This time trial, the second counting event in the 2011 series of NBRC time trials, was the first evening event.  Somewhat disappointingly, the rather pleasant weather of recent days had disappointed us, and was replaced with dark, cloudy skies and cool (if not cold) conditions.  There was also the sense of a comedy of errors, as a group of shivering cyclists gathered at the club room to await the start-line crew.  At 15 minutes to go, we decided they must have been down at the start area, so we all dashed down hurriedly...Once there, we got proceedings in order quite quickly.  In fact Lindz was so late getting there he had to act as pusher -off for the first couple of riders while Dick dashed back to his car for the numbers.  The evening wasn't just cold, it was quite breezy, with a headwind facing the riders as they started up the inclines to join the dual carriageway section.  Once on the dual carriageway, the breeze could be felt tugging at my front trispoke.On the encouraging side, this event was the first time since last season that I've felt comfortable riding in the aero tuck position - a problem that almost certainly results from my back injury back in February.  I finished in 23:37 - not too bad, I feel, for the conditions and in relation to recent events.  Simon won with a great ride, chased by Steve (who was clearly stung by his performance in the New Year's Day event!) and Lindz.

Disgraced cyclist Riccardo Riccò apparently wants to make a comeback to professional cycling (Riccò Wants To Make A Comeback | Cyclingnews.com), having retracted his statement allegedly made while doctors battled to save him from his 'mystery ailment'.  The statement, of course, referred his self-administration of a dodgy blood transfusion.Thing is, what team would take him?  With his doping record?

I don't suppose most people are aware of the continued threats against Linux by those companies who feel threatened by the growth of Linux.  Many out there believe that Linux is just some minority OS that's not user-friendly and is not going anywhere.  Actually Linux adoption bubbles along just below Apples OS X - at least on the desktop.  Interestingly, Linux (in the form of Android) is doing well in mobile devices, in web servers, and in supercomputers.  Anyway some years back, an excessively complex and convoluted legal assault on Linux was mounted by SCO, a Utah company formerly engaged in selling a Linux distribution.The whole farrago of legal action seemed to many in the Open Source world to be a campaign to nobble Linux adoption, by spreading FUD - with conspiracy theorists seeing Microsoft as one of its financial backers (there was a suggestion that MS took a Unix licence to help fund the lawyers).Chief in the pro-Linux camp (and some might actually say pro-truth camp) has been the weblog Groklaw, which began when paralegal Pamela Jones wanted to write about these issues on the net - from May 16th 2003, Groklaw has been the number one place for the truth about SCO's attempt to squash Linux (and several other stories): in the 8 years since then, PJ has suffered considerable abuse from SCO and their lawyers, and has stuck to her mission to sift out the truth in this tortuous legal case.  At all times, she's maintained her position on the moral high ground.Now PJ has announced that from May 16th, 2011, Groklaw will no longer publish new articles ( Groklaw Articles Ending on May 16th): it's time for her to move on in her life.I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed PJ's coverage of the SCO affair, and the other stories she's presented.  Groklaw has been a fascinating read at all times, and has been an excellent example of what can be achieved by a community effort on the web.Thank you, PJ.

This was a gloriously sunny morning: chilly when I set out to ride over to Stony Stratford, but warm for the race and even warmer for the ride home.  This event was the last of the early season morning time trials - the next event being on Wednesday evening.This isn't my favourite course - I dislike the climb to Nash, which doesn't really suit an overweight time triallist, and the road surface is pretty poor in places after two harsh winters.  I arrived very early and hung around for about 40 minutes or so before I started.  Once off, I felt pretty good for the first few miles, despite having to dodge some new potholes a dead rabbit and a live pheasant.  I still felt OK when I started the Nash climb, though I intentionally selected a lower gear than I normally would (this generally slows my ride overall).  I got to the turn in reasonably good shape, and could see that Richard, who'd started a minute before me was on a good ride (he did a PB, I later found).The return leg from the turn was fairly straightforward - I'd noted some of the worst potholes and road surfaces on the way out so I expected the really dreadful section just after passing through Beachampton (why can't those responsible for the roads repair the blasted potholes?).  Unfortunately I felt the time on my computer just slipping away as I made a last effort before the line to finish in 28:52.All in all, a really good morning - lovely weather, very sociable - I had an enjoyable ride home with Richard.

