Here in the UK, there are few haematophagous arthropods which trouble me. While mosquitoes provide a minor irritation, the Scottish midge Culicoides impunctatus is massively annoying, principally because of the sheer number that typically assail one. For me the bite is more irritating as it occurs rather than an itching after-effect. Generally I come into contact with the Scottish midge while on cycling holiday, and swarms of the blighters can make even the most lovely campsite intolerable.  However the beast that irritates me more than any other is Neotrombicula autumnalis, commonly known as the harvest mite or berry bug. The common names reflect both the season in which N. autumnalis larvae become active and the activities which bring people into contact with them. This blog article was inspired by a pair of bites I picked up this week.[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="220" caption="Life cycle of trombiculid mites"][/caption]Most people who suffer from N. autumnalis first become aware of quite severed itching and raised reddened lumps that are typically found around clothing constrictions, typically underwear elastic. But by this time the little devils are usually long gone, leaving several days of irritation behind them. So what are harvest mites?The biology of trombiculid mitesHarvest mites are small arthropods, with a life cycle as shown in the figure (from Wikipedia). It's a typical mite life cycle: the offending stage is the 6 legged larval stage, of which more later: one phase of the nymph stage and the adults are active predators on other small arthropods.This life cycle diagram is a slight simplification.  The nymph stage is actually composed of three stages, the protonymph (an inactive stage entered after the larva has finished feeding and left its host), the deutonymph (the active nymph stage during which the animal feeds on other, presumably smaller, arthropods) and the tritonymph (a second inactive stage after which the adult emerges).[caption id="attachment_998" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Larval trombiculid mite"][/caption]For this purpose, it's the larval stage that is of interest: this is the only stage in which the animal feeds on a vertebrate host (see image to left). These beasts lurk on the tips of grass and other leaves awaiting a passing animal.  When the animal brushes the leaf, the larval mite climbs aboard and crawls about, seeking a suitable attachment point.  For some animals this will be areas devoid of hair or thin skin, such as around the eyes or in the ears.  In the case of humans, this is frequently at points of clothing constriction - usually the last place you want to develop an itch!Larval trombiculid mites don't actually bite, or drink blood (so my depiction of them as haematophagous is rather stretching the point): rather they pierce the skin, injecting digestive juices and sucking up the resulting fluids.  This goes on for a few days after which the mite drops off the host and falls to the substrate.  This process causes a tube of hardened skin called the stylostome to form, and it's through this that the mite continues to feed.Apparently it's only after the mite has departed that the bite becomes noticeable, by which time the culprit is long gone.  Fortunately in temperate areas such as the UK, trombiculid mites only have one annual generation, with larvae being active in summer and early autumn (hence the association with berry picking, crop harvests and, in my case, mushroom collecting).  In tropical areas, trombiculids breed rather more frequently, with the life cycle being completed in around 40 days.Trombiculid mites and diseaseHere in the UK, harvest mites don't transmit disease, but this isn't the case elsewhere.  In south east Asia, trombiculid mites are knwon to transmit scrub typhus (also known as Tsutsugamushi), caused by the bacterium Rickettsia tsutsugamushi (aka R. orientalis) - rather than being a typhus, it's actually a Rickettsiosis.Treatment of harvest mite bitesSevere attacks may lead to dermatitis as the rashes and pustules merge.  I'm not personally aware of any particularly effective treatment for the "berry bug itch".  The Pied Piper pest control website has a section on harvest mites that recommends the following - both seem to be very sensible advice. If you've visited a site known for harvest mite infestation, wash your clothes in hot soapy water, and have a good hot shower.  The larval mites will be wandering around your body and clothes, the hot wash should kill them.  Unfortunately the realisation that one may have been in infested terrain may only surface once the mites have gone and you have the itch... Scratching can cause secondary infections: temporary relief may be provided by ointments of benzocaine, hydrocortisone, calamine lotion, or other things that may be recommended.  For what it's worth, I've tried calamine lotion, it works for a very short time!The pet health website PetWellBeing.com recommends (for dogs) the topical application of steroids to alleviate the severe itching.  Ultimately, my opinion is that the best treatment is probably to ensure you don't scratch the lesion!Further readingWikipedia entry TrombiculidaeLane & Crosskey "Medical Insects and Arachnids" Pub 1993 Chapman & Hall.Wikipedia entry TsutsugamushiNote: this article should not be considered medical advice

