sjh - mountain biking linux geek spice

[mtb] No paddle this morning

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:36:00

I had planned to go paddling this morning. My road bike had a flat tyre with a slow leak, so I did not want to take it to work. I hopped on my fixie at 7:40, planning to be on the water by 8am and off the water just before 9am and at work by 9:20am. However as I crossed Northbourne avenue I remembered why I had been avoiding riding the fixie, the quill and bolt in the stem had stripped and I was unable to tighten the bars enough to stop them rotating away from pointing straight ahead.

Paddling plans scuppered due to not thinking I would be safe riding that bike (and I did not want to to ride a mountain bike over to the boat shed), I headed home, fixed the flat tyre on the road bike, shaved, and headed over to Maladjusted to get a new quill and bold for the Cinelli stem on the fixie (Cinelli bars are not a standard road bar width, they are a bit smaller so you need to use Cinelli stems with them, at least this is the case with the old Cinelli stuff I am using on the fixie).

Got to work at 9am in the end anyway with the fixie back in working order (and the tyre properly seated so not about to pop and go bang with the bead sitting out as it had been. Last year one of the ARNuts Tuesday night runs we did when it was hot was to run from Weston park to Black Mountain Peninsula, swim back across to Weston park and have a bbq with any and all ARNuts who ran or just rocked up.

I termed this a new and interesting variation on the classic triathlon, the legs being Run/Swim/BBQ. We had a number of people who were specialists at the BBQ leg rock up last year. Fun was had by all involved. Thus this arvo we are trying it out again. Should be good to cool off swimming in the lake after a run in this heat.

[mtb] Getting a start in Jindabyne preparation

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:33:00

After being so sick last year when I attempted the Jindabyne Multisport race solo, added to the fact I had not done enough swim training in the lead up to the event. It was no real surprise that I was unable to complete the race. I should be fairly impressed that I managed to stay out there for 11 hours and make it to the final swim on a day I should have stayed in bed sick all day.

However I want to complete this event solo, I am definitely lining up again this March. I got back into the pool for some swimming just before Christmas, and will continue with pool sessions and some lake swims over the next two months. Matt, Amanda, Danielle, Ben and I had been sort of planning to do the ride to the coast again this Saturday just past. However the logistics were getting a bit hard. Talking with another AR friend, Mark, we discovered many of the other ARNuts would be down in Jindabyne (Dave, Julie, Heather, Jules, Alex, Sal, Mark, Celia, Randall, Shannon) so the 5 of us thought we may head down there and do some out of Canberra exercise also.

I rang my ski club and was fortunate to discover the Unit in Jindabyne that we have was empty so the 5 of us headed down there to stay and took with us mountain bikes, running shoes, kayaks and road bikes. We did not go as big, long or hard training wise as some of the others, but we did have a fun weekend. Early Saturday morning we joined some of the others to do the second run leg of the race from the Thredbo river picnic are up to Sawpit, with a loop out the other side of the road and back. I forgot to wear my GPS/HRM for this and the mtb ride we did later that day, however it was a really nice run, so much easier and more pleasant than my previous experience of it 6 hours into the multi sport race while sick and on a really hot day.

That afternoon I dragged a bunch of us around the first mtb leg of the race, the technical leg. I love that leg, however we probably should have head out for a ride on some of the less technical but still mighty run single track in the region between the dam wall and east Jindabyne as it would not have been quite so intimidating to the others and we would have gotten a longer ride in. That night a few of us watched a DVD of the movie Run Fat Boy Run, which is kind of entertaining, though the marathon pace for the front runners is completely unrealistic.

Sunday morning at 6am Amanda set off to ride to Charlotte Pass. Matt, Ben and I set off at 6:35am for the same ride. Holding a nice slightly under tempo (for me) pace we all completed the ride up and back down with riding time of 3h30m (data link) for the 84km. Danielle and I then headed out for a short paddle in Matt and Amanda's double surf ski to begin getting used to the feel of that boat.

Not too much activity to knock us all flat but it was nice to get out of town and do some stuff and it was good to scope out two of the legs for the mullti sport race.

[various] Canberra Yacht Club Web Cam

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 09:27:00

So I knew CYC had a web cam so I could view what the wind looked like on the lake to go paddling there. However When I googled for Canberra Yacht Club I only got the Southern Cross club pages (the group that owns the CYC) concerning the club. The link to the actual operational website did not turn up.

Thus this is to remind me where to find the Canberra Yacht Club website and the Lake Burley Griffin webcams linked from the front page there. I guess the URL should have been obvious to me without a google search.

[leisure/screen] Good Bond

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:04:00

My sister and I went to see the new Bond movie today, Quantum of Solace. Although the title is somewhat lame, the movie itself was in my opinion an excellent Bond movie. There was not too much of a focus on action, it was not over the top and the entire move developed the character really well I think.

The dynamics between the major players and what happened through the movie was interesting and entertaining, there was no incredibly annoying and IMO stupid card game like in the previous movie. Also the bond girl thing did not happen as it normally does which I think improved the movie.

[leisure/food] Marbled Cupcakes with Blueberries

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 08:51:00

Marbled Cupcakes (fullsize)

So someone on p.l.o.a (who is also vegan) suggested it is the time of year for baking. Who am I to argue, this photo is of a batch of Marbled cupcakes with buttercream icing and blueberries on top from the Vegan cupcakes book I got the other day.

As vegetable shortening is not readily available in Australia (unless I buy some Crisco from David Jones, imported by USAFoods in Melbourne) I decided to simply use Nuttilex in the icing. The other option is mixing in some Copha (which is a coconut oil product, solid at room temperature) however it seems the icing has turned out alright, maybe a bit runny but it worked.

[comp/hardware] Hamster out of focus

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 12:51:00

Broken Hardware Label (fullsize)

I noticed a hard drive on a bench here with the label affixed to it written by one of us "Broken Harddisk - username - May 2005". Thinking about it I considered the fact that there was excessive information on the label, to anyone here it is fairly obvious that this is a hard drive.

We always ensure broken hardware has a label like this attached with the name of who noted it was broken and the date on which we noted this. However thinking about this excessive information I began wondering if we could instead try messing with people's heads. Instead of saying broken hard disk we could instead say Broken rabbit.

This of course led me to take the photo to the left, after all is that not what you consider and accurate and useful statement about the hamster in the photo?

