|
Steven Hanley
About
email: sjh@svana.org
web: http://svana.org/sjh
Other online diaries:
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Alison Russell,
Allan Bontjer,
Andrew Pollock,
Anthony Towns,
Chris Yeoh,
Jeremy Kerr,
Martijn van Oosterhout,
Michael Carden,
Michael Davies,
Michael Still,
Rusty Russell,
Tim Potter,
Tony Breeds,
Links:
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CORC,
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forecast,
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Fri, 05 Mar 2010
Oh how I wish we could distill context in text more easily - 15:47
This will be so much more amusing for people who know
Mikal and those who know what TSG (where
I work) is like.
There seem to be increasing numbers of students on campus playing some weird
Zombie game. This year a lot are getting more and more extravagant nerf war
accessories to it seems. Anyway not long after Mikal returned to Canberra
last year after living in the US for a while he walked into TSG one day
exclaiming with shock "There are nerds on campus!".
Though today he is noticing the nerf accessories almost make him want to go
shopping for some himself, what with his military hardware fetish, also
commenting that there are "dirty dirty nerds" appearing all over campus and
suggesting some attempt should be made to out nerd them, maybe with a tux doll
canon or something.
[/amusing]
link
10 MTB Tips - 11:10
Last year I saw a list of
Joss
Wheedon's top 10 writing tips and then last week there was a surge of top
10 writers tips with The Guardian
publishing
quite
a few in two articles (Neil offered
up his there for example). All of these are full of good information and a lot
of it can apply to other disciplines. However looking for something to write
about here I am obviously not qualified to offer up writing tips. I thought I
would make an effort on some mountain biking tips, as I have been doing a bit
more coaching (CORC Junior Program) recently I have been thinking more about
some of this stuff.
- Relax, this is really a critical element when it comes to any sort of
cycling. Recently I heard one of my stretching instructors telling
everyone listening that if you look at Lance Armstrong on a bike he
really is as relaxed as possible on the bike. The same definitely
applies to mountain biking. Hold your position well with core strength
but keep your body and notably arms and legs relaxed and loose. You
need to control the bike but let the bike flow under you while you can
focus on riding. The more tense you are the more energy you waste and
the more you may get bounced around by the terrain. The more relaxed
you are on the bike the better you can handle surprises in terrain, a
rock garden or some other obstacle around a corner that you were not
expecting, if you are relaxed on the bike you should flow over terrain
more smoothly.
- Look up, especially in mountain biking, but also to some extent in all
riding you need to be aware of things out around you, the faster you
are going the further ahead you should be looking. In a bunch ride on
the road or riding in a race or with a group of people through single
track do not only focus on the wheel in front of you. Stay aware of
things all around you, focus as far as you can up the single track and
continually look for lines and terrain details. Sure you can watch the
rider in front, if they are a better rider than you seeing what lines
they use is a boon. However you also want to be looking ahead and know
what is coming up as far ahead as you can. There is no need to look
right in front of your bike at the ground and obstacles you are about
to ride over, if you have already seen it the brain is really amazing
at keeping track of details like that.
- Have fun, I think this one may even be in the wrong place, it really
should be first, not obviously a skill, however you should try to
ensure you love your riding and are having fun doing it. If you are
not having fun you will not have the motivation to do it well. Try not
to get stuck in a rut, even with a training plan try to ensure when
you are on the bike you are enjoying it. The more fun you have riding
bikes the more you will want to do it. This is one of the things I get
upset about when I see some coaches pushing juniors to ride (often in
road coaching) so much they begin to hate the sport. You really want
to ensure kids grow up thinking everything about cycling is fun, it
will motivate them to stick with it. If you push them so hard and they
have no time to have fun both on the bike and in other aspects of life
they will not stick with the sport, no matter how talented or gifted
they are.
- Practice, this is not something you have to go and do separately,
however the more you muck around practicing your skills while riding
the better those skills will be. When riding muck around, pull hops and
jumps over anything and everything. Look for unusual lines and try to
nail them, if you are riding along a fire trail don't just sit there and
pedal, look around and see if there are things you can do to hone your
skills and then do them. The best riders I know or know of all do this
when they are out riding. DeathMarch, Morgs, Mal, Shane, Wiggy, Paul
Rowney, etc. When you ride with them outside of races they are all
pulling wheelies, jumping over things, taking unusual lines, taking
alternate tracks, jumping up and down gutters, analysing terrain for
lines and trying different and unusual things out. This constant
improvement of skills while out riding for the fun of it helps a great
deal, you hone your abilities and find new ways of doing things you
can use later on.
- Fitness helps, I know this sounds like a well duh! sort of statement,
however it goes further. The fitter you are the more energy you can
spare for your brain to focus on riding and lines and position. When I
raced back in the mid 90s as a junior I remember noticing how I slowed
down so much after my first lap and kept slowing down. It was as if I
no longer had technical skill at times. It sounds boring but if you
can get out there and do a lot of km on the road and interval work and
other things that improve fitness it will help your mountain biking a
lot as you will not be using all your energy just to keep pushing the
pedals.
- Stay of the brakes and flow, tests on the Sydney Olympic course with
the AIS mtb team and more recently with the elite level XC riders back
up this, the idea of maintaining flow and staying off the brakes to
