Dan's Blog

Last week I was looking at buying some spare inner tubes for my...

Wed, 30 May 2012 09:36:55 +0100

Last week I was looking at buying some spare inner tubes for my bike. Usually I don’t find reviews all that helpful for things like this - how many ways are there that an inner tube can and can’t do its job? And more than that - how many ways can one express that it either holds air or doesn’t?

Apparently though, there is more than one way - as demonstrated above in the review by meldrethnick on Wiggle for Continental’s road tubes. Having owned several of these particular tubes in the past I can confirm that this review is 100% accurate, and it really made me smile. It’s just a shame that this guy hasn’t had cause to review any other products because that kinda of upbeat spirit could really brighten up the review pages of more relatively inane products.

Another in my series taken from Rosscott, Inc. This...

Mon, 28 May 2012 10:09:23 +0100

Another in my series taken from Rosscott, Inc. This doesn’t work so well now I live in a town with no traffic lights.

The Hickman Crater

Sun, 27 May 2012 04:11:26 +0100

Last weekend I took a drive with some of my colleagues (and some in-laws) to see the Hickman Crater. In short, the Hickman Crater is a crater that was discovered by some guy named Hickman who “discovered” it whilst playing on Google Earth in 2007 - a true armchair explorer. Anyway, it’s believed to be between 10 and 100 thousand years old and is 260m wide and 30m deep. Essentially it’s a bit of a hole in the ground (less impressive - for anyone who knows it - than the holes in Carshalton Park) and that’s the reason why no one found it notable until some geologist noticed it from a satellite photo.

After it was discovered, some other guy (excuse my vague recollection of the facts, it wasn’t that interesting a story) took his GPS, plotted the co-ordinates and went in search of it. Despite it being only 40km north of Newman and 4km off of the nearest exploration track (exploration in this context means that it’s used by geologists from mining companies in search of more ore deposits), it took him several days to get to the crater. We did it in time for lunch, and stopped off to see some more rock carvings along the way.

Above is a photo taken by my colleague Simon of me standing at the top of the crater. I’m reading the visitor’s log left in a mailbox at the top of the crater (courtesy of Pilbara Iron Country Tours, also thanks to them for the signposts along the way). I was actually marvelling at the time that I’ve apparently been in Newman long enough that I knew at least a few names from every page.

Anyway, below is a slideshow of the photos I took on the day. The first few are of when we stopped to look at the petroglyphs, most of the rest (looking down a depression in the earth at some trees - disappointingly no smouldering space rock as I’d hoped) are at the crater, and the last few were when we stopped to admire the view on the way home.

Also take some time to appreciate that as it’s nearing the winter months here, how overcast the sky is and how bleak it looks when the high for the day barely creeps into the 30s.

"In response to the local authority figures, obtained under a Freedom of Information request, the..."

Wed, 23 May 2012 07:32:00 +0100

“In response to the local authority figures, obtained under a Freedom of Information request, the Department for Education said racism needed to be “rooted out”.”

- - More than 87,000 racist incidents recorded in schools, the BBC.

Clearly I’ve been in Australia too long, because my intial thought was “but they’re children, that’s disgusting”. Despite the slang usage in Australia, I think in this case rooting out doesn’t mean make the individuals involved actually have intercourse with each other.

I’ve just booked a holiday for myself. Apparently I can...

Thu, 17 May 2012 06:07:00 +0100

I’ve just booked a holiday for myself. Apparently I can elect to have a bland meal (second option down). I guess that by implication my meal will be flavoursome. I do have some reservations about that though.

Shooting the Shit

Tue, 15 May 2012 08:49:30 +0100

This morning I was having a chat with my friend Liz as I often do whenever she actually remembers to come on Skype at 6am my time (11pm her time - apparently not past her bedtime). And when I say chat, what I mean is that I was telling her my latest selection of hilarious jokes (eg. What’s the best thing about being narcissistic? Me.). Anyhow, I suddenly realised the time and told her that I’d love to sit around shooting the shit with her but I had to get to work.