[mtb] Garmin doing good on warranties

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:43:00

When my Garmin Forerunner 305 finally really died with the crack and subsequent internal soaking I thought I had to send it away to the US and pay the repair fee in US dollars as well as getting it over there and back. I am happy to report that Garmin is a much easier company to deal with for us Australians than that.

I finally decided I wanted my HRM/GPS enough to arrange the shipping to the US and contacted Garmin. I was pleased to discover they allow you to send it into the Australian Garmin support people and they will repair or replace the unit for the flat fee they use of around AUD $109. I sent mine in last week and today in the mail a brand new Forerunner 305 arrived.

It will be good to be geeking out with my wrist hardware again during my run tonight and ride tomorrow morning. Thanks Garmin for making this an easy and painless process.

[leisure/books] Yay for international book purchases.

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:29:00

After reading Little Brother recently I was keen to buy a copy. I also wanted to get hold of the Last Watch book by Sergei Lukyanenko, and I had been keen on getting Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. However of those three only The Graveyard Book was available in Australia already. The Watch book did not get released in the US when it was supposed to, however I discovered it had been released in the UK. The other books were also available there. So i made an order with Amazon UK to get those three books, and while buying from there anyway I also got a copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

I was happy today to receive all of these books in the mail at work, yay some good reading, some fantastic food and hopefully some more things to keep my mind occupied at the moment. Once again showing it would be so much nicer if things were released internationally at the same time so I could have bought them locally.

[leisure/screen] Dougs again

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:21:00

Every time in the last few days I have had time to think or look around it has hurt or I have been upset. Fortunately my friends have helped me out, trying to keep my mind occupied and busy. However today I ended up with a large stretch of time and ended up finally watching the new Doug Anthony All Stars dvd.

I was somewhat ecstatic a few weeks ago when I saw in an ABC shop catalogue that a new Doug Anthony All Stars dvd was available. I have mentioned here from time to time that I am a long term fan of their stuff. I still have the London video and a cd from Edinburgh, however when I moved back from Sydney in 2001 I somehow misplaced my copy of the so called New York video (Live at the National Theatre) and the Edinburgh Years movie. So I have been somewhat bereft of Dougs material to watch.

The new dvd that has been released is a collection of lots of their Big Gig material which is great to see. I remember watching the show when it was first on tv, however I do not remember the content, so to see more DAAS from then is great, I can also see a lot of their material and notice how it changed in the time between those shows and Dead & Alive or DAAS Kapital.

It would be great if more of DAAS Kapital (weird though it often was) were also available now days. I enjoyed watching the first of the two dvds tonight and am happy to say reliving my memories of all those songs and the attitude they would take trying to get a rise out of any situation and to mock and piss take any religion, famous situation or personage if they thought it could be in bad taste or just downright funny was good to keep my mind occupied for a while.

Lots of fun, thanks Tim, Rich and Paul.

[various] And so it appears to be over

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:31:00

So after around 7 wonderful months in a loving relationship it appears that as of tonight we are no longer together. I am upset and trying not to cry at everything I see around me. The hardest problem is we both admit to each other we love and adore each other, however due to some concerns about something that happened to us when we met my now ex partner says she feels we can not be together long term. I think it is time to go and cry myself to sleep.

[mtb] A nice bushwalk

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:09:00

A rather uninteresting title, however it pretty well sums up the experience. I had a quick look at some of my maps last week and decided for Friday and Saturday we would head out for an overnight bushwalk from Corin down to Orroral Valley, camp there and then walk up to Honeysuckle Creek and on around the back of Mt Tennant to the Namadgi Visitors centre on the Australian Alps walking track.

On Friday starting fairly late (11am ish in the end) we walked along the Square Rock track, turned off toward Smokers Trail and walked down that all the way to the Orroral Valley walk. We finally stopped and camped in the valley around 4pm and that was really rather lovely.

Doing the late start thing again we did not get going until 11am on Saturday, which was probably a little bit too late as looking at what was in front of us there was a lot of distance, some big hills and some interesting looking tracks. Got to Honeysuckle for lunch around 1:30pm and enjoyed a short rest while eating. Then headed on to the rather spectacular Alpine Walking track, this is a spectacular walk, really lovely bush surrounding you, a variety of scenery and terrain and it finishes off going down the Mt Tennant walking track to the visitors centre.

The walk was really good, however i stupidly did not take the normal precautions I would with my feet for a long rogaine or for an adventure race, so I ended up with blisters on my little toes and just under my big toes. Silly really as if I had simply used socks I know are good for a long rogaine, slathered my feet with Guerneys Goo and put sports tape on at the first sign of any problem I would have been fine. Fortunately my feet are already feeling a lot better today. Fun was indeed had.

[leisure/food] Filling the void somewhat

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:38:00

For many years one of the best restaurant's in Canberra was Bernadette's at Ainslie shops. This was a true vegetarian cafe/restaurant. Not simply an imitation meat place like Au Lac or Kingsland, sure I like both of those places, however the food and dining experience is very different to that of a place like Bernadette's or in Melbourne Veggie Bar or Soul Food.

The sad thing is Bernadette's closed a few years ago leaving Canberra with greatly decreased vegetarian dining options. The good news is in the last year two new places have opened that bring back the Cafe experience (breakfasts and lunches), one of those is Satis at Watson shops and the other is My Rainbow Dreams at Dickson shops (between the post office and Hudsons) run and owned by Sri Chimnoy students. I of course am used to Sri Chimnoy from the racing side of things.

Though I like Satis, it does not stand out, maybe because they are not incredibly vegan friendly, who knows, though I like it, I do not feel the need to visit there regularly. Rainbow dreams on the other hand is really good. They always have a variety of yummy sweets (cakes, cookies, chocolates) that are vegan. They have vegan ice cream and can do smoothies and milkshakes. Their scrambled tofu is really tasty and so far every time I have had it I have enjoyed it.

On top of their standard menu they often have a yummy vegan bake of the day, they have a number of different soups and curries and pies available for take home meals. You can also read a bit about Sri Chinmoy there and buy some of the books (plus they have other interesting items to buy unrelated to Sri). Also you can buy ice cream cones from them which should appeal to more than just the Vegetarian crowd, maybe that will help hook them.

I also have had a few good talks with the people working there and am glad to hear they are enjoying doing the vegan cooking and baking, also they are interested in trying new recipes and I will probably exchange recipes with them from time to time. After all more Chai Latte Cupcakes being made anywhere would rock.

