Sunday, January 1, 2012 4:05:56 PM
So the year 2012 has begun and my last year goal was reached early. Still I stick to the 5000 km/year. It seems that I have to travel more without the chance to increase my odometer.
The 2011 dates are:
Total km: 16048 km in 780 hours
That makes 5605 km in 277 hours for 2011
AND there are the 1050 km I rode with a rental bike in Spain [:)]. So the grand total in 2011 is 6655 km!
And for the year 2012:
5000 km to go...
Happy new year to everyone.
Saturday, October 29, 2011 7:09:23 PM
bike, Milestone, distance, majorca
...
Today I crossed my goal of 5000 km for this year. Plus additional 1050 km I was on the road on Majorca, Spain in spring time. That time I expected at most 500 km but that was done after the first of two weeks. So I used the nice weather there (20-28°C, mostly blue sky) to get another 500 in the second week. That was much harder.
In general within that two weeks I learned that I was no beginner anymore. Lots of groups with an average of 20 km/h. And that was too slow for me. OK there are others with 30+ average speed. Too much for me either. In total the average was 24 km/h over the 1050 km. Highest altitude: 550 m (near Orient); Longest distance on a single day: 142 km (actually both at the same day). I was told that I took that tour wrong way around (the serpentines up, the new straight road down) because that give you a nice speed (dunno if he said 70 or 80 km/h). But that tour wasn't really planned. And a unknown route with a bike I wasn't really used to (thin tires, tracking frame, and not the top-notch brakes still they where OK but hard to control).
The remaining year was actually slower than expected (family reasons) but still more than 60 days before year-end I reached my goal (even if I count only my own bike).
Total: 15497km
This Year: 5057km (plus 1050km)
Thursday, July 21, 2011 5:30:35 PM
10.7, Scroll, SSD, OS X
...
Today something totally different (but I still cycle
)
Yesterday evening I updated my Mac Book Pro to Lion (10.7). The download was in the beginning terrible slow. It used a fraction of the available bandwidth. My solution here came from the good-ol-times: Pause the download, wait few seconds and continue the download, check the bandwidth and redo if still too slow. With some luck you'll end up in a fast slot. That might not be nice to the server, but I did not want to wait 6 hours for the download.
The installation went flawless and took on my SSD equipped MBP about 30 minutes. But before(!) you install you might think about to make a bootable medium from the installation (google it you'll find it, it's very simple).
Teh first look was nice, a new default background image. Then further playing around brought up some tings: First the annoying scroll direction. If you're used to the
normal way the inverse direction feels just wrong. And since I use different operating systems on different Computers I decided not to go the "something totally different...again" way of Steve.
The next strange thing I noticed that the volume was not adjustable using the volume up/down keys, the volume slider or even in the settings. Some search in the Interweb I stumbled over the following
hint: Plug in a headset (e.g. from a iPhone) and viola 5 seconds later everything worked *confused* The second one (deleting the audio plist file) I haven't tried and I would recommend not to delete the file but move it to somewhere else.
And finally I have a none Apple SSD build in (nice and I highly recommend it). Despite all earlier rumors Lion does
not support the trim command on third party SSDs! So if you're want to keep the SSD in a nice shape you might consider to patch your Lion (on your own risk!) and check it regular that the patch is still there (I think kernel updates will disable the patch).
Something additional I noticed for the developer without a Apple developer-status: xcode 4 is free if you have Lion installed.
Friday, January 7, 2011 7:08:50 PM
bike, Milestone, chain, defect
...
Wow, it's over a year now since my last entry. Maybe I'll spend now more time outside now.
So, I'm still alive, still riding bike. Spend too less time with fly kites. Also last year (2010) I had a goal with my bike. It was reaching the 10000km on the total distance. And I met the goal and rode 443km more.
Dec. 31st 2010:
total 10443km in 503 hours
In the meantime I had to replace some stuff on my bike:
- A new chain at 8425km (too late, see below)
- The rear break-pads need a replacement (10100km)
For the winter I got brand new spike tires. Nice! Consumes much more force to get forward, but in snow and icy conditions they really help.
Now 2011 I have a new goal: Additional 5000km. So I need about 300km more this year compared to last year. Should be possible especially that in the last year I didn't really started in March (due to snow and ice, I fixed this ;-)
But I mentioned earlier that I replaced the chain too late (after 4500km). And I only replaced the chain (the guy in the bike shop that would be OK). So the payback came this week. First I thought that due to the cold conditions (down to -10°C, plus snow and ice literally everywhere) the derailleurs having problems. The tension pulley jumped if I used the middle chainring(?). But the bike shop noticed the real problem: The middle chainring was worn totally because the chain was stretched again. This caused that the chainring hold the chain (winding up the chain onto the ring) until the pulley finally was pull strong enough...
