually I ignore fore/aft positioning, but it could probably do with a little nudge forward at the moment.

Shimano Alfine
You know those thing that just work the way they should, well the Alfine is one of those. Every once in a while I check to see if the cable is aligned correctly (the two yellow marks in the hub) and that's all the maintenance required. So far its shifted flawlessly.
Some adjustment to the way you ride is required, the Alfine doesn't shift well (at all) under load so you need to back off a little. It's not a big deal. Shift, take it easy somewhere through the pedal stroke and it'll click over instantly. For city riding being able to shift up/down a couple gears while stationary is awesome and more than make up for this shortcoming.
There are downsides though, namely it's heavy and I've already mentioned the big jump from 5th to 6th. Sometime soon I'm going to think about cracking it open and performing some sort of internal service. I've read somewhere that the correct procedure is to bathe the internal gears in an oil bath. I'm thinking it is about time after noticing the crank spin when I wheel the bike forward, riding also seems a bit draggier than usual.

Conclusion
The BB has been a great bike, real pleasure to ride but with some issues. EBB problems, weight and the jump between 5th and 6th are about it. I'd be reluctant to go with another EBB equipped model, I've just found the EBB maintenance to be too much. Similarly, the internal cable routing, it makes the bike look sleek and is easier to clean but changing cable is tricky and the holes allow water into the frame.

Looking forward to see what Cannondale has in the 2010 lineup :-D

Counting Bikes

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 03:30:00 +0000

So some time ago I had a whinge that all the other bike commuters at work were soft. First wet day of the season and I was the only cyclist, of course the next day was just as wet and a total of six other bikes rolled up. This got me thinking, I wondered how weather affects commuting numbers.

I'd like to think bicycle commuting will become a common mode of urban transport, but always had my doubts as to how well numbers hold up in sour weather. The only statistics I could find online came from Bicycle Victoria, on one page they mention wet weather can have a 10% variation on commuter numbers, yet on another page it's stated that foul weather only stops 5% (whereas recreational use drops 70%). My general observations would put the reduction at an average of 30%, with really heavy rain resulting in an even greater drop.

Now onto even less accurate observations, over a period of almost 3 months I counted the number of commuters that showed up at work and recorded if it was a wet or dry commute. The number was measured by counting the number of bicycles in the rack when I arrived, and yes, it is entirely possible that others arrived after my count had been taken. A day was recorded as wet if I got drenched, light rain and/or slightly wet roads were generally counted as dry. The counts were recorded over a time frame from early March through to late May.

The results from the unscientific study are shown below.

While not directly related to the study, it was still interesting to observe which days were most popular for commuting. Monday and Friday show a lower count, no doubt due to employees taking leave. Wednesday seems to bring out the most riders, with Tuesday not too far behind.

It never seems to rain in Melbourne anymore. 86% of all commutes were dry, during the entire 3 months I only got wet 7 times (not that I'm complaining).

As expected there was a noticeable difference in commuter numbers. On average a total of two commuters didn't ride when it rained. It's a higher percentage than that stated by Bicycle Victoria, but I won't say my results disprove theirs, especially considering my many dubious assumptions.

During my early commuting days I'd often drive when the weather turned bad, but I always found I was punished for doing so. The slightest bit of moisture on the ground seems to double traffic and bring out the absolute worst in motorist behavior. Plus I didn't get to ride, a massive negative ;-) .

On the other hand, riding in the rain is not as bad as many think. Yeah you get wet, beyond saturated in fact, but once the muscles are warmed up it's the most alive you'll ever feel.

The Regulars

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:29:00 +0000

One of the many great aspects of commuting by bike is that you can interact with others. Communication is obviously more practical on a bike for starters your not enclosed in a 2tonne steel and glass cage, but it goes beyond that, as a cyclist you're identified as a person. As a motorist you're identified as a car. Listen to the next conversation involving cyclists and/or motorists. I think you'll hear statements such as "I saw a cyclist on the way to work" (cyclist being a person) and "a car almost crashed into me" (car being an inanimate object). Perhaps the biggest example of this communication barrier is that in 10 years of driving to work/university I can honestly say I did not meet one new person, it's different by bike...
After several months of passing by the same people everyday you feel as if you get to know them. You may never speak to them, but the body language and smile on their face is just as effective. Here's a couple of the regulars:

School Crossing Guard
Stationed near the intersection of McKimmies Rd and Betula Avenue, he's been a regular for at least a year now. Not sure who started waving first, but now every morning there's a hearty good morning and a cheery wave. To date I've never had to stop, most likely as I'm heading past well before school starts.

Old Chinese guy
A fellow bicycle commuter, usually pass each other where the railway line through Reservoir intersects the bike path. He rides what I can only describe as a classic work bike; an old single speed with dual top tubes and a basket up front.
I did say good morning once and was greeted with, errrr, a reply in Chinese (at a guess). So now we've resorted to the universal 'acknowledging nod'. If I'm still on a bike at his age I'll be a happy old man.

Bike shop guy
It's nice to have a decent chat every now and again, its possible with the bike shop guy as he's one of the only commuters I regularly see traveling in the same direction.
As per usual the first conversation started with bikes, at the time he was riding a Scott SUB 10 (next years model of my own bike). I'd just picked up the Bad Boy as the Scott was in the shop for a warranty issue. On discussing the problem I had with the Scott we quickly figured out that he was the bike shop employee tasked with replacing the frame on my bike. Small world, eh.
Anyway, bumped into him heading home this week. He's currently in the process of building a sick BMX *jealous*. We also discussed the pro's and con's of beer consumption and riding.

Thoughtful cyclist
She's the only regular I know has been commuting longer than myself. By the looks of it she recently picked up a nice blue Trek road bike (looks great BTW).
She earned massive karma points when I saw her brushing a smashed beer bottle off the bike path one day. How awesome is that! For those that don't know bike paths never get cleaned and a broken bottle will usually leave nasty shards behind for good month or so. Those shards being the number one cause of flat tires (of which I had 2 this week).

Red Honda Civic
Memorable for its repaired, but still painted in primer rear quarter panel. They usually drive past at the the intersection of Childs Rd and Betula Avenue, only to be caught and passed by High St never to be seen again. I don't believe they're aware of their participation in a regular commuter challenge, but I don't let that make it any less fun for me ;-) . To be honest they quite often win during school holidays.

Black Lamborghini registration HHHHH
No, not even a car capable of 300+ km/h will get you to work any quicker. He should really try riding a bicycle, especially as he lives just of Rathdowne st, a beautiful ride into the CBD.

The other Scott SUB 10 commuter
Yet another SUB 10 commuter. I called out "Nice Bike" when I passed him heading home one night. Couple weeks later he called out "Nice Bike" while speeding past yours truly (doesn't happen often ;-) ). I was on the Scott back then. We never really stopped or talked, just sort of turned the commute home into a slightly competitive hammer fest. Boys will be boys.

There are a few which I left out, might save them for the next batch of regulars.