conserve energy. Hooking up power meters and GPS and HRM and all that
to mountain bikers and then getting data from them as they ride around
a course. The faster riders often seem to be slower through some
sections and yet come out in front. This is largely due to holding
their speed, they know what speed they can take into corners and
maintain that, they do not sprint between each corner, slam on the
brakes, sprint out of it to the next corner and so on. Instead they
hold a speed that will get them through the corners and break
minimally at all times. The difference in energy used when you focus
on cornering well without touching the brakes and have no need to
sprint up to speed again is immense. After all using the brakes is
just going to slow you down.
- Cross train and don't get bored, this ties in to having fun out there
exercising and to the fact that fitness helps a lot. I am sure some
people can still have fun when only doing one sort of riding and
nothing else and still enjoy it. However variety helps a lot I think,
try other cycling disciplines (road for fitness, downhill for skills
maybe. bmx or 4X for skills and sprints) and even try other sports (I
run and kayak and swim a lot too) and if you are not having fun with
them maybe try doing them in groups or try other sports that you can
find ways to do that you find fun. Weather is not always suited to
getting on the bike, so you could go for a run or swim in the
rain. Kayaking, swimming and indoor rock climbing use some other part
of the body than the legs, also mountain biking does require upper body
strength and control so keeping the upper body toned helps. Doing
different sports (if you have time) gives you something else to focus
on and often makes you keener to get back to the mountain bike.
- Race, whatever your cycling discipline you will find racing is
different to just heading out for ride. If you race mountain bikes
against people faster than you trying to keep up with them is good
practice, also you will see them doing things you may not have
realised worked or were possible and you can try them out. Also just
about everyone will go harder and put more effort into racing than
into training. You want to keep up, your competitive spirit kicks in
and you push yourself harder. One example I often tell people is that
I do a kayak session with friends most weeks, we head out for an hour
or so and my HR almost never goes above 135. Through summer I do a 10
km paddling time trial with a local club and my HR average for the
whole 50 minutes is over 160. Even when I feel like I am putting in
efforts outside of a race I seem to not be going anywhere near as hard
as in the race. Also in mountain biking being surrounded by people
faster and slower than you helps a great deal in getting used to
passing and being passed on single track and in other areas.
- Speed confidence and trusting the bike, a lot of this comes from
experience, however it is often worth pushing yourself a
bit. Generally our bikes can ride somewhere far faster and better than
our brains will let us. If you can begin to overcome that and simply
let the bike go at speed you often find everything turns out well. The
faster you go over rough terrain or rocks the less they will affect
you and the quicker you will get past them. When it is muddy or sandy
trying to control the bike may cause more problems than simply
balancing, holding on and going with the flow of the track, you can
still apply pressure and get the tyres to bite where you see the track
can help and when you need to, however staying upright and going with
the flow helps a great deal. When approaching anything on the trail
you really want to try to get in the head space of relaxing and having
a go, once you have ridden it you know you can. If you do not try you
will never get over it. You may surprise yourself.
- Ride lots, another well duh one maybe and everyone is time poor in the
modern world, but the more time you spend on the bike out there
mountain biking the better you will become. So long as you have the
time and are enjoying riding make an effort to get out there lots and
your skills will show improvement. This is very similar to some of the
writers hints, they say write lots and you will get better, they are
on to something there.
[/mtb]
link
Wed, 03 Mar 2010
Some comments on a book - 14:53
Back in December I ordered a copy of a book I wanted to read, the shop I
ordered it from (local) never managed to get it from the distributors, why I
have no idea. Eventually I got sick of waiting and on Friday wandered in to
the Co Op Bookshop on campus
and bought a copy they had on the shelf. The book is
Eating Animals by
Jonathan Safran
Foer, I finished reading it last night.
In the past I have avoided really talking much about my dietary choices. I
choose to remain a Vegan as I am convinced it reduces the environmental
footprint of my diet as much as possible. In the book he uses figures
suggesting it is less than 1/7th the environmental footprint of omnivorous
diets. I try to put to the back of my mind (as Foer describes it learned
forgetfulness) how animals are treated in the modern world to provide the
increasing meat craving the world seems to have. Reading the book is a stark
reminder of how disgusting and horrible factory farming is, not just for the
animals but also for the environment anywhere near factory farms.
In the hope that the book was somewhat US centric and maybe the Australian
food industry was not so bad yet I spent around 2 minutes googling and reading
and rather quickly learnt that pigs, poultry and to a large extent other meat
animals in Australia are factory farmed to a similar extent. Another glaring
point he makes is that the increase in waistlines and meat consumption widens
the global poverty gap more every year, or more obviously the starving from
the obese all around the world.
Foer points out again and again how we have a picture in our heads of farming
and animal agriculture where the farmer knows all their stock by sight and
farms according to traditional images of farming, this simply is not the case
anymore around the world, less than 1% of consumed animal product in the western
comes from non factory farming environments (and other parts of the world are
trying to play catch up). I do not have the book with me at work just now as I
write this so can not refer to it just now but it is definitely a reminder to
me that I should be happy with my own dietary choices.
[/leisure/food]
link
Tue, 02 Mar 2010
More Mont awesomeness - 14:17

