theScarletManuka

Bike Pride and the Wynyard Quarter

2011-08-05T06:29:00.003+12:00

Was tickled to show the Yuba off to David Haywood and whanau on they way out of the Orcon Great Blend last night. Apparently they've considered a cargo bike with two child seats. Hope I restrained my enthusiasm below the boring fanatic threshold.

Then cycled through the Wynyard Quarter due to open tomorrow. Nice spaces, and a handy ramp up to the viewing platform. That nice existing frontage around half the Viaduct Basin will hopefully connect right around (timeline suggests 2013?) and should benefit from having more outdoor punters in the area rather than the restaurant/bar clientele of the Viaduct. Speaking of which, the bridge provides nice pedestrian access between Wynyard and the Viaduct which could change the dynamic of the whole area.

Got several comments appreciating the bike lights as I cruised around, but uncertain how much to value the opinion of the guys peeing off the wharf.

Now it's getting hard - FY2011 Carbon Accounts

2011-04-11T02:29:00.006+12:00

Our pollution figures for this year have increased a long way back towards their 2007 levels. Major contributors were my trip to Christchurch for a polo tournament and the purchase of a new laptop.
Looking ahead, we have decided to set a target of reaching the current¹ globally sustainable per capita emissions level (~1.2T CO2e) by 2050. This requires us to reduce by just over 3% each year, compounding. That will become increasingly challenging, and require systemic change² around us as well as personal lifestyle choices.

For the new year, we plan to find 2% by halving our regular butter and sugar consumption. These are mostly used for baking, for which we will increasingly use margarine. We are testing various recipes with less sugar, and may alter our selection of baked treats. As a side benefit, this could be healthier.³

We want to make the remaining 1% savings amongst our "irregular" consumption: rarely taken actions or supplies for special occassions. These are the source of all variation recorded between this year and last, as we haven't performed a new baseline audit and continue to use our 2010 figures. The very irregularity of this consumption makes it harder to work with. Over time we will expect continuing fluctuation, but require an underlying downward trend.

Accurately reporting this will require an improvement in our accounting practise. A likely first step will be to amortise the big figures, a practise we have so far applied only to the house. Our new laptop will be used over several years, but we thought there would be enough similar items from year to year to smooth out. That will be less and less the case as we make smarter purchases.⁴ We may also plan to fly domestically once every n years, rather than on a most-years basis, and budget that into our regular baseline.

__________
1) With world population expected to rise to perhaps 9 billion by 2050, the per capita sustainable emissions level will presumably decrease.
2) 20% of our current emissions are due to public services we have no direct choice about consuming. Yesterday Heather initiated conversation with a Dunedin city councillor on this very topic, building on a hint of shared interest.
3) Going significantly dairy free would make a much bigger impact on the carbon numbers, as well as distance us from an industry which has recently expanded beyond the country's carrying capacity. We remain held back by uncertainty over how to supply Heather's calcium needs and reluctance to overhaul the complex dietary system we have developed for her over eight years of illness.
4) The laptop also stands out because we bought it new, rather than second hand. We have chosen to assign all emissions responsibility to the initial (retail) purchaser, so the choice between new and second-hand is much more stark in carbon terms than dollar terms. We could change this policy, at least on large items, which would be more accurate in many ways but opens the thorny question of how to apply depreciation.

Beach! Beach! Beach!

2011-02-21T16:13:00.005+13:00

Which one needs the wheelchair?

Yesterday we went to the beach to try out something new - the Vera Wansbrough Memorial Beach Wheelchair. The chair has fat, low pressure wheels to glide over the grass and sand right into the water. The goal was to get Heather to the water more often, which seemed a fitting use for some money inherited from her beach-loving grandmother.

The chair was a great success, and will be well worth the money (approx $600) if we get out a few more times each summer. No more parking the normal chair where the path ends and carrying Heather across the sand into the water. No more carrying her back up, all slippery and wet.

In the future we won't take the other wheelchair, but took it just in case yesterday. It did provide a nice place to sit and talk to Heather, while she reclined in her personal lounger.

The wheels also make a handy seat.

With its big wheels, the whole contraption floats when nobody is sitting in it. With a person sitting in it, the wheels still float but the foot end gradually sinks. We hope that a simple floatation device strapped on that end will give us a fully floating option that Heather can swim on and off.

The following video shows how smooth the process of coming out of the water was. If you're wondering why we pause, back up, and move forward again, that's me discovering where the floating wheels touch bottom and start turning. I also stop to check if it works to push from the head end, but decide that it works best to pull from the feet. We do need a handle to save stooping over and avoid lifting too high and banging poor Heather's head.

MUTE BEFORE WATCHING - NASTY STATIC

Do try this at home. Our system is cobbled together from a pair of 49cm Wheeleez Wheels (distributed in NZ by BeachWheels.co.nz) and a $50 fold-out beach lounger we were given several years ago. We bought an axle and locking pins with the wheels, and ran the axle through a piece of hdpe pipe I had around the house (it was too small for making polo mallets). Two hose clamps were also required. Here are all the parts:

The pipe is simply lashed to the mid-section of the lounger, using hemp string. I had to use a needle to thread the string through the plastic canvas, to get the axle at a suitable balance point.

Using the pre-fab lounger saved heaps of effort putting the canvas onto a frame, but it was never designed to go into salt water and will presumably be replaced in time. By then it will have earned an honourable place in history for proving out the idea.

The frame was designed to have a support under the knee, which doesn't work when it is being lifted and the force goes the other way. To stop the lounger folding up at that point I put the hose clamps on to hold the two tubes together. The clamps loosen with a screwdriver and slide off the end of the the lower tube, allowing the lounger to fold again for transport. So far it is working, but you can see that the previous (pivoting) attachment between those tubes has been strained during testing. I think that the strain has eased since I moved the axle, but only time will tell.

Net result: one very happy Heather.

Did I make it to Christchurch?

2010-10-21T20:13:00.005+13:00

Yes. And wasn't the weather beautiful!

So it's been almost 3 months, but here's my report for the record from the polo comp in Christchurch.

Winter Whack - 3rd Place Winners!

Our team started out with a good couple of wins, but couldn't sustain the intensity and got wasted by in 3 minutes flat by the eventual champs - Polo Disco. In the 2nd/3rd playoff we put up stiffer resistance, but eventually the same team which twice beat our fellow Aucklanders put paid to us as well. Props to Glenn who sorted out the Auckland teams - he must of done a good job of balancing us up as we came out 3rd and 4th at the end of the day.

Play was pretty intense at times - you had to commit the body right up to the action, which resulted in a bunch of spills. At one point I lost my rear brake in our first game, and eventually traded the bike off for Glenn's. Playing so many games at that intensity did take it's toll, and I reckon that was a factor in the later games. Polo Disco was clearly a cut above us in skill as well. Not just us, as they swept up the entire field pretty handily. I think they had 3 goals scored against them all day, but thankfully nobody enforced the down-trou rule or there'd have been a lot of flesh on display.

The whole tournament had a great atmosphere, and everybody seemed to have fun. There was quite a range of skill levels, with people drawn in to make up teams or whole teams of occasional players. No way could Auckland have fielded 21 players like Christchurch did, but hopefully a return tourney will pull out a few of our potential/interested people.

Everybody's first question on arrival was why there were so many vegans in the Auckland delegation. The Chch crew is based around fathers who can't get out for mountain-biking like they used to, whereas I can't think of any player from Akl who has kids. Very different demographics didn't hinder us enjoying a night at the pub together beforehand and an aftermatch dinner at the Dux (which has several vegan options).

One last thing to point out - the club house next to the courts is a great idea. It allows them to store edging for the court, rather than losing the ball under the raggedy fence edge or digging it out of weedy gutters. We need something like that in Akl.

Cycle Friendly City

Christchurch was truly fabulous to cycle in. Lots of cycle lanes. Nary a hill through much of the city. A beautiful park with good tracks to ride through. Most importantly - lots of other cyclists to keep the drivers in the habit of looking and waiting.

They also allow bikes on buses, and I went 30kms out to Rangiora for $5.80 each way to visit a colleague. Get off at the other end with your bike, cycle to a store to pick up a drink and choccies, and find your mate's house. So much harder on foot. But do allow for the fact that the first bus after school gets out may have a full rack.

So thanks, Christchurch! Thanks to Craig for being the main man behind the tournament, and thanks to Mads and Malcs for putting me up and feeding me lots of warm, scrummy soup. (I did get sunburnt on the big day, but it wasn't always warm down there.)

Enough from me. Check out more photos from the day.

Long Way to Work

2010-08-31T09:26:00.002+12:00

For probably the first time in my life, I took the scenic route to work today.

It's been a very rainy spring, but the sunny gaps are lengthening and I found myself in one this morning. On top of that, I was on the fixie for the first time after weeks of carting the laptop backwards and forwards (which tips the balance to the Yuba). Riding a light bike, in the sunshine, with nothing urgent waiting in the office, it just felt right to breeze past a turn-off and go a couple extra blocks.

Happy.

En Route to CHCH

2010-08-13T09:19:00.002+12:00

Greetings from Auckland Airport, where I'm waiting for a delayed flight. I left home at 06:45, arrived at the airport just on 0800, an hour early, and discovered that I'd left my passport at home! :-( To add insult to injury the slowly-dying cellphone had another fit, but eventually I got hold of poor Heather who arranged for a friend (thanks, Chris) to drop the wallet off for me. Not really what she needed just before I went away for 5 days and left her with much more self-care work than usual. Poverty is having nobody to turn to, eh!

Anywho, turns out you can check in without the wallet so I bagged the bike and had no trouble checking that in. Then I got the wallet and commenced waiting again. Plenty of time to look forward to a fun weekend, and getting our butts kicked at the polo comp.

Environmental Footprints 2010 Tax Year - Encouraging Results

2010-07-23T07:25:00.000+12:00

Good news! As best we can measure, Heather and I have reduced our CO2 footprint to 30% below the global average. This is a sizeable step¹ towards the 40% rich-world reduction which groups like Oxfam are calling for by 2020, a supposedly unreachable target which will 'destroy the economy'. We were encouraged how close we were with 10 years to go, after only moderate changes. No "extreme" measures like detaching from the grid or composting toilets.

Remember, though: we still need 3 planets to absord the carbon emitted if everybody on earth lived like us. Let's not get too self-congratulatory.

Heather and I are constrained to a quiet life by her health, but it's still a distinctly Kiwi lifestyle and we enjoy the benefits of living in a wealthy country. We have made choices to constrain 'expenditure' which gave low return on investment, so that we have plenty to put into activities which bring abundant enjoyment.

Our lifestyle is specific to ourselves, and features several elements that will be particularly difficult for some. For example, we have found work, friends and shops close to home which eases the choice to cycle. Others may find that choice harder until they move house, but over time more walkable (and cycleable) communities will emerge. We also utilise interim practises like buying second-hand, which clearly don't work if everybody tries to do them. These represent further problems to solve, and of course there are plenty of things (like raising kids) that we just don't do. Nonetheless, we are encouraged by the progress we have made and feel confident that others will be making progress on those other challenges.

One challenge all Kiwis face is that public services cost 840kg CO2e/person/year. That represents 2/3 of the globally sustainable per-capita level (2010 population), before we make any direct personal consumption choices. Fully 1/2 this figure comes from building and maintaining roads!

All this thinking comes from the environmental footprint data for the two of us which hardworking Heather has again compiled. She put them together from a detailed 3 month audit and ongoing tracking of unusual consumption items. This data was primarily recorded to calculate a Greenhouse Gas footprint, but she has worked to extract additional estimates from the data.

There is also a year-to-year comparison of our CO2 figures, with retrospective adjustments for new factors added to our audit spreadsheet in the last year. The graph clearly shows the impact of my flying to China in late 2008 (2009 tax year). Something to chew on as I consider flying to Christchurch next month for a cycle polo tournament, which would cost 0.6T -- 15% of my 2010 total emissions.

See the main report for details, graphs and comments, but here are the key numbers as multiples of the sustainable global average footprint

CO2e - 3
Fresh Water (crops) - 1.43
Fresh Water (industrial) - 1.08
Agricultural Land - 0.7
Forest Land - 0.04
Fisheries - 9

Those last two numbers are separated out because they are quite sketchy: the Forest Land number fails to account for the wood used to build our house, and the appropriate baseline for comparison for Fisheries is unclear.

About the fish, I can say that Heather eats a moderate amount of tin fish for health reasons but our fish sauce use is the biggest contributor to that number. We were surprised to find that, and are looking into whether this is an artefact of valuing a genuinely 'cheap' fish at the average rate or whether we need to hold the sauce for special occasions. I have a strong preference for one outcome over the other!

1. It is hard to exactly correlate the GHG footprint figure to numbers like the 40% reduction which Greenpeace is calling on New Zealand to make because our numbers are consumption based and the big public figures are production based. (I hope to write more on this soon, if you're not familiar with what I'm talking about.) We're actually at a 60% reduction from NZ's 2001 consumption figure, and if all of the rich world dropped their consumption that much then the production required to enable that consumption would drop dramatically.