Every time I have eaten there (I have tried to get there once a fortnight for a while now) I have enjoyed the food and been greeted by friendly staff. I really would recommend it to anyone, not only vegetarians, they make an effort to show how good really healthy food can taste for anyone. I am happy to see My Rainbow Dreams successfully bringing some really good vegetarian/vegan food back to Canberra.

[comp/hardware] Easy Dell HSDPA SIM access

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:15:00

So my Dell XPS M1330 came with a built in Dell 5520 WWAN HSDPA card. This shows up on the USB bus and appears to work in Linux using usbserial (with vendor= and product= arguments to modprobe) with ttyUSB0 appearing correctly in /dev.

Originally I had no intention to use it, and the laptop came with it specced for Vodafone usage. Recently however Telstra and Optus have both started offering prepaid wireless broadband. I was wondering how easy it would be to change the SIM to one of those networks. After all lsusb currently outputs

Bus 002 Device 019: ID 413c:8138 Dell Computer Corp. Wireless 5520 Voda I Mobile Broadband (3G HSDPA) Minicard EAP-SIM Port

The book that came with the laptop has good instructions on how to pull it apart and access various parts of the hardware. So I had a glance at the WWAN instructions and was easily able to open it up and look at the device. However when I did this I discovered that the SIM was not attached to the device at all.

At this point I googled more accurately for details about the location of the SIM in Dell laptops with HSDPA devices. It was at this point I discovered an article on the Register that said Dell's are not tied to Vodafone and quite plainly pointed out to me the location of the SIM is in the Battery bay.

And hey presto an easily accessed Vodafone SIM is indeed sitting right there, it should be no problem to put a Telstra or Optus SIM in on a prepaid plan. Telstra appears to have better coverage by far, their USB devices may or may not work with Linux, however I know from experience the Optus USB device does work with Linux. However I do not need either for this laptop, Optus offer a SIM only prepaid kit for AUD $30, Telstra do not mention offering it, however forums suggest you can walk into a Telstra shop and ask for a 3G prepaid kit and request that it be wireless broadband enabled for around AUD $30 also.

The other nice thing I would like to note from this experience is how good the book that came with the laptop from Dell is, that it has good detail about accessing most of the hardware in the laptop is very useful and means you are less likely to break things if you want to look inside.

[mtb] 30th entertainment

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:48:00

So I did the ride up to Goulburn after work again yesterday and rode back this morning. My legs are a bit sore, however they do not feel as bad as last Monday so maybe I am getting some riding form back. The time up was 2h55m including 5 minutes stopped inspecting a tyre and pumping it up (I was worried it was flat, however it had simply gotten low in the week and a half since pumping it up) and on the way back this morning 2h50m. I had a headwind most of the way up last night and this morning really noticed a strong headwind along Lake George, however the rest of the ride felt relatively head wind free.

The subject I guess is in relation to the fact I turned 30 yesterday, a few people were asking if I was doing anything for my 30th, they seemed surprised to hear I was choosing to ride to Goulburn after a day at work.

I am getting more and more tempted to get my Lemond steel road frame fixed and get that road bike running again, the cyclocross bars on my Jake the Snake are not as comfortable on long road rides (small drop, my hands do not fit as well) and I think the steel frame will probably be a little bit nicer anyway on that ride. Also the bars on Jake, being oversized and with cyclocross brakes in the way make fitting a time trial bar hard, I am thinking more and more I would like a time trial bar on the bike for the ride to Goulburn and back. It should allow me to knock a few minutes off without much effort and stay somewhat comfortable doing so once I am used to using it.

The only problem with the above idea is I will look far too much like a triathlete doing that.

[mtb] Racing? Who's racing its speed wilderness tourism!

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:12:00

I mentioned some of my friends doing XPD in Tasmania back in 2006. For some reason I did not make mention here last year of XPD 3 in the Whitsundays that some of my friends were also racing in.

Right now, xpd 4 is on and teams are closing in on the half way point. They started at around 2pm on Wednesday and have been going pretty much non stop since. The weather is pretty cold and wet down in the Victorian alps at the moment and there are blizzards forecast in the higher region the ~ 210 KM bike leg will be passing through.

Danielle, Dave, Randall, Heather, Libby, Chris, Nathan, Bleeksie, Danealle, Keith, Matt, Wayne and Sean all appear to still be out there having a lot of hardship^Wfun. Good to see Tangerine and Blackheart/Salomon are in the top 3 after 2 days of racing.

I have to thank the bio for Jerome from the Securify team for the quote I used in the title of this post. I think it sums up one of the joys of XPD well. Speed Wilderness Tourism is a lot of fun.

[leisure/books] Dinner reading, that got extended

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:11:00

For a while now I have been meaning to read the Cory Doctrow book Little Brother, it is not yet available in Australia (being released in January next year) and I was not sure enough I wanted it to get it from Amazon. Fortunately for me Cory has it available for download so you can make your mind up. I decided to open it and read a bit while I ate dinner last night.

I ended up finishing the book (fortunately a light read), I have to say it really is good, highly entertaining, realistic in that you can see how that situation could already happen in the world, and though I am a computer geek and thus aware of the technologies discussed I have to agree that it is well presented and can inform a huge number of people about what they can do with computers (and what is done by authorities) if they just sit down and read the book.

I want to buy a book that is being released on Amazon on November 25, so I am now happy to say I can add a copy of Little Brother to the order when I make it. Sure the book is apparently a Young Adult novel, however as is so often the case (Neil Gaiman's recently released The Graveyard Book for example) a so called youth aimed book may still offer many delights and interesting content to anyone who reads it.

Thanks Cory for a entertaining and informative tale.

[mtb] That was better

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:26:00

Unlike last week when I had many punctures on the highway, this morning I got home with none. I bought a new pump and two new tyres for the road bike last week, the new tyres are Specialized Armadillo's which are rumoured to be the most puncture resistant road tyres available. I did not bother with Kevlar rim strips as they slide around, are hard to put in place and may even cut into tubes.

The other nice thing was I made it home in 2h40m from Goulburn today, which gives me hope that once I get a bit more speed and fitness back on the bike I can reliably do the ride in under 2h30m even with a bit of wind around. (admittedly the conditions were almost perfect this morning, cool, overcast, not much wind). I look forward to seeing how I go on Wednesday.

