sjh - mountain biking linux geek spice

[comp/linux] A regression for WPA2

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:20:00

So for a while I was wondering why I could not use the ANU's WPA2 secure network from my laptop. I had heard reports that some Ubuntu hardy machines had worked. I run Debian unstable and a kernel.org 2.6.29.3 on this laptop.

I thought maybe there was some problem with my laptop hardware and maybe the iwl4965 chipset simply would not do it under Linux. However searching online suggested I should be able to make it do WPA2.

Thinking maybe the Ubuntu people had done it right and Debian was missing something I tried booting a Jaunty live cd. I also discovered the rather neat feature of suspend to disk (hibernate) in that you can hibernate your computer, boot off a live cd, use it, reboot and have your existing session come right back up normally on the next boot.

Anyway I booted up Jaunty and tried to authenticate, still failed in a similar manner to my Debian installation. Out of curiosity as I had heard of hardy working I booted my laptop on a hardy live cd. So network manager and iwlagn driver combined on either Debian sid or Ubuntu jaunty had failed to authenticate. Ubuntu hardy on the other hand, using an older version of network manager and the iwl4965 driver in the kernel worked fine. WPA2 authentication and use on the ANU Secure wireless network.

So now I need to find out where the regression has happened that means WPA2 is broken in more recent releases of the software (kernel drivers, wpa supplicant, network manager) on either Debian or Ubuntu.

[various] Sydney again this weekend

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:49:00

So this weekend I will head up to Sydney again. This time for a send off for a friend moving back to England and then hanging out with Jane on Sunday. Last time we found some pretty yummy Vegan friendly food, I hope we find some more new and interesting food this time round. Hope to have Sunday breakfast at Naked Espresso in Newtown as I forgot the name of the place last time and we ended up elsewhere.

Some mountain biking on Saturday at the send off, probably no exercise Sunday (unless we go swimming) (unlike last time), still it should be nice even if I have to deal with Sydney.

[mtb/events] Lots of time on foot

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:09:00

Yesterday I carried my Garmin in a jar in my backpack so I now know I did 42.8km in the 4h47 minutes spent moving during the metrogaine yesterday. In the end we came in 14 minutes late. After our score was adjusted for the loss of 140 points we had 830 points.

Early on in the event my camelback bladder burst when I slipped walking down off Mt Ainslie and landed on the backpack. Fortunately our course was taking us around 500 metres from my house so we made a detour 20 minutes later and I got a new bladder and changed out of my soaked jersey. Later on on Black Mountain we made a small nav error coming down from the summit trail looking for a 40 point control. We started looking for it too early above the fire roads. It took us about 8 minutes of searching and looking at land features to realise they did not match, look closer at the map and realise we had to head down another 100 metres in a gully to find the control.

Paul was a strong team mate and we got through the day well, today I hurt a lot I can definitely feel I did something on the weekend.

[mtb/events] Some races this weekend

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:01:00

Today I went out to sparrow hill and raced in the CORC 3 hour race at Sparrow Hill, it was kind of fun. Though my lack of long rides in the last year or two shows, I was pretty good for 2 hours keeping my speed up and heart rate above 150, then my last two and a half laps I just did not have any oomph left in me to go hard. Still a good event, huge turnout, thanks to Paul, Sue, Sherri, Russ, etc for putting it on and to Kent and Bec for the coffee and Leanne for the food out there.

Tomorrow I will be doing the 2009 ACTRA Metrogaine with a friend Paul. As Paul is fit and keen to have a good crack at it I suspect we will both be pushing ourselves pretty hard for the 5 hours of the event. Ahh well I need to do more stuff like races this weekend to HTFU from time to time I think. Fun has been and will be had.

[various] ROUS exist, how cool

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:08:00

An unusual seeming pet but I was excited to see that it seems R.O.U.S exist for real. Anyone out there want a 100lb rat as a pet? (ahh princess bride moments that could happen for real, what entertainment there is in the world)

[various] Some amusing cartoons in The Australian

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:29:00

The Australian pocket cartoon 2009-06-23

Two days in a row now I have had a good laugh at the small pocket cartoon on the front page of The Australian newspaper. Today was the the cartoon on the left, yesterday was Rudd suggesting Swan can at least use the ute to clear out his office.

In the context of the cartoon today it is interesting to see the Sauce bottle language has gotten some international coverage.

[mtb/events] Fairy Geo - Geoquest Half 2009

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:12:00

The snake I stepped on (fullsize)

Okay so the name Fairy Geo may not be entirely fair, however I heard Pete (from Entropic who won the half) start using the term (largely due to the Fairy Bells at Hells Bells) and I liked it. This year I had no plan to enter the full Geo, so when my cousin Scott asked me to be on his team I was kind of interested. Largely because the race was not at all daunting or challenging sounding to only do the half with a team not trying to go faster than the full course teams.

So I went up there last weekend and had a fun 29 hours of racing. Both my team mate Greg and I took photos which I have uploaded to a 2009 Geoquest Photos page, thanks to Scott, Greg and Su for a good race. Many thanks to Kim and Terry for support and I hope everyone enjoyed it, I did.

