Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Ride home for Wednesday, 30 August

Picked up the bike after work, the total came to just under $120 - they were able to salvage the hub from the old wheel so I got some credit for that. I rode the bike home pretty carefully, as I wanted to make sure there was nothing else hosed, everything seemed OK though.

Distance logged: 17.692km
Time: 50:33
Average speed: 21km/hr
Max speed: 55.2 km/hr
Temperature: 23C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 5281.289km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.44
Monthly distance: 782.764km
Monthly cost per km: $0.36

Ride into work for Wednesday, 30 August

Rode in and with time to spare I rode across the bridge and back. Unfortunately, coming off the bridge onto Barrington, a car decided to switch lanes and be in the same lane as me. I swerved off to the side and landed heavily in a pothole doing 50km/hr. I managed to ride most of the way on Barrington before my front tyre completely flatted, I pulled over and walked the rest of the way to Cogswell Tower. The rear rim had a massive dent in it, about 6cm long and dented in at the worst part by about 5mm. The front rim had a smaller dent but was pinch flatted. I dropped the bike off at IdealBikes on my way over to Dutch Village and asked them to try fixing it, but if it was unfixable, put a new wheel on there - handily enough, Roger had just finished building up a rim.

Distance logged: 18.483km
Time: 41:49
Average speed: 26.5km/hr
Max speed: 62.1 km/hr
Temperature: 13C-14C,sunny
Cumulative distance: 5263.597km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.42
Monthly distance: 765.072km
Monthly cost per km: $0.21

Ride home for Monday, 28 August

After the sprog's visit to the hospital where we learned he'd picked up a virus, it seems like he passed it on to me. As soon as I got to work I headed home again and spent the next 48 hours or so sleeping...

Distance logged: 16.522km
Time: 48:49
Average speed: 20.3km/hr
Max speed: 58.2 km/hr
Temperature: 14C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 5245.114km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.42
Monthly distance: 746.589km
Monthly cost per km: $0.22

Ride into work for Monday, 28th August

Distance logged: 16.037km
Time: 42:12
Average speed: 22.8km/hr
Max speed: 63 km/hr
Temperature: 10C,sunny
Cumulative distance: 5228.592km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.42
Monthly distance: 730.067km
Monthly cost per km: $0.22

Ride for Saturday, 26 August

Rode down to Bedford for a Dr's appointment and back home again.

Distance logged: 28.732km
Time: 67:49
Average speed: 25.4km/hr
Max speed: 56 km/hr
Temperature: 14C-17C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 5212.555km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.42
Monthly distance: 714.030km
Monthly cost per km: $0.23

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Critical Mass for Friday, 25 August

Went to IdealBikes after work and took some pictures of bikes, the went on to the Critical Mass at Victoria Park. There were a lot more people there than last month, and just to add to the fun there was a flea market that was just starting to close up as I arrived at 6. I didn't count the numbers myself, but I overheard someone commenting they'd counted up to 60 and lost count.

There were a lot of people there for whom this was their first Critical Mass, it looks like Peter (and his weapon of mass tape dispensation he had attached to his belt with chain) had done a great job spreading the news. Jessie, one of the first timers there commented how Peter had got his bike three times, though he admitted that riding an anonymous CCM bike didn't help.

We set off and rode a fairly winding course, mostly around downtown Halifax past all the bars. There were lots of tourists standing on the sidewalk looking dumbfounded taking pictures, but the people in the bars seemed to take it pretty well, with one wag calling out "more beer less cars". The ride was a little on the slow side, trundling along at 10-15km/hr, although it sped up at the end going downhill on Agricola. We finished at the Citadel, most people left at this point but a few of use went riding round the Citadel a few times.

Martin had organised an afterparty at his house, so I headed back to his place with him, Jessie, Peter, and a few of the other guys. The highlight there was Kwa (I think that was his name) and his fixie; on the freewheel on his flipflop hub he had welded some lengths of chain and wired them together, then put some red LED lights on the hub. The effect was an impressive flickering lightshow when riding, as the LEDs flashed going round the hub with the lengths of chains adding a "double-flicker" effect - a really nice look! I'm tempted to look into doing a simulation to see if it would be possible to create a static image somehow with the same effect on one of my bikes withouth having to use a singlespeed bike. Kwa mentioned that Mark Beaver at Cyclesmith had said he was "going to hell" for doing this, so he decided to name the bike "Heathen".