New and Old Zing Vests (fullsize)
|
By far one of my favourite pieces of clothing is my Mont Zing Vest, I bought
my first
back in March 2006, then it was
shredded in
a crash in April 2008, I had however bought a second vest at that point, in
yellow. Most cycling vests have mesh backs, I dislike these as I wear my vest
to paddle and a waterproof back is great paddling. Also for warmth year round
in all manner of activities (running, rogaines, etc) the lack of mesh is a
bonus I think.
Due to the fact I use the vest so often through the colder months it is often
damp or wet when I want to use it (soaking from paddling to ride home in
winter, or from wearing for a run to get home), thus I was keen to get a few
more. Mont are a great company and Dave has been very
nice to me
in the past. They had run out of Zing vests in my size and I had been asking
Dave when I would be able to buy two more for a while. He had some ready for
the yearly sale that is on next week and told me to come visit. However he had
only had yellow vests made, which I was keen to buy another one of, I was
however hoping for some colour variety. Dave then offered to make a few out of
whatever colour Hydronaute ultra they had in the factory. Sure it is not pink
but I am definitely
partial to
purple
too so I was excited to be able to get two brand new vests in purple.
Did the Ainslie run up at lunch today, was letting my HR creep above 180 and
then remembered I should not be going too hard so backed it off to 176 or so
for the rest of the run up. Still did 15:16 which I thought was alright.
|
[/mtb/gear]
link
Mon, 01 Mar 2010
A race surprise and helmets - 17:12
So I will be once more competing in the
Jindabyne
Multisport race as a solo this coming weekend. This is one of my favourite
races on the calendar. I competed solo the last two years
(2009,
2008) and in teams
previously (2007,
2006). So there was a
CORC 3 hour mountain bike race on at Sparrow on Saturday afternoon. I thought
it would be a good idea to do it and have a last good hit out on the mountain
bike before Jindabyne.
For the rest of this week I will not be doing any training efforts over an
hour and not much hard stuff, especially later in the week. I have to admit I
have been focusing on getting my bike form back to some reasonable level the
last few months, maybe something approaching the bike form I had back in 2004
(before I did so much paddling, running and swimming as well as riding). I
must say though I never expected this sort of result. At the race on Saturday
I finished 10th overall, with 328 people competing, taking into account the
teams around 280 people on track. I was racing on my single speed, so I won
the single speed category (largely because Chris was having some mechanicals
due to being silly enough to make a major change to his bike the day before)
and was only beaten by some strong teams and some solos. I was only 1 minute
behind Bleeksie and his team mate for example. Riding 8 laps, which it seems
only around 20 people managed to complete.
Well I hope that performance helps me on the bike legs, I definitely am hoping
to take 30 or 40 minutes off the time for the long bike leg at Jindabyne for
the last two years, something closer to 2h30m again would be good.
As for helmets, my good helmet for 2 years now has been a rather neat
Giro Animas with
hot pink flames. However Giro has discontinued that model and also no
longer makes the E2 which was my previous favourite model of helmet. None of
the current helmets released by Giro have such a good colour scheme (in my
opinion), if I happened to break my current helmet I would have to get
something boring. However I have noticed a shop over in the US has Animas in
stock still in pink, I am sorely tempted to buy two more (they have them
really cheap) so I have a stock pile of helmets just in case. I wonder if this
is being silly. When I have some more spare money (new bike just having been
purchased on its way here now) I may have to stockpile helmets...
[/mtb/events]
link
Wed, 24 Feb 2010
More on the google search mechanism - 16:32
An interesting article (I think linked from BoingBoing) today on Wired by
Steven Levy. This is about some more insights into
how Google
refines its search algorithms all the time. A lot of this makes sense,
things like improving it so changes are easier to incorporate, there are some
interesting insights about research into sentence structure and trying to work
out what people searching want (computers are bad at this).
I liked the story about dog and puppy searches and people looking for hot
dogs, someone should make a t-shirt, Google: No longer boiling puppies since
2002. Or something. It is also interesting to think they use all incoming
searches as some form of testing or control for other tests. The scale of the
operation and being able to respond fast is still the most impressive thing
about it I think. Also the internal best of search ideas conference and
meetings sound like an interesting way to get ideas working. Also everything
has to be backed up with results to show it improves things.
On a side note, Kate and Ruth are
awesome, listening to their cover of the Dylan song
Let Me Die
In My Footsteps and I am reminded how good they are together singing.
[/comp]
link
Tue, 23 Feb 2010
Ski Everest - 17:10
I was interested to see on kottke today something about a documentary about a
guy who skied Mt Everest.
Yuichiro Miura is
the person in question, the documentary
The Man
Who Skied Down Everest was the first sports film ever to win an Oscar for
best documentary. Though he did not ski from the summit he did ski around 2000
metres down one face of it, almost killing himself in the process. The article
linked from the first wikipedia link above about the God Father of Extreme
skiing is an interesting read.
I was fascinated to see he has since climbed everest another two times at the
age of 70 and 75, he hopes to climb to the summit again at 80 in 2013.
[/various]
link
Thu, 21 Jan 2010
Midnight Espresso is awesome - 17:39
Tony had been telling me
for a while that he was really looking forward to returning to Wellington to
go to Midnight Espresso, his favourite cafe in a town which is famous for a
good cafe culture, he also hinted I may like it a lot. There does not appear
to be a website, however details are on a few
review
sites.
I am impressed, though not vegetarian only they do have an extensive
Vegetarian (and Vegan friendly) menu with some great food. All the cakes they
have for sale are Vegan and their coffee is indeed excellent. This cafe is
almost worth the trip to Wellington alone. If you are anywhere near Cuba
street, or really I think if you are any where near New Zealand pop on over
and visit this cafe. Maybe it is because I do not have the variety of Veggie
friendly places to eat that is found in Melbourne, or maybe it is because this
is a great place to hang out. Anyway with the fun mountain biking and
linux.conf.au here this week it would be silly not to come and now I know of
another good reason to visit Wellington. Thanks Tony.
[/lca]
link
Wed, 20 Jan 2010
My notes from the first day of lca (Miniconf day 1) - 22:22
I have written 34 pages of notes (in the a5 conference notebook) in the three
days (2 days miniconfs, 1 day main conference) so far, however as my hand
writing closely resembles and encryption standard I had better get them
transcribed into the computer reasonably soon (before I completely forget how
to decipher what I scrawled on paper). So I have just typed up the notes I
took (9 a5 pages worth of my hand writing) from the first day of lca (miniconf
day 1) and put it
here
in plain text.
I probably should put them directly up here but am not in the mood to add html
formatting to the notes at the moment. Great stuff so far, I will see if I can
find time to transcribe another day or two tomorrow.
[/lca]
link
Day two lca finishing off with a great ride - 06:57