Goal vs Fear

2010-07-08T06:11:00.003+12:00

Memo to the TV News people:

We do not fear that the ETS will drive up petrol prices: that was exactly the desired outcome. We may fear that the ETS as implemented won't drive them up enough, or that the government's ongoing rejig of taxation and benefits will fail to provide households with the capacity to pay a fair price for their basic needs, but not that this particular law change will work as intended.

Please return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Various GHG Emissions Graphs

2010-07-06T21:31:00.001+12:00

With the scope of New Zealand's ETS expanding to cover petrol and electricity last Thursday (July 1st), there have been some protests organised by Federated Farmers and the ACT party. Leaving aside the irony of ACT standing against people paying for the resources they use, I want to look at how the way you present the statistics on carbon emissions may shape your response.

When ACT says that "New Zealand's ETS will not make one iota of difference" they have presumably been looking at the leftmost of these two graphs from a public consultation on NZ's proposed emissions reduction target for 2020.
I'm not sure how an iota stacks up against 0.2%, but there is a point to be made that NZ going it alone won't solve the problem. Another point is clearly seen in the right hand graph--that NZ is above the median emissions level on a per-capita basis and has a moral responsibility to act.

If we can't go it alone, then the answer is not to pike and leave the problem for others (aka the global poor, who will die in their millions) but to show leadership. Rather than being so-called Fast Followers (aka laggards and shirkers) we should bend every effort to creating an international solution. I would be more sympathetic to those opposing the ETS if they showed willing to work for an alternative.

Those countries who are willing to take action are deadlocked over who should do how much. Once again, different graphs give a different spin.

Let's start with this graphical analysis of proposed reduction targets for NZ, from the same set of documents as the previous graphs. I think it's quite cleverly compiled, presenting many different data points to show that the government is balancing competing domestic demands and taking a fast-follower position vis-a-vis other countries.

These percentage reduction figures seem to function as a proxy for the effort made by each country. Certainly the domestic conversation was predominantly about what level of reduction we could manage, and how hard other countries were(n't) trying. The level of effort can be emphasised by graphing projected emissions over time as well as proposed reduced rates, but such a graph runs the risk of making the problem look urgent as well as difficult.

Oxfam and Greenpeace tried to shift the discussion towards impact rather than effort. How much can we afford to emit? This question is better answered by the blue bars in the next chart, which takes the per-capita data from one of the first graphs and adds in a Goal value representing the long-term sustainable emissions level. Suddenly a 40% reduction for NZ seems less outlandish.

Another question arises once we see a long-term goal. How will any initial commitment develop? Will everybody close steadily on the Goal amount, or will their be an ongoing inequity? What is the equitable way to close to a common goal from such disparate starting points?

The red bars on this graph represent data that we rarely see: estimated emissions embedded in the provision of goods and services consumed within a country. These contrast strikingly with the emissions generated for the goods and services created in the country. This data is harder to measure, which I assume is why the Kyoto process isn't using it, but is significant in terms of where the dollars would end up if there were a global carbon price.

How do these numbers change the picture? Is it in our interest to negotiate an international deal based on the blue numbers, so long as we have a global market and our export customers cannot avoid paying us the difference between the red and blue bars? Should China be our ally, as their blue bar has outpaced their red throughout the decade since the figures shown above? Are the Americans even less likely to sign up to such a deal?

I guess I should stop there for now and post this thing. Perhaps in the future I'll get back to other datasets, such as total emissions since 1850 by country per capita of current population or NZ's emissions with and without changing land use factors. (For the latter, look into the consultation paper referenced above and marvel at how the timing of a spike in forestry saves NZ's bacon for Kyoto then reverts us to being way behind for any future commitments!)

Great Service

2010-04-25T17:15:00.002+12:00

Just dropping by to record some excellent customer service provided to us recently, by way of thanks to the BlackBox people.

Several years ago we bought Heather some noise canceling headphones to keep out the lawn-mowing and similar noises so prevalent in our neighbourhood full of infill housing. Over the years two plastic parts on the headband had broken, and they become less comfortable to wear. I contacted the manufacturer to ask for spare parts, and was surprised when they offered to replace the whole unit as this was a design flaw in 'early models'. The new headphones fit even more snugly than the old, and still provide the crystal pure sound that so delighted Heather when she first plugged them in (having first used them just to deaden outside sounds). So check these out if you're looking for high end headphones or are very noise sensitive.

New Polo Bike

2010-03-23T20:53:00.003+13:00

I've been experimenting with a more upright posture for polo, using a small mtb that a neighbour dropped off. I feel more free to reach around, as my hands are unweighted. My centre of gravity is also lower, which I think makes me steadier at very slow speeds. I do sometimes oversteer, but hopefully will learn that the bike can't actually turn right angles.

Compare the new posture with two of us on roadbikes in this picture. I'm struggling to reach behind while my balance is tied to the handle bars, and my friend is falling off with hardly an increase in his forward lean:

ps. Having a new bike has been handy since my fixie is off the road - more on that later, once I discuss it with my LBS.

pps. Dig the cap that Heather made me!

8 Years Ago

2010-03-01T20:13:00.002+13:00

My neighbours in Vancouver had teenage sons who built mounds like fresh graves on their lawn, with headstones showing the flags of the teams the Canadians were about to play. Those boys went wild, running up and down our dull suburban street, when Canada beat the USA for the gold medal from Salt Lake City.

As it happens I'm on holiday this week, and enjoyed the luxury of watching Canada take Olympic gold again in the men's ice hockey. What a game - equalised by the US with 24 seconds to play, then won by golden goal in overtime. Too bad nobody else in the house was particularly interested.

Seven Years Ago

2010-03-01T19:45:00.001+13:00

Heather and I, seven years ago. I visited her during my Spring Break - our first time together since her visit to Vancouver that January, when we started going out.

I arrived the weekend after Heather came down sick. We had no idea back then - we went out to a party one night, missed the bus, and started walking. It would have been a 45 minute walk, perhaps more given the couple inches of snow! We had to turn back after the first bus stop, and take several breaks on the way home - one of many examples needed before we realised Heather could feel almost normal but crash quite quickly.

(Very few pictures were taken that holiday, which is a shame because it was the only time I've ever had my hair professionally dyed. Just another curious new experience for a lad back in college world, who was surprised how much applied chemistry was involved for the salon staff, but too expensive to repeat. I quite liked the effect, though - auburn streaks, iirc.)

Household Carbon Calculator Posted

2010-01-23T06:41:00.002+13:00

If you're interested in drilling down on which parts of your lifestyle are dependent on carbon emissions, then please check out the spreadsheet which Heather and I developed to audit our own consumption in 2008.

Feel free to send us more data for the table of emissions in various product categories. The tool could be a lot nicer, too, but after 18 months of futzing round with Google Spreadsheets, Zoho, and other random ideas, I've gone with a simple Excel spreadsheet. It does work in Open Office, too, so my conscience doesn't trouble me as much as it might.

We've also posted a few paragraphs on the intro page about why we support carbon pricing and why responsibility eventually rests with the consumer. I hope to develop a longer introduction to my thinking on carbon pricing for a friend and his kids, but a brief consultation with my blogging history indicates that you shouldn't hold your breath.

Helmet Hair

2010-01-23T06:35:00.004+13:00

The warm weather and my recent haircut have combined to produce a new level of helmet hair, where the ventilation stripes remain clearly visible after I get off the bike. Heather has been most amused.

Mundo Maintenance

2010-01-20T05:52:00.003+13:00

AS my Yuba comes up to it's 2nd anniversary, I've needed to do a bit of maintenance. Unfortunately, the final element proved challenging due to being a non-standard part (or from a very different standard).

Rear tyre
I've had two rear tyres go bad on me recently, on different bikes. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but possibly dragging the rear end around while the tyre has little pressure? Certainly I haul the tail of the Yuba around, as its turning circle can be a bit of a pain for parking. Either way, the rear tyre started to stretch alongside the bead on one side. This was new to me, so I was slow to realise that this was the cause of a wobble on every turn of the wheel.
Brake pads are wearing out faster than I expected. Possibly I'm dragging the rear brake too much?
Rear Hub
This was the doozy. I tried to adjust the cones at one point to fix the wobble from the tyre, and stuffed it up. I had already broken two rear spokes, drive side, so had to remove the cluster to replace them. (No hurry, though. With 46 of 48 spokes, the wheel still ran sweetly.)
The rear axle is a 14mm BMX axle (grumbling tech details here), and I didn't have proper cone spanners in 19mm. I managed to approximate one spanner, but couldn't get the freewheel cluster off since my removal tool (Park Tools FR-1) doesn't fit over the 14mm axle! I ended up pulling the axle right out, taking the cluster off, replacing the ball bearings (as I lost one carrying the wheel to my friend's to use his vice), then reinstalling. Naturally, I forgot something so had to repeat. I never did get the spoke guard back on.

So that was a pain, but it has been running nicely again now. Next time I'll probably drop it into the shop for the rear hub, but hopefully that won't be for ages.

Hitchikers

2009-11-09T18:10:00.002+13:00

Have to share: Off to a party on Saturday night, I cycled past two young lads tossing a ball back and forth on their way to the park. They spotted the Yuba's rack, and called for a lift as kids often do. For once I obliged, and carried them all of a block until our paths diverged. Don't know which of us had the biggest grin as I cycled off. :-)

New Job

2009-08-30T21:23:00.002+12:00

It's been a long time since I went to bed Sunday night feeling excited about work on Monday. My first week in a new job has started well, but slowly, and it was only on Friday that I started to learn what I needed for my main role. Can't wait to get on with it for real this week. So much happier.

One toe into the water

2009-08-13T11:17:00.005+12:00

So I've finally got myself some bike shoes - and such classy ones!

Everybody says that you've gotta try them, and you'll be so much happier with your increased pedalling power. On the flip side, they're a big step into sport-cycling and cycle-specific clothing. I've been tossing it up for years, but recently BikeSkirt raised the question and then my LBS offered me second-hand pedals and shoes for a mere $55. I decided to take the punt, and put them on my sportiest ride: the fixie.

The shoes could be passable with a change of colour - I'm thinking of taking some boot black to them - but can expect to be replaced if the experiment works. The blue wash in the photo actually helps them, toning down the green suede around the laces. Maybe I'll onsell them to another tentative neophyte with suppressed fashion sense?

First impressions are mixed, but I'm having trouble finding the right positioning. Could partly be that the shoes are not my ideal fit, but we'll keep playing. Mostly I need to put some miles on, for experience and to see how the feet cope with many hours in the same position.

So far I've fallen off once (after getting half-way up the steepest point on the NW cycleway, which my legs/knees couldn't manage after months off the fixie). More impressive getting trapped in the shoes after failing to tighten the cleats enough. My shoes were happily rotating with my feet, so I had to unlace and step out while sitting in the saddle. Luckily I realised before I fell over in front of a line of traffic, so was able to pull onto the footpath and lean against a rubbish bin. Several busloads of commuters seemed to enjoy my little pantomime.

Why I voted Yes

2009-08-06T06:56:00.002+12:00

Why did I vote yes in NZ's current referendum on child discipline, related to last year's repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act, commonly (if somewhat misleadingly) described as the anti-smacking bill?

In my opinion, NZ's good and responsible parents should abstain from any violence-based parenting tools in a communal response to the level of violence throughout our society. I base this opinion not on any inherent wrongness of smacking, but in light of NZ's attrocious patterns of violence and in the assurance from many reliable sources that effective alternate parenting tools are available. We need all sectors of society to demonstrate that violence is not the only (nor even the best) way to get the job done.

Much internet debate (such as there has been, since most have estimated that this referendum will have little practical impact) has focussed on the legitimacy of smacking, but I consider that a distraction. As my great-grandparent's generation took the pledge to refrain from alcohol in response to
it's prevailing social impact, so we need to respond to the destruction surrounding us rather than argue about the propriety of a quiet tipple of fine wine in the privacy of our own homes.

Underbike Lighting - Construction Details

2009-07-08T16:43:00.008+12:00

How to get the fun and safety factors of the Down Low Glow (DLG) without spending too much? Here's what worked for me.

LED Ribbon

A couple of years ago a colleague heavily into car audio (and thus close to the boy-racer scene) recommended a then-new product - waterproof led ribbon - that has finally started turning up on TradeMe. Turns out that ribbon strips are super easy to use. They can be cut every few cm (3 leds on mine) and have clear soldering pads which are easily exposed by trimming a couple mm off the plastic casing. (It felt like cutting through a firm gummy-bear, but without the guilt factor.) Each block is wired in parallel to the others, so you can cut or append with ease.

Each block has the necessary resistors etc., so you just need to hook up a 12V power source such as a lead-acid car battery. If you put the power through the wrong way they just do nothing, rather than blowing up. Finally, the self-adhesive backing which they all seem to come with worked really well.

