A blog about skating and cycling, or vice versa

A few words#

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 12:48:04 +0000

Since it's been over a week since I last posted anything, here's something.

Recently I have been massively enjoying skating, but not actually doing very much of it - and even of that, very little could be claimed as "training". I don't really know why, either, except that the weather turned cold again and this leaves me not so enthusiastic about going out if I don't have some pressing need to - which is usally "someone else to skate with"

Compared with this time last year: psychologically much better (my skates fit me) but I think I've been logging much less actual distance. I think the skating I've been doing is of better quality - more fluid, more agile (and I'm not wincing nearly as much) and having got a grip on that whole armswing thing means I can actually accelerate - but I guess we'll find out for sure whether I'm right there when the season starts.

My training calendar - er, I lost it somewhere. But all the British races changed date from when I was expecting them to be, so I need to think about it again and probably redecide what my season goals are going to be.

Well, I woke up this morning ...#

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:19:59 +0000

... and found that I had no pain from either knee. I got the arthrochondritic non-blues.

Seriously, it's lovely. I'd forgotten what it's like being able to run down stairs.

This made me laugh#

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:56:01 +0000

If you're not in London I probably need to start with a bit of context. There's a weekly email thing called the "FNS Dispatch", which has some selection of skating-related news in it, mostly notices of new Citiskate courses (Citiskate are one of the skate schools here in town), but it also has news of where the LFNS and Stroll are going each week. Great, free publicity for us.

Minor wrinkle: for more information on either of the said events it refers people to web sites run by Citiskate, instead of the www.lfns.co.uk site that the volunteer skate marshals put together. This is an issue insofar as it makes the whole thing look like a Citiskate event - it used to be (in fact, all credit to them, the skates were founded by the same people as run Citiskate and up to about a year ago we were sponsored by them) but that's no longer the case. So it's a bit of a sore point that they won't acknowledge anything we've done in 2006, but we've asked them to change, for whatever reason they haven't, and there's a point where you decide that further effort just for the sake of "getting the credit" would be petty and a waste of time. Especially as it's still free publicity and it helps get people out on the skates, which is the main thing.

Cutting to the chase: this week apparently it says

We received a few emails last week on the status on the FNS website which didn't update to show the skate was cancelled. Our apologies; note that official routes are published on thefns.com and rollerstroll.com and any other site claiming to organise or hold the trademark to the FNS name or similar are mistaken.

and this is the bit that makes me laugh: the site that didn't update was thefns.com. The site that did update was the allegedly unofficial www.lfns.co.uk. Why did this happen and how do I know? Because I was Lead Marshal on last weeks' LFNS, and it was me that updated it. I designed the route, based on my usual post-Vic route home and some roads I found [[last month=>Lost Bearings]], I checked the route on Tuesday, along with about 20 people who came along the ride, and at, oh, 17:05 on Friday, I cancelled the skate because the weather forecast looked rubbish. The first thing I did was to update the web site we run at www.lfns.co.uk - I even went back to the server logs when I read that email, just to make sure I wasn't mistaken, but my IP address is there in black and white electrons. After that I posted on the sekrit marshal forum (called redlocker, there's a story behind that name) we use for co-ordinating stuff from week to week, and on the serpentineroad forum where general London skating discussion goes on. I didn't try to get anything on the Citiskate-owned site because - well, actually, because I'd forgotten all about its existence. If I had stopped to think about it I'd assume they'd update it themselves as usual.

So, I don't know what basis they have to claim that the site they cite is "official", but it's certainly not due to its links with the decision makers (and it's not funding either, cos we've had no money from them for the past year). And even supposing there is some definition of the word that means "run by people we had a bit of a falling out with over a year ago", exactly how relevant is it anyway as a criterion for choosing where to browse? I'd go with "more accurate" every time.

Stroll#

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 12:04:31 +0000

See [[Sunday Stroll]]

Tax the rat farms#

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:38:09 +0000

That title needs a bit of explanation, I suppose. It's from a Discworld novel, can't remember which, where the city is having such great trouble with a plague of rats it has resorted to offering a bounty for each rat tail brought to the Palace, and even this has not staunched the tide. The Patrician, on being told about the problem, simply said "tax the rat farms"

Point being, of course, that performance metrics for behaviour that you wish to encourage are going to encourage people to do exactly that, so you need to be careful you're actually measuring what you want, and not just something that's hitherto had a correlation with it. Like when I wanted to improve my pedalling cadence on my bike, the easiest and most effective possible way to do so was to get a cycle computer that measured it. And don't get me started on software development teams that measure productivity using KLOC (happily, none of the places I've ever worked have had such stupid ideas, and I think that the practice probably died out generally decades ago)

In the meantime, I'm going to make the following two observations about my off season training this year: (1) I really really wish I'd been measuring something, (2) but subjectively, I feel great. I just have no idea at all if it will translate to actual performance in races.