After a working day that mostly consisted of a very long meeting, with little food and drink, I was concerned how fuelled up I was for our penultimate evening event of the 2010 season.  Actually, I didn't even get half a mile from my office en route to the race before I suffered my mishap - a rear wheel puncture!  Although I suspect my apparent desire to ride that tyre to death and bare canvas contributed, I was a bit put out, particularly as work colleagues kept stopping to comment on what a nice bike it was, as I got a bit oily and cross.  I also discovered the limitations of small pocket-sized pumps (in this case a small Topeak carbon).  Of course partly that was down to the time I had available to keep pumping, but in the end I got the tyre up to a rideable inflation (expecting to get the use of someone's track pump later).By the time I reached the start point of the race, they were just lining up the first rider to start.  I hurried over and got a number.  Good job I'm not superstitious, as I ended up as #13.  Unfortunately there wasn't an opportunity to further inflate my rear tyre, and I thought that having another go might just result in letting air out rather than getting it in, so just lined up to start.It was immediately clear that the outward leg to Chicheley was going to be tough, with a headwind. I thought I'd just take it a bit easy in a headwind, as I have done in recent races.  By Chicheley, my legs felt strangely ineffective, with twitches which were rather reminiscent of times I'd had cramp when racing - fortunately I didn't start cramping.Cornering at Chicheley, it was good to get a bit of tailwind, and by North Crawley, I could see #12 ahead of me.  Or at least a rider I "thought" was #12!  Onwards and past the spot where I took a high speed tumble the other week and down the hill to the bottom of the finishing climb, all the while gaining on #12.  One final effort and up the climb to finish in 23:58, with #11 and #12 crossing the line just a bit before me.A mixed result: I really didn't feel on top of the form I've had this season, but on the other hand 23:58 isn't too bad for me on this course, judging from recent rides.Looking forward to upcoming open events, I'm riding a '25' on the F1B/25 on Sunday, and I plan to ride a '50' on 5th September.  After that, I have what will probably be my final event of 2010, the Duo Normand, on 19th September.  Look out for the preview of the 2010 Duo Normand, and the report after the event.

								Pos. on
Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	Vets Std
1	10	Tony Parks	NBRC	22.54	V45	26.30	.+ 3.36	4
2	9	Lindz Barral	I-Team.CC	23.40	S
3	13	Robert Saunders	NBRC	23.58	V50	27.33	.+ 3.35	.= 5
.=	14	Geoff Perry	TeamMK	23.58	V50	27.33	.+ 3.35	.= 5
5	12	Rob Chaundy	TeamMK	24.53	V58	29.20	.+ 4.27	2
6	6	Brian Primett	NBRC	24.55	V43	26.06	.+ 1.11	9
7	5	Ian Stokes	NBRC	25.35	V50	27.33	.+ 1.58	8
8	11	Ian Markham	Team Sanjan Design	25.52	V41	25.42	.- 0.10	10
9	4	Clive Faine	TeamMK	26.02	V64	30.45	.+ 4.43	1
10	8	Paul Holmes	Beds Roads CC	26.18	S
11	3	Gilbert Wheelwright	NBRC	27.44	V68	31.45	.+ 4.01	3
12	1	Alan Lawson	NBRC	28.39	V42	25.54	.- 2.45	11
13	2	Gordon Batcock	NBRC	29.24	V70	32.15	.+ 2.51	7
14	7	Eddy Page	NBRC	29.31	S

It was with some trepidation that I set off for the Finsbury Park CC '25'.  For one thing, I'd not been on a bike for a week preceding the event, as I'd been working at a residential school (and to make matters worse, the week's diet was less than satisfactory).  For another thing, i was relatively late in the start field, and I'm never so keen on starting so late, partly because of traffic levels, and partly because any wind seems to get stronger as the morning warms up.  One other factor was the number of events I've ridden along this stretch of road recently - I've getting a bit bored of it!On the morning, the weather was kind.  Except for the northerly wind, as it turned out.  Lining up at the start it was clear I was in for a lonely ride, as half a dozen riders in front of me didn't start.  The exception was Sam Barker (110), and I was never going to see him during the race!  A bit of banter ensued with the time keepers and pusher off, wherein it transpired that my enthusiastic arrival with 6 minutes to spare wasn't going to be rewarded in any material form!Anyway, off I went southbound, dodging the potholes (which resemble archaeological excavations rather than road defects) at the Tempsford flyover before joining the A1.  This was rather nice, as the aforementioned wind was providing quite a bit of assistance.  Unfortunately this state of affairs only lasted as far as the frst 3 miles or so, where the course turns north at the Sandy roundabout.  As expected the northbound leg to Buckden was rather tough.  Rather than muscling it, I chose to down gear slightly, which seemed to do the trick.  Once round the Buckden roundabout, things got markedly easier as the tailwind assisted me.This has to have been the first time trial in ages where I didn't see anyone - either by catching them or by being caught.  I finished in 57:28, which I was quite pleased with given the circumstances of the past week.