Skyline ride (fullsize)
|
I noticed yesterday at the finish of the miniconfs I already have 19 pages of
notes written in the a5 conference notebook. I now need to find the time to
put some of the notes into the computer I think.
Another great miniconf day, I really enjoyed the Weta digital high density
computer room design talk. I have uploaded the photos from the ride I did
around Skyline (awesome ride around the ridgelines and hills surrounding
Wellington) on a Skyline MTB
Ride photos page.
Oops, an update, I mentioned to a few people the gps map of the ride would be
online, it is
here
if you wish to see it.
|
[/lca]
link
Mon, 18 Jan 2010
Awesome New Zealand Food - 15:31

Penguino Ice Cream Cafe (fullsize)
|
The friend I did my Abel Tasman kayaking trip with has said a few times he
could eat himself to death here in New Zealand. I tend to agree the food here
is pretty good. Today I had lunch with Stewart, Bdale, Edale, TonyB and others
at Midnight Espresso, a cafe recommended by Tony, who went to high school
here, he said we would like it. I did it was excellent, lots of great Vegan
options including all their cakes. I will be back tomorrow (possibly missing
out on variety but OMG it was good.
The photo to the left is from a Penguin themed ice cream cafe in Nelson, they
had some excellent Sorbet (an award winning boysenberry and a great apple and
berry for example) that I was able to eat too. I thought I should put
something penguin themed in a post to the lca tag here. (they have a
Penguino
Crossing sign too). I hope I can find a few more really good examples of
local veggie friendly food before I have to head home on Saturday morning.
|
[/lca]
link
Abel Tasman Kayaking - 15:28

Camping Observation Beach, Abel Tasman NP (fullsize)
|
Keith and I met up for a kayaking trip in Abel Tasman National Park when we
were both in New Zealand. The photos are all up on my
Abel Tasman Kayaking January
2010 Page
As Keith said this is something that should be on everyone's bucket list. An
incredible area and some wonderful kayaking. We were thinking about it a fair
bit and we both think there are other ways you can approach this trip that
would be fun. Heidi told me there is an Abel Tasman marathon sometime in
September, I am thinking that it would be a lot of fun to run up the track to
the end in one day, get your gear dropped up there for camping along with a
fast AR double kayak. The next day leave your gear there to be picked up and
kayak back.
Otherwise we both think doing the track walk to the end and then kayaking
back, or maybe walking in from the other end of the track and doing a remote
park start for your kayak trip at Tonga Beach (this is the farthest north the
rented kayaks will be dropped off) and paddle back to Marahau.
I had a lot of fun on the trip and the fact we did not have a nice fast kayak
such as Matilda was not really a problem as we are on holiday and not trying
to go fast or anything. I did miss Matilda a bit at times but I got over it.
|
[/mtb]
link
Sun, 17 Jan 2010
In Wellington hanging out for lca. - 16:07

Makara Summit Weather (fullsize)
|
I am in Wellington, lca is starting tomorrow, I arrived yesterday however the
weather was horrible so a hung out with a friend, Bec, who is living here for
a few years. We saw the Sherlock Holmes movie which was awesome. Today when I
went looking for coffee I ran across Jon Oxer so we headed in for some
conference supplies, breakfast, coffee etc (along with Thomas). Then I went to
the rego area and
found MRD, AJ and
others. After registering for the conference we headed out for some lunch.
Then as the weather was better today than yesterday (no heavy horizontal rain)
Bec and I went for a mountain bike ride (in the photo above I am somewhat
muddy but enjoying the summit of Makara Peak mtb park). Now I am about to go
find some lca ghosts, what fun.
|
[/lca]
link
Sun, 10 Jan 2010
Rotorua Summer MTB Series - Bike Vegas - 23:28

Green Lake near Rotorua (fullsize)
|
Much to my delight I found out when I arrived in Rotorua that there was a
mountain bike race on this Sunday. The Bike Vegas Summer MTB Series, this is a
series of 45km point to point races through the Whakarewarewa Forest where the
legendary redwoods single track are.
The rest of the series are 24th Jan and 14th Feb so I will obviously miss
these events, I headed out to race today though and had a great time. I got to
catch up with Gaz from NZO Clothing
which was good as he was there racing. (and he beat my by a few minutes, way
to go Gaz)
My
GPS
Map for the race shows where the race went, starting going the wrong way
up the rock drop track and then onto many others, I can not work out the order
exactly (writing this without the GPS trace in front of me right now) but
remember it included Pigeon Run, Pig Track Link, Mad If You Dont, Mossy Track,
around next to Green Lake (gorgeous/spectacular scenery there), No Brains, the
end of Old Chevy (with the fun gap jump), Spring Roll, Sweet & Sour, Be Rude
Not To, Lion Trail, Turkish Delight, Soakhole, Grinder, The Dipper, and Tahi.
I had not ridden some of the green tracks since the 2005 Moonride 12 Hour,
others I probably would not have ridden if it were not for the race today and
some of the tracks are the classics that should be ridden every time you come
here. I had a great time and think it was an excellent race format (they had a
25 KM option also for people who did not want quite such a long race).
|
[/mtb/events]
link
Sat, 09 Jan 2010
Rotorua mountain biking - 07:47
I know we have it good in Canberra for mountain bike trails, there are many
times I think people who live in Rotorua are even better off though. In the
lead up to linux.conf.au this year I am having a week and a half of play time
in New Zealand before the conference. At the moment I am staying with a friend
in Rotorua for a few days and we have been doing some rides the last two days.
For example I put this status update onto Facebook on Thursday night. "a-trail,
tickler, frontal lobotomy, billy t, split enz, pondy downhill, pondy new, roller
coaster, chop suey, corners, be rude not to, exit trail" which were the tracks
I rode in this
47
km ride on Thursday. Oh so much fun to be had on the mountain bike here.
You can see the
Rotorua
trail map online now days at the Rotorua NZ website which is handy. I
bought a copy at a bike shop the other day to get around with too. Yesterday
one of the highlights was the track Old Chevy which just goes on seemingly for
ever and is as awesome as any of the great tracks here.
Yesterday morning we rode into town for some shopping and on the way back my
crank snapped,
last time it was
the left crank, this time the right crank. So I rode one legged back to
the house and we then took the bike into a shop and they are putting some XT
cranks on. Jen got a bunch of photos of me riding one legged as she thought it
was hilarious.
I thought my riding for the day was over as the bike would take until the next
morning to get fixed up (and without all my bike tools I could not just buy
the part and do it myself), however the completely awesome guys at
KiwiBikes next to Zippys Cafe in
town just happened to have an awesome Titus hardtail demo bike they loaned me
overnight so I could keep on riding. Awesome guys, great shop, and they hand
build some pretty nifty bikes. Anyway some more fun to be had coming up soon.
[/mtb]
link
Sydney Christmas - 07:09