Few electrical safety precautions are required with low current 12V dc. You can just pinch the wires together between your bare fingers for testing, for example. I did put in a fuse to make sure that the battery couldn't be shorted, and built some basic weather protection.

Supplies

I bought 1m of green ribbon, pre-cut into 2x50cm strips and wired on one end, and two 30cm offcuts of red. All fully waterproof, so long as you seal off the ends after soldering on your wiring. I chose green as it was the brightest colour available from my supplier.

The red off-cuts were super-cheap and I thought some extra rear visibility wouldn't hurt. They were an older, dimmer model (leds get brigher ever day, it seems) but that was okay as they face directly at drivers and the blinky served for initial long-distance visibility. Conveniently their black presentation was more suited to exposed placement than the green strips.

My friend, Glenn, lent me a spare neon car tube and two sealed lead-acid batteries. One never charged back up, so awaits the next hazardous waste collection, but the other is working sweetly. It should give me about 5 hours, but isn't in perfect health and I'd be happy with 2. Frankly, I rarely ride for hours in the dark - mostly commuting, not the PBP. I charge the battery with a Battery Doc which I bought when I had a motorbike.

Lights

I exposed the other end of each green strip and soldered on the wires from a red strip. To provide weather protection I put shrink-wrap over the connection. There was never much space between the end of the strip and the first led, and wrap wide enough to fit over the strip didn't shrink enough to really grip the wires, but it seems to be working okay. I tried putting wrap on the 'open' ends of the red strips, to seal them off, but it didn't stick so well without the wire and I left it off.

Then I peeled off the backing tape, wiped down the mounting surfaces, and stuck each pair down. Simple as that. I put electrical tape over the 'open' red ends, to seal them and to hold that end down. I wasn't sure if the ribbon would adhere to the tubing, but the tubes are fairly wide and it seems to be working. The green strips had shrink wrap forcing up both ends of each strip, but was placed under a flat surface and seems to be gripping well.

The blue neon went on the down tube, just taped on. This light is possibly illegal, as NZ car lighting regulations require that you can't directly see cosmetic lights. (That's partly why I put the green ones underneath running boards, not just on the rear wing tubing, although they'd soon enough get crunched against a curb if I put them there.) The tube is pretty heavily frosted, so I'm not worried that it will blind a driver or anything, and who knows exactly what regulations apply to bikes.

I brought the three sets of wires, from front neon and left and right green/red pairs, to a single point on the frame near where the battery would go. Then I taped it all down - not super beautiful, but effective enough.

Battery and Circuitry

I built a simple case out of coroplast for the battery. I'd wanted some experience with this material, and learned a few things. The lid has no fastening, but sits pretty snugly around the base. I built the base taller than the battery, so that there was room to put in the wiring. It took a bit of practise to figure out how much allowance to make for the curvature/thickness of bends in the board.

The base box is held together with packing tape and has no overlapping surfaces. Very basic, but not much required either. The lid has overlaps, and I found that I got a strong join by cutting off the inner surface of the overlap and applying hot glue. Probably didn't need to cut off the inner surface, but that way the overlaps are flatter. I had read about 'welding' the plastic with a soldering iron, but couldn't make that work.

I wanted to be able to to swap out the battery pretty easily, so have connected to it using alligator clips. First thing connected to the positive terminal is a fuse, then there is a switch toggling between connections to the leds and the charger. The negative line just joins directly to those two connections.

Both sets of connections come out the back of the box, threaded between the lid and base. I put one extra loop of wire around the cable-ties holding the box on the frame, just to keep my options open, then soldered the wires from the battery box to those from the lights. Passing the charger connection above the cable tie seems to have kept it away from the tubing and prevented banging.

Now I plug my bike in every day when I get home, like I used to do with my motorbike. (The main charger unit sits on the rack of a Raleigh 20 which hangs from the carport roof in the forlorn hope of refurbishment.)

Results

Overall, I'm stoked. The light cushion is nice to ride on and I feel more visible on the road. Too soon to say if I get more road space, but I've had some positive feedback from passersby.

The neon is good for side visibility, but isn't as bright as I might like. It takes about the same power as one of the green strips, so is less efficient (no surprise). I could perhaps replace it with some leds, but would probably still want to diffuse the light in some way. I don't know that the green leds throw out as much light as the DLG, but then I could always add more leds. Not for a while, though.

So far I've spent NZD$80.20, but that doesn't include the blue neon, battery, or charger. Most expensive of those is probably the charger, but with a basic model charger and battery I'd still have some money to play with. My battery is probably heavier and cheaper, but the Yuba was never a weight weenie.

There's also the pleasure in making my own system, which I can alter as I please. Definitely worth the trouble taken.

On a Technicolour Cloud

2009-07-08T16:18:00.003+12:00

After a trial run at the May Critical Mass, my new bike lights had their maiden voyage (appropriately enough) on the way in to a public consultation on NZ's 2020 carbon emissions commitment. Inspired by Rock the Bike's Down Low Glow, I've attached some led strip lights under my running boards and down the back carrier support. A friend lent me a standard 'neon' car tube as well, so I've thrown that on the down tube.

In case you can't tell, the first photo is the view from my saddle, taken with my phone. It felt a bit wierd in the darker segments of the ride, glancing down and seeing an ethereal cloud in place of mundane concrete. Not to mention the blow glow on my feet. The light kept grabbing my attention at the bottom of little dips, when the bike shifts up and the pool of colour races forward into my peripheral vision.

Construction details will come in time, but here's a front and rear shot taken in the bike shed at work.

On crossing the Harbour Bridge

2009-06-03T13:31:00.003+12:00

Yes, of course I was there when cyclists and pedestrians forced their way onto the AHB. I wasn't ready to push past the cops, but neither was I so opposed to the idea that I didn't cross once I saw that thousands of others were pouring over.

It didn't surprise me that some people weren't deterred by the token police presence, but I was surprised by who went first. I had thought perhaps the fixies, or the more militant element who come to Critical Mass, but it was actually road racers who made the break. They tend to be wealthier, middle-aged men - a politically confident demographic who can be useful to have on your side. There are a lot of such men on the North Shore, and Shore people have a lot to gain from easier bridge access since so many regional jobs are South of the bridge.

Lots of friends were there to enjoy the moment with, although on the bridge itself I got drawn away in the crowds and found myself alone. I bumped into JayJay from the HandlebraEasyRiders again (pictured), and briefly met Antoine from IBikeNZ.

Politically, the demonstration triggered mixed publicity. Negative reports focussed on held up motorists and chaos spreading back through the traffic lanes, although we were able to spread the question of why Transit forced us onto the central lanes and stopped all traffic instead of working with us to keep two lanes open (ample for the Sunday morning traffic flow) and mitigate their concerns about pedestrians on the clip-ons. Letters to the editor were consumed with how the little children were learning that their parents thought it okay to break the law - as if law and order were a fragile binary state.

On the positive side, we raised a lot of awareness of the importance of the bridge to both cyclists and pedestrians. Certainly how strongly we felt about it, but also how critical that point of the network is to getting places. The issue became one for pedestrians as well as (those crazy) cyclists, and having children and elderly involved made it harder to call us a niche interest. Perhaps best of all, Transit's "plan" to provide access in 30 years was publically derided as a nonsense and they come over as intransigent in the face of extended prior negotiation for even a commemorative celebration.

Of course, they're still the ones we need to keep working with, so I don't know how the relationship will go now. That was the big concern holding me back - were negotiations so dead that they could only get better? It seemed probable, but I wasn't yet certain.

Overall, I'm glad we did it, and so glad I made the effort to be there just in case. Being on the bridge was much more emotional than I had expected. I heard my voice cracking as I called home to report where we were. Looking back, the emotion came partly from the excitement of the moment - anticipation, rebuff, and then breaking onto the bridge certainly made for a striking morning - but also from hope momentarily fulfilled echoing into strengthened desire for the future.

Frosty Morning

2009-06-03T13:06:00.004+12:00

Today we had the first frost of the year. We don't get many, so I whipped off my woolen glove and snapped a couple of photos on my phone. Above is the shared use path alongside Great North Road, looking back towards home. I have once (in summertime), seen rabbits playing on the edge of the grass here.

It is unclear whether cycles are supposed to use the path going downhill (see how the arrow only points uphill), but I use it fairly regularly depending on where the four lanes of traffic offer a gap to cross. At the bottom of the (lengthy) descent the path joins the NW Cycleway, which crosses Gt. N. Road on an overbridge. On Sunday I spoke with a new neighbour who has been doubling back to join the path before the bridge, but crossing on my own further up the hill works far better for me. Recent plans to improve/complete cycle facilities on this busy road were scotched, perhaps because they weren't very satisfactory to anybody. There is now a plan to put a six-lane motorway underneath the existing four-lane road, and so somewhere in the (re)construction process we ought to get improved cycle space - still waiting for any decent details on the motorway, though.

Below is a view off to the left where the Oakley Creek gully cuts through.

Running Boards

2009-05-19T15:33:00.005+12:00

The highlight of my respite weekend was making running boards for the Yuba in my pastor's shed. I wanted running boards because my sack of onions often falls mostly through by the time I get it home from the market, but it actually happened because it's a pre-requisite for a future project. There is a downside risk that I can't put the wheel of another bike through the wings when towing like I used to, but I have a couple of options if that really proves troublesome. I do like the increased visibility (and always wanted the red model anyhow).

My pastor generously donated a plywood offcut, and had the suitable tools for the job. I started by tracing the front and back curves of the sideloaders onto the wood, far enough apart to allow overlap for the clamps I attached it with (more on the clamps below). Conveniently the sideloaders have a long straight edge to align the ply against. After cutting the shapes out with a jigsaw, I found the band sander very useful for smoothing up the amateur-hour result and balancing the curves nicely.

I was surprised by how easy it was to get a passable shape. The front and rear of the sideloaders both have short straight sections on them, and I found it helped to establish them on the sander before working on the curves. With the straight edges established, I was able to smoothly transition from one to another, shaping the curve by the pace of rotation. It also helps not to lean too hard on the thing, taking longer but making mistakes less severe and easier to sand out.

Drilling the holes and painting were pretty straightforward, although one set of holes only just worked for me. The plywood surface cracked slightly when the bit emerged, so I drilled a small hole from the back where I'd marked the placement and then the full size hole from the front to the back. There was a similar problem when I tightened the bolts down hard and the plywood surface cracked a bit.

I attached these boards with basic u-shaped clamps. They were fairly simple to use, but I had a limited choice of sizes and the ones that weren't too large fit so tightly that I had to completely remove them to adjust their position slightly. They also cut somewhat into the layer of electrical tape I put on to protect what remains of the paintwork. I found that I had to use a longer screw on one end of each clamp, athough I could remove that after tightening everything up bent the clamp into submission. This is probably partly due to poor hole placement and partly to poor size matching.

My choice of clamp meant that I needed to leave overlap at the front and back. This works okay for me, but will probably cause occassional heel strike. It only happens when I let my heels sink as the pedal rises back up, which I think I do when I ease off after standing up. I've seen some running boards on Flickr (no time to find right now) which look like they are screwed directly into the tubing (which I'm nervous of) or possibly into single-bolt clamps which wrap right around the tube. Something you might want to consider if you're making your own.

The plywood we had to hand was only 150mm wide, but it seems to work nicely enough. The 12mm thickness looks to have provided sufficient strength; the long unsupported edge does flex a bit, but I expect the boards to stop things slipping through and provide comfortable foot placement rather than hold great weight at any one point. The wood was exterior grade, but lacked a nice finish (hence the effort to paint it). The paint is a simple water-based acrylic.

I'll try to update on how it's going after a period of genuine use - haven't even had it out on the roads yet, as I've reverted to my fixie for more intense cardio and (hopefully) fat burning.

Catching my breath

2009-05-18T20:50:00.005+12:00

This weekend I took a respite, and boy did I need it. I'm supposed to take time off every 3 months, but went to China in November and then had an assignment that soaked up a week's holiday in Te Aroha in March/April. In between I've been pushing one commitment too many, and haven't had time for optional extras like blogging. Nor has there been much bike activity to blog about, although I did see a few bikes in China.

Back to the weekend... I read a bit of SF, and got a good start on Subverting Global Myths by Vinoth Ramachandra. Paul had recommended it, and the library helpfully got it in for us. Ramachandra is Sri Lankan, and writes from his experience working across Asia, but that is less prominent than I had expected.

On Saturday I rode out to Te Atatu with a friend to watch somebody I didn't know play soccer, and meet somebody else I didn't know - so nice to just do simple things. That evening a group of us popped into town to see the Town hall all lit up as a promotional event.

I also moved to a new level of comfort with some nearby friends who I stayed with. It was a bit strange being so close to home, but nice to be able to pop in for new jeans after sitting on the damp grass at the soccer. Thanks to all the friends from church who helped Heather while I was away, even when they saw me coming and going on the same street.

Hopefully I'll be back on my feet for a while, and you'll see a few more posts again.