So as it turns out, Liz has never heard the idiom shooting the shit before. I often forget that she’s nowhere near as streetwise as I, and so she can’t keep up with a lot of the street lexicon that I like to sometimes throw into everyday conversation, yo. This is even more surprising since she only went to a comprehensive school so one would expect that she’d be much more familiar with the mannerisms of the working class than myself.

Nevertheless, I felt the need to educate her so I went to my favourite online idiom dictionary and read out the definition for her.

shoot the shit
Inf. to chat and gossip.

Liz very quickly pointed out that she hadn’t needed me to read the definition for her to work out that it’s used informally. I’m not entirely sure where I was going with this blog post, but I was recently made aware that I shouldn’t tease people for not knowing things so I’m glad I can impart knowledge from time to time. And for her part, Liz is teaching me how to write like a preschooler (I’m halfway through my handwriting books now, Liz).

"Bicyclists are allowed to ignore red lights and stop signs because traffic signals are for cars."

Mon, 07 May 2012 10:13:45 +0100

As I often do, I have dedicated a few minutes of my afternoon to reading some stuff about cycling. One of these things that made me smile today was a quiz written by Bike New York listing twelve questions testing (and I write that in italics because I got 12/12 in the quiz despite having never cycled - or driven - in New York, so it wasn’t much of a test) your traffic smarts (and I write that in italics because it seems like a stupid pair of words to put together).

It always makes me smile to think that there are people out there who believe some of those points (It’s important to leave plenty of room for passing vehicles, so cyclists should ride as close to parked cars as they possibly can - yeah … right).

It also made me think of an incident a few weeks ago where I was out for a cycle with a group in town when a passenger in a vehicle shouted at us to get off the road as they passed us. I won’t go into much detail here, but it was a company car from a large mining company, and two of the guys I was cycling with are relatively senior in that company. Anyway long story short, I’m told that passenger was located and the rules of the road were explained to him, along with various points about conduct whilst in company vehicles, etc.

Something else I read today was about paralympic cyclists. As it turns out, their prosthetics essentially must conform to the same standards as any other component in a bicycle. See the photo above and this article for a picture of a pretty awesome looking carbon fibre leg.

And finally I found today that I still find it rouses a surprising amount of national pride for me to see Mark Cavendish crossing the finish line at the front whilst wearing the rainbow world champion’s jersey.

I don't care about some guy's DVD collection.

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 11:48:12 +0100

I often use IMDb (the Internet Movie Database) when reading up on films, and some time ago they made a change to the structure of their website. And when I say ‘some time ago’, I believe it was after I left my job in London (I used the site a lot for work so I’m sure I’d have noticed it at the time) but probably more than 12 months ago now. When looking at their page for a film, it shows a selection of information in a bar on the right of the page; links to Amazon, quick links related news articles, and related lists, among others.

My real gripe is with how inane most of the lists are on this site. If the lists were written by vaguely informed people then I might be inclined to look at them, but they’re mostly just a list of films that some guy has seen and it really doesn’t inspire me to look at what other films he has seen.

Above is the selection of related lists I was shown just now when reading about the film Waiting. Of the five related lists, two are lists of films that people own, one is a list of films some guy has seen, one is a list (of over 800 films!) that some girl wants her boyfriend to watch, and only one looks like it might be vaguely interesting to peruse.

I guess that it’s a pretty good feature that’s been ruined because people are quite stupid. I’d much rather see a well-thought out list of 40 or so films in some arbitrary category than an essentially unordered list of 1,000 films that some guy has seen.

416 times

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:33:04 +0100

So as many (or probably all) of my readers will know, I signed up to a challenge to climb a little over 105,000 feet in 47 days. I’m pleased to announce that yesterday afternoon I successfully completed the challenge in just 42 days, which included 416 climbs of the hill in town (actually 417 and a half, but one time I had the satnav turned off and another time I got halfway down before turning around because I’d dropped my sunglasses).