To look forward to this week: oficial RC tomorrow, LFNS Friday, techniquey stuff Saturday, and a long skate in the New Forest on Sunday

Did I mention the Bunnyblog here yet? The secret is now out in Week on Wheels and on SerpentineRoad

Week on Wheels#

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:47:41 +0000

The Week on Wheels is the "cheesily named weekly email newsletter" written by the LFNS Marshals Association, and edited, quite often, by yours truly.

My ideal for it has always been 'NTK about skating' - though, ideally, and as we're promoting weekly skating events, more often than their currently rather lacklustre publishing frequency. Some weeks I'm happy with it, other weeks not, and this seems to vary largely independently of how much of it I ended up writing myself.

http://www.lfns.co.uk/wow.php - complete with fixed-width font in the message archives

"I want a pony" - New Forest skate 5th Nov 2006#

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:08:01 +0000

Alex had planned an 80k circular route for us around the New Forest, heading anticlockwise from the top right corner. By 8:30am (approximately ;-) we'd arrived in the car park where everyone was to assemble, and were standing around trying to decide how much clothing would be appropriate. It was colder than it had been in London at daybreak two hours previously, so I went for the "wear everything" approach - with Helly Hansen, team warmup jacket, fluoro windbreaker, fleecy tights, thin gloves and helmet, I thought I'd be fairly toasty by the time we actually started moving. In retrospect, it got warmer quite quickly, and I maybe should have resigned myself to shivering for the first few miles.

The New Forest is, in short, a lovely place to skate. The scenery you can see for yourself (Alex took photos The traffic is infrequent, and patient. The surfaces are mostly pretty good (a couple of very short and quite evil stretches, and worth keeing an eye out for the cattle grids, but in general it was easily on a par with London). There was a certain amount of up and down: in the morning this was pretty much all skateable; in the afternoon we walked down a couple of very short steep twisty hills on single track roads. And despite their being allegedly wild animals, we found the ponies less likely to be panicked by skaters than the horses in Hyde Park. We stopped in the morning after about 15km for coffee and cakes, and again at lunchtime for pub food. Weather for most of the day was warm enough that I was overdressed, and found myself shedding clothing at each stop. The pace was mostly "comfortable" for most of the group - although in the morning there was a bit of drafting going on on the flat bits, for most of the time we were moving at low enough speeds that slipstreaming didn't really make much difference. I had managed - again - to forget my HRM, but by the "able to hold a conversation" metric I was happily in the recovery/easy aerobic zone for all but the uphills.

We got back to the car park before the light failed, and headed back to London via a warmly anticipated steak and beer in Basingstoke. A splendid day out.

Bicycle ace#

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 18:07:36 +0000

:http://www.lfns.co.uk/route.php/20070218/12

While I wasn't even there (because I was off skating in the New Forest, report to follow later), the redesigned LFNS sound system completed its maiden voyage. Taller (to project the sound further), lighter (and therefore faster) and much much more bling, this represents several weekends of my time and much more than several weekends work of a few dedicated others.

Skating recently

Wild horses couldn't drag me away#

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:41:39 +0000

New Forest Skate II: six LSST members, 80k (just under), 4 hours moving time.

We set out about 10am, and covered 45km before lunchtime. Then three members decided to split back to the car for various reasons of ankle trouble, tiredness or having other plans for the rest of the day, and the rest of us grabbed more water and continued to complete the original circular route - total distance of slightly under 80km. Top speed about 50km/h (downhill) or 38km/h (flat, but with a bit of a tailwind). Most memorable moment: descending a short but very steep hill (which I could see ran straight back up on the other side) and finding that the bottom wasn't just damp, it was muddy (the kind of mud that was recently inside a horse, too) and slippery and coated with a fine layer of gravel, which I hit. I waved my arm so hard it twinged afterwards, but at least I stayed upright - it would have been a very messy place for a high-speed stack ...

There are photos, but they're still on my phone: haven't had a chance to download them yet.

Felt a bit sluggish on Monday (it was a 170km week last week. which is more than typical for lately) then yesterday noticed I had a bit of behind-the-kneecap ache which put a damper on my planned plyo-while-watching-Blakes-7 session. Today it's still there but only in the left knee: RC tonight (rained off route from two weeks ago) was slower and smoother than I might have run it otherwise. Hope that another day or so of not taxing it too hard should be ok to get it better.