[mtb] Comedy of punctures

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:24:00

After work yesterday I again headed out to ride to Goulburn with the plan to ride back early this morning. I was still feeling a bit rough and coughing, I don't think from a cold, I suspect more from just pushing myself pretty hard at the Gravity 12 Hour race, I tend to forget, although it does not feel that hard at the time, doing an enduro event in a team does take its toll on my body. So I felt I was riding a little bit slower than I wanted to, however I was on track to get out there in just under 3 hours. I had to get to a dinner celebration and was cutting it close time wise anyway.

As I passed Collector my saddle bag snapped off again, I stopped to put the bag in my camelback pack and noticed my front tyre had a slow leak and was almost flat. I stopped longer to pump it up again and got back to riding. Around 12 KM later I noticed the front was almost flat again, now I was only 20 KM from Goulburn, however due to the stops and likely needing to stop more for more pumping I was running late for dinner and decided to call and ask to be picked up at the Federal Hwy turn off toward Canberra as I could get there pretty quickly. That arranged and fine I rode on, 2 minutes later my rear tyre got a puncture and went flat instantly. I stopped, changed the tube, extracted the wire that caused the puncture, pumped up and rode on.

I arrived at the place I would be picked up and while waiting changed my front tube as well and started patching the tubes that were flat (I carry two tubes and a patch kit on my road bike). With one tube fixed and starting the second tube I was picked up, threw everything in the car and got to Goulburn. It was only when we got there I realised I had left my pump lying on the verge off the side of the highway. Eep, fortunately I had pumped up both my tyres and fixed one tube. I hoped I would be able to pick up the pump from the verge in the morning, not get a flat in the first 12 KM of riding and make it home.

Getting to sleep fairly late after the rather fun dinner went very late I decided I would have to leave later than planned as only five and a half hours sleep would not help me in riding home. I got on the bike riding back by 7:35am, planning to make it home by 10:30am and to work by 10:45am. When I got to where I left the pump, I did find it, however a truck or something had been a long way onto the verge over night and flattened and shattered the pump. Oh fantastic, well I did not have any flats last week so I could hope I would make it home without any more.

Luck was not with me, within 2 KM my rear tyre went completely flat with another puncture. I was able to make it to a rest area and started asking some people stopped there if it was possible to get a lift to Canberra. I was incredibly lucky that one man there in a ute on the way to a work site in Canberra offered me a ride home. I ended up arriving around 9am and actually got to work at a reasonable sort of time.

I have always known flats are a little more likely on the Federal Highway than other places due to the amount of small stuff coming off cars and trucks that are on the road much more than on smaller roads. This time all three flats were caused by small (1 to 2 cm lengths) bits of steel wire most likely from the steel belting in car and truck tyres. I also knew my back tyre was more vulnerable due to being close to worn out and in need of replacement. Last week I was lucky to do the ride with no flats.

I will replace the back tyre and I think try putting Kevlar belts inside my road tyres under the tread so small bits of wire or glass are less likely to be able to get to the tube and buy a new pump of course. I am in debt and thankful to the person who gave me a lift to Canberra this morning and lucky to have been able to get a lift in such a way. I hope positive Karma goes out to him in some way soon for this generous gesture to me.

Lets hope my next trip remains puncture free.

[mtb/gear] My map board

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:39:00

Just as an assist so I can google my memory easier, I often need to remember what brand my map board is, rather than have to search through email or similar from when I purchased it a few years ago I should just have a link here telling me I have a Windchill Map Board. I really like these boards (I have two in the garage at home) as they sit a bit higher than Miry and also the screws to attach them are not so fiddly and short (so I am not afraid of them coming out and being lost to such an extent). They are a little heavy, however they are well constructed and have good support. I had to get one of them fixed in 2007 and the replacement part was cheap and sent up to Canberra quickly. Thanks Windchill for a good, functional, well priced product.

[mtb/events] Gravity again

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:48:00

I was once more able to go down to Victoria this weekend and compete in the Gravity 12 Hour mtb race with Sam and Ben. I think we are all pretty happy with our race. Of the 195 teams there racing on the day we came 29th overall. The mixed threes category was again pretty hot, the overall winning team also won mixed threes. Interestingly the rest of the top places in this category were all on the same number of laps as us (19, compared with the 22 laps of the winners), though the team in front of us finished their 19 laps 10 minutes in front of us.

I keep going on about not having much speed at the moment, and it is kind of true that I was going at a pace further below anaerobic than I probably would with more bike time in my legs, I was still remarkably fast. With pretty much an identical loop to last year I managed to do most of my laps only 2 or 3 minutes slower than the same laps last year. Also interestingly my lap times got a bit faster as the day progressed, first lap above 38, second two below 37 minutes, fourth and fifth around 37 to 37:30 then the final lap (only half in gathering darkness) was only a minute slower at 38:30. My cycling base is standing me in good stead and now I just have to build up again and get some speed back. The build up of good endurance will be helped by riding to Goulburn and back a bit. The race speed I am not sure I will get around to working on as I never seem to any other time.

Previous years are 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and a mention of 2007 here.

[mtb] This week in exercise

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:10:00

After getting home on Tuesday I did not head out for any more exercise that day. On Wednesday I still felt a bit tired so did not road ride in the morning. I did however go to the paddle time trial that evening. Cracked 54 minutes with only around 100m of drafting so was fairly pleased with that. Due to being at a CORC Committee meeting until after 11pm and then having to return my boat to its shed I did not head out to ride or anything on Thursday morning. Went for another paddle, this time a fairly easy 8km with a friend in Matilda last night.

This morning I headed out on the Friday morning mtb ride as normal and we all had fun. Tonight I will drive down to Rosewhite in Victoria to compete in the Gravity 12 hour for the 6th year running. Should be a fun race there tomorrow with Sam and Ben. I have not done any running since before my recent cold and should try to get out for some next week if I can. At the moment I am mostly hoping the race is not particularly wet this weekend.

[mtb] A few road kilometres

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:47:00

So I will likely be going to Goulburn a bit over the coming months. I thought the best way to get there and back is of course on a road bike. A 90 KM ride each way is a good hit out for the legs, who knows I may start to get some modicum of bike fitness and speed back if I do this.

I rode out there after work yesterday, leaving home at 4:45pm I arrived around 7:40pm. I ran out of water, only carrying two full 750ml bottles. I wasted some time trying to find rest stops on the way out with potable water, however they all say not safe for drinking now days. I decided to live by Crash's quote, "Dehydration is now, gastroenteritis is later" and ended up filling up from a rest stop anyway. The ride there was remarkably nice, a head wind along Lake George but a side wind in many other places during the ride.