It started really cooling down at this point, and I was starting to tire after too many late nights and early mornings with the sprog, so I made my apologies and left. I started warming up on the way home, and finally got in around 11.

Martin mentioned that there would also be a "midnight mystery bike ride" on the second Friday in September (the 8th). I might get the hybrid all decked out with lights and attend...

Pictures of the Critical Mass can be viewed here.

Distance logged: 27.116km
Time: 123:04
Average speed: 13.2km/hr
Max speed: 52.9 km/hr
Temperature: 20C-13C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 5183.823km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 685.298km
Monthly cost per km: $0.24

Friday, August 25, 2006

Ride into work for Friday, 25 August

Chilly ride in, the single digit temperatures are showing autumn and winter are on their way.

Distance logged: 15.865km
Time: 39:30
Average speed: 24.1km/hr
Max speed: 58.6 km/hr
Temperature: 9C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 5156.707km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 658.182km
Monthly cost per km: $0.25

Ride home for Thursday, 24 August

Another quiet ride home, not as many cyclists out this afternoon though - perhaps it was a bit too windy...

Saw a poster for a ZombieWalk on my way home. I couldn't make this stuff up.

Distance logged: 18.356km
Time: 46:38
Average speed: 23.6km/hr
Max speed: 55.2 km/hr
Temperature: 20C, sunny, breezy
Cumulative distance: 5140.842km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 642.317km
Monthly cost per km: $0.25

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Ride into work for Thursday, 24 August

Late start this morning as the sprog had febrile seizures from a virus and had to be blued into hospital. We got home around 10am and he went to sleep (and probably still is asleep....) and I got changed and headed into work. Found a door open onto the carpark on the storage level where I keep my bike and got hopeful I could escape out there instead of going down the stairs, but talking to the builder who was working on it it's a locked alarmed door. Still, it was worth a try...

Distance logged: 17.367km
Time: 41:14
Average speed: 25.3km/hr
Max speed: 67.5 km/hr
Temperature: 16C, breezy
Cumulative distance: 5122.486km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 623.961km
Monthly cost per km: $0.26

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Ride home for Wednesday, 23 August

Nice sunny ride home, there were a lot of cyclists out today; I think every road I was on I saw a cyclist. Should be interesting to see how many turn up at Critical Mass on Friday...

My latest order arrived from Probikekit today. I got a new waterproof high visibility jacket (virulently high visibility, at that - my wife recoiled in shock when she first saw it), a new set of glasses, spoke wrenches, cable ends, and a set of brake and gear cables for road and mountain bike which were on special offer with the cable ends. I'm now slightly looking forward to the next downpour to see how the jacket performs...

Distance logged: 16.595km
Time: 43:44
Average speed: 22.8km/hr
Max speed: 57.3 km/hr
Temperature: 22C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 5105.119km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 606.594km
Monthly cost per km: $0.27

Ride into work for Wednesday, 23 August

I was happy to see after last night's forecast from Environment Canada of rain today (and pretty much the whole of the rest of the week) it mysteriously changed to sunshine for the rest of the week. Of course, this being Atlantic Canada, it could change to a sudden forecast of snow for tomorrow...

Another fast ride in and across the bridge and back, but not as fast as yesterday as I couldn't draft of a truck. I think I saw one of the Affordable Rides guys in full-on mountain bike armour and full-face helmet - he gave me a salute as he passed me, and I grinned back at him.

Distance logged: 21.955km
Time: 50:41
Average speed: 26km/hr
Max speed: 69.3 km/hr
Temperature: 14C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 5088.524km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.42
Monthly distance: 589.999km
Monthly cost per km: $0.16

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Ride home for Tuesday, 22 August

Nice ride home with nothing of note to mention. Came back via the farmer's market as I needed to pick up some groceries, hence the extra mileage.