[mtb] Reasons for O pants

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:33:00

Evidence of forgotten equipment (fullsize)

At home I have Orienteering pants, Gore Tex gators, Cycling Leg warmers and a few other options for covering my legs when Rogaining, or racing. These are all good items of clothing to have and most useful to keep your legs from getting too scratched. It helps even more when you do not leave them all in Canberra when heading off for a race.

Look at the photo and guess what clothing I left in Canberra this time round when I headed up for the Fairy Geo. My shins and other calf are also pretty bad, though none of the rather impressive lower scratch from sliding down a rock, which admittedly I would still have through O Pants. Maybe I should have had lists and more effective packing for the race. Still it was fun so what does it matter if I have battle scars, I hear chicks dig scars anyway...

[various] Raining on those adamant computers

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:38:00

This morning I headed out for the road ride as i tend to on Wednesday mornings. I had 10 minutes spare once I was dressed and ready to go so I switched the laptop on to check the weather forecast and radar. The Canberra radar was broken so I looked at the 256km image from Sydney. According to that image there was no rain (even light rain) near Canberra.

As I stepped out the door to get the bike from the garage and head out riding it was pretty damn wet with some precipitation falling. When I got to the ride Ron pointed out that my checking of the weather radar for conditions was a very geeky way to see if I should ride. I admit, through my extensive testing of the claim that it was not raining I had pretty much decided the claim was false by the time I got to Dickson.

We went riding and got pretty wet and cold anyway, however I was amused later to hear that Simon (jokingly I am sure) has on occasion checked the weather radar from his iphone while actually out riding in a group and claimed it was not raining due to the radar image even when the experienced evidence at that point in time said otherwise.

Of course computers are never wrong so we must believe what they say...

[comp/prog] An interesting languages comparison

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:45:00

I got the link to this from Tony and it is interesting to see the results of these tests. The speed, size and dependability of programming languages uses code from the Computer Language Benchmarks Game to generate some information comparing many (72) different languages.

Back in 1999 and 2000 I put a pretty trivial example of a single problem being solved in multiple languages online. In this case scanning html for entities, largely because I was mildly interested in how different languages and the different implementations of them may solve the same problem and the time it would take. I say mildly interested because it is such a trivial example and because I did not put much effort in. (I was amazed a few weeks ago to get an email from someone rerunning these to see if recent Java implementations had caught up to c yet).

The person who wrote this speed, size and dependability post put a lot more effort in and actually was able to draw some interesting conclusions about languages and how they work and develop over time. For the geeks out there I recommend having a look.

[various] The Annual May Zombie post

Thu, 28 May 2009 17:46:00

Keeping with the tradition I guess I should do something about zombies this May. It has been strange to watch, it seems zombie news has been jumping out at me all month, from seeing a friend post a zombie referencing photo and some mention of a zombie group somewhere on facebook to the various metafilter and boingboing zombie links this month.

However a recent post on boingboing has got to be the best so far this month, in the fun ilk of Randall Munroe's limerick db (hilarious stuff there) is a large collection of Zombie Haiku. To win a copy of the game Plants vs Zombies (also appearing on there this May) readers were asked to submit Zombie Haiku in the comments.

And remember

Brains are delicious,
However, I must warn you,
Shotgun blasts are not...

[leisure/screen] The reboot worked

Tue, 19 May 2009 13:18:00

I mentioned a while back after seeing some movies that I was keen to see another one to see if the reboot of the universe worked. I saw the new Star Trek last night and what can I say, on the whole it rocked. The characters really came across as we would expect them to.

Bones was my favourite TOS character and in the new movie, Bones is awesome and cool and completely and utterly what I would expect him to be like. I was entertained to see Chris Pine even got the slouch in the captains chair looking like TOS Kirk, Scotty was great and even though it bought the characters together in a different way it all seemed to fall out well. I tend to agree with many comments suggesting the Uhura/Spock thing was a bit weird, but it did not detract from the rest of the movie too much.

I saw the movie with a friend who was not particularly keen on seeing it, but thought it was potentially going to be good, she was blown away with how much fun it was and how good the movie was. Definitely worth seeing I think.

[mtb/events] 2009 ACT Cyclegaine

Mon, 18 May 2009 16:15:00

Yesterday Keith, Danielle and I competed together in the 2009 ACT Cyclegaine. I took some photos (not many) I have uploaded. I think we came 4th over all and 3rd mixed team (just a bit behind Wayne and Matt in mens, behind Randall, Selina and Mark in mixed and a long long way behind an on fire Chris, Nathan and Heather also in mixed).

A fun day out on the bikes in perfect Autumn weather and enjoying the Cotter Dam/Pierces Creek area in ACT.

[mtb/gear] One handjob ready to roll

Sat, 16 May 2009 18:22:00

Ready to roll on the handjob (fullsize)

I am doing a cyclegaine tomorrow, however I rode the pink bike on Friday morning and had some problems with the setup, so I finally spent a few hours today and moved all the bits across to the new frame. Here it is ready to roll.

[mtb/gear] More evidence of the hard life of a mountain bike

Sat, 16 May 2009 12:40:00

So I stripped down my geared mtb today in order to change over to the new frame and looking at the old pink frame it really does show evidence of a lot of hard use. Similar to my comments in October 2006 with even more KM put into the bike.