This morning, due to today being a public holiday in Canberra (and Victoria), I was able to take it easy coming back. I had a coffee this morning at the bike shop/cafe/greengrocer Greengrocer on Clifford which as a truly fantastic place (both in concept and in real life) then started my ride home. Annoyingly I had a head wind the entire ride home, also due to my lack of riding this year I did start to suffer pretty badly by the time I reached the climb out of Lake George. In the end the ride home took me around 3h20m so a bit longer than the ride out.

Hopefully this bit of riding will help me out at the Gravity 12 hour race this weekend in Victoria, especially as Sam has a new bike, so she will be on fire with fast laps and Ben has been doing some pretty hard exercise recently so has some fitness on him. It will be interesting to see how this same ride feels when I try it next week. Due to the highway being a bit boring and noisy I had my rockbox enabled Ipod playing the whole ride and stayed as far onto the verge as I could most of the time.

[leisure/music] Stonefest was fun

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:28:00

As I mentioned, on Friday and Saturday I headed out to Stonefest at UC. The best acts I saw, IMO, were The Grates (wikipedia) and rather surprisingly for me (as I tend to dislike hip hop sort of stuff) TZU (wikipedia). Other good performances were Regurgitator (wikipedia) (they played a really good set of their music), Faker (wikipedia) (because their lead singer (Nathan?) is a really lively and charismatic performer) and of course what was really the headline act of the festival The Dandy Warhols (wikipedia) were good.

Patience had a lot of energy on stage during The Grates set, also she did some crowd surfing and seemed to be having a lot of fun. TZU had a really interesting feeling of energy and enjoyment about what they were doing. Also a rather cool sense of humour came through in their playing and lyrics I thought. Though I did not cotton on to the music played by Faker much I was amazed by the antics the lead singer got up to and it really made their set fun. The crowd was a bit rude on Friday night (no idea why, they seemed much better behaved by Saturday), so there were some unfortunate things that happened, such as some heavy object being thrown into Quan's head during the Regurgitator set, frankly I would not have blamed him for stopping and walking off stage when it happened as it seemed to knock him around pretty badly. I did see a number of other objects in the air, such as a shoe narrowly missing the Faker singer while he was up on a stage support pylon and a number of cans of drink thrown toward the bands or over the top of the stage.

However if I simply ignore the annoying incidents the festival was fun and you were able to get remarkably close to the front without being mauled much when compared to the squash that may be experienced at bigger festivals.

[mtb] Some more paddling

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:42:00

So I am definitely not doing the Hawkesbury classic this weekend, as I had not paddled more than 10 KM in one hit between March 30 and last Sunday (the paddle I did on Sunday was a cruisy 18 KM in Matilda with Danielle) I am simply not prepared to do 100 KM in one go this weekend. Instead I will go to Stonefest and Cirque du Soleil this weekend, pretty much going completely the other way from an all night exercise fest.

However I have finally been paddling a bit more, on the weekend I did the 18 KM paddle I mentioned, and as day light saving happened the BGCC time trials have been on again. So far I have managed to rock up to two of them. One two weeks ago and another tonight. Surprisingly when I consider the fact I had not paddled at pace since March and I have not paddled much, and that tonight I am still suffering from the effects of a cold I have had for a week and a half now. I managed to do somewhere in the 54 minute range both times for the 9.6 KM time trial.

I am fairly happy with this as I was expecting to be a lot closer to 60 minutes again now, I guess I have the technique improving now days and doing the time trial more over summer will simply help me refine both technique and paddle fitness.

[leisure/food] Another great few days of food in Melbourne

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:26:00

Although we are blessed in Canberra to now also have My Rainbow Dreams at Dickson for vegetarian/vegan/ceoliac eating (along with the limited selection elsewhere in Canberra for dedicated vegetarian friendly eating). As I noted after my last trip to Melbourne they really have it good down there for a huge variety of great places to eat.

Arrival was Saturday afternoon, stayed with friends and had home cooked food, then Sunday morning brunch was had at Invita (scrambled tofu and a number of yummy cakes/muffins were eaten/sampled), dinner that night I wanted to go to Lentil As Anything again however the St Kilda restaurant had run out of food by 8pm and it was too late to get to another. Fortunately there was a Mr Natural (the pumpkin pizza and vegan pizzas were both tried, both with Vegan cheese on top also) vegetarian pizza outlet across the road. They have vegan cheese and all was well. Their pizzas were good, though not as spectacular as I had hoped.

Monday morning brunch was at Soulfood (Vegan big breakfast and a number of muffins and cakes were sampled/eaten) which was good, then dinner at Soul Mama (I had the medium, which allowed me my choice of rice and 4 of the dishes to be served with it, all I tried were very good) in St Kilda (on the waters edge in the baths complex) which was large, vegetarian, fantastic view sitting looking over Port Phillip bay and a large variety to choose from at pretty good prices. Lots of yumminess.

This morning I met up with an mtb friend for breakfast, once more at Soulfood, then had a soy chai later in the day at Invita again, then I had lunch at Vegie Bar (Mee Goreng which is hokkein noodles, tofu, mushrooms, tomato sort of sauce with some chile, veggies and a peanut sauce) before flying back to Canberra this afternoon.

Oh and I had the chance a few times over the trip to go past Lord of The Fries again and actually was able to try out the vegan nuggets, definitely yummy and highly recommended.

[leisure/music] An excellent Mal Webb gig

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:09:00

I have not been to the National Folk Festival for a rather long time now, largely because there almost always is some mtb or similar event on at Easter I tend to be somehow involved with. This may explain why I had never seen Mal Webb, or maybe he was there last time I was and I missed him. Anyway I was able to rectify my lack of knowledge about Mal Webb when I saw him at the Folkus room in Mawson on Friday night.

This man is an incredibly talented musician who also happens to be really funny and a fantastic performer, he also seems to understand use of sound and instruments better than almost any performer I can think of. The performance was a lot of fun, and seeing him use his repeat loop box, drum beats form his mouth, pygmy yodeling and a lot of sampling of sounds plus really funny lyrics was worth far more than the entry fee to see the gig of $15.

