A blog about skating and cycling, or vice versa

New Year's Revolutions#

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:11:53 +0000

It's not a New Year's Resolution to blog more often, though it is something I should do anyway. Miscellaneous stuff follows

Critical Mass vs the Fuzz, from the LFNS sekrit marshals forum:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldjudgmt/jd081126/metro-2.htm :
We almost get a mention:
Quote:
29. The question for decision in this appeal arises out of section 11 of the Public Order Act 1986, which has been set out by my noble and learned friend, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers. The section is loosely modelled on section 62 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. In broad outline, it requires the police to be given six days' notice (subsections (4)-(6)) of any proposal to hold a "public procession" with one of the intentions set out in subsection (1). It is significant that the requirement is confined to these kinds of procession. The limitation means that if anyone proposed to hold a mass cycle ride simply for the joy of cycling, or a mass roller skate trip through the city streets, again simply out of sheer joie de vivre, he would not need to give notice in terms of section 11(1). Since the possible interference with other traffic would be exactly the same, whatever the motivation for the ride, in my view the essential purpose of section 11(1) is not so much to warn the police of possible interference with traffic as to warn them of a procession whose aim might provoke opposition and so give rise to public order problems. This is, of course, consistent with the provision being included in a Public Order Act.

I'm pleased for them that they succeeded, and of course also from an LFNS point of view I'm happy that there are people out there less regulated than we are - as long as they're still around it's less likely the killjoys will start trying to spoil our fun as well.

Had my Android phone for almost two months ago now, and still mostly happy with it.

I am slightly in mourning for the - perhaps inevitable - demise of Another Cycling Forum - whatever its faults, it at one time played host to some of the best cycling writing around and in that respect is without adequate replacement (no, if you're about to recommend yacf, don't bother).

In principle this means I get more work done. In practice I think I am probably compensating with more time spent on lesser forums and on Facebook instead.

The November FNRttC - wow, months ago - was brisker than usual and good fun as always. At least until I stopped on the climb into Brighton after passing the A27 to check my loose cleat, and found it

was actually a loose LH crank. Tightened it and finished the ride slightly more cautiously, but it repeatedly reloosened itself the next time I went out, so, new crankset time.

My first foray into exotic bottom bracket technology, occasioned mostly by learning that every Campag chainset above the bottom-end Xenon now comes with Ultra Torque instead of Ye Olde Square Taper. Haven't tried it in earnest yet, though it did survive riding to the park on Saturday: tonight is time to bung it on the trainer and see if it stands up to some more balls-out riding.

Which brings us on neatly to training, and the reluctant admission that I've done absolutely zip on the "getting fit" front for the past couple of months. On the other hand, the last time I was fit in December (2006) I'd pretty much lost interest in all forms of skating by April, so perhaps a later start is a good one. Have been spending some time tarting instead: I can now transition forwards-backwards on both sides with non-zero (though still small) amounts of style and grace, and the unexpected consequence is that a left-foot-forward scissor also almost feels natural.

OK, that's enough for now. Future entries may be more frequent and less long.

On the road to nowhere#

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:00:45 +0000

First I thought that a dedicated back wheel for the turbo trainer would make it less hassle. That was before I realised I would need to fiddle with the gear indexing whenever swapping wheels, and that serious sprint intervals flex the rear triange in directions I think it probably wasn't designed to cope with. So, for various previously-explained (and in honesty not all that good) reasons I have a spare frame lying around: since my crankset upgrade I can fit the old one on the training bike (ugly replacement lh crank less than a tenner) and the box o' bits turns out to have an awful lot of the other necessaries.

In short, this is now a three-bike household. Though the newest creation is not going anywhere, and being entirely without brakes (though I fitted levers just for something to hold on to) would be unable to stop at its destination if hypothetically it did.

Other bikes: the practical bike has been going up and down to Crystal Palace a lot recently, because the Firebrox is there and undergoing fettling. The fun bike has not been out as much, but will have proper roadie pedals (Look delta) instead of its present SPDs when next it does

Twittering endlessly#

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 02:08:12 +0000

The Twitter thing seems to be pressing on my consciousness lately, sufficiently so that I registered with it and spent a little while looking for Android clients. You can find my random spew at http://twitter.com/coruskate

Have been suffering over the last couple of days from unattributable DOMS. The only real contender was my Saturday ride to Crystal Palace and back - was quite pleased to get from Liverpool St to Norwood Junction (approximately) in 35 minutes (it helps to know where I'm going, of course, as stopping to look at the map is never entirely consonant with setting PBs) but I wasn't exactly killing myself even so. Or at least, I didn't think so at the time. Seems to be mostly OK again now, after walking home from the office this evening and then a hot bath.

As hinted last time, the Firebrox is in bits. Many bits. It's off the road for scheduled(sic) maintenance, although some of the bits we're now finding that are worth maintaining were not on the original schedule. Still worth doing them now anyway, while the weather is generally rubbish, to avoid having bits explode unexpectedly in the middle of a big skate in summer.

And even endlesslesser#

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:27:41 +0000

Having added twitter automation at work and for the LFNS I went on to look for more toys as well. So, this web site now sports a cute-in-an-ugly-way - actually, I am undecided, it may just be ugly-in-a-cute-way javascript-based sidebar with my recent tweets.

From http://getsatisfaction.com/people/david_needham :

I would like to filter out all replies in the html or flash badge provided by Twitter to be embedded on our personal sites. Facebook currently has some sort of filter in place which does exactly this before posting things (ie. my replies do not get posted while regular posts do). Is there any way that we can choose that option for the provided badges?
I would answer there, but it wants me to register and I cannot be bothered. So, for the benefit of Google if not David I will answer here instead: you take the code that Twitter supply, and in between the two SCRIPT tags they give you, you insert another SCRIPT with contents something like this: 
var old_callback = twitterCallback2;
var twitterCallback2 =function(C) 
{ var A=[];  for(var D=0;D<C.length;D++) { if(C[D].in_reply_to_screen_name == null) A.push(C[D]);  } old_callback(A); }
See the source to this page for an actual example.

Maybe that's just ugly-in-an-ugly-way

⟪Dec 2008 Feb 2009⟫