Distance logged: 21.468km
Time: 54:51
Average speed: 23.5km/hr
Max speed: 57.7 km/hr
Temperature: 26C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 5066.569km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.42
Monthly distance: 568.044km
Monthly cost per km: $0.17

Halifax bike happenings

For anyone in Halifax... Here's what I know that's coming up.

* Friday 25th August, Critical Mass ride. Meet at Victoria Park at the corner of Spring Garden and South Park St at 6pm, for a set-off at 6:30.

* Sunday 10th September, Aeolian Ride. Meet at Halifax North Public Library, 2285 Gottingen Street (signup required at the Aeolian website ahead of time).

Anyone know of any others coming up? Feel free to add them in the comments...

Ride into work for Tuesday, 22 August

Fast ride in, so I decided to go over the bridge and back. Ended up drafting off a transport truck all the way through downtown, which was fun. Strange how cars don't seem to realise bikes can quite easily trundle along at 50km/hr...

Distance logged: 21.981km
Time: 50:07
Average speed: 26.3km/hr
Max speed: 72 km/hr
Temperature: 16C, cloudy
Cumulative distance: 5045.101km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.42
Monthly distance: 546.576km
Monthly cost per km: $0.17

Monday, August 21, 2006

Ride home for Monday, 21 August

Took the short way home today as I was carrying a PC home on my rack. I grabbed a box at work to stuff it in, and I swung by IdealBikes and picke dup a bunch of dead tubes from the dead tube box. The final result that I carried home (including two full panniers) looked like this:







Perhaps a little bit on the ghetto side, but I got the PC home safe and sound, so it worked a charm.

Distance logged: 9.984km
Time: 35:15
Average speed: 17km/hr
Max speed: 53.3 km/hr
Temperature: 22C, cloudy
Cumulative distance: 5023.120km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 524.595km
Monthly cost per km: $0.18

Ride into work for Monday, 21 August

Rode in the hybrid with the panniers, I could feel them dragging me the whole way. I have a bunch of stuff to bring home, though, so better in the panniers than on my back.

Muppet of the day was, without question, the driver of the red Sunfire who tried to race me to the light along Brunswick, and almost autodarwinated himself into the back of a Metro Transit bus in front of him...

Distance logged: 12.580km
Time: 33:59
Average speed: 22.2km/hr
Max speed: 55.6 km/hr
Temperature: 18C, drizzle
Cumulative distance: 5013.136km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 514.611km
Monthly cost per km: $0.18

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Maintenance day

Cleaned up the hybrid after riding the dirt roads last Monday. I noticed that the dirt was packed in between the cogs on the cassette, so I took the cassette off and cleaned everything bit by bit. The rear wheel had also gone out of true (no great surprise seeing how rocky the roads were) so I retrued it. I think the rim is pretty much shot after all the trail riding, loaded touring, and grocery shopping I've done on it, as it's taking more and more effort to retrue; I ended up detensioning again and then retensioning from scratch, and even then I managed to snap a nipple - something I've never done before! I'm going to try to get through this year on the rim then get a new one next year, as the brake surface isn't too worn.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Ride home for Friday, 18 August

Stopped at IdealBikes to stash my bike while I went over to MEC to get a replacement harness for my bike computer, as the wire had mysteriously been ripped out. I borrowed some tools from the guys there to get the new harnesson, and Roger gave me a couple of dead tubes I could use as shims. I also saw the poster for the stolen Kona Kikapu that someone had taken a few days ago; the thief had a zigzag tattoo on his arm, so if any of my readers are offered a red Kona Kikapu then it's something to be very leery of...

Took it fairly easy riding home asI was carrying a new hard drive to replace one of the ones that died in my main machine at home...

Distance logged: 14.990km
Time: 42:09
Average speed: 21.3km/hr
Max speed: 59.1 km/hr
Temperature: 23C-25C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 5000.556km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 502.031km
Monthly cost per km: $0.19

Ride into work for Friday, 18 August

Short ride into work as I had to go back on site this morning to get everyone up and running on the new servers. Fedora managed to hold together long enough for the install to complete and the client to shake my hand and bid me farewell. My responsibility for the machine is now, fortunately, over...