Looking back toward Coogee, Bronte, Bondi, etc (fullsize)
|
I spent Christmas in Sydney with Jane and other extended family (Grandma,
Nick, Ashlie, Jude, Chris, Stu, Karin) at a place in Coogee. Though I had
a bike with me (single speed) that was for a potential boxing day mtb ride
(which I piked on due to rain). As I was so close to the coastal walking path
I headed out for a run on it on Christmas morning. South from Coogee until I
ran out of obvious walking path (around 4 km I think) and then back up to the
other end of Bondi and back down to Coogee. No idea how far it was (maybe
16km) as my Garmin stopped working and I had sent it in for a replacement.
One of the nice things about being there over Christmas was I managed to go
for a swim in the ocean every day while there. No serious swim training but it
was nice to get into the salt water and do some swimming none the less.
Lots of fun was had with the family, thanks for an awesome time to all of them
there.
|
[/various]
link
Bracelet fade - 07:01

Bracelet fade evidence (fullsize)
|
I commented a
while ago that the new NBCF bracelets should last longer as they have a
design that is less likely to break. Looks like I was right, the faded almost
white bracelet in the photo has been on my wrist for most of 2009, I finally
noticed a little before Christmas when I gave a new one to a friend that mine
was no longer a good NBCF pink, time to put a new one on, I am not sure I can
retire the faded one to my notice board at work as it is not broken.
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[/various]
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Tue, 22 Dec 2009
Pretty average bar tape, a 7 month report. - 14:06
My new road bike, a
2008 model Kona
Kapu in Orange I purchased in April, came with white bar tape wrapped up
to just past the brake hoods. The bar is one of the new flat topped ergo style
bars. Though as it is aluminium rather than carbon it will feel quite cold on
chilly mornings. Due to my firm belief that white bar tape is almost as wrong
as white knicks and the fact I did not want to get chilly hands on the bare
aluminium I decided to get new bar tape for the bike.
I searched around trying to find orange coloured tape for a while and found the
Lizard Skins tape in a good shade of orange at a shop here. The Lizard Skins
tape had some good reviews for the tacky grip feel and seemed alright, though
it was around twice the price of most traditional cork or synthetic cork
tape. Now 7 months after purchasing the grip tape and putting it on the bike I
have discovered the two major problems with it are that it gets dirty and the
packaging recommended against using any cleaning agent other than plain water
on it as it may deteriorate the grip. I can deal with this as it is sort of in
the nature of grip tape to become dirty over time.
My bigger gripe is that I noticed the last few days that after only 7 months
the grip tape is wearing out on some of the points I have my hands in contact
with the bars the most often. Previously I have had grip tape last for 3 or 4
years before wearing out enough to require replacing so I am definitely
disappointed in this and in the next few days will pull off the tape and put
on some much cheaper cork tape in orange from a different brand.
[/mtb/gear]
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Fri, 11 Dec 2009
Paddle times improving all round - 15:49
This week I set a pb at paddling, 49m52s for the 9.6 km on the GPS (first time
ever under 50 minutes). Randall also set another PB (second week running doing
that for him) of 47:08 (I still have almost 3 minutes to gain there...), he is
also getting closer to Brendan and other fast paddlers which is good. Danielle
missed the time trial this week, however last week smashed her PB and wen well
under 60 minutes for the first time, getting 58:59. It is good to see progress
happening all over here, lets hope we can all keep it up for a while at
least. Brendan has mentioned it took him 4 or so years to get to his speed
doing a fairly large amount of paddling, none of us AR nuts really get the
time to paddle more than twice a week most weeks though so do not improve
as fast as we could potentially otherwise.
[/mtb]
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Mon, 07 Dec 2009
Cruisy weekend - 11:59

The lovely Taemas Bridge near Yass (fullsize)
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Saturday morning I hopped on my road bike and headed out to Yass, a
nice 3
hour, 84 KM ride which is always rather enjoyable. The reason to head out
there was for Jeff and
Pia's combined 30th and housewarming. The
bbq/party was a lot of fun and I was able to catch up with many people I have
not seen much of in a while. Thanks for having us all over guys, and what a
lovely place you have there (especially with the views out toward open land
from the yard).
I had been planning to ride back but a friend was keen to go paddling on
Saturday afternoon so I got a lift back with
Crash and headed out for a
paddle, largely so my friend could get some more time in tippy boats.
Sunday morning I helped Bilbys do the timing at the triathlon on at the lake
and had been sort of planning to go paddling again however ended up going home
and napping for an extended period of time. So all in all a fun but relaxing
sort of weekend. The Bridge in the photo on the left is one of the reasons I
think everyone should go check out the road from Yass to Wee Jasper, a lovely
majestic bridge across the river seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
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[/various]
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Fri, 04 Dec 2009
Chameleon Pedals - 17:14
On my way through civic today I had a flat tyre on the CX bike, so I stopped
in at Onya to get it fixed, Gareth showed me these pedals I had to buy a pair
of. After all my good flat pedals have gone walk about so I really needed new
flat pedals. They look like plain pedals D may even like until you take them
outside in the sunshine and they have an almost instant colour change. Rock
on, will look just right on the pink hardtail during events I need to use flat
pedals with.
[/mtb/gear]
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Mon, 30 Nov 2009
Cruising around the AROC Sprint on Saturday - 16:04