[various] Lake water testing and areas

Fri, 15 May 2009 11:41:00

Over summer (and now into winter this year) there are regular water quality tests of Lake Burley Griffin, testing for Blue Green Algae or other hazardous things in the water. The National Capital Authority manage the lake and provide media releases with the water quality test results. (for example the 14th May 2009 Release)

The thing I noticed is if you do not know the boundaries of each area of the lake or what the parts of the lake are called these may not make much sense. So I went looking for maps, I found some descriptions of the regions on the Wikipedia article which helped. Still no good map was found until I stopped searching for terms such as tarcoola reach on the natcap site and Julie pointed out to me the page on their site about Lake Burley Griffin and Surrounding Parklands.

The map available on that page is not really large enough to read all the writing on it, however it shows enough detail to get a good idea of which areas you can use from lake closured. I have copied it to my server as the file is hidden behind some javascript view thing otherwise. I would love to see a larger version of this image (or a scalable version) if anyone knows where it is (possibly on display at Regatta Point I guess).

At least for now it appears we can still paddle down Yarramundi Reach from Yarralumla bay. If we get a bit of rain over the next few days and the weather remains cold we may even have the Algae levels lower enough to use the whole lake again for paddling. I am making this post largely so I remember where to find a map of the lake showing me what the names of the various areas are.

[comp/ip] More open source required in government

Thu, 14 May 2009 12:36:00

With the Diebold voting software fiascos in the US and other areas the past few years there has been a lot of proof that any voting systems on computers should be open source (even though governments around the world have not yet cottoned on to this). A few years ago (June 2005) I commented on some DUI charges being tossed out of a Florida court due to the lack of open source code available for the breathalysers. I followed on with mention of problems with speed cameras in Australia playing up also.

Today Schneier had some information on breathalysers that due to court orders finally had the source made available for some analysis. This is not the same breath test system as used in the Florida case from what I can tell at a glance (this was a New Jersey case), however it definitely opens your eyes once more on how crap closed source software can be (and yes I admit lots of open source software can also be crap) and you will have no idea, and no way to fix it. Any software used in law enforcement in such a way that it could be so incorrect or wrong and yet still cause someone to lose their licence or gain a criminal record really should be opened up, at least to the agency/government/force using the software, if not open to all people.

[various] Mothers day, how mum turned out to be a strong paddler

Tue, 12 May 2009 11:14:00

The last few years I have been to get Mum to come paddling with me at the Mother's Day Mayhem paddle race BGCC runs. Last year I had her convinced to come along until I broke my collar bone and the doctors said I could not paddle for 3 months. I discovered I could paddle again a week before mothers day however Mum was already booked up for a Golf competition she could not get out of at that point.

So this weekend past I finally was able to go and participate in the Mother's Day Mayhem event with her. I drove out to her place at 7:30am and made her pancakes (she fortunately quite likes pancakes I can eat made with soy milk, ground linseed and no eggs) then after breakfast we went over to Yerrabi pond where the event was being held this year as Lake Burley Griffin was still not open to secondary contact use in the river near the club shed.

Due to some confusion around the days paddling I was not sure if we were racing or just going for a leisurely paddle at first. I also did not know if we were paddling around the edge of the lake hugging the shore or coming back past the start area. So we started paddling and I saw the other boats go off with people paddling hard, so I picked up my pace and Mum simply matched. Way to go Mum.

After turning around the first island I started heading across the dam wall to hug the shore all the way around and another boat knowing where we were supposed to go headed back on the shorter course, so I turned there and caught back up. Mum was able to hold my fast stroke rate for almost the entire 2 km and we ended up coming home first. Way to go Mum, for someone who had never kayaked before and had not paddled a canoe for more than 20 years I was impressed.

After the paddle event we went back to Mum's place and then headed out so I could treat her to lunch.

To finish off the day I headed out to see Wolverine at Dendy with some friends. Fun and entertaining movie, nothing spectacular but good to watch none the less.

[various] A new bridge should be more useful.

Fri, 08 May 2009 15:22:00

I have been seeing all the discussion in the paper and other places about the potential new immigration bridge in Canberra for a few years. (I will not link to it as I do not like the currently mooted location, a quick google can find the website). I really can not see a reason to have a bridge (even one that will be pedestrian/cycle access only) from the NMA to Lennox Gardens.

I am firmly in the camp that if money and construction effort is to go into a pedestrian/cycle access bridge across the lake in Canberra it should be somewhere that genuinely would improve the cycling and pedestrian access to parts of the lake and Canberra. I know it is not visible from the centre of the city area or from central basin but I must say the only location that makes much sense to me is for a new bridge to go from Black Mountain Peninsula to Weston Park. Either of the crossing points on this map would be good.

Having a bridge across here would speed up access to many parts of the lake and Canberra and provide more route options for self propelled people to get around the city that would actually be useful. The other major advantage is that sail boats do not race down toward Yarrmundi reach thus the bridge may not have to be high enough for large sailboat mast clearance. However it is a much shorter span so it would be a lot cheaper no matter what height it had to go to.