Distance logged: 12.645km
Time: 29:29
Average speed: 25.7km/hr
Max speed: 59.6 km/hr
Temperature: 14C
Cumulative distance: 4985.566km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 487.041km
Monthly cost per km: $0.17

Ride home for Thursday, 17 August

Late ride home at 10:30pm as I was working late on-site and hadto walk back to the office from Dartmouth. Riding home at this hour meant the streets were filled with muppets. The ones who decide to stop in the middle of the streets are particularly annoying, as I can't tell if they're going to stay stopped or suddenly decide to start up again...

Distance logged: 12.880km
Time: 34:33
Average speed: 22.4km/hr
Max speed: 55.6 km/hr
Temperature: 18C-16C
Cumulative distance: 4972.921km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 474.396km
Monthly cost per km: $0.18

Ride into work for Thursday, 17 August

Woken up early by the sprog, so I took the opportunity to go for a ride across the bridge and back.

Distance logged: 22.192km
Time: 50:38
Average speed: 26.3km/hr
Max speed: 64.4 km/hr
Temperature: 15C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 4960.041km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 461.516km
Monthly cost per km: $0.18

Ride for Wednesday, 16 August

The sprog had to go into hospital this morning for emergency surgery to remove a pin from his ankle that was coming out, so I went in with him. There was nothing too major going on at work anyway - a team building exercise that finished at the pub. When we got home around 1, I grabbed some lunch, got changed, and headed down to the office. I dropped my bike off there and joined the rest of the crew at the pub, then went out on a harbour cruise, and then picked my bike up and rode back home, finally getting back around 11pm. Quite a long day after being up before 5am...

Muppets of the day were the two police officers ambling along on foot in the bike lane on Brunswick. They ignored me ringing my bell, and when I politely asked them if I could get past, they gave me a dirty look. Odd that they weren't walking in the middle of the road, then...

Distance logged: 29.924km
Time: 75:43
Average speed: 23.7km/hr
Max speed: 64.9 km/hr
Temperature: 26C-19C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 4937.849km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 439.324km
Monthly cost per km: $0.19

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Ride home for Tuesday, 15 August

A wet and windy ride home. I decided to take a shorter route home since it was so nasty outside - I didn't mind the rain so much as the constant blowing wind.

Distance logged: 11.531km
Time: 31:30
Average speed: 22km/hr
Max speed: 58.2 km/hr
Temperature: 18C, rainy, windy
Cumulative distance: 4907.925km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 409.400km
Monthly cost per km: $0.21

Ride for Monday, 14 August

I found some "local roads" in my back roads atlas, so I thought I'd give them a try. Setting out the wind was against me, so I decided to take the BLT trail, as that met up with the start of the road I was aiming for, the Hiking Trail Road. I had to cross Highway 103 to get there, which was interesting, but once I crossed overI found out why it was a local road; no tarmac, dirt roads, and sections where a car would have real difficulty traversing the road due to the number of rocks, stones and potholes on the road.

I got about 10km in and stopped for a bite to eat. I spotted a blueberry bush and harvested off a handful of big, ripe blueberries and ate them. Then I noticed another... and another... and another. I think I finally had somewhere between 15 and 20 hands full of blueberries, all freshly picked and ripened.

I continued on and found a hiking trail signposted with directions to take. I decided to head on and see how far I could go, unfortunately about a km after the park I found the road gated and marked as a private road owned by Bowater Mersey. Since the whole area is owned by Bowater Mersey and the public part is maintained by them for public benefit I couldn't complain too much, but it would have been nice to see how close I could get to Wolfville...

Distance logged: 71.755km
Time: 218:55
Average speed: 19.7km/hr
Max speed: 56.9 km/hr
Temperature: 20C-23C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 4896.394km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.43
Monthly distance: 397.869km
Monthly cost per km: $0.21

Ride into work for Monday, 15 August

Back at work after vacation (and I have a ride for yesterday I haven't had a chance to put in yet). Gusty, blowing ride in with the wind constantly changing direction, which made for interesting experiences as headwinds suddenly changed to tailwinds and back to headwinds again. Occasional light rainshowers didn't really help matters either, so I decided to take a shorter route into work.

