LIMited traction#

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:45:25 +0000

From http://www.anothercyclingforum.com/index.php?action=profile;u=2985;sa=showPosts :

I went to Hillingdon Cycle Circuit today [Sunday], to watch (and marshal for) the London Inline Marathon.  It rained.  It started dropping a few drops when I was about five minutes from home, in Clerkenwell, then it started raining seriously at Marble Arch, then it continued to rain seriously more or less all the way there after that.

After the races I got a lift to a friend's house near Twickenham for food and beer (but I repeat myself), then rode back.  Approx 15 miles each way.

I made three useful discoveries about my supposedly wet-weather-capable bike: one, that the braking in the wet is hugely and horrifically pants; two, that a slightly underinflated gatorskin on wet ground has a way of skating over the surface which is most reminiscent of a politician being interviewed on the Today programme; three, that on a damp and humid day my SPD shoes will retain enough water that if I get my feet soaked at 9am the skin will have turned wrinkly by 2pm. 

Still, the racing was good. And the ride back was fun

FRAME IN GOOD CON#

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:11:34 +0000

From http://www.anothercyclingforum.com/index.php?topic=51025.msg724875#msg724875 :

I was idly speculating on buying a cheap steel bike to fixedise, because turning stupid high gears is probably good skate cross-training for the thighs.

Of course, there is no such thing as a cheap steel bike on e-bay any more, because everyone else within two miles of here (I live in Hoxton) is also doing exactly that.

Looking for bargains in newsagents windows is probably the way forward, but in the meantime I thought I'd try gumtree. Every ad tells a story.

As a cyclist with even a vague grasp on what the different bits are called, you sometimes forget that this is not common knowledge: witness the "very solid" bike with six gears one side, 3 on the other (whu?  won't it overbalance?) - if I'd paid £230 for what looks uncommonly like a knobbly-tyred BSO with bouncy forks, I'd probably have lost enthusiasm for cycling too - or the steed with speed change(gear) in the pipe underneath (in fairness, I think this is a language issue and I'm sure his English is better than my Italian).

This one really caught my eye, though: great to know that it has "good thread on tyres", but looking at the shape of the forks  I wonder if it managed despite that[1] to make friends with a solid object some time in its life. It's either that or it's an antique from the "hetchins curly" period of frame design ...

[1] yeah yeah, I know that tread on a road-going bicycle tyre is essentially worthless anyway. /me hugs his pro2 races

But I repeat myself#

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:12:36 +0000

I read and write to more forums than I probably have time for, plus usenet plus facebook. Apart from anything else, this often means I forget where I've written something when I later want to refer back to it. So, henceforth if I think it is going to be interesting I can easily blog it as well, by highlighting the relevant bit and clicking on the "Blog this" menu toolbar item in Firefox. It generates a blog entry spookily similar to the two which precede this.

OK, so at the moment that's not entirely true, just because the toolbar button in question is still labelled 'test'. Aside from that, though. It sounds dead simple to implement, and it's only quoting/escaping rules that make it otherwise:

//  ==UserScript==
// @name          Blog to Coruskate
// @namespace     http://www.coruskate.net/
// @description   Create new coruskate blog entry with selected text
// @include       *
// ==/UserScript==
 
unsafeWindow.blog=function () {
    var text=window.getSelection();
    var url=window.location.href;
    if(text) text=text.getRangeAt(0).cloneContents();
    else text='';
    var serializer = new XMLSerializer();
    text = serializer.serializeToString(text);
    var body="From "+url+" :\n"+
    "<blockquote>\n" +
    text +
    "</blockquote>\n";
    ;; cnames have been changed to protect the innocent
    var win=window.open("http://go-away-googlebot.coruskate.net/or/this/bit/newentry?BODY="+
			encodeURIComponent(body));
};

It lives!#

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:15:00 +0000

From http://www.londonspeedskaters.com/forums/--p42443.php#42443 :

After a whole bunch of delays caused mostly by use of a courier who couldn't find my house (I am considering printing them a map of their own buttocks and adding two handles at its edges), I have collected, fitted and (very very nearly[*]) finished my new frame.  I have been around the block on it (literally, if not euphemistically) and it appears to work.  Headsets now hold no fear for me.

It's 9.7kg all up (with air in tyres and multitool in saddle bag), so probably still heavier than Andy's carbon thing.  

[*] Still need to cut and crimp the cable ends, preferably before the wire coming out of the front mech scores a channel in my calf.

Why am I posting bike stuff to skate forums and skate stuff to bike forums? Hmm.

First time out#

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:06:51 +0000

From http://www.anothercyclingforum.com/index.php?topic=33910.msg725043#msg725043 :

So last night it looked to be dry outside and I decided to take [my new bike] out to nip across town and see a man about a garage (see the garage, too), instead of using the more sensible commuter bike.  It's about 3kg lighter than the other usually weighs in at (depending on how much rubbish I have in the panniers), and playing "first away at the lights" is therefore a much more joyful experience.  In fact, I do not deny I was riding like a loon all the way there.  A loon somewhat impinged upon by the headwind, tis true, but nevertheless.  I've been thinking lately about my cornering (which is, as a rule, super-cautious) and one effect of that is that a homunculus in my cochlea is whispering "tighter countersteer!" around every bend and over/through/round every manhole cover, every pothole, and every grating.  A judge is said to have once ruled that "a cyclist is entitled to his wobble": I think I've used mine.