Mea Culpa

2009-05-18T20:43:00.002+12:00

Today I forgot to swap my front light onto the bike I rode to work, and then left my reflective vest hanging in the locker room as I set off for home. I'd worked a bit later, and a rainstorm came in, making it too dark to be on the road without lights.

As I rode past the zoo, a lady coming the other way realised she'd missed her street and did a 3-point u-turn. I would have been t-boned if I hadn't noticed and sped up, or if she'd come in faster and braked late and hard. I got a bit of a shock, but feel bad that she will have had one too. She slowed down and encouraged me to get some lights, but without the aggressiveness that you might expect from many drivers after such a fright.

I do have a second front light, but can't find it anywhere. Maybe it's time to face reality and get a new one.

Dingle Cog Perfect for Polo

2009-02-02T05:48:00.004+13:00

After months more of crazy buzy (and rocking fun) life, I was able to put Sunday afternoon aside for some Polo. It was just as much fun as last time (way back in October!), but I wasn't quite so incompetent and even managed to score a couple of goals and be on a winning team for the first time. We hope to play again in 2 weeks - check this thread if you'd like to join us.

Because I still ride the Surly Dingle Cog which I got as a precaution for riding Taupo in 2007, I was able to ride over in my normal gear (48:17) and then switch lower (42:21) for the play itself. This is the first real use I've found for the switchability (since I never get offroad), but it was a real winner. The lower gear gave me heaps more acceleration and (importantly) braking, so I could get there fast with less risk of horrendous collisions*. Having all that control gave me confidence to get in tight, so in the end I had more crashes not fewer. The astroturf surface also helped - not so bad to fall on as tarmac (and fun to skid between games).

Way back in October their was a photographer watching us, who turned out to be from Remix magazine. The following shot turned up on a double spread of 'scene' photos**, and he was good enough to make a copy available.
Afficionados will observe that I've just released my brake lever to free up my mallet hand - having a gear low enough to ignore the brake simplified everything. The guy in the black jacket and jeans is Alex, who helped setup akfixed.com.

* I do run a brake, but it's on my mallet hand so it was good to forget about it.
** At a whopping 2" across, but there I am in print!

Quickies

2008-11-14T15:45:00.003+13:00

Halloween critical mass was fun, although I lost the main bunch after waiting for a tail-ender who then decided to call it a day. Then I worked a station for the improvised akfixed.com alleycat, but got there after the lead riders. Oops.

And you might have noticed the little 'glasshouse' in the background. We've been surprised how effective a simple plastic enclosure has been for growing seedlings in. Heather's hard work has been rewarded with a much better hit rate then previous years.

In other news, the city council is scrapping almost all cycle, walking, and public transport spending. They are almost halving the largest roading project, which encourages me, but the Harbour Bridge project seems about to recede another 10-15 years into the future. Grump.

Going somewhere even more different, I often think that we eat quite a lot of salt and wonder how it doesn't affect my blood pressure. Having a few slices of pizza at work today makes we wonder if we don't avoid more salt by simple, healthy eating than we add back in for flavour. I've been pouring in water all afternoon to compensate.

Returning to the positive (which is, of course, about bikes) I've taught a colleague how to shorten his chain for a simple conversion to single-speed riding and then we popped up to check out the new T White's Bikes.

Putting my money where my mouth is

2008-11-11T17:56:00.002+13:00

Today I joined the Green Party - partly something I've been procrastinating, and partly a response to the recent elections. I cycle past their nearest office quite regularly, so today I just stopped in and got on with it.

We don't know how propitious are the circumstances, Frederick!

2008-10-27T20:36:00.002+13:00

Last Saturday I met a new neighbour, recently escaped from Wellington, who enthused about how flat it is up here, and how great for cycling. That'd be news to my any-excuse-to-stop-him-talking-about-riding-my-bike-to-work friends!

Another propitious aspect of this delightful City of Cars is steady recent growth of a cycle culture, and the Labour Day long weekend freed me up to join the AK Fixed crew for some bike polo. Somebody was taking photos, so I obligingly fell over right in front of him and collected an opponent on the way. (Hopefully I can track down a copy.) Somehow I was in the losing team for each of three short games, but had a blast and came home to be told I had a big smile all over my face. Must figure out how to fit in more of that.

Off to bed now, so that I wake in time to work on my costume for Friday night's Critical Mass. Managed to waste about five hours on a dead end this afternoon, so it'll be a tight thing. Yet more reason to remember - we don't know how lucky we are!

Automatic control for a nuVinci?

2008-10-04T20:59:00.003+13:00

Hints from Interbike suggest that a controller will soon be available for the nuVinci hub to keep it at a constant cadence. This would be great on the wheelchair bike, as the posture is all wrong and freeing a hand to change gear on the steep dip on our street is very hard. I wonder if it would keep up with the rapid pace of change? I've considered building a simple controller myself, probably based on detecting the chain links interrupting an IR signal, but haven't done anything in that area and lack the time. So one you could buy would be great...

A much needed break

2008-10-04T19:43:00.005+13:00

You haven't seen anything for months on this blog because life got crazy busy -- basically work intensified, and I didn't cope with it too well. Things are backing off, and I've hopefully picked up a few tricks about handling things better, but it was great to take a weekend away in mid September.

Continuing my campaign to exploit public transport, I put my bike on the Friday night train to Helensville and cycled four kms over to the Parakai campgrounds. The train service extended this far out about four months back, with a pilot program of one train each way per weekday. I was concerned that this one train on Friday night would be full and they'd prevent me taking a bike (let alone the big old Yuba), but got there several minutes early and nobody quibbled.

The campsite was pretty rundown, complete with sign in shower that it took two to five minutes to get hot water. I took a lukewarm shower after waiting 15, but the next day there was plenty of hot. Somewhat ironic since Parakai is known for its hot springs - as it happens I didn't visit them either as there were too many kids causing mayhem and I was out for a quiet weekend. I found a nice pair of trees for my hammock, and discovered that my friendly neighbour had lived there since 1982! Another neighbour had been a market gardener and his caravan-and-shed were a study in efficient use of land.

Saturday I cycled back to Helensville in the hope of finding a farmer's market mentioned on the internet, but none was to be seen. I enjoyed a morning free to wander the craft shops (looking for somebody's birthday present) with no real deadlines. Not that it took that long to exhaust my options in that booming metropolis. On returning to the campsite I had great plans to fix the rip in my tent netting, or maybe my bag liner, but ended up reading two novels I found in the kitchen. I can recommend Vernon God Little, but not anything by Clive Cussler. [I actually did need to fix the netting, so ended up sewing it as the sun set around 8pm!]

After I had planned this weekend around train trips out and back, the call went up for supporters at a Sunday afternoon rally advocating cycle and pedestrian access to the harbour bridge. Attending the rally met cycling in to town, which was only 50kms but much more than I'd tried with the Yuba. After some equivocation, and much studying of the unreliable elevation data on bikely and similar sites, I decided to give it a go--after all, I would still be very close to home and could easily organise a rescue if I got stuck.

As it turned out, the ride in was great. The weather was terrific (my first sunburn for the year) and none of the hills too steep. I did take 3:50 for just over 50 klicks, including about an hour of resting and lunch, but the bike steadily ate up the miles with all my luggage on it. (A duffel bag fits nicely on the back sidebars, btw.) I don't think that I could take the Yuba over the steeps on the way to Awhitu, but getting home via W. Auckland wasn't a problem. That was a great encouragement to me. Here's a view of the harbour over the motorway.

The rally itself was boring, and only about 400 showed up. Still, I'm glad that I went. A few disobedient types rode over the bridge, ensuring great coverage in the papers. Wish I'd been there. :-) It seems hard to know which way the various government authorities will go on supporting the cycleway, sadly. After the rally I ended up cruising off to a pub with some of the akfixed.com crew, who I'd been keen to meet. Like this guy's tattoo?

Weekend Away

2008-07-22T20:15:00.005+12:00

This weekend was one of my quarterly respites, and my friend Anna organised a group to go cycling together. She booked a couple of nights at a Presbyterian church campsite, and offered to cook for all comers.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/new-zealand/-papakura/71403604"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Manukau Peninsula Weekend - Day 1&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/find-ride/new-zealand/-papakura"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Find more Bike Rides in Papakura, New Zealand&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

The main route in/out was about 65kms, excluding the commuter train ride down to Papakura, with 40 flat kms and 25 a lot steeper. Anna's friend John was the only one game to ride out with me, and the poor chap generously waited as I struggled over the hills on the fixie. It was a bad choice for the trip - the dingle cog allowed me to switch to a lower ratio as we reached the concentrated hills, but I was always slow on the downhills and just didn't have the stamina to cope. I only had to walk once (when using the higher ratio), but since I was always working hard and found it hard to take drinks or snacks I was completely bushed when we reached the end. John was very supportive.

Next day, Saturday, we had a lazy morning as the three guys joining us didn't arrive until noon. In the end two of them rode with us for about 2 hours, and we did a nice loop over ludicrously steep rodes. I took the bike left spare by the one guy not riding, which happened to be one of mine anyhow. It worked well for me, so I decided to ride it back on the Sunday. Check out this hill on Boiler Gully Road - we had to walk the first of two consecutive steeps like this, but had the hang of it better the second time.

Sunday morning we set off a bit late, at 8:30. John needed to catch the 12:10 train, so we had to make better time than on the way in. We managed to avoid the unscheduled detour to Clark's Beach which made for a nice morning tea location on day one, but I did get two punctures on the old tyres the backup bike had. Having gears made a huge difference, and it probably helped that we did the worst hills at the start not the end. We may even have had a tail wind through the flatter section, although I mostly noticed it when it flung sleet into my face on the heights. We made the trip in 3:30, arriving just in time to catch the
train and spread our wet, smelly selves across an empty carriage.

Going in was hard, but coming back was fun (in spite of the wet). All up, this was a good respite and restful. So different from Taupo last year. That old bike from my Uncle did me real well, although I'm glad I swapped seats before the ride out. No more taking the fixie on long trips unless I do heaps of real buildup first (which I won't).

ps - Can't resist showing you how I got the bike over to the guys who wanted to borrow it, along with the rack for carrying the bikes on the back of their car. :-)

Gobsmacked!

2008-06-11T19:42:00.006+12:00

Heather stunned me yesterday with an audacious birthday present:

Guessed yet?

That's a 'Heavenly Flame' solar cooker, which she started hand-making when I was camping a month ago. Apparently half the neighbourhood lent her a hand with this material or that, or even taking her to the doctor, so thanks to any of you reading this.

Heather had been testing the oven all week: getting it out, setting it up, and hiding it behind the sofa every day. Despite all the exhausting effort, she didn't know if her initial daring would prove a success. Her agitation was visible even to my unsuspecting self. Until she had actually cooked in it, Heather didn't quite believe it would work. Come the big day, however, the sun was out and she baked a tasty pavlova.

Food Footprint - Almost Sustainable!

2008-06-08T20:31:00.004+12:00

Heather finished our food footprint calculations last week, and only our fish use is unsustainable. We are very excited by this result, as we consider our diet to be ample, interesting, varied, and low-maintenance -- that is, something other kiwis could take up relatively easily. (The big sticking point is always the low meat consumption, but there seems to be a steady social change there.)

I hypothesise that our food footprint is more sustainable than our emissions footprint because property rights have centred around land since time immemorial but clean air is still anybody's to pollute. A limited and less tangible property system applies to fishing, and we are correspondingly less sustainable there. I wouldn't know how to substantiate these thoughts with solid data, sadly.

Feel free to click through for details, however the underlying calculations are still being reformatted for publication.

Notes:

Heather eats a lot of fish as a simple source of protein in her highly calorie-constrained diet, and this raises us to 140% of the estimated sustainable average wild fish catch. That average is itself about 40% of the current global take, so we're between the two numbers at present. As noted above, you simply can't plant 250% of suitable land surface. (Although we might be harvesting non-sustainably due to cheap oil or short-term practises. Even hundreds of years is short term for land, after all.)
The land percentages are based on current farmed land area. This represents roughly 1/3 of land area, another 1/3 being forest and the remaining 1/3 put to other uses.
Most of our land-sourced protein is plant based. We love beans, although haven't yet fitted them into my favoured Thai cuisine. A pressure cooker is your friend if you eat lots of beans and your cook isn't home most of the day - even if somebody is home, you'll save on energy.
What meat we do eat has been entered as the sum of the the area on which the animals graze and the area required to grow supplemental feed. We have assumed free range animals (increasing the numbers), although we've only just switched for chicken pieces. (We haven't found a nearby source of free range pork, so have recently restricted ourselves to pork tongues.) Sheep and cattle are traditionally grass fed in NZ, but with the recent intensification of dairying the use of supplemental feed is rising.
Goats have been entered as zero footprint, as (in NZ) they are used as scrub control and their meat is a side benefit. We decided against entering a negative value. Goat has not been a typical meat in NZ, but is favoured by various immigrant groups and we live near the only supermarket I know which sells it. The goat also happens to be cheaper than beef, and halal (useful for certain guests).
Honey has also been entered as a zero footprint product, as pollination of commercial agriculture requires so many bees.
The 'Flavourings' category includes cream and fish sauce as well as herbs and spices. Either Heather couldn't find a number for how much fish is in fish sauce, or (more likely) it was very small as no value has been entered for flavourings in the sea 'footprint' column.