The UK ISP TalkTalk was recently spotted shadowing its customers' tracks around the internet. The excellent NoDPI.org has a comprehensive summary of why this is illegal (TalkTalk becomes StalkStalk).  Interestingly the man in charge, despite claiming to have deleted all emails from one protester has had his legal crew write an apparently evasive letter.As with the BT-Phorm debacle, it's going to be interesting to watch this unfold...buy I can't see the UK regulatory bodies acting with any great rapidity if prior experience is anything to go by,

An article principally concerning government plans to squeeze those living in council accommodation (David Cameron announces plan to end lifetime council tenancies | Society | The Guardian), Prime Minister David Cameron is quoted as saying:[...] the coming public spending cuts will not be restored when the economy recovers.

I've recently taken delivery of a Garmin 500 bike computer, rather a neat piece of kit that can use GPS positioning to show speed and distance: it also has a speed/cadence sensor and a chest strap to send HR to the unit. It is ANT+compatible so can receive data from any ANT+ power sensor (I've got an eye on the Metrigear pedal spindle device, should it ever enter the market).Garmin have a website to which data can be downloaded from the unit online: this requires a downloaded plug-in to facilitate upload from the Garmin 500. Or so they say (more on this in a bit), and it's only available for PC and Mac. The software is pretty limited in comparison to other apps I've used. While you can see graphs of power, altitude, speed and heart rate, you can't seem to plot them in combination. Nor are there any of the very useful ways of plotting power data that some other packages offer. You can however use Garmin Connect to convert from FIT format to TCX format, which can be useful.You can also download Garmin's Training Center to run on a PC or Mac. Once again there's no Linux version available, though I've used a Windows virtual machine to have a play with it. As with the web-based Garmin Connect, it seems to me to be rather limited in its analytic capabilities. So with those comments in mind, what training software have I tried and (perhaps more pertinently) use?I've been using VidaOne's Diet and Fitness (VODF) since the days it was known as MySportTraining, This was largely because it had a Pocket PC version that would synchronise with the Windows version - now it also has an iPhone app. Of course it's always been a pain to be using Windows apps when I am by and large a Linux user these days. I currently run this app in a virtual XP machine (using VirtualBox), and have training data going back 7 years. It would have been more, except for a laptop crash back in 2003 - which taught me a lesson! Using the Polar IR USB device, VODF can download directly from the Polar CS600X with power, but beyond offering a graph of power against time, seems limited in how to analyse power data. VODF doesn't currently download GPS data from the Polar CS600X.Most of the heart rate monitors I've used have been from Polar (successively the Polar Coach, S600, S720i and now CS600X), and so I've tried a few versions of Polar software - Polar Protrainer 5 currently, but find the interface a little clunky, though I guess this comes down to personal taste. And like VODF, it's analytic power tools seem to be rather limited. The principal reason I keep PPT is that I can collect GPS data from the Polar.Golden CheetahThis year, as I enter my second half century, I've seen consistent improvement in my time trialling performances. As I write, I have ridden my best times at 10 miles (21:05, my best since 2002, and my second best time ever), 25 miles (55:29, my best since 2004) and 50 miles (1:57:45 and again, my best since 2004). So, what's this down to?The sceptics out there seem to reckon it's due to my new time trial bike, built around a Cervelo P3. I supect it's more down to changed training practices. Back in mid-2009, I figured I needed to re-evaluate my work-life balance, since my working pattern was leading to ever-later finishes each day, and directly impacting on my ability to schedule training sessions. And as anyone should realise, the key to decent performance is a detailed and thoughtful training schedule. Indeed, way back when I was setting my personal best times in 2002-4 I was rigorously following Pete Read's Black Book, which is actually a fixed schedule of sessions based on heart rate monitoring.On the basis that a change is as good as a rest, I've been dabbling with power-based training for my time trialling habit since October (after last year's Duo Normand, in fact). I've reviewed the hardware I selected over at the Team Grumpy website - the Polar CS600X cycle computer with the WIND power meter attachment.Thus far, I've principally used the device on the turbo trainer bike. Despite frequently offered advice that the power system doesn't work on a turbo trainer mounted bike, it does seem to deliver pretty robust data. I also plumped for the Polar G3 GPS device for use in road cycling. This bit of kit picks up the GPS satellite data and relays it to the CS600X head unit. My main reason for investing in the G3 was that I'd not need to get speed sensors for all my bikes. I'm pretty pleased with the G3, it seems to generally work well, once one has figured out the hopelessly inadequate documentation.  