On the way back I had a tailwind.  I wound the headlight up to "Turbo" mode and hammered.

Verdict: I love it, though I think I'm going to swap the stem for a longer one.

I have the longer stem already, I just haven't fitted it: it was a bargain I stumbled across at Wiggle. I'm going to try a longer ride or two with the current setup first, but I did notice yesterday I was sitting right on the back of the saddle quite a lot

Order of the Fenix#

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:41:28 +0000

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the last person on Earth to have found out about this headlight, other times people rush into the road to accost me and excitedly ask "what the hell is that?", so it's probably still not quite as famous as it deserves to be.

"That" is the Fenix L2D - an LED torch with 180 lumens output that takes standard AA cells. Capsule review follows:

• it's bright. In this respect it can be described succintly and without caveat as the bog's dollocks.
• I've had it three weeks and not broken it, which bodes well. It looks well-built in much the same way as a mini Maglite is well-built - that is, it would probably survive being driven over, but it wouldn't actually be any use in a fight.
• better with NiMH than alkaline cells - it runs for longer and doesn't rattle on rough bits of road (NiMH cells are usually very slightly fatter than disposable cells).
• switching between the three normal output levels is easy 0 just push the button. It would be even easier if they took the useless SOS flashing mode out. Switching in and out of "turbo" mode requires twisting the barrel and is fiddly on the move.
• the lockblocks bracket is not so great, really. It's a chunk of shaped rubber and two velcro straps: one strap holds the rubber to the handlebars and the other holds the torch to the rubber. Because the torch barrel is fairly long it tends to vibrate over lumps, and the rubber gradually rotates around the handlebars until the beam starts dazzling oncoming helicopter pilots. This might be less of an issue with the P2D variant, which is shorter because it works on oddly-shaped batteries, but I wanted standard cells because I have a gazillion of them (at last count) lying around already.
• I can't confirm its waterproofness from personal experience, but it looks as though it ought to be.

The review I linked to has all kinds of detail about runtimes. I won't comment further on that because I can rarely remember how far mine goes between charges anyway: I will say, though, that it stays bright until almost the end of its runtime then dies to utter uselessness in less than ten minutes - so, always prudent to have a spare pair of batteries.

Spot the difference#

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:24:27 +0000

One of these is a selection of frames from yesterday's video review, the other is from two years ago. Without cheating (by e.g. looking at weather reports for yesterday and deciding that there can't possibly have been enough sun to get the footage on the left) can you tell which is which? I'm not sure I could. Right foot should land under the head, not under the left shoulder as it does here and has apparently been doing since forever.

- armswing - well, I've seen worse (on me, two years ago) but it's still suboptimal. Need to pin the elbows closer to the body

- setdown on right leg is too far left. Setdown on left leg is too far left. (Not all the time, just some of it)

- two feet on ground two often

- recovery with foot pointing outwards

- I think those shorts are dead

SSC#

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:49:56 +0000

It's raining (outside). I'm looking at the floor (inside). And I'm thinking "it's bare wood. Of course I can skate on it, I just need to stop before I hit the chest of drawers".

So that's what I've been doing: the goal has been to work on my lopsidedness by practising transitions (forward to backward and vice versa) on my weak side. And avoid the furniture.

• anticlockwise f-b: start by setting the right foot down pointing leftwards so that it crosses the direction of forward motion. Not sure why this helps, but it does.

• b-f still looks inelegant whatever. The inside foot (the right foot for a clockwise turn and vice versa) should be trailing and should be turned first, then the outside foot can catch up at its leisure. That seems to be not the whole story though, unless possibly it's just a matter of more practice.

• the chest of drawers survived the experience

New page#

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:26:16 +0000

From http://www.anothercyclingforum.com/index.php?topic=37473.msg725451#msg725451 :

I am listening to my entire CD collection on random play.  Well, not quite the entire collection yet, as I'm still only part way through ripping them.  Once upon a time I used to keep them all in alphabetical order but for the last couple of house moves they're never been properly unpacked - hard disk prices are now low enough that it costs less to rip them and keep the originals in a box in a cupboard than it does to buy more shelves for them.

I'm turning up some stuff I'd forgotten the tunes to, some I'd forgotten even having bought, and some stuff I'd rather stayed forgotten.  What was I thinking with that Alice Deejay CD?

Last played: Badly Drawn Boy/Magic in the Air; The Levellers/Just the One; Autechre/Lentic Catachresis

I did first try playing on my media centre/laptop with the files served by DAV from the desktop, but it was cripplingly slow. But then I tried PulseAudio and it turned out not only to do the job but to be be fairly painfree as well.

It all seems to be getting scrobbled as well - should do something for my last.fm stats, but I don't know exactly what.