Selina, Celia, Mark and Randall at presentations (fullsize)
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While Nathan, DaveS and Wayne were
Moseying around the AROC
classic course on Saturday just a little bit faster than the Mosey of Selina,
Mark and Randall and that of Danielle, Matt and Gary. I was also out there
cruising around with Ron and Tony. Strangely I was carrying a camera so took a
few photos, my AROC Sprint
Race 2 for 2009 photos are online. The results and race photos and stuff
can be found linked from the
event
page at AROC Sports.
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[/mtb/events]
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Tue, 24 Nov 2009
Kate Miller-Heidke live in Canberra last week - 11:29
What with my love of female folk singers, and especially of Missy Higgins
piano work and what my sister refers to as my predictable enjoyment of female
pop sort of music I guess it comes as no surprise I am a huge fan of
Kate Miller-Heidke. She started
an Australian tour recently and one of the gigs was in Canberra. Last Tuesday
night at the Hellenic club I managed to catch the gig with my sister and her
partner. The support act was
Washington, I enjoyed
their music and thought it a fitting support act for this gig. The song How to
Tame Lions was very good, and I agree with the lead singer if everyone at a
gig had one of the face masks on it would be even cooler. Thought neither Jane
or I listen to radio much currently we both recognised a few other songs sung
by the group.
The main act was of course Kate Miller-Heidke and her band, they came on and
got going on some really good renditions of her songs, she also tended to talk
a fair bit between songs and had some good amusing stories and anecdotes. Such
as telling about the recent US tour, where they played the
Facebook
song on college radio stations a lot. However due to the fact they are
publicly funded you can not swear, so they had to be rid of the obvious swearing
"fucking fucking kidding me" etc, however the next when she sings
"narcissistic arsehole", at one station they had a list of banned words, and
said you can not say "ass" (American spelling and pronunciation) so she asked
can we say "arse" (Australian spelling and drawled out) and he said it is not
on the list so sure go ahead.
As much as I love the music some of the lyrics have been hitting a bit close
to home for me, even though it has been almost a year the whole facebook song
reminds me I am still trying not to remember a lot of last year so as not to
be depressed, and of course the line in "Space they cannot touch", "I just
hope I am good enough to keep you" still preys on my mind a lot as I
wasn't. Still so long as I do not dwell on such thoughts I had a good time
there and was definitely impressed by the live performance. They work hard to
choreograph their performance on stage with movements and dancing and have a
lot of energy. When the amps were playing up for a while Kate and Keir played
4 songs with just an acoustic guitar and singing which was a great recovery
for the equipment problems.
[/leisure/music]
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Easy Chocolate Cakes - 11:21

Vegan Chocolate Cakes with Soy Cream Cheese Chocolate Icing (fullsize)
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Last night I whipped up two vegan chocolate cakes, and because I had some
vegan cream cheese left from Friday I made chocolate cream cheese icing for
them. These are incredibly easy to make and have a very basic recipe. I used
something very similar to this Vegan
Chocolate Cake recipe though made the icing with Cream Cheese, Nuttelex,
Icing Powder and Vanilla.
Anyone rocking up to the evening at Tilleys tonight will be able to sample these.
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[/leisure/food]
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Wed, 18 Nov 2009
I doubt even we were the first... - 16:54
I was interested to see the
claim
about believing they are running the first tertiary exams run on computers, I
guess I am interested because in Computer
Science at ANU we have been running exams for first through fourth years
and for masters courses for 5 years now. Including a first year course with
over 150 students in comp1110 (first year), comp3300 (third year operating
systems course), comp3310 (third year computer networks course) and many
others. These exams account for 50 to 70% of the assessment in these courses.
As I said I would be very surprised if we were the first to do this in
Australia too.
[/work]
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Mon, 16 Nov 2009
Triple Triathlon 2009 - 17:24

Dave and Julie finishing (fullsize)
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I was unable to compete this year, but I got out there and cheered on my
friends and took a whole lot of photos which can be found at my
2009 Triple Triathlon
photos page.
I hope everyone racing had fun, I enjoyed following the race.
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[/mtb/events]
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Thu, 12 Nov 2009
Yummy vegan lasagna, Lentil and Leek - 22:33

Lentil and Leek Lasagna (fullsize)
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I was in the Oxfam shop a little while ago and while there noticed an Oxfam
Vegetarian Cookbook. It looked interesting and I like buying Oxfam stuff so I
bought a copy. Home sick today I was having a read through it and liked the
look of the Lentil and Leek lasagna pictured above.
It is indeed a delightful dish, I enjoyed my dinner tonight. I did not use
cheese (I instead spread some sesame seeds and olive oil on top of the white
sauce. For the white sauce I used soy milk, whole meal flour and nuttelex
rather than milk and butter). I highly recommend this lasagna.
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[/leisure/food]
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Thu, 05 Nov 2009
Oh no fast - 13:30
Last summer when the lake was open and I was able to do paddle time trials a
few times, I did not really go very fast, looking at my GPS records from
December onwards I did not even go under 52 minutes for the 9.6km time trial
last summer. So yesterday arvo I rocked up for the first summer time trial of
the season at the river.
Thinking I had not paddled much over winter and I had not had many sustained
efforts of 10km non stop I was expecting I would probably push the pace a bit
to do 54 minutes. So imagine my surprise when, after wash riding a slower wash
than I should have been paddling for the first few km and then going it alone
I ended up doing 50:52 in the time trial.
Sure I am happy to have that sort of speed, however I must admit to being
somewhat paniced that now over summer I should in theory get faster most
weeks, I really will have to crack my goal of sub 50 soon I suppose. Eeek.
[/mtb]
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Sat, 24 Oct 2009
Cranks are not suposed to do this I think. - 20:36