Distance logged: 14.912km
Time: 36:18
Average speed: 24.6km/hr
Max speed: 63.6 km/hr
Temperature: 16C, breezy. intermittent rain
Cumulative distance: 4824.639km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.44
Monthly distance: 326.114km
Monthly cost per km: $0.26

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Ride for Sunday, 13 August

After staying the night at my friend's place I set off this morning to burn off the calories from the food and drink from the night before. I headed down Cow Bay Road onto Dyke Road. I stopped at the intersection of Dyke Road and Cow Bay Road (which is weird... the road changes from Cow Bay Road to Dyke Road, then intersects Cow Bay Road). While I was eating a fruit leather strip a guy I passed on a cruiser bike stopped and asked me if I was OK. After I explained I just stopped to eat, we got talking, and he told me about his bike (a 25 year old CCM cruiser that he'd built up for trail riding) and how he started riding a year or two ago and prefers to ride his bike to driving - after spending 25 years driving for a living I can't blame him! Dick expressed an interest in my stem shifters as he was looking for something to replace the downtube shifters on his road bike; I recommended he go to IdealBikes to see if they had anything suitable, he was interested in the idea of a second hand bike shop to get bits to build up his old bikes with. I also told him about Critical Mass, which he sounded quite interested in, I'll be looking out for him at the end of the month.

I decided to head up through the suburbs in Dartmouth onto Montague Road, up onto Waverly Road, then finally back down Rocky Lake Road into Bedford. It's a bit of a long (35km) detour to miss Dartmouth, but it was a much nicer ride overall.

Muppet of the day was the cellphone using minivan driver who pulled out in front of me without looking, then when I overtook him honked at me for having the temerity to pass him and get in his way. Strangely, I had very little sympathy for him.

I took my GPS with me, the map of the ride for yesterday and today looked like this:



Distance logged: 56.743km
Time: 132:26
Average speed: 25.7km/hr
Max speed: 59.1 km/hr
Temperature: 15C-20C, sunny, intermittently breezy
Cumulative distance: 4809.727km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.44
Monthly distance: 311.202km
Monthly cost per km: $0.27

Ride for Saturday, 12 August

A friend of mine decided to have a boys' night in, as his wife was going out for a girls' night out with some of her friends. I headed out in the early afternoon and stopped off at the liquor store for some beer and wine (where I was warned by the cashier that people coming from Halifax were reporting heavy rain, but it seemed to be heading towards Bedford) and over to M&M's to pick up dessert - I was extremely pleased to find that the Tuxedo Truffle Cake fit perfectly in my rack trunk. The clip-on rack was a little wobbly, but it did the trick.

The ride over to Dartmouth was clear, the road was wet in patches in Halifax where it had been raining, but once I was over the bridge it was clear. Riding through downtown Dartmouth I spotted one of the Affordable Rides guys (Nick, I think) all armoured up ready to hit the trails. I nodded and grinned at him as I navigated my way around a pothole, and he waved back at me - he probably smiled back but I couldn't really tell through the full face armour!

Distance logged: 20.690km
Time: 53:00
Average speed: 23.4km/hr
Max speed: 63.9 km/hr
Temperature: 19C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 4752.984km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.45
Monthly distance: 254.459km
Monthly cost per km: $0.33

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Ride for Friday, 11 August

Rode down town and picked up a clip-on rack at MEC for my plans for tomorrow. Went back to IdealBikes and took some more photos of bikes. I hung around at IdealBikes until it was time for the Alley Cat to start at the Grand Parade, then headed down there with everyone else. We were given four checkpoints to start with, and got more checkpoints at the last one.

The first checkpoint was at the Clyde St liquor store. The task was to buy a "Deaf Hands Alphabet & Numbers" card from the guy who sells them for spare change. I was the second person there, and he was trying to sell his cards to passers by. I gave him a toonie for a card, and he thought it was great. Suddenly, about 20 bikers arrived waving coins at him for his cards, I think his evening was made!

Next task was to go down to Allgoods Comics at Hollis and Morris and see what was next to the road warrior in the window (a Simpson family box).