This event in the annual series of North Bucks time trials uses two laps of a course starting in Bow Brickhill, running down the A5, across to Woburn, through Woburn Sands and back to Bow Brickhill (see map below).  The final coup de grace is an ascent of the climb at Bow Brickhill, which is used for the annual hill climb championship.  So it's quite a tough circuit, and one notable aspect is that the man who devised it has, as far as we can tell, yet to ride it in anger!I woke with a nagging ache in my lower back - not painful, but enough to make me less than enthusiastic about 22 hilly miles in my time trial tuck.  Accordingly, I turned out on my road bike for this event.  There wasn't a massive turnout - only six riders - but it was rather a nice morning, with only a gentle wind.  It was actually quite interesting to time trial on a road bike for a change, as I've not done this often before.  The bike in question is fitted with a Polar power metering (see my reviews at TeamGrumpy.org), and I have to say that during the event I rarely bashed out much power!Anyway, I was last man off, and set off towards the Bow Brickhill roundabout as best I could.  From that roundabout, it's a gentle climb to the A5, and then more climbing to pass under the flyover near Little Brickhill.  I was surprised to see my minute man ahead of me in this section - actually this pattern was repeated through the event, as I was climbing faster than he was, only to see him accelerate away from me in his aero position on the level and downhill sections.No real problems (other than worrying about my back), except I got occasionally held up by traffic (for example getting through Woburn Sands on the first lap, and getting stuck behind an aged motorist who sailed through Woburn at a very sedate 20mph in the second lap.  The road surface had suffered over the winter, but not to the extant seen at last year's running of this event.  Eventually I reach the final section, the ascent of the finishing climb.  I shifted into the small ring and in fact during the climb I ended up in 42x23 as all my energy deserted me.  I was reduced to pulling anguished faces to generate sympathy from motorists coming down the hill.Still, not a bad ride - I took second place!

I've been using Ubuntu Linux for quite a few years now, attracted by its ease of installation and use. Through those years I principally used the Gnome desktop in preference to KDE (which I always found a but too garish) or the lightweight desktop environments - Gnome always seemed to have the right amount of flexibility. I had finally reached a point where I had Gnome enabled with a single task bar at the top of the screen and an application dock (Docky) for those most frequently used applications running along the bottom of the screen.  All applications are easily accessible from the main menus dropping down from the taskbar. I routinely had four workspaces that I would navigate through using the Compiz enabled Desktop cube, which also provided some nice eye candy.Canonical are moving to make a new Gnome environment shell, Unity, the default with Ubuntu 11.04 onwards.  I'd read that Unity was originally developed for Netbook users, but that it might ultimately have a role in touch screen devices.  This brief note is a quick 'first opinion' of Unity - thought presumably quite a bit of work is to come as 11.04 moved towards release (and bear in mind I'm still figuring out how to use it!).This weekend I decided to upgrade to the first Beta of Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal), in part because I wanted to see what Unity was like, particularly in the ease of use where smaller screens are concerned.  I upgraded an ageing Sony Vaio VGN-TX5XN notebook with 1366x768 screen resolution, 1Gb RAM and Intel integrated graphics chip.[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="430" caption="Unity Screenshot"][/caption]The image shows a view of the new Unity desktop.  A panel of application and admin icons runs down the left of the screen.  This is fine as far as it goes, but accessing less frequently used applications becomes a bit more of a chore - you need to click the icon with a magnifying glass and a plus symbol to see further applications, but to reach one you may need three or four clicks of the mouse.The application panel autohides - you bring it back by mousing over the top left corner of the screen.  I imagine you can tweak these settings, but I've no idea how yet!To switch desktops, you click the desktop icon and choose the desktop you want to move to.  Again, this is clunkier that my previous Gnome incarnation, where I could just click on the workspace switcher in the task bar to do this.  If any reader knows how to add applets (such as a workspace switcher) to the Unity taskbar, please tell me!The taskbar is a bit like that on Apple's OS X - when applications are maximised, it takes on that application's toolbar menu items - unlike OS X, when the application isn't maximised, these revert to the window title bar.  This seems an excellent compromise, especially where screen real estate is at a premium.I'm less happy with compiz )the compositing engine for fancy desktop effects) on this notebook: it won't run.  This may be having an impact on some of the fluidity of the application panel and desktop workspace navigation.  The non-functionality of compiz is not to do with Unity per se: it's not working if I start Ubuntu in old-style Gnome (via the Ubuntu Classic option at the log in screen).  Still, I dare say I'll work on that.  It would be nice to switch workspaces by mousing to the edge of the screen and rotating a desktop cube.  Interestingly, at one point in my monkeying around in Unity, I persuaded Docky to run, so maybe compiz isn't completely broken.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!A chilly morning greeted me as I left to ride over to Pitstone for the Icknield RC hilly 30k time trial.  This is a regular feature on my early season, which I enter either solo (as this year) or as a 2-up event with my Team Grumpy partner.  No problems riding over to the race HQ: I chose to ride along the new Stoke Hammond bypass, a nicely surfaced dual carriageway.  Having left in good time in case of incident (punctures spring to mind!), I arrived at the hall in plenty of time.  Well, actually, a bit too much time.After a spot of conversation, I trundled off to the start line.  By this time I was feeling rather chilly, and I noticed that all the riders lined up at the start were shivering, so I wasn't alone there.Eventually, my start time came, and off I went.  The course leads past a recreation ground and through Ivinghoe.  The recreation ground is a bit of a problem, with parents in large 4x4s stopping to deliver children to Sunday football matches.  As has happened before, I got stalled quite badly by one such monster vehicle.  Shortly after Ivinghoe, the course turns left and climbs up the shoulder of  Ivinghoe Beacon.  At this point, I knew I was in for a tough ride: I really struggled over the top, and indeed got caught for a minute on the way down the other side (only about 10 minutes into the race!).At the bottom of the descent it's a sharp left to join the road out to Billington.  This was characterised by some pretty bad potholes, and then the sharp climb that is Billington Hill.  This year I decided against muscling a big gear and slipped the chain into the small plate.  Nevertheless, I crested the hill in an embarrassingly small gear.  Fortunately the speed picked up as I descended to the roundabout where I joined the Leighton Buzzard bypass. from there it was reasonably quick, past a couple of roundabouts and up to Wing.  During this stretch, I was passed by #78, and was caught by the scratch rider (Steve Golla, #80) in Wing.  The roads continued to be of really poor quality* as I descended from Wing.  Dodging the potholes and traffic, I eventually reached the turn to Wingrave.  Up the slight hill and through Wingrave - turned left at the duckpond (has to be one of the more quaint course descriptions), where my right tri-bar pad decided to leap off into the abyss**.  Ignoring the abrasive possibilities of riding on the remaining velcro patches, I pressed on to Mentmore crossroads and turned right towards Mentmore and the final climb.  Not too bad, though #79 caught me shortly after cresting the hill - now I was the last rider on the road!  The descent could have been fast, but I found myself inhibited by the big red signs exhorting road users to go slowly: "Failed Road Surface" was the hazard*.  Dodging huge potholes and associated gravel, the descent past the Mentmore country club was quite quick.  One last sprint and I crossed the line to finish in 50:41.This wasn't a particularly triumphant performance, but hopefully will contribute to returning form as I return from the injury and illness of recent weeks.*I rode a total of about 1o9km today, including riding too and from the event, and I can say that I was appalled by the state of the roads I was on: they would embarrass a third world country, and this must be one of the wealthiest counties in England.  Shame on the local councils!  Last winter has absolutely trashed them.  It made riding the event rather unpleasant at times.**I chose to ride home via Wingrave and retrieved the tri-bar pad, which will henceforth be secured with a rubber band.