So now when I log into my Strava account I can see the crest above proudly displayed on my ‘dashboard’ page, and all my followers (hi Edd!) can see it too. Ignoring that the achievement in itself is pretty epic, after uploading my ride I came in ranked at 302nd (out of over 10,000 participants) and that’s a very respectable position. Of course, it’s going to keep slipping for the next few days as my rides will definitely not include as many climbs as they have done through the challenge, but that’s the position I’m going to call my own.

Back when I signed up to the challenge I posted a photo of the sign at the bottom of Radio Hill because I liked both the literal and metaphorical implications; “Very steep climb ahead”. It was indeed a very steep climb for these 42 days (only 39 if we subtract the three rest days - although the rest day on day three was somewhat forced on me by a tropical cyclone) but I’m glad I stuck to it, and I’m told I’m looking much slimmer now (“if that’s even possible” - my manager). I also feel like my legs are now much stronger and I can’t wait to go for a decent ride on the flat after having a few days off the bike.

Throughout my challenge my aim has been basically to keep the blue line above the red line (above graph taken from a simple spreadsheet I knocked up), and I’ve managed it quite well - although notice I’ve never actually really been more than a day ahead until the past few weeks, but I think I really hit my stride after Easter.

I think after day 2 my fate was essentially decided because I hadn’t reached my target for either day and I was absolutely fuming at myself. After that day I think I had a certain drive so as not to get myself into that situation again, and I managed not to let the distance get the better of me; if I wasn’t getting enough elevation gain in the mornings then I went out again in the afternoons, and if I wanted a day off I had to carve out a large enough gain to allow myself the rest.

So all in all it was a long hard slog to the finish line, but a rewarding one nonetheless. Now I get to sit back and wait for my water bottle to arrive.

"Wow Dan, you need to find a girl."

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:23:00 +0100

“Wow Dan, you need to find a girl.”

- Thomas, another cyclist in town when I told him about the big ride I had last Sunday.

For anyone not familiar with Facebook, it’s essentially an...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:01:04 +0100

For anyone not familiar with Facebook, it’s essentially an online tool that allows you to find out a lot about other people’s lives without ever having to actually meet them. For example, just now it’s shown me that a friend of a friend has cooked a meal for his wife and that they apparently find it best to announce their feelings for each other online.

What really tickled me was the comment from the third (or is he now the fourth?) person who asks them why they’re doing it that way when they’re currently sat next to each other.

Faces (or pictures of animals/inspiration messages/whatever passes as a ‘profile photo’ on Facebook) and names blurred to protect their privacy. Not that they went to the effort to tick the box to protect it themselves.

Today I’ve been debating whether I should sign up to a new...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:40:00 +0100

Today I’ve been debating whether I should sign up to a new challenge on Strava to cycle a total of 1,479 miles (2,380km) in the month of May. I’m thinking that I might perhaps take some time off instead (no free water bottle this time), but I wondered out of interest how far I would be able to cycle.

After some quick calculations - I’ve cycled for 37 hours and 45 minutes in the 18 days so far in April; if I average 30km/h (possibly a pessimistic target) and cycle the same daily average throughout May I’d be on course to cycle 1,950km in the month - I’ve decided I could probably do it and I’d most likely feel better for it than I do for all the climbing I’m doing now.

Interestingly, this projected total is (thanks, Wolfram Alpha) around 1.2 times as far as the Proclaimers would walk, just to be the man who walks a thousand miles to fall down at my door. Dammit, that’s going to be stuck in my head all evening now!

On my morning cycle today I hit a rock whilst travelling at...