After that, we had to get a signature from the checkpoint at Purdey's Wharf. This was a bit tricky as we were required to answer a skill testing question about Halifax; that took me several goes as it was first person to answer that got their card signed.

Next checkpoint was at Paperchase at Blowers. The idea was to go to the counter and get an envelope for delivery. The address on mine was, "look for minibikes". Fortunately one of the organisers was outside, he told me it was a hint; after I fumbled about for a couple of minutes ("oh... is it the scooter place off Spring Garden?") he took pity on me and told me to go looking on the far end of Agricola. I rode up and down a couple of times, stopping to ask a couple of pedestrians if they knew anything about minibikes ("this might sound a bit funny, but... have you seen any minibikes here?"). I saw a couple of the mechanics from IdealBikes who were racing on a tandem also looking for minibikes, then I saw three minibikes lined up in a driveway. They were essentially toddler bikes with raised seats, and the task was to ride up the street a block and back again. It felt like the back wheel on mine was about to snap, and if not, the tyre and tube roll off. On my way back down I was honked at by an SUV driving in darkness with no lights, which I thought was just slightly hypocritical. After I completed that task, I got another sheet with two tasks, count the number of steps leading up to the town clock on Brunswick, and go down to Perks to pick up an envelope. I got down there and saw Myles, and he told me to take my envelope to Agricola. I cursed at the fact I had to go all the way out there again, and he said, "what, you did the task out there?" I said I wasn't sure, but I rode the minibikes, and he said, "well, that's it, then, open the envelope!" The directions were to go to Stage 9, which Myles said was on Grafton St. At this point, I was apparently in second place, but my dismal sense of direction kicked in and I ended up on Salter St. After consulting with a pedestrian ("uhhh... I really should know where that is... I've lived in downtown Halifax for 8 years... I think it's maybe a block or two more uphill?") I managed to get to Grafton Street at the wrong end. The bouncers at one of the bars set me straight and I headed to the other end and I finally arrived.

At this point I found I'd managed to miss a checkpoint, so technically I got DNC. I wasn't really feeling like doing more riding as I could see the beer, so I stashed my bike in the storage area and headed up to the bar.

I ended up at the bar for several hours talking to people. The Affordale Rides guys were great fun; they did the rides on full suspension mountain bikes with what looked like 2.5" knobby tyres, with Nick doing it with leg armour on. Also there was Pete, a really interesting guy who's doing a one-man blitz advertising Critical Mass, putting flyers on every bike he sees parked and handing them out to everyone he sees on bikes. His aim is to get "regular" people on the ride, which is definitely a laudable aim - if a complete cross-section of riders goes on the ride it's more difficult for drivers to pigeon-hole it as "just a bunch of kids" or something.

I finally left around 11:15 when it started getting really chilly and headed home, there were still a lot of people going there - I'm guessing they probably closed the place out...

I took a few pictures along the way - the gallery is here.

Distance logged: 55.361km
Time: 147:31
Average speed: 22.5km/hr
Max speed: 59.1 km/hr
Temperature: 20C-12C
Cumulative distance: 4732.294km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.45
Monthly distance: 233.769km
Monthly cost per km: $0.36

Friday, August 11, 2006

Alley Cat at IdealBikes tonight

Late notice (I forgot about this myself until I got my reminder email); Alley Cat race tonight, meeting at IdealBikes at (if I remember correctly) 6:30-7pm, $10 entry with a food bank donation. I'm hoping the rain will hold off...

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Maintenance day

I suppose this title should be "Maintenance days", as the work has been spread over several days when I have the time - the sprog has been in hospital to get his casts removed, so that and doing physio have kept me too busy to go riding on my vacation.

I managed to get the Nishiki back up and running, although the smallest cog needs replacing as it's looking extremely worn. I had to clean out every last speck of dirt to make the cogs fit together perfectly, as there's very little clearance between the cogs and the frame, first time around I had some gunk in there which meant the chain was rubbing on the frame. Even after cleaning the cogs I had to twiddle with the high limit screw to get it just right. The wheel didn't get up to as high a tension as I wanted, as the drive side reached its limit before the offside was tight enough. I'll run the wheel as-is for a week and see what the effects are.