In other news, Google Spreadsheets are not quite ready for prime time. I just couldn't figure out how to do a % pie chart with an empty wedge, for example. I couldn't even graph data and labels in non-adjacent columns!

Asleep at the wheel

2008-06-07T07:34:00.003+12:00

I almost won a door prize on the way to work yesterday, but got just enough warning and was able to shimmy about six inches to the right. My rear wheel slid in towards the car as I shimmied - a downside of the long wheelbase of the SUB, I assume - then straightened as I eased off the brake. The driver had been talking on his cell phone, sitting in his parked car, and I hadn't been looking in the back windows like I usually try to do. I feel a bit silly to have been so close to the parked cars since there wasn't any other traffic on the road.

Sunny long weekend

2008-06-02T20:32:00.002+12:00

Queen's Birthday weekend was supposed to be rainy, but we have probably had a majority of sunny weather. I took Heather out in her wheelchair this afternoon, out the road and around the end of the cul-de-sac. She had hoped to take out the wheelchair bike, but I wasn't up to the initial granny-gear grind out of the gully between us and the main road.

On Friday, headed home from Pak'n'Save with a banana box full of groceries, my panniers were empty and I was able to pick up a little basket of flowers for Heather. Carrying flowers has always been hard on bikes.
Yesterday I took a chilli plant around to a colleague who has just moved into the neighbourhood. Earlier in the day, finding myself awake in time to visit the Ethiopian Orthodox who meet at 6:30 in our church building, I was pleased to find that the large frame of the Yuba Mundo kept my long overcoat out of the rear wheel. (It didn't seem to right to turn up in bizarre cycling gear to strangers whose entire culture is unfamiliar to me.) You might have picked up that I'm enjoying this bike.

Does ´Food Security´ mean Isolationism?

2008-06-02T09:54:00.002+12:00

The Green Party, who I have been known to give my party vote to, seem to be pushing ´Food Security´ just as their conference comes up. Perhaps it will form a key part of their policy platform? As stated -- still somewhat vague -- the idea seems to be very anti-trade. Could this be an issue which divides me from them in this election, as the GE Free campaign did eight years ago?

After several days of mulling, I have posted a fairly lengthy comment on frogblog based on two points:

Trade exposes us to the madness of the world, and
We must reshape the system, not exercise our privilege by leaving it.

A central feature of the madness I refer to is the obscene paucity of opportunity and reward available to most of the world´s population. Trade is essential to levelling up the nations of the world. Frankly, I am convinced that we should invite as many foreigners as we can sustain to help us forge a prosperous future which their home communities can share in via remittances. Free Labour, not just Capital.

As for taking part in the system so that it reflects ´us´ not only ´them´, perhaps I need to take my own advice and get round to joining the Greens?

Our Carbon Emissions

2008-06-01T20:50:00.004+12:00

Update - Jan 2010. The spreadsheet is finally available.

Heather has just worked out our carbon footprint for the last tax year, and found that we generate 3 times the sustainable global average. She has put a heap of effort in, based around 3 months of measuring and tabulating our household inputs and outputs. She has separated the routine elements from the irregular, and filled in for the rest of the year. We are both glad that we have completed our baseline measurements, and can take the compost out in peace.

The only changes we've made so far based on this info are switching from butter to margarine and putting up a 'No Advertising Please' sign on our letterbox. Recycling 3kg of junk mail a week generated about 6.5kg CO2 equivalent for each of us every week!

Here's the breakdown. Click through for the details - still working out how best to share this type of data. Eventually we plan to publish the detailed calculation spreadsheet in case anybody else would like to check their household out -- first I have to automate it further and port it all across to Google Docs.

3 Cheers for Auckland University Sustainability Network!

2008-05-30T20:57:00.003+12:00

I think that's who it was who met us at the end of Critical Mass with hot samosas and a tomato-based sauce! What a great way to finish - all standing around in the cool, clear night air and chatting rather than disappearing into a noisy pub.

My dinner plans had been up in the air, so I dug in for two samosas and ate my bowl for "desert".

Consent

2008-05-18T20:52:00.002+12:00

Found an interesting new blog yesterday, with a great post on consent. We need more men in NZ speaking up about the practical implications of consent, in terms that show the simple humanity of the idea (and conversely how non-consensual acts deny the image of God in the other, although I doubt Ari would use those kinds of words).

Need for Speed

2008-05-16T18:39:00.003+12:00

Yesterday I had to rush home when Heather cut her hand with a utility knife (making my birthday present!). As it worked out a neighbour drove her down to the doctor for two stitches, and I met them there. Nothing big, but she was worn out by having to make the excursion and sit up for so long in her wheelchair.

On the way home I was wishing for a speedier bike -- the Yuba may be great in general, but I was reluctant to wait for lights, let alone shop or scavenge on this trip. What I wanted was the 'Sunday Sports Car'. I have two spare bikes at work, waiting in the hope of pulling in colleagues for lunchtime rides in the Spring, and ought to set one up for the emergency sprint home. I'll probably configure the fixie with the highest gear I can manage in the homeward direction, which I would not otherwise do since that implies walking at least one section on the way back to work. (Not only is the steepest section uphill on the way in, but anytime after 10am I'm more energetic and limbered up.)

I am still considering whether I am comfortable giving up the motorbike permanently. It wouldn't have helped yesterday anyhow, as I wasn't able to predict the incident. It is good for lunchtime doctor's appointments, and late mornings when I want to get in quickly, but a speed-freak bicycle may help to mitigate the loss in those situations.

El mundo - mi perla

2008-05-13T20:49:00.003+12:00

So last month I finally received my new Yuba Mundo after months of waiting, and suffered two tantalising weeks to building it up. Since then I have taken it camping, bought a sack of rice, and commuted every day.

The big rack looks wide from behind, and gets such respect from cars that I plan to retire my blond wig. In reality it is no wider than the handlebars, so I can still fit through the same gaps. You do have to avoid cutting across the front of a car before you've actually passed into the gap, given the extra length. The maneuvreability is really noticeable with a moderate load of 10-20kg; where my old tourer would have become whippy in the tail, this monster truck rides just like normal.

"Monster truck" I said, but clown-mobile is more how I felt the first week. The whole bike is so big and heavy that you feel ludicrous without oversized boots and a giant red nose. Then you become familiar with the commanding presence on the road. You learn to carry momentum into hills, and settle into the steady rhythm of gearing suitably low for the Mundo's immensity. You learn that you can pick up those extra items at the supermarket, without worrying whether the panniers will fit them or regretting leaving the trailer at home. Then you learn that the load doesn't stop you climbing the hill between stationary lanes of traffic to position for the right hand turn towards home.

For Critical Mass last month I rode the Yuba. One of the ubiquitous fixies had a puncture, and I offered him a ride. He sat on the carrier, and held his front wheel off the ground so that the bike trailed after us. We had to trade off a couple times, as much because it was hard work holding the bike at arm's length, and we walked the last part of the major climb out of town. This was my first real load, and I was pleased with the handling. We wobbled drunkenly for a moment at the low speed of initial movement and just before stopping. In between we were pretty stable. Sadly, although many pictures were taken none seem to have reached the Flickr group and I wait until this month's ride to ask

"Car" Camping

2008-05-09T19:57:00.006+12:00

Safe in my hammock, with the fly keeping out the rain, I foolishly assumed myself safe from the weather...Lesson learned: hang your luggage, or pick a campsite that won't flood!

A couple of weekends back I was able to take a respite break and went camping in Shakespear¹ Park, Whangaparaoa. I needed to rest more than ride, and desired an excusion just far enough to test out my new bike and newish hammock. Shakespear worked well because there's a ferry to Gulf Harbour, after which you only have to ride 7km to the very end of the peninsula. Until you reach the park itself you are in residential neighbourhoods, and there would be sufficient hostelry if I had to bail out.

Lacking time to pack tidily and efficiently, I just threw an oversupply of clothes into one of those cheap woven-plastic bags and strapped it on the yuba. 16kgs on one side and about 3 on the other, but it rode surprisingly well. I love the simplicity of this bike.Although this was the last weekend of school holidays, the weather has recently turned cold in NZ so few people were in the park. Probably a wise choice by everybody else, as it rained about 1 in every 2 hours from Friday night until Sunday morning. The last night was particularly fierce, and I realised about midnight that I had been flooded out. Thankfully I'd used separate plastic bags inside the large carry-all, not trusting it², and nothing essential got damaged before I rescued it onto the rack of the bike (under its own tarpaulin).
The only damage done was to my breakfast :-( and a fixable rip in my bug netting when I turned around too vigorously inside the hammock and dragged the corner of my air mat across it.

Despite the rain, I was able to open out the fly during the day and make a comfy campsite. I made a good start on my current reading project, mostly sitting in the hammock and resting my foot on the gas bottle.
I must confess that the bottle was not part of my original luggage - the friendly ranger lent it to me after we got talking about bicycles and eventually it came up that I had mis-understood the level of cooking facilities described on the council's website. That bike got me into a lot of conversations, actually -- must get some business cards or something from Stu.

All in all, a good trip. Got more familiar with my gear, and look forward to taking it on a more adventurous journey. I do need to find some kind of cooking solution - exactly what depends somewhat on whether I expect to retain the voluminous storage of the yuba or choose a smaller bike for longer trips. I also need to find a bit more insulation for my feet - they stuck off the end of the insulating mat and that hammock was quite cold on my un-insulated parts.

1) (No, there isn't supposed to be an 'e'.)
2) Actually, the cheap bag was pretty shower proof. I was impressed.

Nuvinci - Riding Report

2008-04-13T20:39:00.006+12:00

Overview

I have been very happy with my NuVinci hub over the two months it has been my regular ride. Continuous shifting works well on steady or slowly-changing slopes, although I have not (yet?) developed a feel for wide shifts on sharp dips and rises. The low maintenance and simplicity are a real plus, and the wide range has worked well for commuting and grocery hauling. The weight will put off any racer, but as a commuter and utility cyclist I only notice on my most sluggish days (and could do with burning the extra calories). I have lent the bike to several novice riders who found it intuitive to use.

Sorry that this post is very long, and lacks pictures, but I wanted to lay out the details as best I can in case somebody else there is making purchase decisions. Hopefully my experience will settle your qualms about an adventurous purchase.

General Feel

The hub has provided a simple and reliable ride to and from work. It doesn't feel unique any more, although when I lent it out last week it was a bit restricting to return to big jumps between gears. I never felt that the drive was 'inefficient', however that is measured.

The hub is certainly heavy, but I don't usually notice its weight until I come to park and try to lift the tail closer to the wall. The whole bike is fairly heavy, actually, but I don't swap regularly to provide a contrast and presumably just burn a few more calories on the (fixed length) commute.

I had read that changing gears required easing off on the pedals, but I find this ceases to be a problem if my cadence is over about 70rpm. Perhaps more powerful riders would find this more of a problem, but once I get into spinning rather than grinding mode the gears move quite easily. There is a risk that I overestimate the ratio I can take through a rise, as once I am in too high a gear and pressing harder on my pedals it does become difficult to change down. I did find that adjusting the cable tension helped a bit with smoothing out the adjustment - there is a balance to find between too tight to pull at all and so loose that the controller plays quite a distance before pulling. I couldn't find an obvious sweet spot and the feel varies slightly day to day, but wherever I settled seems to be working now.

Having continuous gearing has helped me to work on my cadence after a bad year in that respect. I have tweaked a cheap computer to show me how I'm doing, and am slowly increasing my average. Unfortunately the old bike I've thrown the new wheel onto doesn't encourage fast spinning by its geometry.

The 350% range allows me to pull a trailer of groceries home (and light trailers on the steeper route to work), but still gives me just enough speed to feel safe on my commute. I am running 36:17 rings, which works out to about 6km/h at 45rpm in low gear and 46km/h at 100rpm in top. My most important downhill runs from 35-45 when congested, so I only fail to keep up if the cars are accelerating into space (such as after traffic lights). (Btw, this is close to the lowest permitted ratio (2:1), so I don't think that the hub (as rated) is ready for really heavy hauling like a rickshaw.)

Continuous Shifting

Adjusting to the new gearing was very easy -- perhaps the hardest part was turning the my wrist in the opposite direction to the friction shifters I had been using. I was certainly tentative about finding the right setting at first, but am now confident of my feel for it.

On flat road or steady climbs the smooth gearing allows you to steadily build speed and intensity. If I lose my cadence at the start of a rise (not uncommon) then I can regroup at a lower ratio and smoothly adjust the ratio as I power up. Similarly, I can ease off the gearing to retain my rhythm as the slope outlasts my energies.