I ended up getting both the cds he had for sale at the gig, his new album "Dodgy" and his second album "3 Cheers for Peace and Quiet", I have had them both on repeat on my ipod yesterday and today. (I was working out at the 24 hour mtb race at Stromlo all weekend so could not listen to them there). Anyway I have to highly recommend all of his music, and suggest trying to catch him if he plays near you. My favourite song by far is "Your One Drop" though I am sure that will chop and change as I listen to his stuff more. Anyway you can hear that song on Mal's Myspace page. While you are there listen to Carrot, URFES and anything else you can too.

I suppose you could almost expect me to love this music, after all as they quote on his website, Ani Difranco's assessment of Mal is "You're a freak".

On a side note related to this performance, I have never been to the Folkus room before, so when we sat down I was looking around at the decorations and what do I see but a curtain with a large black and white photo of Robert Johnson on one of the curtains hung up in the venue. Earlier on Friday I had read/heard about Robert Johnson for the first time reading an article in Vanity Fair about a potential 3rd photo of him that has now been seen publicly.

[various] Signs and shirts

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:20:00

A few years ago I mentioned a cool t-shirt from a company in the UK called Puzle. I always refer to this as a free ride crossing shirt. However they called it something else (road sign or some such). I never bought one even though I really liked the design as they were far too pricey (something like GBP £25, not including postage). The online store has closed sometime in the past few years.

Since that time the store closed and I was never really able to find the image again. Using my old post, the Internet archive and a Google search I found the page on Singletrack that had copies of the image. They still had the image on Singletrack, so now you too can see the free ride crossing t-shirt including the variety of colours available. Tres cool, almost tempting to print one myself as a one off now I have the image.

What led to the slightly deeper search for the image was that I saw an entertaining quote on an image in an online article yesterday about confusing traffic signs in the US. Their interpretation of sign number 8 was I thought most amusing. "Yield to people doing wheelies, backwards, into traffic." And I suppose you really should yield to a cyclist doing that, if for no other reason than to stare and wonder. Of course it is entirely possible for fixed gear cyclists to wheelie backwards (as you can see 50 seconds into that video) so the idea is not completely out of left field, simply somewhat unusual.

The free ride crossing t-shirt also makes one think of alternate ways highly skilled riders could cross roads. There was the gap jump over the Tour de France a few years ago (2006 Tour I think). Kind of like A and B lines for road crossings.

[various] Silicon Support Bracelet Breakages

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:26:00

Some of my previously broken bracelets (fullsize)

So the good news is that it is October, otherwise known as Breast Cancer Month, which means all the pink ribbon products are in the shops that support the cause. Although I am tempted to buy an entirely pink mountain bike such as is sometimes seen in competitions around this time of year I have instead limited my make a statement style pink purchases to the silicon wrist bracelets.

The photo to the left shows some of the broken bracelets. Strangely they just do not last particularly long. I buy 4 or 5 every year and that pretty much lasts until the following October. Still far more interesting that LAF yellow bracelets IMO and they match a lot of my race gear better. Also they still support cancer so I am not completely deserting the idea behind LAF Livestrong bracelets.

[various] Slightly different weekend

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:14:00

Matilda on the shore of Myall Lake (fullsize)

So the weekend of kayaking turned out a little different to the original plan. We had to leave later than planned on Friday so went to Sydney and stayed at Jane's place. Had breakfast at Badde Manors on Saturday morning with Jane then headed up through torrential seeming heavy rain to Taree. Not wanting to kayak or camp in the rain we stayed at my Aunt's place, had lunch with more family who came to visit on Sunday and finally got down to Myall Lakes on Sunday afternoon to head off to camp somewhere.

The lakes are a gorgeous area and I am hell keen to go back for a longer trip sometime. The weekend on the whole was enjoyable even though it turned out differently to the plan. It may be nice to camp on the lakes at a non long weekend/holiday sort of time (school holidays are on currently) as there would be less speed boats and water skiers around (you can see a speed boat in the photo). The peaceful camping was rather often disturbed by the noise of power boats. Still it was all fun really.

[mtb] A little bit of exercise

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:35:00

On Sunday I once again had the opportunity to compete in the Sri Chinmoy Googong Multisport Challenge. Somehow, even though I have hardly done any exercise (read training) in 6 months, I fell out of the boat in the paddle leg (and took almost 10 minutes to get back in due to the waves washing into my boat coming from the other side of the dam with the wind) and set a pace that felt like cruising in all the legs on Sunday I was only around 2 minutes slower for the entire race than last year. I have no idea how I managed that, but hey what does it matter, the race was a lot of fun and everyone there seemed to have fun.

Due to not sleeping well on Sunday night and probably being a bit tired from the race I did no exercise on Monday and simply went to stretching class. Last night I went for my first real night ride, at night on the mtb, in quite a while with Sam. She was trying out a potential new bike, I took out the single speed and gave the ayups a good hit out. Night riding is fun I need to do more of it. This morning I went with the medium bunch in the road ride, however sat on the front most of the ride so got some work out, I still need to pick my cycling up again. I am looking forward to starting to do some more serious KM on the bike again in the coming months.

Exercise wise I am beginning to doubt I will be able to compete in the Hawkesbury Classic this year. After last year I have a fairly good idea about what preparation I need to do for the race. I have hardly sat in the boat for more than 50 minutes at a time paddling this year, I definitely have not done a few 30 KM paddles or other good preparation. I also do not feel as confident as I would like in my black boat at the moment to go for an overnight exhausting paddle in it. As the event is on November 1st and 2nd I do not have much time to decide so really have to come to terms with the event and how I want to approach it, or simply skip it until next year.

I am heading up to Myall Lakes this long weekend to have a weekend of kayak camping in Matilda, however I am not classing this as paddle training for Hawkesbury.

[comp] Doing it backwards or unlink returning ENOSPC

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:28:00

So this is not directly Linux related, however it is kind of entertaining/strange. I have been mucking about with Solaris Logical Domains a bit this week at work, as part of this I was reading up on how ZFS works. This may well apply with LVM snap shots in Linux now also. However when reading about out of space behaviour on ZFS with snapshots I was somewhat entertained to see one specific point.

Due to the way snapshots work on ZFS there is a possibility you will get an ENOSPC returned when trying to unlink (rm) a file. This is of course completely reversed from the intuition most people will have, to free up space remove some files. Out of curiosity I looked in the unlink man page on Linux and in the rm source code on Linux, at a cursory glance neither of them will deal with ENOSPC (unlink does not mention it as an error).

Without testing my guess is that in such a case unlink (2) would return EIO.