I replaced the rim tape on the rear wheel of the hybrid as it was looking really manky - all the trail riding I did last summer shoved gunk in there which I'm guessing is either extremely acidic or alkalinic - the tape had stretched over the spoke holes and gone a really funny colour. Rim tape is cheap enough at $2 for 2 that I don't mind replacing it "just in case".

Finally, I put the slicks back on the mountain bike so I'll be able to take the sprog out in the bike trailer. While I was at it I noticed the rear brakes were worn past the wear line (as a result of my ride around the whopper dropper trails, I think) so I swapped them out for some fresh pads.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Ride for Saturday, 05 August

Went to true the wheel on my Nishiki and found that a couple of the nipples had got stripped. Managed to get one of them out and replaced, but the other one was completely ruined - it just got more and more rounded as I tried to take it off. I realised I'd have to cut the spoke, and of course, it's a drive side spoke, which means taking off the cassette to replace it. I had to go down town this weekend anyway to do a tape rotation at the office since Monday's a holiday, so I went down, dropped my bike off at the office, and went to MEC and picked up a chain whip and cassette removal tool. While I was there I got some replacement rim tape for the hybrid (since it was looking a bit skanky), some more sunscreen, and a few Clif bars. I stopped off at IdealBikes to take pictures of bikes, too, for something more relaxing to do for the afternoon. Dave was good enough to give me some replacement spokes afterwards, so I now have spokes for the front wheel and offside rear (they're the same size), and driveside rear. I headed back to the office, picked up my bike, then rode home and dropped all my stuff off and headed over to the farmer's market to pick up some vegetables. On the way back I stopped off at a co-worker's house to give him the pager, since I'm on vacation. The result of this is all the riding I did today was for work so I can claim it back on expenses!

Distance logged: 28.497km
Time: 85:08
Average speed: 20.1km/hr
Max speed: 55.6 km/hr
Temperature: 23C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 4676.933km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.45
Monthly distance: 178.408km
Monthly cost per km: $0.33

Ride home for Friday, 04 August

Rather predictably, the servers failed to work properly; I couldn't get a machine to join the domain. The client ended up getting SHOUTY WINDOWS CONSULTANT to come over; he found several things that were hosed due to (as far as I could tell) the smbldap upgrade trashing the ldap configuration - there were two SIDs defined in there, for example. SWC was also not overly clued on Unix; for those who know what I'm talking about, watching someone type in something like
cat file | tail -n 50 | more
shows right away how shallow the knowledge is. After about 3 hours of fighting with the system, he finally got it up and running. The client agreed that 4:30 on a Friday afternoon before he and I went off on vacation for a week was not a good time to do an install, so the machines are both running in the office burning in (and since they're Dell machines, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if I went back off vacation and found they'd gone pop...)

The ride home wasn't too stellar; it was raining the whole way, so I got pretty soaked. I took the short route home, but made a detour to the liquor store to pick up some wine - those packages fit perfectly in the netting on the outside of my backpack.

Distance logged: 12.126km
Time: 32:16
Average speed: 22.6km/hr
Max speed: 53.3 km/hr
Temperature: 16C, raining
Cumulative distance: 4648.436km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.44
Monthly distance: 149.911km
Monthly cost per km: $0

Ride into work for Friday, 04 August

Short ride in as I had to get into work and finish off the machines for a planned install.

Distance logged: 12.820km
Time: 31:28
Average speed: 24.5km/hr
Max speed: 57 km/hr
Temperature: 15C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 4636.310km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.44
Monthly distance: 137.785km
Monthly cost per km: $0

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Ride home for Thursday, 03 August

Nice, quiet ride home due to me riding home late and in a weensy eensy bit of a strop after talking to the windows consultant about Fedora. "Oh yeah", he said, "there's a few things that need fixing", he mentioned after I called him about the completely broken install of Fedora Core 5. "Yeah, the ldap.conf needs correcting, and the schema that ships with the latest update is broken, so you need to install the one from source". Being used to installing Debian Stable for production systems (where, as the name suggests, every effort is made to make sure the system is stable on install) I was mildly surprised - to say the least - that Fedora had been recommended by said windows consultant for a production system for an investment counselling group (ie, large amounts of money are involved by people who will be Really Quite Stroppy if their data is lost). Nevertheless, after being walked through the necessary steps to fix up said installation (BY A CONSULTANT WHO TALKS AT SHOUTING VOLUME ON THE PHONE TO MAKE SURE HE CAN BE HEARD PROPERLY) it finally worked. Ish. Until, probably, the next time it's updated.