This is all great when I'm fired up for my ride, but on the down days it probably lets me slack off somewhat - slowly easing down the ratio just when I ought to be pushing into the challenge. I should only bottom out the gearing at two places on my ride, but am periodically surprised how far I've let the gearing drift down. Since I don't watch the indicator most of the time, it is easy to get out of sync with my actual position in the range of adjustment.

One part of my commute crosses a series of short ridges, and I find it hard to shift very quickly. The long overall travel (over a full turn of the controller, which is well past what my wrist can do in one go) and the loose awareness of the absolute adjustment at any time mean that I can't just shift to a known setting. Stepped gearing, with it's limited options, is therefore simpler when you want to crash through several gears.

Two factors do mitigate rapid shifts. At the bottom of a dip, pedalling difficulty steadily increases. This keeps plenty of pressure on the pedals, providing more information to find the right gear. So long as you keep up or ahead of the required change then you're good. If you loosen up too much then you will lose speed but can regroup and rebuild as described above. This is annoying, but not the end of the world if you're focussed on getting places simply rather than in the zone of the ride itself. At the other end of the scale, when I crest these particular rises and drop into the next dip I have gravity assisting me if I don't get into a faster gear as soon as I'd like.

One last shifting context of note is rising out of the saddle. I am slowly learning to ease up the gear from a half-standing posture which allows me to hold high torque across an intersection. I rarely rise out of my saddle on hills, and the first few times I tried it was hard to twist my wrist on the controller while I had more reliance on my hands for riding. Once again, this isn't such a problem for more leisurely cyclists.

Robustness

Two months isn't long on this count, but the hub hasn't seemed to slip or give any kind of trouble. No maintenance is required on the hub itself -- I haven't even oiled the chain, which is probably a bit cruel even on a straight chain line. Despite a couple of heavy loads and slopes that pushed my legs to their limit in low gear, the hub never slipped. There was one curious feature, though: the rear cog still spins a bit when I freewheel, so when I restart pedalling the takeup isn't always quite where I expect it. The external freewheel is supposed to eliminate exactly this issue, so perhaps mine just needs a bit more lube?

I've dropped the wheel off a few kerbs, and even around a couple kms of off-road track (WARNING - not covered by the warranty!) . The biggest risk evident so far is that the heavy hub lands with quite a thump and needs a strongly built wheel and fat tyres or suspension for even small drops.

I have managed to damage one element - the indicator is a bit scratched up from flipping the bike over to fix punctures. Since it sticks up way above the handlebars, the indicator is always going to be a point of contact during roadside repairs.

Novice Riders

My major hope for the hub was that it would be easy for novices to pick up. I've lent the bike to a few colleagues who hadn't ridden bikes since their teens but joined a recent series of lunchtime rides to picnic at the beach. They had no trouble other than hauling the extra weight back up the hill, and were certainly mixing up the gears a lot. They still had some trouble picking the right gear, tending to spin out on uphills instead of settling in to the work. When somebody didn't change down in time they were able to stop, changed down, and restart.

By contrast, two guys on derailleur gears were discovered to be riding the same gear the whole trip. They got the idea of the rear gears fairly quickly, but avoided changing the front ring and therefore heavily reduced their range.

My flatmate, Sarah, took the bike out having not ridden for about 20 years. She picked the gearing up immediately. The only question she asked, once we had gone down and up the big dip in our street and were working uphill on the main road, was whether the cadence she had naturally settled at was 'proper'. It felt slightly fast to her, but was working smoothly, and turned out to be a tidy 65rpm.

Reccomendations

I would strongly recommend this hub to utility cyclists if you are buying new kit, or find one cheaply second-hand. If you're buying new then it's not that expensive, but there's so much good stuff being thrown out that I would encourage people to use that instead. If you've been wistfully dreaming of a Rohloff, then give this one a thought.

If you're putting a commuter bike together for a friend who is new at cycling then Nuvinci would be a great bet. The weight may deter an unfit rider in hilly areas, but give them an old beater until they've demonstrated some commitment and built up some stamina. The heavy hub on a new bike is no worse than riding an older bike with heavy frame.

Hopefully there'll be enough purchasers to keep the company going until they can make a smaller, lighter version and the wider market discovers them. (I fear, however, that the fools who disdain re-cycled gear will lack the sense to buy this nice piece of technology because they think it isn't racy enough.) The technology clearly has promise for electric bikes, and the unicyclist community would kill for a fixed version.

When will we Get Across?

2008-03-04T20:29:00.003+13:00

It looks like there's a big campaign coming for cycle and pedestrian routes over the Harbour Bridge. I can't make the launch tomorrow, but hope to get a t-shirt or something to parade around town. They'd have sold a bunch if they'd had them at Critical Mass.

This has been tried before - hopefully the time and public mood are right. I don't think that our beloved mayor will be a fan.

Busy, Busy Bike Week

2008-03-02T16:48:00.005+13:00

Heather and I took a quick spin this afternoon in the wheelchair bike, since she was feeling moderately okay and hadn't been out for ages. She'll pay for the hour-long excursion over the next few days, but did enjoy getting to see the next street over as we dropped a couple of things into letterboxes. The nearby creek bends around the end of the road, and although too steep down for us to get near the creek there were many long driveways with flax and other 'wild' plants along the roadside above. This was a relaxing way to end a busy but encouraging week which has at several times deprived Heather of my company.

Bicygnals
On Monday night I tested a set of front and rear lights with flashing indicators, with a view to writing a review for Chainlinks magazine. They're just coming into NZ, and will soon be available for $120. I could see them being useful, but indicating isn't a major requirement for my commute and they don't fit quite right on any of my current bikes. I reckon they'll sell a fair few units, and it was fun riding round with them. Nick, the importer, says they are considering a 3-unit set for rickshaws, and they would work sweetly on the trailer. I don't take it out on the road after dark at present, and would like to be able to indicate even when I'm pulling into or out of the main traffic flow.

Writing the review took well into the night Tuesday, and I didn't see Heather in the morning either as I left early for the ...

Bike-to-Work Breakfast

On Wednesday there was a big breakfast put on by local government for anybody who cycled to work in town. About 700 people turned up, which was pretty good. Only three came from my work, which was way poor even by our standards. Having so few makes it hard to request t-shirts from the management for this or similar events.

I did enjoy the breakfast, however, and traded a ride on my NuVinci for a ride on a Rohloff-equipped Birdy. Nice bike, that. And the Rohloff was certainly easier to shift than I've got the NuVinci at this point. About 5 times the price, of course. I also talked to some chaps from unicycle.com about the NuVinci, and whether it could be adapted for their needs. The big issues are whether it can be adapted to run fixed, and if it will become lighter over time. I progressed to work via Bike Central, and was pleased to see their facilities for the first time.

Picnic

My big event for the week was a lunchtime cycle ride to the Harbour Bridge and back, which I organised at work. I was thrilled to get nine along in total, including four who don't usually cycle and one who hasn't commuted since a bad accident last year. Even better, there is talk of another trip next week. People seemed to like being at the beach in the middle of a working day.
Our route took us along the waterfront downtown, past the marina, and right under the bridge. There is wee beach just by the motorway on-ramp, where we stopped for a pleasant repast. The geography conspires to hide the adjacent bustle, and the sun shone to complete the scene. Unfortunately lunch was immediately followed by a climb regaining perhaps 75% of the height lost in our initial descent. One of our party had to walk, and another required stops on the way, but the quiet road afforded all the time required.

On Monday I had taken my two spare bicycles in on the trailer so that I could lend them out. That worked out well, although it was perhaps tactless to pack a lunch that needed to be transported on the rack of a bike I wasn't riding. Particularly when that rack snapped its upper mounting and pivoted back onto the ground less than five minutes into the ride! Fortunately we had a spare bungee to tie it up with, and the ceramic quiche plate didn't break.

Riding the trailer in wasn't too hard, although it helped that I had just dropped the front ring on that bike (the NuVinci one) to 36 teeth (giving 28-100 gear inches). I did manage to tip the trailer on its side on one corner, forgetting how high the load was on the one side, and scraped up the corner of an old lady's seat. No structural damage, so all was happy.

Critical Mass

Finally, and quite excitingly, I joined the first Critical Mass seen in Auckland for some years. I joined a couple in 2005, riding once with only 3 people, so was pleasantly surprised to see 70-80 turn up! Props to the people organising it, who did a good job of spreading the word. There were a few belligerent young men present, mostly riding fixies - was glad I had left mine at work, but was interested to discover most were riding roughly 42/17 which was my main gear for Taupo. We ran almost all the read lights, which I think is a poor choice. Even worse was that a few riders weren't deferring to pedestrians. Hopefully I and like-minded riders can inculcate a change of practise over time. Still, I would rather have the event than not.

Met some interesting Young Greens and their friends at the pub afterwards. Most of the riders were quite young, I noticed, which contrasts with the 35-45 peak age bracket for sport cycling. Not a great pub, and they weren't prepared for forty cyclists dropping in together. Poor single-handed barman did a sterling job, however, and they had Bulmers which is about the best of the ciders you can get on tap around here.

So - a good week all round but slightly tiring. Hope it has an impact going forwards.

ps. Apologies for any archaic turn of phrase. Heather is listening to The Well at the World's End while I write.

Nuvinci - Installation Notes

2008-02-22T06:25:00.002+13:00

A few notes from fitting my new wheel with the Nuvinci hub and its controller.

Fitting the wheel itself was pretty straightforward, but having to use a 21mm wrench to tighten the drive-side nut was a nuisance. There was room to get my adjustable spanner in for a first try, as I didn't have a 21mm, but I bought one for future use. Couldn't find a nice light one, and they don't come as standard on cyclists' multi-tools.
The controller takes up quite a bit of handlebar space. I ended up buying a new set of brake levers, as the ones I was replacing had a fitting for gear levers which prevented a snug fit. I got long levers to reach past the controller. (Interestingly, the LBS produced a set of Sachs 5000 levers in yellowing packaging. They must have sat on the shelf for about 10 years! They feel great, and much better than the money would have bought me in 'new' components.)
The controller sticks up quite high as well, which means that when I flip the bike to work on it I scratched the finish. Not a major, but a shame when I did it before the controller ever hit the road.
Very few bikes are likely to have fittings for dual rear gear cables. This was my first go at picking a cable path, and I felt uncertain about selecting the length to cut the sheathing to. Everything is stuck down with electrical tape for now, and seems to have worked out okay.
Put quite a bit of slack in the adjuster screws at the controller end before fitting the cables. I almost got stuck with slightly too-tight cables that made it hard to fit the pulleys into the housing. It took me 15 minutes to ease them in without losing any loops from the cable that was round around the outer pulley.
Don't cut short the wires until just before putting the cover on the controller. That seems convenient to do once you've got each wire positioned, but limits your options if you're having trouble fitting everything together. It also exposes your fingers to more sharp bits.

No pictures, sorry, as I got all absorbed in my work and my hands were very dirty.

Continuously Varying Single-Speed

2008-02-03T17:28:00.000+13:00

Our flatmate is away, and I've had the luxury of littering the carport with bicycle components. Yesterday I dragged out my brother-in-law's old bike¹ from under the house and fitted in the NuVinci hub I ordered in October². I haven't had time to install the gear controller, so it functions as a single speed with a knob on the back to change the ratio whenever you care enough to hop off and do so. It seems that without the controller installed the adjustment screw slowly turns while you ride and the going gets harder, hence the 'Continuously Varying' label.

In order to fit the hub I had to respace the frame to 135mm from 126. This turned out to be really easy -- so easy that my first effort was too strong and I had to adjust it back some. The spectre of getting this part wrong has held me back from getting started when I only had a short period to work in, so I was particularly pleased with myself when I had done it. I tried to use the string method Sheldon Brown describes for checking that the two sides are adjusted evenly, but found it hard to know if I was taking square measurements. I guess it gave me peace of mind that everything was near enough.

The hub went in easy enough, although the drive side nut is quite unusual. There is a disk mounted on the outside³, then inside that is the nut which you would expect to see. Unfortunately the nut is a 21mm fitting, so I didn't have a proper spanner and had to use my adjustable. I'll have to buy a tool, as I don't want to carry the heavy wrench around in case the wheel needs to be adjusted.

Needless to say I'll let you know when I've had a chance to wire in the controller and give the hub a proper try.

[Update - After riding this setup to work today, I can report that the self-adjustment mostly happens when you apply a lot of torque. That makes sense, I guess. Unfortunately it means that just when I'm working hard to top a rise the gearing gets even harder on me! Hopefully I can fit the controller on Wednesday, which is Waitangi Day.]

This bike was probably last ridden in 1991! Heather remembers trying to use it as a fallback in 1996 and finding it unrideable. The rear wheel was dead (but I didn't need that) and the brake pads are as worn as they must have been 16 years ago, but other than the abundant superficial rust it is quite rideable. And people throw their old bikes out...
I received the hub in November, had it built into a wheel just before Christmas, but wasn't able to collect it in time to do anything further during the break. I've been itching for a chance to play with it.
It keeps the ratio adjustment knob from coming too far out, and the controller latches to it.