The main problems I've faced have related to battery life (G3 uses a single AA cell, supposedly good for 10h, but I reckon less, particularly if an NiMH rechargeable cell is used).I don't particularly like the Polar Pro Trainer (PPT) software that came with the CS600X - I have continued using the training software that I've used since about 2003 (VidaOne Diet and Fitness), but need to use PPT to get the GPS data downloaded. Both the Polar and VidaOne applications lose out quite markedly on the matter of displaying and analysing power data. After a spot of Googling, I came across an Open Source project - Golden Cheetah - which produces releases for Windows, Mac OSX and (most importantly) Linux. This offers a neat set of analytical tools which mean that power metering can be really very effectively used to deduce the effectiveness of training sessions.I have found Hunter and Coggan's book Training and Racing with a Power Meter to be realy invauable in making sense of a lot of the graphs and charts that GC can use to display data. The book's just come out in a second edition. GC aims to display data derived from a number of devices (and their individual file formats). Unfortunately the Polar CS600X produces two files - the first containing the session data in hrm format, and the GPS data within a second file in gpx format. GC imports GPS data in the Garmin tcx format. In itself, this isn't a major problem (for example the GPSies website offers format conversion, except that the session and GPS data remain in separate files.Fortunately Rainer Clasen has developed a series of perl scripts to do a number of tasks with such data files, including merging datasets - see perl Workout library. These do an excellent job, though you do need to know a little command line work. I got the scripts installed with a minimum of perl expertise (and I mean minimum!), though there were one or two snags in the files I was seeking to merge that required a little help from Rainer (for which, many thanks). Now I'm able to merge hrm and gpx files into a tcx format file, which imports well into GC.Next on my plan is to take power-metered training out on the road. I have fitted a second Polar WIND power sensor to one of my road bikes, and over the last few weeks I've been evaluating the kind of training I can do with the extra information at my fingertips. Whereas on the turbo I principally use the power data to analyse my training sessions after completion, on the road I tend to keep an eye on the power output while riding. In part this reflects the nature of the sessions - extended efforts on the road vs intervals on the turbo - but also that the readings are a little more stable than on the turbo. Neatly, GC has a Google Earth display which shows the GPS track of the ride, coloured to show 30s average power readings along the ride. Now, I'm not convinced of the importance of the power colouring, but seeing the route is quite useful.Despite all this movement towards power-based training, my main emphasis has remained on using power metering to analyse the training sessions rather than dictate effort applied. In particular, I've been using it to estimate my threshold power in order to monitor my progress through the training schedule. Instead, I rely mostly on the physiological readout of my heart rate. What remains is to incorporate all this information into a much more structured scheme over next winter in preparation for the 2011 season.

A very warm day transformed into much cooler conditions for this event over at the Stony Stratford course.  At least the rain showers which I rode through en route to the event held off for the actual racing.  On the other hand, I really shouldn't have taken part in the event, as I was feeling decidedly unwell on the ride out.I also took a chance on riding rather lower gears than usual on the outward leg, particularly on the uphill section to Nash.  Unfortunately, this (coupled with the uncertain feeling in my stomach, and my caution cornering on wet roads) merely slowed me down to the point I recorded a poor 28:31 in tonight's event.  My generally unwell feeling intensified overnight, and I spent the night tossing and turning.That's the last time trial for a week and a half, as I cannot race due to work commitments.  I'll return to the fray in the Finsbury Park '25'.