Update: I have since first posting this heard that sailing does sometimes happen as far down the lake as the Governor General's place, thus a bridge built here would still need to accommodate masts passing under it. The span as noted is a lot shorter so it is still going to be cheaper here than at the currently mooted site.

[comp] Reminders and bugs

Wed, 06 May 2009 17:16:00

It is probably a bad thing, but while working on a Solaris system a fair bit recently I am reminded how much my head does not grok Solaris. I am so used to Linux and the Linux ways of finding information out about how to make it go that when I try to do things in Solaris it feels very foreign.

As for the bugs thing, I think there is a bug in the Ubuntu 9.04 libnss-ldap, I found a problem where it was not reading something configured by the install from ldap.conf and I need to do a little bit more testing before submitting a bug report.

[various] Mad about you or ACT Treasurer?

Mon, 04 May 2009 21:50:00

Is it just me or do others also think the ACT Treasurer bears a striking resemblance to Mad About You's female lead?

Especially with the stock photo of Minister Gallagher the Canberra Times uses fairly often such as is on the back page of the Canberra Times news section today.

[mtb/events] My first Yerrabi Multi sport

Sun, 03 May 2009 20:22:00

This is a race I have been keen on doing for a few years, however for a few reasons was unable to the last few years. I finally got my chance today, it was a perfect Canberra day, cold enough to go hard but sunny and calm. The results are up already along with a photo gallery.

I rode my cyclocross bike in the race and I think it was a perfect choice for this course, I managed to do the 28KM bike leg in just over 1 hour including transitions and felt pretty comfortable for the entire leg. My total time for the race was 2h8m (for a 4km run, 5km paddle, 28km mtb and 4km run) which I was fairly happy with. Fun was had, thanks to the local Sri Chinmoy Race Team for another good event.

[various] Check sooner next time

Sat, 02 May 2009 18:04:00

As D is getting back to the house tomorrow, Matt and I agreed it was time to turn the heating on for the winter. So I went to do that today and found it would not turn on. I mucked around resetting the unit many times. Turned the mains power off for a while. Tried a few more resets, even climbed into the roof to have a look at the unit and see if there was a reset button on it.

Previously we have had a number of problems with the heater in the house, though the one here now is a fairly new gas central heating unit so probably should not play up. Still stumped for what was wrong, I was reading the manual from the website for the heater and the error code was saying something about it not being able to light the heater from 4 attempts each time.

It finally occurred to me to go outside and look at the gas meter, and well what do you know the lever on the meter had the gas coming into the house turned off. You know what, heaters really will not light when there is no fuel available for them, kind of funny that. Next time I may try to remember to have a look there sooner, no idea why I just assumed it was still turned on from last year (though I do not remember ever turning it off).

[mtb] Lesser exercise week

Fri, 01 May 2009 21:14:00

After the fun wet and windy ADE last Saturday I had Sunday off exercise as the wind and conditions got worse I thought. This week on the whole I have had a lesser exercise load then many recent weeks, often recently I have been doing two sessions of some description most days. This week I have kept it at one until today.

Monday I headed out for a fun paddle in Matilda in the cold with one of my house mates, Tuesday I did the Bilbys track running session, Wednesday I did the morning road ride, Thursday I did the morning swim squad. Finally today I did the morning mtb ride and tonight did the evening swim squad. Feeling pretty good, will probably do a road ride tomorrow and then on Sunday I am competing in the Sri Chinmoy Yerrabi pond multi sport race which should be a bit of fun.

As for why I tend to be doing two things on many days the last few weeks I do not really know, I have no current goals in mind, though I guess it suits long term goals, I can simply tell anyone who asks why I am out exercising that it is Jindabyne Multisport prep. Today I also entered the Angry Doctor 100 KM mtb race AROC run in September which will be a nice wind down a week after the World Mountain Bike Championships are over in Canberra.

[mtb] Anzac Day Epic 2009

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:09:00

I missed the ADE last year, due to a broken collar bone and being up in northern NSW for Matt and Amanda's wedding on Anzac weekend. However in past years it has been a really enjoyable ride (I did not take photos in 2004). So today I was again happy to join in the fun that was the ADE.

My GPS trace from today is a nice 71km, I have not yet uploaded any photos, however Morgs has some online to show off the cold and wet and the fun too.

Turnout was reasonable considering the conditions, though the lack of Crash and JJJim was strange. People there were

Matt - Ibis carbon goodness
JJ - Ibis carbon goodness
Chris W - Ibis car...you get it
Sim - GT Dually
Steve - Steel hardtail
Deathmarch - Steel hardtail
McCook - Reign
McD - Epic of carboness
Adam, EHCW - Trance
Morgs - Nomad.

Fun was had.

[leisure/food] How many problems are ignored

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:29:00

So I just opened a tub of soy life soy yoghurt and found a large chunk of mold inside the sealed container, the tub is still well inside the used by date. However it would require so much effort to return it to place of purchase or send it in to the company that either produces (in this case) or imports it that I have chucked it in the bin and ignored the issue.

I do wonder how many people tend to do this, unless you get a repeat failure from some brand a few times it is far easier to simply go on with life and not spend the time making a customer complaint with such a small value item. It is only as the value of a failed item increases or the ease of making the complaint decreases that you would make the effort. Of course everyone will have a different graph of where these things go and the area under which you would make the effort.