Whether call#

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 15:04:02 +0000

It's my turn to lead the LFNS again tonight (second attempt at the route that was rained off two weeks ago). This is not nearly as much stress as stories from years ago indicate that it used to be, because our slick well-oiled (cough) administrative machinery has already taken care of updating the web site, charging the radios, ensuring the marshal hi-viz vests will turn up, etc, and because we don't have the bike to worry about this week (it's in beta test: will be out on Sunday and if that goes well, probably Fridays thereafter) there's none of that to deal with either.

So the only thing I have to worry about between now and 5pm is guessing what the weather will be doing between 8 and 10 and whether it'll be dry enough to skate. The deal is as follows: if it's obviously going to be raining, we can call the skate off at 5 and everyone who has a life has time to organise some kind of backup plan. If it's obviously sunny, we don't. If it's somewhere between the two, we can call the skate on (if we're wrong and it rains, we've dragged lots of annoyed marshals away from their homes for no good reason, ditto skaters who believed us) or off (if we're wrong, people bellyache that we could have gone skating but didn't. We're not going to reverse the decision after we've made it, because marshals make other plans and we don't keep them "on call", but we might go for an unmarshalled "suicide" skate instead).

On days like today, the question is "who do you trust?". See graphic on the right (from the BBC weather site) and speculate on whather the rain which will start between 9 and midnight will be before 10 (problem) or after 10 (problem only for people who skate home afterwards). Then look at the graphic on the left, from uk.weather.com, - usually a more pessimistic forecast, and if they only said "showers" I'd ignore them, but "light rain" usually means they expect continuous light rain. For the full analysis paralysis experience we usually then go on to check the BBC rainfall map and the rather cool European IR satellite animation from the Met Office. Then we stick a finger in the air and toss a coin.

Anyway, I can happily ignore matters for another two hours and it might be more obvious by then. Decision on www.lfns.co.uk about 5pm - if you see thefns.com update before that it is (for reasons I have [[explained already => This made me laugh]]) taking a guess. Which, I grant you, is exactly what I'm doing too, but the difference is that my guess governs whether we attempt to go out tonight, and theirs doesn't. Enough about that.

Finishing on a brighter note: ny knees are working again. Must have just been rest they needed.

Slip sliding away#

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 18:09:21 +0000

By 5pm Friday the ground was wet from rain during the afternoon, so we cancelled - once the sun has gone down it takes forever for the roads to dry out.

Then we went skating anyway, just because we could. It was, indeed, still too slippery at 8 to take the general public out in (and it started raining again at about 9:30) so though I say it myself a good call, but a few of us (started with 20 or so, finished with three people) attacked the planned route with slightly more than normal Friday briskness and our bearings didn't thank us for it afterwards. I actually managed to get water inside my boot while t-stopping, from the spray from the dragging foot. No stacks, though, and fun was had by all.

Good-natured ribbing#

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 18:33:02 +0000

Saturdays' circus escapades (writeup to follow) left me pretty dead by Saturday evening, and I decided on a quiet night in with a bottle of wine.

Possibly not the best decision ever from a "recovery" point of view, as on Sunday I was due to take the Firebrox down to Battersea to appear in The Last Enemy and, well, it's more work than I remember it being. It's not nice to be reminded that I have very rarely done anything approaching a hard CV session most weeks since it went in for its refit back in December, but still, better to find out this month than next I suppose.

Filming was mostly a session of "hurry up and wait". We were playing a group of protesters against the "surveillance society" (ID cards, CCTV, etc) so were equipped with banners, placards, etc by the props department, then told to stage a demonstration/party/riot/call it what you will in a deserted industrial lot in Battersea. Well, there was a little more direction than that, but not much more. Some photos (the good ones aren't mine) at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/thelastenemy/

Today my shoulders and arms ache (hanging from trapezes will do that to you). I thought my abs were feeling it too, but closer prodding says that's actually ribs, and I have no idea what I might have done to those. Slept funny, I expect

JSON and the I'll-go-nuts#

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:21:02 +0000

So, not regularly reading the usual techweenie web blogs leaves me several months late to this particular party, but apparently Dave Winer whines about JSON including the assertion that it "proposes to solve a problem that was neatly solved by XML-RPC in 1998"

This is laughable. (I laughed, so it must be). The difference between JSON and XMLRPC - quite apart from any arguments from elegance, lightness of weight, ease of parsing in javascript, etc - is that the author of JSON wrote an actual specification that defined it, whereas the author of XMLRPC was either unable or unwilling to do so, instead providing us with some random stream-of=consciousness excuse for same. See e.g. the ASCII issue - frankly it's the same kind of imprecision and sloppy writing that got us the RSS ('Really Seven Standards' mess.

(Also, JSON can represent Null objects out of the box, which is a big help to those of us who work with languages where Null and "the empty string" are distinct concepts.)

⟪Jan 2007 Mar 2007⟫