My recent rants and raves...

Today I have worked, for about 9 hours, starting from 5:30AM; been riding in 37 degree Celsius heat (ie damned hot). I wanted to do hill intervals but I was panting like a dog after a 70% effort and thought "nup". I did lazy loops for an hour. Then some web surfing, lunch and back to work. Last night I worked and did some blog updates at http://gtveloce.com/


Another day, another dollar. Oh, I also started the GTV after some battery hassles.

I just don't know, I really don't. I sit at my computer typing away - actually working - and it saves gas but I use electricity, so we burn coal. Locally that eventually (maybe in 5 years at current rates of warming?) means the king tide down the road will flood some homes. Who pays? Who cares. I live on a hill. They live down on the waterfront. They don't seem to think it's a problem - maybe they are in denial. They build ever larger homes and sink more money into sinking real estate. When the king tides roll in we see sea water backing up in the drains, up through the mangroves and into the front yards of some houses. It's obvious. It's as plain as day. What are we thinking, that a rise of some 0.05cm a year is nothing? That we have 50 years up our sleeves at least before large parts of our suburban coastline become more like Venice? What if it speeds up? Who will pay for the seawalls? Or do we just abandon large tracts of houses and land to the incoming tide?

I think the penny will drop when a king tide hits simultaneously with a big storm. When the water laps over the roads and into the gardens we might take this global warming thing seriously. Meanwhile we subsidise cars, roads and gas and keep up the illusion of 'no problem'. Well cars are too big, we use them too much and we are hooked on petroleum. We need to rethink this and stop pretending (like SAAB, for starters, and Toyota with their Prius) that current cars are in any sense 'green'. Just making cars that use less petrol doesn't make up for all the land that's tarred and sealed for roads, or parking, or the huge energy and resource cost of manufacturing the cars and roads in the first place.

Yes, yes, I love driving too. But we have to stop kidding ourselves about going 'carbon neutral' when we ignore most of the problem and fiddle around the edges.
Phew. Must take a rest now ;-)    

Yeah, I bought a power meter for my bike. OK, I'm hooked on data. I've been taking time and distance data on my cycling since I was 16... and I'm almost 50 now! So I have lots of logbooks and a few spreadsheets of data hanging' around. But now I'm in data heaven...I've written heaps on it here.

Basically iBike is the least expensive and easiest way into power metering. And it's accurate, with some points to note. It doesn't read actual power or torque from the hub, cranks or bottom bracket. Instead it calculates power from variables like your bike speed and altitude. It uses a simple pickup on the front wheel to get speed and a combination of  barometer and accelerometer sensor input to determine slope of road, speed up that incline and headwind. You input the constants of aero and friction drag, either automatically through a "coastdown" test or manually by inputting real numbers (if you have them, or can guesstimate). I do both - if the coastdown gives strange figures I tweak it manually until it looks right. So there's the first problem - the aero and friction constants are critical, yet they are only as good as your input. And of course being constants they are locked in, irrespective. If the road surface changes, or you go into an aero tuck, bad luck, the constants are indeed constant.

But these turn out to be pretty minor irritations. In reality it turns out darn good numbers and it's consistent, as proven by repeatedly riding the same hill or course. It spits out inclination, power, temperature, interval, altitude and speed data with alacrity. So I'm happy!

Bikes - good for the environment, low footprint. Can be raced. Good for your health, too, as long as you don't fall. Cars - plenty of reasons to like 'em but I am getting sick of the fat cars that keep getting churned out. I saw a review of a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Over 2 tonnes of metal and plastic, hulking great 6.1 litre 4wd. And guess what - low ground clearance, especially with that low air dam. This is not for off-roading, in fact this is a freeway cruiser. So exactly why would you want to haul yourself around in a 2 tonne plus car? To impress people with your wealth? With your good taste? Doubtful. With your environmental awareness? I don't think so.

MAybe you need to transport lots of bikes? Or amps for your band?

So back to bikes I go. Oh, and music. About the best thing about a car is the sound system. Either the musical blast from an Alfa's exhaust or the Sex Pistols turned up HIGH.Hard to do that safely on a bike, I know.

OK, it's old. Like December 1968 old. But it's an artefact, a snapshot of the 60s. I was too young at the time to be in that scene - but old enough to vaguely know it existed. So it's a nice sort of way to see what I missed. The Stones get off to a slow start - Brian Jones is clearly out of it - but Jagger tries v. hard to bring the show to some sort of rocking climax. Richards looks ragged but does his bit to make it rock. And in the end it's the group scenes that are the best, with Townshend and Moon joining in. Eric Clapton is there, as is John Lennon, too. There are commentaries that explain a bit about how it came to happen and why it disappeared for 25 years. And Pete Townshend explains things from his art-farty auto-destructive Who perspective - surprisingly at length, given it's the Stones' gig, not the Who's! But the Who rock, straight out of the box and perform one of their mini-Operas. Overall a must have in my book. 

Well, here I am, one year on from... whenever. Thoughtfully, I have been give the Who's new album 'Endless Wire'. So a few thoughts. First album since what, 1982? They have lost Moon and Entwistle but gained a few other talented musicians. And Pete and  Rog are still there. I have seen them live and yes, they still rock after all these years. So, is Endless Wire OK? Well, yes, more than OK. I may be a biased Who fan but this is new, fresh and alive. Townshend still has a creative spark and is not afraid to explore. It's good. Certainly shows Jagger and Richards what they could do if they got their heads out of the 1960s!