[comp/blosxom] Another change to cache_timestamps for perl 5.10

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:28:00

Upgrading this server to lenny I finally have perl 5.10 on the system, this caused a problem with my blosxom plugin cache_timestamps. Using File::Find I previously had a sub routine wanted defined inside a scope with some variables available in that scope. However on upgrading to 5.10 this no longer worked.

It used to be something like this

{
   my (%h1,%h2);
   sub wanted {
      $h1{$File::Find::name} = "someval";
   }
   find (&wanted, "topdir");
}

However when I changed to perl 5.10 though the assignment seemed to work (blosxom runs without -w or use strict enabled) if I tried to display %h1 inside wanted or tried to use it like a hash I got a weird error "Bizarre copy of HASH in refgen" at the line of code I tried to use the variable as a hash. Looking at other uses of File::Find it seems everyone used anonymous subroutines from the call to find. I have changed the code to do the following.

{
   my (%h1,%h2);
   find (sub {
      $h1{$File::Find::name} = "someval";
   }, "topdir");
}

And now the hashes are in scope and not some so called Bizarre copy any more. The code for the cache_timestamps plugin can be found here and details about cache_timestamps are in my comp/blosxom category.

Update: found some details, rather than searching for the error message I started searching for variable scope changes in 5.10. Found this page talking about state variables being available in 5.10 as my variables are not persistent across scope changes.

[mtb/events] Morning run in Sydney

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 09:14:00

So because I am in Sydney for the weekend and still wanted to do some exercise I asked my friend Zoe if she was keen on a run somewhere over the weekend. She said she was keen to head out with the Sydney Striders for their Iron Cove Bolter run and cut it short to have a 20 km run. This sounded good so we headed over there this morning for the 6am start.

Starting with the slow group we had a pleasant 20.7km of running at 5:40 pace chatting with the people there and enjoying the cool nice running conditions the morning had dished up for us. Now for the rest of the day in Sydney after some good morning exercise.

[leisure/food] Some Sydney food

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:17:00

As it was Jane's birthday recently I thought I would find the first weekend I could and head up to Sydney to hang out with her for a weekend. As Jane is a big fan of breakfast out and as I liked the chance to find some more Vegan friendly eating while up here we have eaten out for breakfast and lunch today.

First off we headed to a place in Newtown called Macro Cafe, the coffee was alright, although it was not a Vegetarian place they did have scrambled tofu for breakfast. Jane had a mushroom dish which had goat cheese and some other stuff, according to her it was remarkably not good for the ingredients. My scrambled tofu was alright but something was off about the spice or way it was served and it was not as good as I come to expect in many Melbourne Cafes.

Lunch on the other hand was had in Glebe at Iku Wholefood on Glebe Point road, a chain of stores around Sydney (10 all up), they are a Vegan cafe, with a whole variety of interesting and yummy mains and desserts ("cheesecake" made vegan with tofu and other yummy ingredients for example). I had a rather yummy tofu pocket and a pasta based fritata. Jane had a bean and rice dish with two different flavoured pinto bean dishes, the sweet potato and arame was really good and the pinto bean tomato casserole was also enjoyable. Yummmmmmm.

I wonder what we will do for breakfast tomorrow...

[mtb/events] First 24 hour race since February 2006

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:12:00

Well that was interesting, due to being involved with organising CORC events and generally only travelling long distances for Adventure Races or the Gravity 12 hour, I had not competed in a 24 hour mountain bike race since February 2006 (when I raced in the NZ0 24 Hour race in Rotorua, NZ). So this weekend I lined up to compete in the 24 hour race out at Sparrow hill that had nothing to do with CORC.

I was in a 4 person team with Marea (with whom I have competed in Polaris many times), Ian (Marea's partner, who has raced the Scott 24 hour solo and other such things) and an ex Canberra now Brisbane mtber Ged. All was going fairly well until Ian after doing 1 lap on Saturday decided he just could not get his head around the idea of racing 24 hour races any more and wanted to simply do other riding, thus he was not keen to ride any more. This left us as a 3 person team.

I headed out for my 4th and 5th night laps doing a double at around 10pm with our new race plan to do doubles until around 4:30am then singles until dawn and maybe get a friend, Dave A, to ride some laps on Ian's bike in the daylight. However while I was doing my double lap Marea and Ged decided we should rest overnight. I was not incredibly keen on many more night laps so we all went to sleep for a few hours. In the end I rode 6 laps, a total riding time of around 5h40m and felt alright afterwards, though a little bit flat and energy drained today.

Paul set a fantastic course and the rain dump on Friday night was perfectly timed, there was no dust all weekend and the course was tacky and cornering was fast and secure the whole race. I rode one lap on the single speed, however with the chain coming off three times I discovered I needed to take a link out of the chain to get enough tension into it, I did not feel like doing that so rode the geared bike the rest of the time at the race. I was reminded that a duallie would have been faster as you can keep full power down the whole time over bumpy terrain, however it was one of the best hardtail courses around anyway especially with good line choice.

