1st September 2012

*

1st 56-62F, 13-17C, light breeze, overcast. Supposed to be sunny periods but no luck so far. I ought to do a longer ride after a restful week. My legs had been feeling tight and heavy with achy knees. I was also getting saddle sore again. There was no point in continuing if riding was no fun.

It's odd how I/we will cheerfully accept pain to go faster, climb harder or ride longer. Then when it comes to physical discomfort on the machine the desire to ride quickly begins to evaporate. Even covering the same ground suddenly seems to become boring. The short cuts home, which we would normally eschew without a second thought, become enticing. The hills we would ride miles to climb, just for the sheer fun of it, no longer appeal.

I seem to be allergic to chocolate. It makes me angry and depressed. We were out in the car and bought some small chocolate covered cakes and biscuits. To go with a cup of tea by the beach. I felt awful this morning! Swinging between a deep depression and rage. I had nothing happening to cause this. Then we remembered the last time I pigged on chocolates. The same thing happened.

Out of the blue I decided to ride to a garden centre near Svendborg to look for some plants for my wife. (any excuse for a ride!) Armed with a mature cheddar cheese sandwich and maps I took a different scenic route each way. With plenty of short breaks for photography and half an hour wandering about at the garden centre. There was a steady head wind between 10 and 11 o'clock all the way home. I ran out of energy on the way back so bought a packet of digestives. I managed to eat about half of them by the time I arrived home.

I was passed by the front 30, or so, of a huge convoy of Land Rovers. Of every imaginable type, size, model and purpose. Eventually they turned into a field entrance in a village. Somebody (an idiot?) must have been welcoming each vehicle individually. Once the drive was full nobody else was able to drive in. So the road was completely blocked as far back as I could see! 

The Brooks saddle became uncomfortable at 70 miles but went away again. Legs a bit tired towards the end but I'm still in better shape than after previous longer rides.

A Ford and a Chevrolet parked beside the road.
.
A bank vole ran across right in front of the trike but somehow managed to survive. A few hundred yards from home a female pheasant had my name on it. She was on the left side of the lane and bolted across to the other side just as I drew alongside. I jammed on the brakes and she dived for cover. Some birds are nearly as thick as my neighbours! 81 miles in a total of 8 hours. I kept my ultralight Giordano jacket on all day. It started off too cold but I was never too warm even when the sun came out.

2nd 60-65F, 18C, very strong and gusty wind, only a little sun. Warmer than yesterday. Rain forecast for later.  Legs a little tired but no ill-effects from yesterday. I relieved the slight tightness in my calves by placing my toes on a step and lowering my heels.

The wind seemed to change direction half way. So there was no free tailwind coming back. Just another 18 mile shopping trip. I chose to ride up a big hill at 110rpm. So I must be feeling better after the chocolate OD episode.

3rd 56-65F, 13-18C, windy, mostly sunny. Rode to Odense. Tailwind going. Headwind back. A bit tired today.  I took the saddlebag, pump, bottle and computers off the trike while I was away from it. I could not believe how much it all weighed when I strung a length of cord between the provided metal loops on the Carradice. I'd frgotten my U-lock. So I fixed the trike to a highly visible railing. Using a cable lock throught the front wheel and frame. It wouldn't stop an Eastern European professional bike thief. With his large lorry and bolt cutters. But would deter an opportunist waste of space on our crowded planet.

At the station I saw the same miserable, cycle rickshaw chap whom I had seen several times before. How, the hell, he gets any customers with his sour expression is a complete mystery to me. I saw a few cyclists out training. Some waved. Others waived.

38 miles by bike computer. The Ventus GPS logger died halfway. I may buy a new Ventus and leave the old one at home. Still a few left at £25 equiv in Netto. I don't think one can run two Ventus loggers on the same computer. I'll have to check. I hate not having a map record. Particularly of my longer rides.

4th 60F, 16C, windy, overcast with sunny periods. Rode to Assens against the wind. Easier coming back. The wildflower meadows along the cycle path in Assens are still glorious. I've bought a new Ventus GPS logger in Netto for 249Kr or about £25. The old one just can't be trusted any more. It falls asleep halfway almost every time now. I think the Achilles heel of these sealed devices is the weak battery. It seems the i-gotU (at twice the price) is no longer available. Though their website shows quite a variety of models now. Their Danish supplier link shows no stock. I'm damned if I'm going looking in Computer City where I first bought it. They can go to hell for all I care.

I have finally had to change to Chrome and IE9. Firefox was defaced by a browser hijacker. I spent days trying to get rid of it with the information available online. In the end I had to delete FF anf forget it. Their constant updates, without support for vital services, were getting on my nerves anyway.

It's odd how different the blog looks with each browser. I probably had the hijacker come in on free software. While desperately trying to find some way of dealing with all my cycling AVCHD Lite videos. Some times I am so utterly sick of the crooks, lunatics and human sewage online that I could cheerfully walk away from it all! Most of it is due to the tolerance of a couple of totally corrupt global monopolies. The greatest gift ever handed to the human race is so polluted that it becomes increasingly intolerable. Only 17 miles.

5th 60F, 16C, breezy, cloudy with only a little sun.

The Big C won the latest stage of the Vuelta. <yawn> I wonder how he managed to cheat this time? Who cares? Certainly not the corrupt cycling authorities. When is somebody going to investigate them?

I see there is a new Sony HD Helmet/sports cam. It supposedly uses AVCHD. Will this finally lead to free software to support this unsupported video format? If it doesn't then a lot of buyers will find themselves with a load of very short pieces of completely worthless crap as far as YT goes. Or they will find themselves shelling out for expensive shiftware. Just to be able patch together a few short videos into something worth watching. It looks as if the Sony will be about the same price as the Hero2 but will be a much more sensible shape for a sportscam. We live in interesting times when (almost) every person on the planet will soon have acces to live video and imagary. Ironic that it should coincide with the supression of free speach under so many despots around the world.

With video and compact cameras losing ground to SLRs and mobile phones Sony must be hoping for brisk sales. With rapidly advancing imaging technology it may have direct Chinese competiton at half the price, half the weight and half the size before very long. Unless, of course, St.Jobsworth's Rotten-Apple finds it holds enough i-Slave patents and flag-waving juries to shut Sony down too.

I tried the replacement Ventus GPS logger. It promptly crashed the computer. So I had all the rigmarole of clearing the old software and rebooting. Then loading the new software from the supplied disk and rebooting. Then finding the damned Google Maps key was not updated in that outdated software. So I searched the internet to remind myself how to update the key. That failed so I searched my old emails for how to update. That didn't work because it was a temporary fix and was no longer possible. On to the Ventus website and download the latest software and reboot. That didn't work either. So I reloaded the software and rebooted again. Finally! I could download the first trip from my new logger! Only 13 miles. The older Ventus logger only recorded half the trip again.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

*