One solution to increase right leg strength (fullsize)
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Leading a ride today, pulled a gap jump and was a little bit slow, so landed a
bit hard with my back tyre just clearing the lip. Suddenly found my left foot
a lot closer to the ground than it should be. Oh a broken crank, only one
year old. The bigger problem was as ride guide for a familiarisation ride I
was not sure anyone else of the 23 people I was showing this course to knew the
rest of the route for the ride.
Fortunately someone knew the way through to Mt Taylor on this leg and I was
able to swing a lift with someone to get home rather than ride one legged from
Stromlo home. Mr Milton I am not.
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[/mtb/gear]
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Fri, 16 Oct 2009
A new discovery, ninja music - 13:25
Last night I was reading AFP's
second recent on the issue of artists making money in the Internet enabled
world, something she refers to as
Virtual
Crowdsurfing, all that makes a lot of sense to me, however I happened to
note her mentioning doing an online performance with a musician named
Matthew Ebel.
Out of interest I followed the links and then looked up youtube to learn about
him. One of the first youtube videos I stumbled upon was
Everybody Needs a
Ninja, which is awesome beyond words. Go watch it now, anyway I listened
to some other stuff on youtube, however mostly on the strength of the Ninja
song alone I bought copies (mp3 download and two physical copies, all from
cdbaby) of his album Goodbye Planet Earth. Listening to it on rotation in my
ipod today and it really is pretty awesome. Creative amusing lyrics, good
piano and other instruments/effects. I had a bit of a listen to the samples of
his older albums, however they are a bit more main stream and less
amusing/clever seeming, though still good I was not in the mood to buy them.
[/leisure/music]
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Mon, 12 Oct 2009
Scott 24 Hour Photos - 20:03
While out at the 24 hour this weekend I managed to take a few photos I have
now uploaded to a page, 2009
Scott 24 Hour photos. I also provided bandwidth this morning for the
Sportograf guys to upload their
photos. They took 85,000 over the weekend, the best of set are already up and
they should have the rest public by Wednesday sometime.
[/mtb/events]
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Tue, 06 Oct 2009
Googong Multisport Challenge, more Sri Chinmoy fun - 13:24
Similar to the Yerrabi race in May but longer and tougher, the Googong
Multisport challenge was on this weekend. I went and competed again and had
fun. So did a number of friends. Photos and other stuff at my
Googong Multisport Challenge
2009 page. Thanks to the
local Sri Chinmoy Events crew for
more fun this weekend.
[/mtb/events]
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Wed, 30 Sep 2009
Rockbox freezes on ogg files fix - 17:41
After messing around with my ipod for a while upgrading it to rockbox v3.4 to
see if it would play some ogg files it was freezing on I discovered a simple
fix at last. If an ogg file has id3 or id3v2 tags it appears rock box will
refuse to play the file. I had been wondering for a year or so why my violent
femmes albums I ripped onto the ipod would not play, however was not to fussed
as I was not listening to them overly much. However I ripped a new album I
bought and was most annoyed to find I could not play it.
Happily now I have discovered this problem I have easily removed all the id3
and id3v2 tags form ogg files on the device with "find -name '*.ogg' -print0 |
xargs -0 id3v2 -D" and hey presto I can now play all these files again easily.
The ogg/vorbis tag remains intact, for some reason I had add id3 tags ticked
in grip without restricting it to files ending in .mp3.
[/comp/software]
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Disappointed to learn that purple Vitasoy is not vegan - 16:33
I was somewhat pissed off at Vitasoy/national foods last week when I learned
that the calci plus (purple container) Vitasoy is not vegan friendly. Some
time in mid 2008 they changed the packaging slightly saying it had vitamin D
added. I paid no attention to this, however some vegans are far more alert to
this sort of thing than I am.
Last week I was looking for some information about the new Vitasoy cafe milk
that is appearing in many cafes, I happened to come across some discussion on
vegan forums about the calci plus not being vegan friendly. The vitamin D they
began adding to the product some time last year is from a lanolin derived
source (sheep/wool production industry), the forums referred to it as a D3
additive, suggesting Vitasoy if they felt the need to add vitamin D could put
the effort into finding D2 based vitamin D which is not from the animal
industry. Response from Vitasoy when they were contacted about this is that
many of their other products remain Vegan friendly and they are investigating
a reliable source of D2 for this milk.
Apart from them changing the packaging but not noticeably making it clear in
any other way I am somewhat annoyed at a soy milk product with vitamin D added
making it non Vegan. Anyone needing some vitamin D should go outside from time
to time and get a bit of sun for crying out loud. I am unfortunately somewhat
addicted to Vitasoy by choice and as they have stopped producing Vitasoy heart
(yummiest soy milk around) I had since then been drinking calci plus. On my
most recent shopping trip however I went to buying the green carton Vitasoy
(fibre), I guess it would be better to try a few non Vitasoy products and see
if there is one the behaves nicely (does not clump up) tastes better than So
Good and costs less than Bonsoy.
I like the term a friend I was telling this to came up with, if they feel the
product needs vitamin D as people consuming it do not have enough Vitamin D it
should be called "Cave Dweller Vitasoy".
[/leisure/food]
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Fri, 25 Sep 2009
Astro cycling help - 22:15