[leisure/screen] Recent movies

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:06:00

I have seen two movies in the last week or so, first was Watchmen a week or so ago and then last night Duplicity. I liked them both quite a lot. Watchmen had some patently silly scenes and some things that did not quite work, however on the whole I liked the effect of the movie. Even at 2h40m in length it felt a little bit rushed trying to tell it all, however it does make me stop and think about a lot of the stuff they wanted to push through, the style of the film was interesting too, I think they did the 1985 and the historical montages well and also brought through the characters well. Strangely being a comics geek I have never gotten around to reading Watchmen.

Duplicity was also good, I have a habit of spoiling movies and have to work hard to stop myself spoiling this one. I think it is let down a bit in that it is a little bit hard to care about any of the characters, however the twists are fun and the premise is entertaining and carried out well. Next on the movie agenda I think I will in fact make the effort to go and see the new Star Trek movie, I did not bother seeing the last one, however I look forward to seeing if this reboot of the universe works somehow or not.

[mtb] Swimming injuries

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:00:00

Continuing my tales of silly injuries, today I have nasty bruising on my left hand from swimming last night. One would think at swimming speeds (rather than high dive from 10 metres up speed) water is fairly harmless and soft, thinking that you are quite correct. The lane ropes at the pool are unfortunately less soft, in a squad session trying to stick to the left of the lane I have a habit of not keeping my arms quite high enough on exit from the water and hence whack my left hand often on the rope.

In the lead up to Jindabyne I noticed my left hand was often swollen on top from this making my bike gloves feel tight on my left hand. I am sure I will stop getting this bruising as much as I swim more and get more used to being in the pool over time.

On another note, I was glancing through some old entries on my diary and noticed one that fairly nicely shows how little I ride these days compared with times in the past. As noted the other day I have not done many days over 100km in the last 18 months (the ride up to Corin on Sunday just now was fortunately another one clocking in at 105km). Back in September 2004 I commented on getting my km count up from a week of only riding 230 km during the Monday to Friday week, so I headed out on the weekend to clock up 281km (175 on road bike and 106 on the mtb) over the two weekend days for a week total of 511km.

[mtb/gear] Hanging bikes or using shed space effectively.

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 18:48:00

Bikes on the left (fullsize)

Bikes in the middle (fullsize)

Bikes on the right (fullsize)

Bike hooks (fullsize)

So when Danielle moved in to the house here recently the number of bikes increased, then another new housemate moved in who also has some bikes. I finally needed to get around to making the storage of bikes and access to them in the shed more effective. I have been thinking of doing this for years and with lots more bikes in the shed being used I finally got around to it this weekend.

I have 4 bikes I use daily (hardtail mtb, cyclo cross/road bike, single speed mtb, fixie road bike) and another hardtail mtb in working order. I also have an old unisex pub bike sort of thing in the shed and my old road bike sans front wheel, so 7 bikes to get out of the way somewhere. Danielle has 3 bikes in daily usage (dual suspension good mtb, hardtail mtb and new road bike). She also has 2 older bikes she will soon sell. Matt has 2 bikes in daily sort of usage (mtb with slicks and a road bike).

Allan and other friends have erected hooks in their bike rooms or sheds to hang bikes up by a wheel and they then take up less space but are all still easily accessed. I had a look at distances needed between bikes and worked out I can probably hang 12 bikes along one end of the shed. I should dispose of the old pub bike thing and also do something about my old road bike (frame needs repair so not using it). Also I will probably soon loan my spare hardtail mtb to a friend for an extended period. However I have them all up there for now as proof of concept for 12 at once.

The hardware I bought was 2 3 metre lengths of wood to screw into the shed roof beams (cost $15 or $7.50 each), 12 hooks at $6.32 each a packet of 9cm screws (only needed 8) for mounting the wood to the beams ($22.97) and a packet of shorter timber screws for screwing the hooks into the timber ($9.23) and 3 metres of clear vinyl tubing to fit around the hooks to protect the rims. A total cost of AUD $135.01 for the lot.

I bought this at the hardware store yesterday (a mountain biker hang out it seems as I saw Morgs and Joo there and later also so Madge there) and after getting home from a road ride today put it all together. Works a treat as you can see from the photos. Thanks to Danielle for the help putting it up there.

[leisure/books] My geek credentials in question

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:38:00

I have been rereading some of my Terry Pratchet Discworld books the last few weeks and I realised I have not read some of those I am likely to enjoy. Vimes and watch books tend to be my favourite and yet I do not have Thud! or Night Watch and have not read them. Others I expect I would like that I do not have are Making Money (I liked Going Postal so expect I will enjoy this), Thief of Time and Interesting Times and the two alternate format books ~~Faust~~ Eric and The Last Hero.

I own two of the witch books but have never yet been able to read more than the first few pages without getting bored and putting them down, so I doubt I have any interest in those I do not have. Anyway thinking I should attempt to rectify this lack of ownership involving some good Pratchett books I headed out to Canty's second hand book shop in Fyshwick today to see if they had any of those I do not have to buy. Alas it seems their Pratchett stocks were low as only two of the YA books were there and nothing else. I guess it is probably time to trawl through some of the other second hand book shops in Canberra, if only I can find the time.

