sjh - mountain biking running linux vegan geek spice - mtb / vegan / running / linux / canberra / cycling / etc

Steven Hanley hackergotchi picture Steven
Hanley
About

email: sjh@svana.org

web: https://svana.org/sjh
twitter: https://twitter.com/sjhmtb
instagram: https://instagram.com/sjhmtb

Other online diaries:

Aaron Broughton,
Andrew Pollock,
Anthony Towns,
Chris Yeoh,
Martijn van Oosterhout,
Michael Davies,
Michael Still,
Tony Breeds,

Links:

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Girl Genius,
Planet Linux Australia,
Bilbys,
CORC,

Canberra Weather: forecast, radar.

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Wed, 26 Apr 2006

Jill hands out a can of whup arse to Jack - 19:50
Jack & Jill Jersey front
Jack & Jill Jersey front (Full Size) 		Jack & Jill Jersey back
Jack & Jill Jersey back (Full Size) 		For a few years now Heidi has had a running joke with Mike Burden about how easily she can hand out a can of whup arse to him on a bike. Thus with her birthday this month I thought one of these jerseys would be a brilliant gift, alas they did not arrive in time to send them to her before her birthday but she can now receive a surprise gift in the post soon.

However as I love cool/less common jerseys so much, I thought it would be a shame to not see one in use locally much (Heidi lives in New Zealand of course), so I bought a second one to give to Sam. I really hope I got the right size, they appear really small however I think it should be about right (womens sizing and cut for both jerseys).

[/mtb/gear] link

Some shiny new parts - 18:57
Shiny new bike bits
Shiny new bike bits (Full Size) 		The bar ends I use on all my mountain bikes are no longer available in Australia. Profile SOS Bar-Ends or SOS Boxer Bar-Ends, I prefer the slightly longer tipped plain SOS Bar-Ends. The Australian Profile distributor makes some claim about them being old models no loner produced, this is bollocks as many US bike stores still sell the bar end (and I believe the Australian distributor still brings in the stubby version Boxer Brief (no kink on the end)).

For the new single speed I have been slowly putting together I needed a pair of bar ends, being unable to get them here I had to make an order for them from the US, however it seemed excessive to pay US $20-$40 shipping for a US $22 item. Thus I ordered a few more items to fill out the order. 3 Pair of Oury lock on grips with clamps (one pair for each mtb) which will mean the end to grips twisting around during races and when wet otherwise (de to rain or excessive sweat). A pair of Deore V-Brake levers to use on the single speed with the V-Brakes I obtained for it. A Thomson seatpost to put on my hardtail (for a bit of bling) thus freeing up the cheapo seatpost on the hardtail for the single speed. A penguin squeaky horn I intend to attach to the single speed (damn cool piece of kit if you ask me) and of course the Profile boxer bar ends.

Retail prices in Australia are: Thomson Elite seatpost ~ AUD $200, Oury Lock On Grip kit AUD $58 per pair, Deore V-Brake Levers ~ AUD $45. Profile Boxer Bar Ends (unavailable but two years ago was around AUD $40) and Penguin Squeaky horn, no idea if that is available. I ordered this stuff from Universal Cycles as I had the drive train I purchased just before Christmas, this time including shipping I paid around AUD $300 for the lot. Probably a bit excessive, especially the Thomson seatpost but it is as you see a hell of a lot cheaper than the items in Australia.

[/mtb/gear] link

2006 Anzac Day Epic, down the Corn Trail and on to the coast. - 13:13
Yesterday was Anzac day, so continuing the tradition of the Anzac Day Mountain Bike Epic, JJJim and Morgs suggested riding the Corn Trail again. 15 people rocked up and had a fantastic day out on mountain bikes. Thanks to JJJim and Morgs and everyone who rocked up. I took some photos as did Crash (and Rob and Morgs), I have uploaded my 2006 Anzac Day Epic Photos (with links to Crash's and previous ADE photos)

Starting at around 9:30am at the top of the Clyde and finishing on the coast in the dark (with rain starting) at 6:30pm I think this ride attained some epic proportions.

[/mtb] link

Sun, 23 Apr 2006

The close of the Spicy Fruit Bun Festival again - 13:40
I went to pick up 2 loaves of country grain bread and hopefully more hot cross buns at Brumbys in Lyneham today. Alas the Spicy Fruit Bun festival has ended for 2006, they are no longer making them until March sometime next year. If I become desperate I may have to go the way Mikal planned and Sarah has.

[/leisure/food] link

Cycling on TV - 11:08
Partay, I tend to look at the tv guide maybe once a fortnight or so and thus never know if there is cycling on tv, I also tend to forget to tape Cycling Central during the months it is on SBS and thus miss it also. I happen to be at home this morning and I happened to look at the tv guide. The Paris-Roubaix is on SBS right now and I have remembered to watch it, they are passing through the Forest of Ahrenburg section right now.