This event was the first in the North Bucks Road Club time trial league, and a designated 'come and try it' event.  As it turned out, we got a good turn out of at least 20 riders from local clubs, a few NBRC riders, but no new time triallists as far as I know.  It was slightly chilly as I rode over to Astwood, but nowhere near as cold as last week.  Lightly overcast, the sun was just trying to peep out from behind hazy clouds, and managing to warm the conditions up.  In fact the racing conditions seemed pretty similar to the previous two events.After my last two events, I was needing the confidence boost of an improved time, but as I rode up to Astwood, I really had little enthusiasm for racing (partly due to the fact I was to race the Icknield RC hilly 30k the following morning).  Anyway, once I started I soon dropped into racing mode, and for a change found I was able to stay a little bit more focussed.  I had my pal and arch-nemesis Tony starting one minute behind me - given my present form and his recent Majorcan mileage, it was really a matter of when rather than if he would catch me.  This he did shortly after North Crawley and a little over two-thirds of the way round the course.Ultimately I finished with 24:51 - still not great, but an improvement of 37 seconds on my last two rides on this course.  It was really good to see so many riders turn out for an event: it gave the impression we were all emerging from the long winter hibernation.Here's a map, with associated speed, heart rate and altitude traces (if you click the link).And the results:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="444" caption="Beauty"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="If you're not religious, say so in the 2011 UK census!"][/caption]The British Humanist Association has been campaigning for UK citizens to accurately respond to the census question on religion.Why should I answer the question at all? Well, this is a personal thing and I wouldn't pressurise people into any specific answer or none. But census data get used for all sorts of policy decisions, among them the role of religion in our everyday lives. What tends to happen is that people confuse the cultural heritage with religious beliefs they do not hold to.Why does it matter? The BHA has prepared a concise summary of how the 2001 census data on religious belief were used (or misused may be closer to reality. We should not be logging ourselves as Jedi Knights as some kind or prank. We should not say we are christian if we not longer practice the faith. We should be upfront and truthful about our religious faith.