I wonder if my geek credentials should be called into question for not having them all?

[mtb/events] Jindabyne Multisport Classic 2009

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:28:00

Last year I wrote one of my longish and reasonably detailed reports about this race. This year I managed to finish the event solo, however do not feel like writing too much about it. As always the Jindabyne Multisport Classic (they called it a classic, even the first year they ran it...) is a fantastic event. After being pulled out of the water more than 11 hours in during the final swim unable to breathe and cramping up last year I really wanted to finish.

Fortunately I did, though I did not speed up much on last year. I felt fantastic for the first 6 or 7 hours of this race, then sometime during the long run up to sawpit I no longer felt I had enough left in the tank to go hard. I had been hoping that pacing myself I might finally feel I could start putting some effort in at this point, however I was unable to get my HR over 130 for the rest of the race and pretty much crawled all the way to the finish.

Once again my worst leg was definitely swimming, compared with good swimmers in the solo field, such as Alex, I lost almost an hour. Looking at times for excellent swimmers such as Shanyn I lost more, however I can not imagine I will ever swim as well as she does, and I was racing solo anyway. My current plan, rather than stopping swimming again until I start getting ready for this event again next year is to continue to go to at least one coached squad session every week.

On a seeming tangent now, I notice in my GPS/HR training data that since I bought the Garmin in August 2007 I have the distances of all sessions I have done (riding, running, paddling) listed to inspect and view the maps and data from. In that time I have only done a session in which I travelled more than 100KM on 6 occasions. This is pretty pathetic when you consider how easy it is for me to do a road ride over 100 KM. Two of these sessions were the Hawkesbury classic paddle race in 2007 and the Jindabyne race I just finished on Sunday. So I think we can see when compared to how I used to do long road rides at least once a week, generally a longish mountain bike ride every fortnight or so my riding is definitely down on what it once was. Sure I kayak and run now days but none of them tend to be longer than 2 hours very often.

Getting back to the race I think my body just was not ready for more than 6 hours non stop and was not working as well as it could after that time. Also the multi discipline nature of the event was something I had not prepared for well in the lead up. For next year I will definitely need to do more long stuff and make sure I am feeling more ready for such a long stretch out there at intensity.

I must thank my support crew, Kerry, for her help all day. She did a spectacular job and was organised all day and got kept me going despite never having done support like this before, also thanks to Ron for helping her out most of the day. Without their help and some generous help from many others I would not be able to do the event solo.

I did do more swim training before the race this year and I think it showed as I was able to get out of the swims reasonably fresh feeling and was not even the slowest solo competitor in them all. The long ride though I was once more crawling through it, really is spectacular and I recommend it to any mountain bikers who like epic feeling bike legs and big hills and alpine country. The long run is also though a really lovely walking track and when not suffering worth admiring.

Race coverage wise, I have a few photos on my camera but am being a bit lazy to upload them. Sri Chinmoy's gallery page for the event has a fair few (those with me in them are finishing the second bike, transitioning to long run, start of first run, background behind Libby running, start of fun (techy) bike leg, running through Thredbo river picnic area, first swim start with Julie and Alex and getting out of a swim.

There are good shots there of Alex (who won solo mens) and Julie (won solo womens) and a lot of my other friends up there racing. Also there was a professional photographer up there, Greg Long and his event photos are pretty good.

Anyway I enjoyed the event and have a definite interest in trying to do better next year, a spectacular (and hard) day out. I still think more people should enter, it is more fun than Triple Tri, shorter legs, better scenery, something different (though triple tri is itself a lot of fun). Also more solos would be cool (lets hope Zoe, Danielle, Libby and others may be keen to enter next year so it is not just Julie in womens).

[mtb/gear] How could I say no

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:17:00

Sassy Pink Handjob (fullsize)

My primary geared bike, the bender bicycles steel mtb has now undergone two fixes, the paint job looks kind of ratty and I notice Richard recently retired his KHS steel HT. I have put a lot of hard riding onto this bike and though still nice to ride I had been from time to time looking for another frame just out of interest.

Then I saw this Cove Handjob, in my size selling for AUD $480 in sassy pink colour. How could I say no, it arrived this morning. I probably should not swap the frames before the Jindabyne multisport race on Sunday, after all riding a new frame I am not used to with different geometry and feel may not be the best idea. Tempting to do it now, but I will probably wait until next weekend.

[various] New not leather work shoes

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:49:00

Non leather Salomon work shoes (fullsize)

Usually a photo such as that to the left would appear in my mtb/gear category, however although they are a Salomon walking shoe with the Salomon quick lace system, I purchased these to wear at work.

Because I am lazy and often tend to be changing into bike shoes and back into work shoes a lot during the day I like having slip on shoes at work. Thus most sneakers with laces annoy me. However to get a pair of slip on shoes that I can wear at work with shorts or jeans means I am limiting my choices a bit.

However the other problem I face is I do not want to buy a new pair of leather or similar animal product based shoes. My running shoes, cycling shoes and other shoes I tend to wear are all synthetic. Vegan Wares in Melbourne do not have a slip on shoe that is not formal looking and thus nothing I would want to wear at work.