Yet another reason to get a Mythtv box up and running before July so I can get the tour on disk to watch at leisure easily.

[/mtb] link

Thu, 20 Apr 2006

Today's black mountain times - 17:17
I went out at lunch to do some black mountain climbs, I did two, the first one seated the whole way in just under 12 minutes, not pushing too hard. The second climb I stayed standing the whole way, damn that hurts my feet, it took around 14 minutes. I gave some thought to doing a third climb at a fast pace however I had to go get something from home and was running out of lunch hour more than I wanted to. (considering I rocked up to work lateish today and will be going paddling in about 20 minutes so can not stay late to get through more work).

Anyway with no exercise this morning I think those climbs were a good start on todays exercise, now for some paddling to give the torso a work out also.

[/mtb] link

If it wasn't for those darn Kids^WWind Deities - 08:15
This morning, instead of going riding my house mates and I had planned to head in to the lawns in front of Old Parliament House to watch the balloons as part of the Canberra Balloon Festival. We woke up and I drove us in just after 6am, the weather appeared fine here at home however upon our arrival at the lawns we noticed there were no balloon being inflated, as we got out of the car we discovered to our dismay the wind was too strong for the balloons.

For me getting up before 6am was nothing unusual, I believe some of my house mates were somewhat upset the effort did not have the expected returns. A bit of a shame really, ahh well, I will go and get some exercise at lunch (Black Mountain reps) and maybe we can try again on Saturday or something (before the festival ends).

[/various] link

Wed, 19 Apr 2006

Women in a blokes world - 17:32
Interesting, Stewart is discussing movies in which women dress up as guys. I have not seen the movies so can not comment, however it reminded me of a book I saw an article about linked from kottke late in March. The article in the Guardian, Double Agent, touched on parts of the Norah Vincent book Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back

Norah, a journalist, dressed up as a guy for 18 months and wrote a book about the experience. Including going bowling with the blokes as a guy activity, and even dating women during the time. I am keen to read this book sometime just to see the more detailed reasoning behind her so called newfound respect for blokey blokes if nothing else. It does sound like a strange but likely fascinating read though.

[/leisure/books] link

Odie Day - 12:05
What are we going to do today Garfield?
Chase parked cars and slobber like you do every day Odie!

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Mon, 17 Apr 2006

A bit of riding on the hardtail. - 20:02
Today I clocked up around 100 KM on the hardtail. The first ride was the Warks Rd, Bulls Head, Two Sticks Rd loop, around 65 KM all but the last 4 KM on dirt. Crash was there and took a few photos, as he suggests, all the shots appear to be of mountain bikers standing around, thus obviously that is all we do on mountain bikes, stand around chatting.

Upon returning home I grabbed some more food and drove out to a friend's place in Macgregor to show them a good route to use for commuting to and from work, this at least was a nice pleasant pace for the 34 KM we ended riding for the out and back trip. They have a 17 KM commute almost entirely on bike path (so quite safe) past some rather pretty parts of Canberra, I am almost jealous of this commute they have. Anyway enough riding now to fix some stuff on my sister's computer.

[/mtb] link

Sun, 16 Apr 2006

Good dinner - 23:01
I had some friends over for dinner tonight (Sam, Ben and their children), my sister Jane was in town and bought one of her friends (Louise) along also and one of my house mates was around this weekend so joined in the fun.

The main I cooked was Chicken with Mango, very yummy. With it I made a salad from a variety of lettuce's (is that the plural of lettuce?), pine nuts, sesame seeds, avocado, capsicum, feta, lebanese cucumber, tomato and snow peas all chopped fine to make it easy to get on a fork. Dessert was rice pudding spooned on to a bed of banana, strawberry and peaches with honey dribbled over the top.

Good night with friends, enjoyable dinner, some good wine, followed by a fun game. This game is sort of like Pictionary with words rather than pictures. The game is called Articulate (some reviews of Articulate), I enjoyed playing it quite a lot. It is however a game (much like Pictionary) that is biased if played by people who know each other really well (such as close siblings). Jane and I tend to be scary with our ability to almost read each other's mind in Pictionary and being able to speak and bring easy free association into play in this game I suspect we would also do well. Jane and I played on different teams tonight for the good of the game play.

I also baked up some more cookies today in order to take on a mtb ride tomorrow morning.

[/leisure/food] link

Wed, 12 Apr 2006

Damn weak saddle bags. - 22:12
I have yet to find a saddle bag that would last. I had hoped the saddle bag I was using on my road bike would prove me wrong, after all road bikes do not traverse rough ground, the saddle bag on a road bike should not fail. On my mountain bike I tried using saddle bags for around 6 months back in 2002, I purchased three different brands (all with life time warranties) and all the bags I tried failed, on average about once a month. In the end I got sick of going in to get them replaced at the bike shop each time a bag failed and went back to carrying my tools and tubes and such in a camel back.