Astro Road Assistance (fullsize)
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To go along with my habit of bender dolls, robot dogs, cute animal horns, etc
somewhere on all my bikes I was starting to notice the lack of something extra
mounted somewhere on my new road bike. Fortunately while in landspeed records
tonight I saw something that helped me fix this situation. With the dual
advantage of offering some extra rocket assistance on the road bike and
nicely accessorising
one of my
cycling outfits how could I pass this one up?
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[/mtb/gear]
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Gear transport mechanism costs - 16:40
I finally got the car service I have been putting off for a while done. Last
time I had it in there they mentioned the radiator will need replacing, so I
got that done this time. Also last weekend while my car was locked in secure
parking at my sister's place in Sydney with Matilda (double sea kayak) on the
roof some retards came along and stuck a screw driver or something in the
drivers side lock. Thus I needed a new barrel on the lock, this means to
unlock the car on the drivers side I now use a different key to the one I use
for ignition and the passenger side. I have had to deal with this on other
cars in the past and it is a PITA.
I guess I should be happy whoever it was did not damage Matilda and that was
the only damage to the car. Anyway the whole shebang cost AUD $1230, around
$200 of that was on the new lock barrel and associated labour so not worth an
insurance claim ($500 excess). Now I can go back to putting off the car
servicing until I absolutely need to for a while, well apart from the two new
front tyres I need that they did not do at the time.
[/various]
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Tue, 15 Sep 2009
Hard day in the heat at the Angry Doctor - 14:33
I put some photos I took at
the Angry Doctor on line, none of them particularly good. Though showing
off the awards ceremony for the spectacular efforts by Heather, Julie, Libby
and Sam.
What with the worlds taking up a lot of time, and no real serious cycling
efforts recently I have been continuing to rely on my base cycle fitness for
all the bike efforts I do. This event came down to relying on that again. I do
however think I made some mistakes. It was well over 30 Celsius down there
for the race, I normally struggle in the heat so should have expected to here
also.
I did not pay much attention to hydration or salts intake the day before of
morning before the start. Then going out harder than I should have I was
feeling good until at 30km I was hit with some nasty cramps. My reaction to
that was to consume a lot of liquid. 2 litres of water from the camel back,
one full bottle and two half bottles of sports drink (borrowed from others)
all used up before reaching 50km. I took on two bottles of sports drink and 3
litres of water at 50km and used that all up by 70km going for 10km until the
aid station with no liquid.
I did not overheat which is good, however with bad cramps for 70km and being
unable to put much power down I was annoyed with my race. I probably washed
too much liquid through my system, though being scared of overheating (and
heat stroke type problems) I think maybe I should have tried to have more
salty foods and solid foods instead of the mostly gels I used all day. Chips
may have worked a treat or salty biscuits. Of course a heck of a lot more time
on the bike would also help. I think this is something I should seriously
concentrate on getting back before Jindabyne next year, some good bike form
rather than relying on base all the time.
Anyway it was still a good event on spectacular trails, I am keen to repeat
the effort next year.
[/mtb/events]
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Wed, 09 Sep 2009
British pollies at elite level to Australian pollies with rorts. - 16:50
So I notice many of the papers today have front page
material
about the Australian politicians needing to cut perks due to rorts in their use
of available allowances.
What amuses me the most here is that the perk in question is the use of
allowances to print/photocopy material for their election campaigns at the
last federal election. Yes the amount that has allegedly been rorted is huge
and election material should not be funded with public money. However I keep
wondering if the British pollies may look on and think of the rorting
abilities of Australian pollies as somewhat amateur. In May there was a lot of
coverage of
the British pollies rorting allowances and purchasing things such as moat
cleaning or pornography. Though it was interesting to see
some unique views on
that situation at the time.
Oh and speaking of federal politics, I am happy to see I am not the only one
who thinks our federal minister for sport (Ellis) is
gorgeous.
[/various]
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Wed, 02 Sep 2009
2009 Mountain Bike World Championships in Canberra are finally happening. - 07:32

Ben Henderson practising the course (fullsize)
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The worlds most incredible riders are all finally here for the Worlds. It is
on and happening. I have been taking photos (and will continue to do so) while
I am out there working on site (two weeks of holiday from work to do so).
Yesterday was the first race (Team Relay) which was won by the Italian team. I
finally have had a few moments spare to upload my photos so far (though this
has made me late on site this morning). My worlds photos are all on my
2009 Mountain Bike World
Championships Photos page (no time to spell check this morning)
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[/mtb/events]
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Sun, 30 Aug 2009
Kate and Ruth at the Folkus - 23:29

Kate and Ruth(fullsize)
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On Friday night after getting home from another day doing
World Champs work at Mt
Stromlo I had the rather enjoyable opportunity to see
Kate and Ruth playing live at
The Folkus Room. They do not often
play in Canberra outside the folk festival and they really are a wonderful
pair of performers. My housemate Matt who is also a fan of their work came
along with me and we got to enjoy a spectacular evening of music.
Early on they played Cindy Cindy which was wonderful. Kate played a cover of
the Joni Mitchell song A Case of You which was really amazing, what an
evening. I thought it was a little disappointing how few people were there as
they are popular in Canberra. Though an amusing aspect of this is that most of
the people in the audience were close friends of theirs and both there mothers
were (eventually) at the gig and they had played in groups with some of the
audience members.
I have been taking photos while working out at Stromlo on the worlds, however
have not had much time in front of a computer recently so have not had time to
upload them and comment on them. It will happen at some point soon.
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[/leisure/music]
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