[leisure/screen] Dark Knight, good

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:26:00

Yesterday I finally had time to go along to see The Dark Knight (wikipedia) which I have been looking forward to for a long time, since the previous Batman movie, Batman Begins, was IMO the best super hero movie ever and really a fantastic movie to see this new one promised to be good. It was, however I still think the Batman Begins movie is significantly better.

Yes Heath Ledger's Joker was incredible, redefining the character on screen (though to learn why this is not exactly new for the character in comics, have a look at this good post about why The Joker is The Batman's arch enemy to get a good understanding of the character and how it has developed) and the humour in some of the characters (notably the superbly cast Alfred and Lucius Fox) was still evident as it was in the first movie. However though this was a great super hero movie, it did not I think bring enough of a new look into the primary characters that we did not already see in the previous film.

Maybe I feel let down a bit as some comments online I have seen since the movie was released suggested we got a fantastic look into Batman's internal battle with his psyche and his wish to break his own rules, however I just did not really see that come up in the movie that much. Sure it appeared, but not in a defining or challenging way to the audience. We also did not get to see the extension of the Batman myth by his own behaviour to the same extent as we did even in the half of the first movie we saw Batman in Batman Begins.

I should clarify this by saying I still think this was a great movie, and the second best super hero movie ever, however I think it is possible it could have been better, though I do not quite know how.

[leisure/theatre] Pygmalion and Annie in one day

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:40:00

On Saturday I had been intending to go along to see the play Pygmalion at Canberra Rep (play link), I like Canberra rep, a friend (Jess) is playing Eliza, and the matinee at 2pm seemed like a good time to see it. So along I went, it was a good production, came off seeming rather professional and definitely got the story out well. The actor playing Freddy did a good job of appearing to be an annoying idiotic fop. I liked this, not as much as I enjoyed Arcadia, however mostly because I found that story fascinating and the presentation with the dual times acting at once really cool and I had never seen or read the play previously. Still a good play and I recommend it.

While at theatre 3 I saw the ad for Annie playing at the Erindale Theatre performed by the Canberra Philharmonic Society, however the last night of the season was Saturday, so if I wanted to see it that was the only night to do so. I have not seen Annie live before, and though I remember watching the movie when I was young I do not remember much about it. About all I remembered was it was about a red head orphan girl and adoption or something by someone rich. Oh and a scene with her on a bridge with cables and lights and stuff all around in the dark.

It was interesting to see both the shows in one day, the performance of Annie was good, even though it was a more expensive show it seemed less professional and practised than the Pygmalion play. Maybe I do not go to enough musicals to really get the feel for them. They also had to deal with kids and animals (yes they had a live dog on stage, happily sniffing crotches (its own and an actor's)) and a rather large cast. I still think both were worth seeing and both were indeed entertaining so fun was had.

[various] I had a health scare

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:33:00

So I have been thinking whether I should write about this here or not, however I largely keep this diary as a way of reminding me about stuff or looking up things that have happened (a web search-able interface to my memory) and what happened was significant.

I have been a diagnosed Insulin Dependant Diabetic (Type 1) since October 4th 1995. In my case I have 4 or 5 injections of insulin a day and have to monitor my health and sugar levels and my diet and exercise regime to a greater extent than most people.

In the last 13 years I have never had a hypo (not enough sugar/too much insulin) or hyper (too much sugar not enough insulin) that required medical intervention. When I have my sugar levels go low, say overnight, I have always previously woken up with some of the symptoms (sweating, shaking) and have been able to go and get some food.

On Wednesday night this changed, at around 4am I became aware of my surroundings, with my light on, paramedics all around me, a big needle in my right arm and my partner off to one side dressed in work clothes. I had a diabetic hypo that I did not wake up to and was unable to handle myself. I have no memory of any of the goings on (even though I apparently was sort of responding and pointing and sat up for the paramedics and had a needle put in my arm). My partner said I was coughing and she asked if I was alright, I did not respond in a sensible manner and she worked out there was something very wrong with my behaviour and I guess realised I was not aware of myself properly.

Fortunately the paramedics were able to get my sugar level back to normal and I was able to stand up and then go and get some real food to keep the sugar levels up until breakfast time. I was also very fortunate my partner was there and noticed the problem and acted upon it effectively. Yesterday morning I saw my GP, got a referral to see the endocronologist I have always seen, some forms for all the blood tests and other related tests I do at least once a year and I bought myself a new Blood Glucose Meter which is a lot faster to use and requires less blood than my old one.

As for why it happened, and why I did not wake up or respond as I always have previously to my body displaying the symptoms of low blood sugar. It is a combination of things and a mistake I made before bed on Wednesday night. After two tough runs on Tuesday I had been feeling fairly flat and did the medium road bunch ride on Wednesday morning, at the end of what would normally be an easy ride for me I felt absolutely wasted, I felt more run down and unable to ride than I have for many many years. I think I felt worse than I have after 24 hour solo mountain bike races or 2 days of non stop adventure racing.

So I suspect my body was very depleted in its energy stores and needed some time to recover before things functioned normally. I did not head out for a paddle on Wednesday night, however we had dinner as normal and I had baked some yummy chai latte cupcakes. I was feeling bloated and my tummy felt somewhat expanded or sore for most of Wednesday evening, thus although I had a cupcake not long before bed I did not feel like eating more. I should have stopped and done a blood test, however simply skipped my supper, had my night time injection and went to sleep.

The problem there is skipping my supper which is generally a necessary part of my diet to balance the long term insulin I have before bed to last through the night. I do not know why I felt so bloated, maybe it was part of my body reaction to feeling so run down and sore from the exercise strain, maybe it was unrelated. However the combination of my body not being in its normal state and thus probably needing rest and thus not responding as per normal to low blood sugar and forcing me awake so I can get food into myself to counter act a low and the fact I did not eat my supper so I was far more likely to run out of sugar in my body overnight before the insulin ran out combined to make this a problem.

This was definitely quite a nasty experience and also a kick in the pants to make me pay a lot more attention to my diabetes again and work to keep it stable and ensure I stick to my proper eating plan.

[various] Tempting fate

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:38:00

So I know this is unfortunate news for the North Lyneham shops, and I really hope the organic farmers market shop has come through unscathed, however this news item I noticed from ABC makes me wonder if maybe the owners of the fitness centre that burnt down last night were not tempting fate a bit when they named their business "Flames Fitness".

[leisure/food] Pip...