Immigration: increasingly important to me

2008-01-29T20:39:00.000+13:00

Another link from Free Exchange - this one on a topic that troubles me more and more. I repeatedly ponder why I have a highly paid job in NZ that is inaccessible to the other kids I grew up with in Koksamrong.

Efficiency

2008-01-29T19:41:00.000+13:00

Via Free Exchange I found yet another article considering the enormous challenge of meeting climate change stability targets. I agree with their opening point that efficiency will be the key issue, but I think that there is more than one facet to being efficient.

Carbon-efficient power generation is all the article considers. This will be important, and we can probably make a lot of progress in that area. They focus on electricity generation, but we all know that efficient burning car engines etc will also matter.
Efficient use of the generated power will also be important. Think car engines again, but also using other forms of transportation when a car's peculiar attributes are not required. Technology will move us forward here, but pricing (economically and/or socially) will help to make people aware of when they are choosing the inefficient option from the array of 'green' technology to hand.
Unless the above work far better than expected, we're still going to have to make choices about what is really important to us. Expect pricing to feature again here, to help us determine what pursuits will efficiently achieve our key goals. Put differently, the up side of scarcity is clearer thinking about what we really want. So long as the scarcity is in luxuries this can be seen as good (if rather bracing). Unfortunately some of us will certainly retain the freedom to choose luxuries while others will be pushed to meet their most essential needs.

Heather and I are quite optimistic that a sustainable lifestyle can be devised which is truly enjoyable, but think it will require a shake-up that few are talking about at present. It could be quite healthy for us in the affluent 'West'/'North'.

p.s. We have just returned from a holiday weekend on Waiheke Island, where it proved really useful to have a car available for getting to/from the further-than-expected beach. On the other hand, as Dad and I paddled a rented kayak through the wake of various launches I pondered the ratio between the vastly greater resources required by a launch and the extra happiness it generated compared to our exertions.

New(ish) Toys 2 - Frame Lock

2008-01-10T06:09:00.000+13:00

Yesterday I rode my fixie to work, as I wanted to swim first and it locks up easiest. Not only doesn't it have a derailleur hanger to get caught in the horrible wheel-bending parking slots, but it has a simple frame-lock attached.

The lock is always on the bike, and the key stays in it while it is unlocked. All I have to do is swing the lever through the wheel, line it up slightly (cheap model) and push it home. Since I ride in normal shorts I almost always have a pocket for the key. The security wouldn't be sufficient for parking at university, or in many cities, but I consider it good enough for our suburban pool. The lock really comes into its own at the dairy, where it often takes me longer to place and remove a cable lock than I spend in the store.

Mum scored me this lock from China, as they seem hard to come by in NZ. They were common on the bikes I knew as a kid in Thailand--at least the adults' bikes. This model has a weak connection point, which doesn't compromise its effectiveness as a lock but does mean that it bends away from the seat stays and hits my heels if I don't tape it down. My only complaint, however, is that I don't have one for each bike.

New Toys 1 - Homemade Trailer

2008-01-04T20:23:00.000+13:00

Late last year I finally got around to painting the trailer which I had welded together at a night class (read club for men without sheds) in the first half of the year. I'd been toying with having it powder coated, but that was too expensive. It was supposed to be cheaper than a bought one, even with the cost of the night class counted in. Galvanising seemed like a great proposition, until I learned how many drainage holes I'd have to drill before they'd go near the thing. So finally I bought a can of Hammerite and painted it by hand. It was actually fairly easy, but I put it on a bit thick. Choosing a hammered copper finish probably didn't help with that as it didn't go on uniformly and I was perpetually uncertain what coverage I had achieved. The paint seems to be holding, however, and I have plenty left after cautiously upsizing to 250ml.

I had planned to make a canvas bed, but was so pleased with the two bamboo garden stakes I lashed on for my first trial that I'm sticking with them. I hope to get some flattish segments from a neighbour's large bamboo offcuts to make good cross-wise supports, but the scrounged wooden cross-pieces pictured hold up if I don't hit bumps too hard.

My course finished before I got another bar on the front to stop cargo sliding forwards. This conveniently allows me to put heavy loads right at the front where there are more structural supports underneath. Presumably this dramatically increases the tongue weight and makes the bike work harder, but it gets the goods where they need to go.

The trailer rides quite comfortably. I have it hooked up to an old, upright bike which is fairly heavy itself. The two parts look good together, and I think that the bike engenders a suitable riding style for the trailer.

The trailer hitches to the rear axle. Consensus on the internet seemed to be that axle mounts ride better than hitching to the seat post, and so far it has ridden nicely for me. I did get shunted by the trailer until I tightened the connecting pin really firmly into the trailer arm. On the other hand, Aaron, who I got trailer plans from, has switched to seat mounting because it gives him a better handle for trundling into supermarkets etc.

I do recommend Aaron's plans. They were easy to work with, although he suggested using galvanised materials which makes for terrible nasty fumes during welding.

Twice in one day

2008-01-03T21:22:00.001+13:00

Once you get the habit...

Just to let my devoted readers know that I've posted a first entry on a thematic blog about the many and varied uses of Oil. Heather and I find that everybody talks about running out of oil to drive cars (and maybe heating houses), but who wants to live without all those other oil-based products? [Basically anything 'synthetic' - H interjects] She is trained as an industrial chemist, so is rather more aware than me on the topic. Should learn something.

I used to read a blog called "Oil is for Sissies" (now defunct), but we wanted a more positive slogan. Still looking for something catchy, as oil turns out to be everywhere.

[Okay, so this makes thrice. But only twice here, so still good.]

Giving Up

2008-01-03T06:23:00.000+13:00

No, I haven't given up on blogging. I have been stopped up by needing to report on Taupo, and at the end of my Christmas break I'm squeezing in the planned report. Hopefully that'll free me up to give you more reports later.

So, anyway, I did give up at Taupo. I completed the back half of the course - the vast majority of hills - in 4 hours, pretty much as hoped. Unfortunately my victory was phyrric in nature and after taking a long break and limping through to the 3/4 mark I called it quits there. That was about the 7:40 mark, so I'd have been a late, late finisher had I continued. There was mostly flat left, but a decent headwind had come up and I didn't have any strong commitments to draw me on. So I got a lift with the truckie who was just finishing dismantling the final relay station.

Next morning I felt right as rain - it was certainly a fuel problem not any set of muscles giving out. My computer showed a steady 19km/h for on-bike time, but obviously my stops had become too frequent. It certainly hurt most that I'd given up, which is an unfamiliar feeling. Normally I don't commit myself into such stretching challenges, so haven't felt the bitterness for a while. I'm proud that I beat the hilly bit, and still mostly convinced that I didn't have any clear drivers to push myself too far on what was supposed to be a 'respite' weekend, but I'm still niggled by the idea of going back and completing this time.

If I do keep riding then first I want to ride something closer to home. No sense in driving 4 hours to ride your bike. (Or in hitching lifts and getting friends to transport your kit so you don't get your bike back until Christmas day!) I should probably also train more. The fixie will probably be on hold for a while as I aim to get a test bed for the Nuvinci (now built into a wheel and waiting at my LBS), which may be more sensible given how hilly the local rides are.

I have made a New Year's resolution - don't mix respite with such strenuous activity. That whole weekend so exhausted me physically and mentally (taking into account squeezing in packing etc) that I didn't recover until the Christmas rush was well on top of me. It was good to have had a crack at, though. Sadly I didn't get any work people along, which had been what originally drew me into it.

There was a late-minute plan to do a commuting promotion, which didn't come off. Am considering what we can do for the local Bike the Bays in March.

That's probably all I need to say. I did take a voice recorder around with me and when I figure out the uploading you can hear firsthand how exhausted I was.

Happy New Year.

Back on the Road

2007-11-23T05:47:00.000+13:00

Being picked up in 45 minutes to go cycle Lake Taupo. Am riding fixed, but have fitted a dingle cog to have a backup gear (giving 42/17 and 36/21 - oops, thought I had a 38). The route is famously hilly, although mostly the first half. Have no idea how things will turn out - how hilly is hilly? Either way, I'm down to the one bike right now (due to a bottom bracket failure on my favourite) so I'm girding myself up and determined to have fun.

Also have no crew to ride with, but surely will find some companions among the thousands enrolled. There is talk about organising a bunch of us in commuter getup, but who knows if that will pan out. Had hoped to organise a relay team from work and ride alongside them, but that sort of thing is not my forte.

Being on my own, I opted for bus and campground, but bus won't confirm space for the bike so have ended up getting separate lifts for it and me. I get there around lunch, and will miss having a bike to cruise round on all afternoon. Hopefully it arrives around seven, but I'm not optimistic. As for camping, this will be my first chance to try my new hammock(!). The campground requires me to use it hung from poles not trees, but eventually I couldn't resist and am leaving behind a 'normal' tent kindly lent to me. I am nervous whether it will offer the illusion of security in an inner-city campground, and provide sufficient space to sort my kit out before bed tonight. The ride kicks off at 7:15, so want a quick start. (Not that I had trouble being awake in time for today's pick up. Am quite excited.)

Wish me luck.

Professional Sport as Pinnacle not Entertainment

2007-11-21T09:51:00.000+13:00

The editorial at the front of the latest Practical Pedal caused me reflect on my objections to professional sport.

Professionalism was promoted for Rugby as a due reward for the effort required to reach the top and practical support necessary to reach even higher heights. (Let's forget for now about
the important aspect of keeping players from defecting to League.) That sounds good enough, but I see the heart going out for the game as it becomes just another entertainment for TV to package ads into. Perhaps the fact that fewer kiwis seem to play these days (is this true? If so it is as much a general cultural trend as any fault of the Rugby Union) makes it harder to see those achieving-excellence arguments as so relevant, but they do seem fair in principle.

Perhaps I can accept payment to support athletes at some level, but advise caution increasing with the popularity of the sport to non-participant spectators?

Harsh Chemicals

2007-11-14T21:05:00.000+13:00

Heather has been playing with homemade deodorant, as she is sick of throwing out little plastic bottles. The internet is full of helpful pages, but some of them drive her inner chemist to despair.

Apparently using baking soda allows you to avoid harsh chemicals, but the same writers go on to mention that using too much can cause irritation. What did they think they would get when they put sodium bicarbonate in water?

Infinity and Beyond!

2007-10-22T07:19:00.000+13:00

Late Friday night I took the plunge and ordered a Nuvinci hub from the US. It offers the fascinating prospect of continuously variable transmission, rather than the stepped gear ratios on most bicycles. Not only does this offer experienced cyclists an optimum ratio for their pedaling power and the road steepness, but it should be much easier for new cyclists to pick up. (A couple of years ago I was out with a friend who hadn't ridden for a while, and they kept switching the wrong set of gears or in the wrong direction. Nothing like making things harder just when you need them to ease up to ruin your day.) The shifter comes with a cleverly designed indicator which is reported to be very intuitive.

At the moment you can only get these hubs on certain upmarket new bikes, or from two US distributors who don't seem to have established connections to NZ. Conveniently, QBP seems to have recently made their catalogue available for retailers to put on their websites and a couple have realised the opportunity in shipping internationally. The famous Sheldon Brown has it up on the Harris Cyclery site, but Alfred E. Bike seems to have tacked on a smaller margin (and cheaper indicative postal rates, which have yet to be confirmed for my order) and thus won my business. Once the hub arrives, I have arranged for it to be built into a wheel by Bruce at Adventure Cycles, then I can finally try it out.

Hopefully buying the hub contributes to them becoming more widely available. I'm sure that the price would drop if they were turned out in the millions. Maybe when my parents retire back to NZ (in a few years?) I'll be able to afford a couple of these on the basic old bikes I would hope to hook them up with. They ought to work well with electric motors, too, which would gladden my Mother's heart and extend my ambitions as to what I can carry on a bike.

For now we wait. The big question is: "How robust is it?" I'll be sure to post on how things turn out, but for now leave you one of the official promo videos:

Professional 'Sport'

2007-10-07T07:56:00.000+13:00

Minutes away from the first serious game for the All Blacks in this Rugby World Cup, I am seated in front of the television full of both tension and ambivalence. I will be watching the game, and in fact watched their first game, but each time I wonder whether I should be. Why? Because 30+ men turning up to work isn't sport, and I delude myself to think I share in their success.

Professionalism may have stopped the flow of players from union to league, but I reckon it will prove to undermine the All Blacks in the long term. They are no longer the normal men who prove to be different by the commitment and skill they demonstrate in their 'spare' time. Neither is there continuity between them and the schoolboys and team players; professionalism draws a vast distinction in terms of material rewards, life structure (fulltime training etc) and consequent quality of play. Young players may be lured by the 'big time', but will they identify with the All Blacks in the same way?

Will kiwis as a whole identify? [Not that my flatmate is showing any lack of identity as the French team have just beaten 'us'.] Do the grassroots players, particularly those past the change of going pro, identify with their playing companions who get paid for it?