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 06:14:00 +0100

On my morning cycle today I hit a rock whilst travelling at about 32km/h (around 20mph) and my front tube exploded - at the 1 hour 35 minute mark for anyone looking at my ride data on Strava. Long story short, I bruised my shin, skinned my elbow and got a fairly decent road rash across my hip and back (not pictured above, for the sake of decency). Most annoyingly, it tore my bar tape (pictured above) but I avoided any other real damage and just had to replace the tube and straighten my handlebars and saddle before riding on. I also managed to avoid any real damage to my clothing too.

This is now the second time I’ve rolled on that road; I’m beginning to wonder if I should just avoid it in future. Nevertheless, I’m fine and I’m just about to crack open a beer and wait for my friends to come over for my BBQ this afternoon. And it’s a lovely day for it too.

I recently bought a back-up light for my bike - I find...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 09:49:00 +0100

I recently bought a back-up light for my bike - I find it’s best to have redundant systems built in for these things, in case my main one goes I think it’s better to cycle with a weaker fall-back light than to die. Anyway, I elected to go for the Knog Gekko LED light and today it arrived.

This is a photo of the side of the box; this is something I’ve long suspected but never knew quite for sure. It made me smile nonetheless.

Had a chilly ride this morning - only 9.1°C when I got home at...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:19:00 +0100

Had a chilly ride this morning - only 9.1°C when I got home at 6am. Winter may be coming…

The local fauna

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:23:00 +0100

As I’m sure all of my regular readers will know by now, I’ve signed up for a challenge where I have to climb a lot of hills so I’ve been doing hill reps in town most mornings. This means I’m usually up to watch the sun rise over the horizon, and I’m often out cycling as the sun sets too if I need to make up some elevation gain - and I find it too hot cycling when the sun’s up.

I often hear rustling in the bushes by the road in the mornings, and for whatever reason - I guess it would be naïveté - I automatically assume that it’s either medium sized birds, rabbits or rats; as it would most likely be if I was cycling at home. On Sunday morning (as obviously I didn’t have to go to work) I was up riding from about 6am until about 8am - to explain, I usually start work at 7am, so I tend to start morning rides around 4am. The sun rises just past 6am at the moment, so on this occasion I was able to clearly see what one of these animals that rustle in the bushes was. Instead of the Easter Bunny I was expecting hopping beside the road, I saw an Easter Kangaroo hopping about (presumably on his way back from hiding chocolate eggs).

This really brightened up my morning because it was only the second live wild kangaroo I’ve ever seen, so it’s quite notable for me. Since this experience I’ve kept my eyes open a bit more in the mornings and I’ve noticed that when the bushes rustle and I point my front light at it, there is usually something more exotic than a rat hopping away from me.

At the top of the hill there’s a section where cars usually park up. This is where I propped my bike up to take a photo a month ago against the kerb. Behind this kerb there’s a mound of dirt (possibly a windrow from before the kerb was installed), and then there’s a drop. Most mornings when I stop there (usually after my fifth climb) I have a snack and some water before carrying on. Often I eat a banana and throw the peel over the windrow “for the ants”.

This morning when I got up the hill on my tenth climb and as my light swept across this kerb, I saw something sitting on the windrow. I slowed to stop with my light pointing right at what I guess was a wallaby sitting on top of the windrow munching on a banana skin. As I unclipped my foot from the pedal, the noise startled the little fella and he hightailed and jumped back down the mountain.

Nevertheless, it’s nice to find that I’ve been sharing my ride (and apparently my snacks) with so much of the local fauna. I’m definitely going to keep my eyes peeled in the future for more of them to brighten up my morning on the climbs.

So this morning I competed as part of a team in the Newman...

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 04:06:36 +0100

So this morning I competed as part of a team in the Newman Triathlon. Long story short, we came third. I set a few personal records for some sections around town on my bike, and apparently my heart rate was pretty high (average 183bpm, peak of 189bpm). Above is a photo of my trophy and my medal, and below is my ride data from my GPS.

This is a redback spider (one of the most dangerous spiders in...