When I got home, I drank a litre of wine. I think this was quite forgivable.

In other news, the muppet army appears to have gone on vacation.

Distance logged: 17.030km
Time: 45:38
Average speed: 22.4km/hr
Max speed: 58.2 km/hr
Temperature:
Cumulative distance: 4623.490km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.44
Monthly distance: 124.965km
Monthly cost per km: $0

Ride into work for Thursday, 03 August

Rode in via Bedford for a doctor's appointment this morning. Had to stop on the way into work as something felt wobbly on the bike. I checked the quick release on both wheels, both fine but I tightened it a touch just in case. I checked the spokes on the front wheel, fine, then I checked the spokes on the back wheel, and found that the wheel had gone way out of true in a couple of places (probably due to a couple of nasty potholes I hit last week, and not helped by my bad habit of setting off in 3rd gear). One of the spokes had managed to come out so far I could see some of the threading! An impromptu truing session by the side of the road got it back into a rideable state, but I'm going to have to retrue it again this weekend - and see if I can get even higher tension on the wheels.

Continuing the Fedora install... an update to smbldap wiped my config, so I have to restart that from scratch. Feel free to ask me just how not impressed I am.

Distance logged: 33.533km
Time: 75:19
Average speed: 26.7km/hr
Max speed: 57.3 km/hr
Temperature: 16C-18C, light showers, humid
Cumulative distance: 4606.460km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.44
Monthly distance: 107.935km
Monthly cost per km: $0

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Ride home for Wednesday, 02 August

A hot ride home, so I took it fairly slowly, not wanting to overheat. When I left work, the humidex was 36C - pretty toasty for this area of the world.

Distance logged: 16.559km
Time: 47:16
Average speed: 21km/hr
Max speed: 56.1 km/hr
Temperature: 28C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 4572.927km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.45
Monthly distance: 74.402km
Monthly cost per km: $0

Ride into work for Wednesday, 02 August

Bit of a wet ride in today, so I took a shorter route into work.

Still fighting Fedora. Today's discovery was finding that installing openldap to use LDAP for user management stops Fedora from booting due to hald relying on openldap running, and openldap relying on hald running. Classy.

Distance logged: 14.850km
Time: 37:18
Average speed: 23.9km/hr
Max speed: 68.2 km/hr
Temperature: 19C, cloudy, intermittent showers
Cumulative distance: 4556.368km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.45
Monthly distance: 57.843km
Monthly cost per km: $0

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Ride for Tuesday, 01 August

Over to the farmer's market to pick up a couple of pannier-loads of vegetables.

Distance logged: 4.329km
Time: 13:58
Average speed: 18.6km/hr
Max speed: 56.4 km/hr
Temperature: 25C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 4541.518km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.45
Monthly distance: 42.993km
Monthly cost per km: $0

Ride home for Tuesday, 01 August

A nice relaxing ride home, just what I needed after a day dealing with the rotting pile of decrepitude that is Fedora - I do so love operating systems that install a broken config by default...

Distance logged: 16.703km
Time: 45:01
Average speed: 22.2km/hr
Max speed: 60.2 km/hr
Temperature: 25C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 4537.189km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.45
Monthly distance: 38.664km
Monthly cost per km: $0

Ride into work for Tuesday, 01 August

Another uneventful ride. I took a swing across the bridge to Dartmouth and back as I was running early, thanks to a sprog deciding 3am was time to get up (apparently he went back to sleep around 7:30 until 11!)

Distance logged: 21.961km
Time: 53:50
Average speed: 24.5km/hr
Max speed: 62.1 km/hr
Temperature: 16C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 4520.486km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.45
Monthly distance: 21.961km
Monthly cost per km: $0