I have further concerns about how hard we use the bodies of sportspeople. Similar questions have been raised elsewhere - can people be said to be exploited by actions they choose to engage in? How much do they realise the health issues they buy into? How much are they dehumanised and treated as cattle by the team management trying to maximise success? (Not to mention how much sportsmanship may be suppressed.)

So far, I haven't been able to stop watching.

For the record, it was a cracker of a game.

Daylight Savings

2007-09-30T20:26:00.000+13:00

Two people in our house think it's hard getting up earlier due to Daylight Savings today. The other thinks it's great to be allowed to go to bed earlier!

Trip recap - day 1

2007-09-26T19:38:00.000+12:00

A haze of flu has stoppered my roiling thoughts over the last week, so I won't post as many details on my trip as had been hoped. Here for your enjoyment, however, are notes on the one day of real solid cycling.

Firstly, here are my notes made at the end of the day itself:

Only 85kms, but very enjoyable.
Lost momentum sitting in Octagon eating late lunch. [For over an hour]
Final stretch a bit hard, as essentially out of water so stopped eating snacks also. From town out.
Got fairly tired a couple of times, but seemed to move through that.
Just realised forgot to buy cereal for breakfast.
Left some stuff in locker in town. $1/day - super value.
Bum a bit tender in shower, but not feeling bad.
One patch of numb feet. OK after shifted feet.
Best drink ratio is 1/2 strength raro. [Later added ~1/3t salt to 2L. 2/3t was too much.]
Airport to Dunedin: 36.1km in 1:57, ~18km/h even with hills. 3:10 elapsed.

Mishaps:

Past Octagon without noticing it [due to Gay Pride event combining with covered pedestrian paths distracting me from wider (and octagonal) open area the road passed through].
Apparent off-road cycle path at junction Kirkbride Rd and George Bolt Memorial Dr dumped me back onto the wrong side of a 100km/h road in the middle of a long block.
Left bike lock key at home with keys I actually didn't need.
Got stuck on Mosgiel-Dunedin route where signs ran out. A friendly local escorted me on an alternate route he was taking.

Extra notes as best I recollect:

I left home at 4:49am, arriving at the airport at 5:59 and finding the supermarket had only day-old bread for my breakfast. 22.17km, 18.6km/h avg. (okay, I had that written down.)
Packing the bike took longer than expected - even longer to return home.
Bike weighed 15kg, with luggage the same again. Just on my limit.
Most campervan people not very friendly. Keep to selves. - perhaps because was weeknight?
Arrived at campsite at 4:30. Very civilised, and plenty of time to figure out unfamiliar tent.
Dunedin really is quite hilly.

See also my Flickr set, which has comments covering scenery and other bits of cycling. My biggest hill was climbing to the spine of the peninsular on the way back to town. The first 7km of Highcliff Rd were almost all at snail's pace, and I walked one stretch of about 100m. It didn't help that there were about three false crests where I stopped to rest and take another round of scenic photos. It felt good to stretch the body, though, and after a couple of relaxing days I felt ready for a workout. Now if only I'd gone to bed early every night I was down South...

Trip stats

2007-09-21T20:16:00.000+12:00

Well, I made it home safely and enjoyed my trip immensely. 230kms total, in about 13 hours. The only big day was the first, on which I did 85kms including two solid climbs between Mosgiel and Dunedin. After that there was too much to see and enjoy to get many miles in. Not that I managed to see much of the famous wildlife -- no penguins, no sea-lions : just a few shags.

My food and fluid worked well. Ran out of water late on the first day, after being too shy to refill at a petrol station in Dunedin, and really felt the difference. The bike held up well, although there is some obvious wear.

The back wheel has a visible flat spot. I was watching the odometer tick up to 100 while enjoying the sweet downhill leading to the Albatross Centre at the far end of the Otago Peninsular. Looking up, I realised that there was a cattle grate about 3 metres in front of me! My 45km/h of speed wasn't enough to jump clear over it, and the rear wheel hit hard on the 1" lip of the far side. Oops.

Off we go

2007-09-11T22:25:00.000+12:00

Just about to sleep before the trip. I feel overpacked - my two panniers are quite full, with tent, bedroll and day-pack on top of the rack. I have a plastic bag from the mattress store to ship the bike in - seems to conform to the airline's instructions on their website, and I gave up on carting a box around once I'd rolled the thing up and seen how small it wasn't.

Several posts remain unwritten in my head. Had a great chat last Sunday week about what a Christian Left theology might be - my interlocutor expected liberalism, which doesn't fit several I know will be at the conference. No time to write on that now - perhaps I'll get time on my return, and I certainly expect to have more thoughts in that direction.

Joy of Cycling

2007-09-06T20:51:00.000+12:00

Got to love this advocacy project from Germany, care of the eCAN newsletter, especially the quote from Saint-Exupéry.

From the same source, apparently the rental bikes in Paris are going well.

Spring

2007-09-06T20:40:00.000+12:00

Heather asked me to take her for a walk at lunch, since I was home sick. Just to the end of the cul-de-sac, in the wheelchair. Even in that distance there are so many flowers, and you really notice them better at walking speed. Yellow oxalis was my favourite, even if they are an invasive nuisance. Even a bird of paradise on the driveway.

Travel preparations

2007-09-06T18:57:00.000+12:00

With less than a week remaining until I go to Dunedin, my preparations lag somewhat. My friend who had offered me a bag to stow the bike in for flight had misunderstood that I needed to carry the thing around. He has offered me some cardboard bike boxes, and perhaps I can make the cardboard work as a bedmat then re-assemble at the airport. Other schemes are also being hatched.

Several times I've thought it would be nice to take my trailer and use it as a frame to box the bike, but a) it is probably too heavy, b) it still awaits painting, and c) there are a couple design changes that would make it easier to use that way. An interesting idea for my next trailer...

I'm having a second crack at snack making, having chopped the oats much finer this time. Hopefully this will make them closer to the 'quick oats' in the American recipes I'm using.

Marmalade Mistake

2007-09-06T18:47:00.000+12:00

Don't add acid to marmalade to tart up the flavour at the end of the process. We now have three large jars of tasty gum which cannot be spread with a knife, and I blame the acid. There is a chance that I overdid it because the gas hob transmits far more heat and for once the jars took longer than boiling the jam.

One visitor triumphs over another

2007-09-03T20:41:00.000+12:00

A pop quiz for your edification, with visual clues:

What should turn up in the Timms trap on Saturday morning?
And who should turn out to have trapped furs for pin money during school?
And what did we have for tea on Sunday night?
And what is nailed to the underside of the lounge floor?

And just to test out the technology, here's a clip of Claude shaking the rigor mortis out of the wee beastie.

Budgeting

2007-08-31T21:28:00.000+12:00

Looks like I'll be running some discussion sessions on budgeting at church. Willem, the pastor, was recommended some materials from Willow Creek (in the US), and I'll get a chance to look at that soon. I took a few minutes to scan their website, and saw no obvious points of dispute. I'm nervous that churches often tend to either ignore money or get focused on tithing as it is important to their institutional survival.

Presumably we'll cover at some point why Heather and I only give ~20% of our donations to the local church. We have a review scheduled for December/January, when we adjust the overall budget, of what proportion of donations goes to each category. We started with a scheme, but have picked up various causes over time and feel a need to check over the big picture.

I volunteered because Heather and I have found it very liberating to have detailed accounts and budget. Heather apparently enjoys keeping the books, and I share in the rewards. My only burden is having to keep receipts, and explain the discrepancies every Tuesday. We choose to make decisions together about budget categories and unusual expenditures - this means that we have to declare our preferences and work through differences, but that's not a bad thing.

Lots more to say on this, but I have to get to bed. It's already almost an hour past pumpkin time. Watch this space.

Salut Claude!

2007-08-31T21:09:00.000+12:00

Tonight I rode home from work with a guest who will stay for the weekend. Claude contacted us through the Warm Showers website for touring cyclists. He is our first guest through the site - last year the three people who contacted us all wanted to come during the fortnight we were away on holiday.

Claude has already cycled from his home in Montreal to Vancouver, and plans to be in NZ for three months before heading on to Australia. He hopes to work for board on organic farms (through WWOOF), which seems to be a growing trend. Presumably we'll learn more about each other when he's had a chance to sleep off his flight.

Update: Heather informs me that there should be no comma in the greeting I chose as my title. I love commas, so that was hard news to bear.

CAA AGM

2007-08-29T10:40:00.000+12:00

Last week I went to the AGM of Cycle Action Auckland. Most of the business was routine, but I managed to get myself signed up as a junior to a couple experienced guys trying to establish themselves as quick-contact people for local council engineers needing a cyclists's opinion.

Three presentations at the start were of interest:

Good Gears, who are starting a bike rental business across the main centres this Summer.
Bike Central, who are opening a parking/shower/locker facility near Britomart by Summer.
Alex, who is running for mayor. Seems better than most candidates I've run into, and certainly has some purty transport policy. Haven't looked closely enough to actually endorse anybody yet, but please don't let's have John Banks back.

Apricot Bars

2007-08-21T12:48:00.000+12:00

On my way in to work today I trialed my first homemade muesli bar option for use in Dunedin and later for cycling round lake Taupo. The apricot bars were tasty, but more chewy than I think I want to struggle with every 20 minutes. (They have 100calories each, so 3 an hour would cover me for steady, hard riding.) The major problem was with breathing, as my sinuses were clearing in the morning air and my mouth was full. I had to pouch the food in my cheek while I breathed, then chew between breaths.

The recipe called for quick oats, which are probably finely ground and less chewy than the porridge oats I used. Less cheap too, at our store, so we'll try some other options.

Two more things I noticed. I've broken two spokes since I swapped bikes, and although I'm in lower gears a lot I can get up the steep slopes quite easily once I let the cadence drop. That tells me that my strength (and possibly endurance for long, slower riding) improved on the fixie.

Bright new Cateye EL-220

2007-08-21T10:32:00.000+12:00

Put my new bike light on last night, before popping over to pick up a possum trap from a guy at church. Much brighter than I'd expected, and a good wide-angle beam that increases the chance of being seen by cars turning into the road. Not bad for a freebie - I bought this with a gift voucher earned in a focus group mapping out cycle routes for the regional transport people.

Death to Possums

2007-08-19T09:37:00.000+12:00

A combination of stiff neck and loud neighbours woke me at 3am. Looking out the bathroom window in search of the party, I saw a possum brazenly picking over our garden. Yesterday morning I noticed that our newly planted blackberry had had its buds picked out, and I think we have a clear culprit to hand. Looks like we'll be borrowing a trap.

Som Tam

2007-08-18T20:06:00.000+12:00

Last week at the local Sunday market I noticed a Fijian stall selling green papaya, so tonight we had Som Tam. I don't think I'll bother going back to substituting with carrots. Three cheers living among a sizeable Pasifika population.

Spun Out

2007-08-15T20:20:00.000+12:00

Apparently, riding a fixie hasn't done much for my pedalling cadence.

I've gone back to my geared bike this week, as I plan to take it to Dunedin for a couple days holiday before a conference and want to check its condition. At the start of the week I taped onto my bike computer the speed I would achieve in each gear if pedalling at 90rpm, and have tried to gear down whenever my speed dropped below that level. It turns out that I have little power at that cadence, and on the long-but-not-that-hard climbs I am used to grinding up on the fixie I slowly sink to lower and lower gears. By the time I'm crawling up in the lowest gear, my legs are all spun out.

Part of my problem seems to be that my legs don't quite keep up with the pedals. I thought that I was doing 90rpm before I got the fixie set up (having only had the computer for a couple months before that), but perhaps was changing up at 90 rather than down at 90. That difference, combined with a drop towards 75rpm on the fixie (for the small bits of 'flat' on my route), adds up to a challenge. Hopefully the body will get on top of it soon, and at least I am getting a very good aerobic workout according to my heart rate monitor.

Interestingly, I had been thinking that the fixie kept me working hard on the commute. I tend to slack over time, but this is supposed to be exercise as well as convenient transport. The fixie offers more of a hard-grinding workout, with an effort required to keep the cadence above 60 on the many and varied hills. The up and down variations come so regularly that I never get to develop a steady cadence, and while some people may report approaching 200 rpm I find myself losing control whenever I go past 130. Consequently, in conjunction with the terrain of my commute, I am almost always trying to slow down not speed up once the cadence rises. Perhaps I should keep swapping bikes to keep interest and fitness up?

--------------

Another new game has been carrying soft white bread in my shoulder bag on the way home. If I bend over to get more power then the bread gets squashed, but it remains safe if I hold my posture correctly. I eat lots of strangely shaped bread.

hesitantly he enters the fray

2007-08-12T17:00:00.000+12:00

Tradition dictates that I post an excited opening offering, whereupon the muse apparently dries up.

Having resisted for some time the expectations incumbent upon a blogger, my urge to fling periodic comments into the public forum has overcome me. We shall see where this leads.

No introductions for now. You should gradually get to know me, all things being well.

M.