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:41:00

So I am not sure this should be in a leisure category, however it is about food. Recently the mandarins available changed, where before the loose skinned, seed free, or close to seed free and tasty mandarins were readily available everywhere. In the last few weeks these have disappeared at most fruit shops, or where they are still available have been bordering on being bad (ripe, or rotten, or something else wrong).

In their place is a larger variety of mandarins, however most of them seem sour. There are large mandarins, small mandarins most of them seem to have tight fitting skin and they all seem to contain a lot of seeds. Today 2 of the 7 pieces of fruit/veg I had on my desk at work to eat during the day were mandarins of the sour, small, tight skinned and many seeded variety. I was amazed to find there were 20 seeds in a piece of fruit so small when I ate my first, so it was even more surprising to find there were 30 seeds in the second mandarin today. How can there be so many seeds in such a small piece of fruit and still have any fruit surrounding them.

[various] Completely missed the blorthday this year

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:15:00

Though I already have a habit of missing the blorthday by a few days, this year I really put in a good performance and missed it by a few weeks. However back in late August this diary turned 4. Previous blorthday posts exist of course. And in another continuing trend I have been posting less in the past year than previously.

Stats are

[11:37:42] 7 shiva sjh ~/diary/data>find -name '*.text' | wc -l
832
[12:18:41] 8 shiva sjh ~/diary/data>wc `find -name '*.text'`
...
28950  221341 1378957 total
[12:19:10] 9 shiva sjh ~/diary/data>

Only 136 posts since the last look and only another 4000 words or so, not prolific, not even approaching that. I do however still like having this place to write stuff when I want so for now it is staying around.

[mtb/gear] Fairly unobservant

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:26:00

When I broke my collar bone in April, the road bike (well cyclocross bike) I was riding that day suffered some damage also. The front wheel was scalloped and broken in many places. The Saddle was broken and there was a nasty case of road rash on the STI shifters, everything else appeared fine however.

When I first started riding the road bike again, around 5 weeks after the accident, I thought at the time the right pedal was somehow rotating strangely or off in some way. However I put it down to getting back on the road bike with my collar bone in a state and ignored it. I also obviously got used to the sensation while ignoring it.

A few weeks ago I was doing some commutes on the cross bike with chunky tyres and was using 2 bottles in the cages often. Watching my legs rotate I noticed the right leg was hitting the frame and bottle a bit and yet the left leg was a huge distance out from the frame and anything else. Intrigued I then analysed my riding on some of my other bikes, I happily found the other bikes did not show off this trait also thus I was fairly sure my entire body had not somehow become unbalanced toward one side on the bike.

This did however mean something was obviously wrong with the cyclocross bike. Today I finally bothered taking it in to the bike shop and they measured some stuff, at first they were also flummoxed, until someone thought to measure the distance of the cranks from the frame. It turns out I bent my right crank inwards by 11mm in the crash, it was not hitting the frame and is not obvious unless you know to look at it for it being bent in compared with the other crank.

So I sort of suspected all along something was wrong, however made myself ignore it and get used to it. I am probably fairly lucky I have not been doing much riding this year so I have not changed my pedalling or muscle action or anything to accommodate the problem with the bike. Now I really do have to seriously consider buying a new groupset for this bike with a triple on it in order to enable it to climb in mountainous country more easily.

[mtb/events] Another Angry Doctor Done

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:49:00

Last year I headed down to Mogo on the south coast to race in the Netti 100 KM Enduro known as the Angry Doctor. Tom and Alina of AROC Sport run this event and do a damn fine job of it. I headed back to ride again this year, with even less riding in my legs than last year I was in cruise mode to a much greater extent than last year.

Thanks to Dave and Helen for letting us stay with them down there again this year. Thanks to Tom and Alina for putting on another fantastic 100 KM race. This year the first 50 KM was a lot more interesting and I thought somewhat more fun than last year. However due to access issues, land clearing and some other issues the second 50 KM had less single track and some other changes, though it was still good it was not quite as much fun as last year.

A bonus from the weekend was I again had Matilda my Pink Mirage Double Kayak with me and we headed out for a little paddle in the inlet just north of Mossy Pt on Saturday afternoon and we found a dolphin playing around in the water between Mossy Pt and Tomakin. Lots of fun, chasing the dolphin, watching it swim under Matilda, and moving all around us for a while.

The Angry Doctor itself was good fun, I knew I would be on cruise mode as I had not ridden my bike much since March (Broken collar bone and sick through a lot of winter), I think the last time I did more than 70 KM in one go, even on a road bike was back in February or March. So I headed out for the first 50 KM taking it easy, not pushing the pace. Stopped to help one person with a mechanical, stopped for food and drink for a bit at the Aid station, chatted away with people near me on the course had fun in general. By the time I got to the end of the first 50 back in Mogo I realised I was actually going faster than expected as I arrived spot on 3 hours back into Mogo.

So I hung around the half way point chatting away for a while and hanging out, then with cruise mode engaged even more I headed out to do the last 50. I stopped a few times to eat and watch people ride past, I kept on being far more cheerful and laid back than people around me probably wanted to hear and stopped for a while at the aid station too. Eventually I rolled back into Mogo in around 6h 56m with no soreness anywhere and having had a really enjoyable and fun cruise around a really fun and interesting course in a lovely part of the country.

[mtb] Broken Forerunner 305

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:33:00

When I broke my collar bone in April I was wearing my Garmin Forerunner 305. It got a crack in the case at the time. It kept working fine however, well except that water could get inside. This tended to be a problem when paddling as bit of water would get in. However the problem would be worse if the watch was submerged. The watch was submerged for a bit earlier this week and got a lot of water inside.

Strangely it still worked for the rest of that session and the data was downloaded to the computer. However when I went to turn it on the following morning for a ride it no longer worked, I have discovered that it seems to be unable to hold onto a charge and does not seem to get a satellite lock. It will turn on when plugged in to the computer, however after trying to get a lock for a few minutes when away from a computer it will then turn off and not turn on again until I plug it into a computer.

Unfortunately I bought this in the US and will now have to try sending it back to Garmin in the US rather than deal with someone local. When I bought it the price difference to buy in the US compared to buying locally was over $200. If I was buying one today I would buy it locally as the price is now better in Australia than it is to buy in the US and get it shipped over. This is all due to a huge price drop in Australia about a month ago on all Garmin stuff.

It is kind of strange after becoming so used to having speed, distance and HR data for all my sports to no longer have it on my wrist for my last few sessions (paddles and rides).