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 07:56:00 +0100

This is a redback spider (one of the most dangerous spiders in Australia) just hanging out in her web on my washing line. I have a lot of these around the outside of my house. I keep killing them (the only good spiders are dead ones in Australia - sorry Grandma; I assure you I’m still living and thriving though) but it’s almost like they’re breeding out there…

Point your front wheel up the hill and keep pedalling.

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:20:47 +0100

So I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’d signed up for a challenge to climb a massive distance on my bicycle in a 47 day period. I’m pleased to say that I’m still on course with this challenge a third of the way in, but it has been a challenge for me in every sense of the word. In the first thirteen days I climbed the equivalent of the height of Mt Everest, and I’m expecting to repeat that feat twice more over the coming month.

It’s been a really gruelling schedule I’ve set for myself; my alarm clock goes off at 3:30am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, at 4am on Tuesdays and Thursdays and at 5:30am on Saturdays. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I spend about 2 hours climbing the hill (the only hill in town) around 10 times before work, and I tend to go to the gym after work on these days too. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I cycle with a group of cyclists in town in the mornings and we tend to do two hill reps so I have to cycle again after work to make up for the height we didn’t climb in the morning. On Saturdays we go for a big ride out of town so I’ve tried to do some hill reps in the afternoons but if need be I’ve made up extra height on Sundays. Of course, this is weather permitting because rain has delayed play a few times now.

I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet with my climbing totals, and as long as the blue line is above the red line then I’m happy. You can see above that it’s dipped below just twice; once when tropical cycling Lua kept me inside and once when a long Saturday morning ride followed by the Newman Rodeo kept me from riding in the afternoon. Nevertheless I have persisted; I’ve made a few gains with extra hill reps where I’ve been feeling up to it, and I think I’m looking good going into April.

And the food I’ve started to consume is fantastic. I’m getting through lots of bananas, energy gel and vanilla protein powder, but also I get to enjoy lots of proper food too. Last night, for example, I had a big plate full of chicken bacon spaghetti carbonara I made topped with lots of parmesan and a side salad, followed by 1kg of mango yoghurt (I didn’t mean to actually eat the whole tub, but I got distracted whilst watching TV). If there was a Pizza Hut buffet nearby I’d give them a good run for their money too. And I now have full fat cream in my coffee guilt-free.

As I briefly mentioned before it has been a massive challenge for me so far, and I think it’s possibly the biggest challenge I’ve set myself to date. My legs are constantly aching and increasingly stiff when I start my rides, there are times when the hill seems to go on forever and I’m very close to giving up and heading home early. The only thing that stops me is that I don’t want to put it onto future Dan to make up the distance because my legs are a little hurty - I think this is what they call perseverance - so I just put my head down and pedal on regardless (sounds almost like that should be on a poster under a crown).

Anyway, I’ve allowed myself a rest day tomorrow so I’ll have a whole day with no bicycle and nothing to do but sleep. On Sunday I’m signed up to do the cycling leg of a triathlon in town, so I’ll have a fast 15km cycle in the morning, probably followed by a lot of hill reps again in the afternoon.

One knock on effect of this challenge is that it has left me pretty tired and uninspired to write on my blog recently. I apologise for this, but if you want to know what I’m doing, look to the Strava widget on the left and count how many hill reps I’ve been doing lately… I’m up to 144 in the 16 days since the challenge started. I think maybe I’ll take a few more rest days after the challenge finishes.

"I’m about 6” tall and skinnier than average (aren’t most cyclists?) and the medium..."

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 07:17:00 +0000

“I’m about 6” tall and skinnier than average (aren’t most cyclists?) and the medium are a nice snug fit around the top of my legs and go all the way down to the ankle.”

- - HoveActually, review of Castelli Thermoflex leg warmers on Wiggle.

I’m currently looking at buying some arm and leg warmers because it’s getting very cold in the mornings here (on Thursday, for example, it was only 16°C on my morning cycle). Reading the reviews can be very helpful when it comes to working out my sizing, and these reviews from six inch high cyclists always bring a smile to my face.