I already have some Salomon shoes and like the lacing system for ease and speed of use so it occurred to me I could probably wear them if I could find a pair that were not to obviously an all out racing/running shoe. The XA Pro 3D running shoes come in black so were one option. However I noticed the Fury and the Fusion 2 models on the Salomon website both had non leather uppers and the quick lace system. The pair that is available in Australia (Fusion 2, the more expensive model) is a walking shoe, they do not look quite so much like a running shoe and thus I thought I could wear them for work.

They cost a bit (AUD $225) but hopefully will last a while and they satisfy my requirements.

[mtb] Missing swims

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:46:00

Most weeks recently I have been getting along to the Friday evening Bilbys swim squad and other than that getting out for a swim on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This stems from doing lake swims on those days, then when the lake was closed for swimming I simply kept those times at the pool by myself. I have stretching class at lunch on Monday and Wednesday. On Wednesday evenings I do the paddling time trial, and as I swim Friday evening I do not want to do extra swimming that day.

This week I have not been able to swim on either Tuesday or Thursday, though I had been planning to, I simply ended up with too much stuff I was doing out of the office on both days, a lot of it for CORC, that I could not justify being out of the office for a whole additional hour for a swim session. I should have made the effort to swim on Monday after work, however hindsight is always useful this way. A week and a half to go before Jindabyne now, I just have to hope I am relaxed and comfortable enough with the swimming to get through all three and not lose pace too much.

I suspect the hardest will again be the final swim just trying not to cramp and make it through that one will be a big challenge, I already tend to cramp up very easily swimming and once more staying hydrated at Jindabyne will be a constant battle.

This week the Wednesday night paddle time trial did not happen at the club as molonglo reach was also closed to secondary contact sports. A few of us were hoping to do a time trial on the rowing course on the lake as that is open, however it was one of the windiest days in recent times yesterday and there were white caps on the rowing course so when we got there it we were not venturing out of the safety of the sheltered areas.

The normal paddle time trial is 9.6km on the gps. The rowing course is 1.8km so 6 laps of it (3 times out and back) would have been 10.8km, so if it had been nice and calm it would have been a tougher race than we normally do. Ahh well maybe some other time that will work as a replacement race.

Even though there was no group run on Tuesday I still had a good run from home to the top of Mt Ainslie and back via Dickson ovals. That I was able to keep running all the way up and hold a reasonable pace (even though HR was above 170) actually makes me feel I should be alright on the long run at Jindabyne next weekend.

With the long weekend coming up, I hope to get a few good sessions in, Sam is keen to do some long stuff on Saturday (maybe a run, a paddle and a ride if she can leave Ben with the kids for that much of the day, we will see). I was keen to do the AROC urban race on this weekend however almost none of my friends seem to be interested in it this year which is most unusual. Danealle and Danielle are doing it but everyone else seemed a bit hohum and are off doing other stuff.

[mtb] Still not running enough

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:44:00

I know the runs at Jindabyne are short, however I still need to do a bit more in the coming two weeks to be in better shape for them I think. After coming back to Canberra from Tasmania I did not run much for two and a half weeks as it was too hot. Right now my running form is pretty bad, on the ARNuts run with Mark and Heather on Tuesday, doing a pretty easy sort of pace and not doing too many stupid steep hills (a surprise when Mark is on a run, what with his claim that there is no such thing as a bad hill) and my pace was really low for where my heart rate was sitting.

Wednesday afternoon at the paddle time trial the wind was pretty nasty and slowing everyone down a bit, then I got a 50cm stick caught in my rudder somehow and the boat was not steering properly. So I stopped to get it out, thus my pace was way off, so I kept t slower for the rest of the time trial and was 3 minutes slower than the past two weeks. (actually 4 minutes slower if time stopped is included)

Yesterday's swim however felt pretty good, well by that I mean my lats and forearms were sore afterwards, which I hope means I am working my arms better in the water and getting more forward motion happening. I do not feel up to a lunch time run today, so will need to head out for at least one longish run on the weekend I think. Probably going to head out on the road bike in the morning, to see Libby's new road bike and to do some hills. Tomorrow arvo I want to make it over to Stromlo to check out some stuff at the Stromlo Running festival, I may ride there for that. Nothing else is set in stone yet.

[leisure/books] Stardust comparison

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:56:00

I have often said how I am a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, when the Stardust movie was released I went to see it and loved it, however I had never read the book. I bought the book just before Christmas (not the illustrated one) and this week finally got around to reading it. Last night I read until I finished and was up too late to get up at 5:30am to head out for the road ride.

It is interesting to see how much the stories diverge in places and yet how they tell the same story well and also how good they both are. The stories are different and the movie definitely has a slightly more Hollywood sort of end. The book, though short, provides a lot of detail that can back up the movie well, it also deals with conflicts differently. I also think it makes more sense at the end how Tristran and Yvaine travel together (although the movie does not explicitly say that did not happen, so again it is just an extra detail that may not have made sense squeezing it into the movie.

The flying ship is not quite such a large part of the book, however I think that is partly because they had Robert Deniro in the movie and wanted to do a lot more with him. Anyway I love both the book and the movie and recommend them both highly as good entertainment.