However on the road bike I tend not to wear backpacks, hence I need a saddle bag. I had a small Topeak wedge bag and was under the impression it may even survive to old age or something. Alas on Tuesday morning I found out otherwise, as I rode onto the road from a bike path in Lyneham the rail on the bag locked into the wedge under the saddle snapped on one side and the bag went flying onto the road. Sure I tend to have things on my bikes break often, however it is likely a function of riding once in a while, I really wish bike components did not fail and break quite so easily sometimes. This bag did last around 3 years so I guess I can put up with waiting for a warranty replacement to come through.

[/mtb/gear] link

One of many chainsaws, not The chainsaw. - 21:41
Oops, so I was rereading the Liberty Meadows book I have at home the other day and I noticed the "I Let Myself In With This Chainsaw" panel actually said "I Let Myself In With A Chainsaw". Thus referring to an instance of a generic chainsaw, rather than a specific well known chainsaw. This is almost a tragedy as I had named my lets be silly about stuff category here "ilmiwtc" (which is obviously an acronym of the above).

Rather than perpetuate the lie for ever more I decided instead to rename the category (to "ilmiwac") to correct the mistake, I updated the two links in my diary history to reflect the change, anyone else who linked to it, tough luck (I doubt many have)

[/various] link

Tue, 11 Apr 2006

Tuesday afternoon milk carton blogging - 14:30

Exotic USAnian Milk 		Ahh my job here is done, my Milk Carton collection finally has an exotic foreign milk carton. Though maybe I had better not hang up my Milk Carton Blogging hat quite yet. This is USAnian milk, if you look at the enlarged photo you can even see where it says "Product of the USA". However this milk may not be exotic to people who live in the USA. Sure it is lactose free and probably healthy, but is it really exotic? Where are the rare birds sighted for the first time ever in the middle of a jungle? Where are the cannibals? Where are the belly dancing cowboys (okay so that would possibly be Kings Cross milk and maybe not terribly exotic either)? However I think you should all thank Andrew for this glimpse into the milk cartons of America.

[/various/milkcarton] link

Tue, 04 Apr 2006

Tuesday afternoon milk carton blogging - 20:35

New location for the magnetic cow 		The magnetic cow has migrated to the top of my monitor as can be seen in this web cam photo.

[/various/milkcarton] link

Linux Australia membership Pants: off - 16:21
So Stewart put out a new release for the memberdb code the other day, I downloaded it to read as I need to use something like this soon and was reading the sources. I was glad to see Stewart had ensured the memberdb code has Pants: off. 

echo -e "HEAD http://www.linux.org.au/membership/ HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n" | nc www.linux.org.au 80 | grep Pants
X-Pants: off
The above courtesy of the header("X-Pants: off") code in both index.php and exportmembers.inc. The Pants feature was also in the 3.1 release of the code I notice. Well done Stewart.

If anyone does not understand this in joke, google for "Jeff Waugh Pants Off" as the Pants off thing is a well known part of Linux Australia and Gnome.

[/comp/linux] link

Mon, 03 Apr 2006

Songs in the key of *HAAACKKKCOUGH* - 10:17
I had Thursday and Friday last week off work, not for the normal reason of going to some event or similar, instead for the first time in over a year I was sick enough that I had to stay home in bed trying to recover. After the race the previous weekend I was sore all day Monday and then sometime Tuesday started feeling really sick, thus I have not done any exercise since the 24 hour adventure race over a week ago now. As you may imagine I am beginning to climb the walls (figuratively, as I am not a good rock climber at the best of times, and am still sick anyway)

Back at work today as at most I am coughing a bit and not feeling 100%, however it is a lot better than late last week. I did however have to miss out on competing in the N-ZO 24 Hour race in Sydney due to having this cold, which is a shame as I have been keen to compete in that race since it's inception, however the past two years I was too busy on the weekend of the race to contemplate going up. Yesterday the activities I engaged in due to feeling a bit better were, washing my hard tail and road bike. Cleaning the road bike drive train and adjusting the gearing a bit. Built myself a new rim brake back wheel from parts in the shed to be used with the single speed once I get the rest of the parts for it. Baked 24 fruity muffins (recipe in LaTeX or pdf), these are the apple, sultana, pineapple and apricot with whole meal flour muffins I have baked on and off for a few years now, healthy and yummy. I also repaired some things on a new house mate's bicycle for her.

With that level of activity at home yesterday I should survive today alright, including dinner tonight at Debacle with my AROC 24 Hour team, we won three $25 gift vouchers for Debacle at the race so we decided to have a team dinner there to celebrate the fun we had at the race.

[/various] link

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