So new parts in this year:
- New Chain
- New middle chainring
- New cassette
Not much driven till now. So I don't go look onto the odometer today ;-) I think abut 30km sounds in the right magnitude. 4970km to go *sigh* ;-)
Edith: Fixed typo.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 6:46:54 PM
bike, extended, challenge, goal
Got a little lazy with the updates here. Sorry.
But finally I surpassed even my extended goal of 4000km this year. As of today my odometer shows 4131km. Last weekend probably the last longer distance for this year was taken: 60km at freezing zero degree.
So for the year 2010 I think a nice goal would be to reach 10000km of a total distance. No not 10000km in one year, but adding 4253km to the currently 5747km since June 2008. This seems nice since it is more than this year, but reachable without over-do this thing; it is still fun and it should stay this way.
There is actually a bit of a background story of this km-race: I'm in a small challenge with a colleague. He had about 15000km last month on his odometer. But that took him several years. I have to ask him how long this took.
And again the numbers in short:
This year:
4131km
Total:
5747km in 275:36h
Sunday, September 6, 2009 3:11:09 PM
picture, bike, goal
there are two things where the headline matches:
First: today I finally reached my goal of 3000km this year. long time before I expected to reach it. So I have to think about what to do the next months. 4000km seems to be too much since the weather will not be that good for long rides. Still it could be possible. One or two times to my parents will add some km to the daily ride to work. I need a couple of days to think about it.
The second one. Khaoist asked for a picture of my new bike. So finally. Here is my new bike. Nothing special, no suspensions. But the frame and accessories are better ones. I think its worth. Resulting that my average speed climbs: now at about 20,6km/h. This speed is not extreme high, but I have to ride through downtown to reach my work...
And as usually for the records. As of today:
3009km this year
4625km in 224:29h (total)
Sunday, July 26, 2009 7:43:17 PM
bike, fast, tire, flat
...
Finally I had the chance to use the new equipment. Wow! Today I rode something about 80km and I feel good! Even uphill did not hurt that much :-)
The bad side is that I had a flat tire. Fortunatley close to a place where I planned a stop anyway. It was fixed very fast. But the avalable pump wasn't the best. I could only something about 2 and a bit bar ino the tire. Too less but good enough to ride back home. So even with low pressure and alredy 50km done today the last 30km where done faster than usual if I just ride there and back.
In other words a very nice bike.
For the books:
2518km this year
4134km in 202:34h
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 8:52:10 PM
mileage, bike, accident, derailleur
...
Today it happened. I was riding to work and got hit by a car. Fortunately no one got hurt. Except my bike. The car came from a perking lot and the driver did not look to his left side and delicately touched my rear derailleur. No, the pedal was not even touched...
Since the frame is made of aluminum I decided not to fix the frame, but replace the bike. Since the bike shop was impressed of the bike (the quality of the parts) it might be still worth to fix it. Lets see how things going on.
Tomorrow I'll fetch my new bike. The first rides at the shop was really nice. But still I decided not to have it equipped with any damping elements. The test ride with an mostly equally bike with dampers in the front fork made me sea-sick ;-) Not really but I like it more direct. While accelerating pulling the bar to me is not what I like to do if I want to go forward. And it is a trecking-bike so no mountain-bike.
Actually it showed also that my good old one was not the worst! I expected to notice a huge difference in direct comparison. Of course the technology changed since the last 12 years. Now I waiting to see how the new one will perform on the first long distance rides.
Actually the guy at the shop was somehow impressed as I noticed the distances I do. That was something I did not expect at all. I thought that there are even crazier people everywhere. Hey thats only 3000km/year! Right, lots of people do 300km/year or less, but hey who buys bikes for >1000€/$ and don't use them. If someone read this senseless blog, please comment on your average mileage/year. Thanks!
For the books:
2376km this year
3992km in 196:27h in total
Sunday, July 5, 2009 9:45:09 AM
saddle, defect, Milestone, bike
So long time no update from me. So here are the news:
first my saddle broke! One of the steel rod broke apart. Fortunatley noone got hurt. Still a bit anoying that I had to replace a part again... Nevertheless the new saddle sems to be more compatible to my ham.
The second news is more positive: I reached the next milestone much earlier than expected. The 2000km milestone is left behind.
So for the books:
as of today: 2047km
total: 3663km, 181:11hours
Monday, June 1, 2009 8:15:41 PM
bike, long, south, trip
A few posts earlier I wrote that I wouldn't do a long trip again. Today I did it again!
This time I took the other direction of a labeled "Fehrnradwanderweg" (long distance bike route). This time about 140km but that was fair over my limit. The trip back took much longer than normal and I felt that I couldn't ride anymore. My muscles screamed 'need energy!' which wasn't anywhere found in my body. Mental note: have some candybars ready for such trips.
The funny thing this time was that I was able to keep the speed of a pair of elderly people on racing bikes (something about 25km/h). Even after about 100km. Maybe I shouldn't have done that, but it felt good (not exhausting).
So for the books:
1749km Since January 1st
Total: 3366km; 166:33h
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