								Pos. on
Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	Vets Std
1	9	Tony Parks	NBRC	26.35	V45	30.29	.+ 3.54	1
2	13	Chris Dunwoodie	TeamMK	27.01	S
3	6	Lindz Barral	i-team.CC	27.35	S
4	5	Adrian Cox	TeamMK	27.36	V49	31.26	.+ 3.50	2
5	4	Robert Saunders	NBRC	28.31	V50	31.41	.+ 3.10	4
6	14	John Buchanan	TeamMK	28.35	V40	29.20	.+ 0.45	5
7	8	Ben Garrard	Leeds Tri Club	29.06	S
8	12	Piers Vallance	Private	29.42	S
9	10	Claire Vallance	Private	31.30	LS
10	3	Gilbert Wheelwright	NBRC	32.34	V67	36.13	.+ 3.39	3
11	1	Alan Lawson	NBRC	32.48	V42	29.47	.- 3.01	8
12	11	Nigel Skinner	Private	32.49	V45	30.29	.- 2.20	7
13	2	Dave Garrard	NBRC	35.11	V62	34.48	.- 0.23	6
	2 up TTT
	7	Sue Skeggs	TeamMK	33.30
		David Skeggs	NBRC

A story that surfaced in TalkTalk forums a while back, and more recently in the Phoenix Broadband Advisory Community and the No DPI forums has now come to the attention of The Register (TalkTalk turns StalkStalk to build malware blocker).  This one's interesting - under the guise of harvesting URLs for future malware protection TalkTalk have been following their clients around the web.  El Reg:

It's less TalkTalk, more StalkStalk: the UK's second largest ISP has quietly begun following its customers around the web and scanning what they look at for a new anti-malware system it is developing.Without telling customers, the firm has switched on the compulsory first part of the system, which is harvesting lists of the URLs every one of them visits. It often then follows them to the sites to scan for threats.[...]The new system is provided by Chinese vendor Huawei, and customers can't opt out of the data collection exercise. As they browse the web, URLs are recorded and checked against a blacklist of sites known to carry malware. They are also compared to a whitelist of sites that have been scanned for threats and approved in the last 24 hours.If a URL appears on neither list, Huawei servers follow the user to the page and scan the code. According to measurements by webmasters, the TalkTalk stalker servers show up between about 30 seconds and two minutes after TalkTalk subscribers.

Isn't this clear copyright violation?  On guy in the PABC forums has requested the TalkTalk cease visiting his sites: they have refused to stop doing this, claiming they "reserve our rights to check your site for the protection of our users".It would seem that the URL harvesting takes quite a bit of information along with it.  TalkTalk claim that their crawler obeys robots.txt instructions, but from the evidence provided in the PBAC forums this isn't actually true.  It would also seem that the process interferes with gamers' online activities and prevents computers from being able to access the iTunes store (see for example this thread).

Another Sunday, another time trial, another spell of riding between Temsford, Sandy and Buckden on the A1.  After last weekend's '100', it would have been nice to race somewhere else for a change, but once again early Sunday morning found me ploughing my way up and down the same on road.   On a dull morning (only occasional sunny spells), there was a nagging breeze that should've made things easy northbound and a bit tougher heading back south but actually seemed to me to make it tough all the way round.Nothing much untoward during this race - I plugged southward to the Sandy roundabout where I got held up briefly by traffic, then headed north through the Black Cat roundabout to turn at the Buckden Roundabout.  A fairly dull event, enlivened by catching a few riders en route, and hearing what sounded suspiciously like a puncture (but wasn't - good job I didn't stop to investigate).  To be honest, my chest was still feeling the effects of Wednesday's club '10', and by the time I finished, I was coughing quite badly.My period of irritating mechanical problems have continued - after the event, Geoff pointed out I was missing a chainring bolt (and since these are a particularly unusual type using a torx key and from Campagnolo a replacement is stupidly expensive) - presumably it's out there on the A1 somewhere.  On the other hand, during the week, I identified the horrid banging noise that I thought was emanating from the head tube area was really the seat pack with tube, levers, patches and CO₂ cylinder banging the seat post.I finished in 58:30, which was a little disappointing.

For one reason or another, I'd never ridden this course before (I don't even know the course code!), so I was rather looking forward to having a go on this course.  the course itself starts in a laybay on the A422 near Stagsden, and goes west to turn at the roundabout junction with A509, before retracing (see the map).  The straightforward nature of the course didn't stop one rider from going off course...which I suppose reflects the fact that our club events are un-marshalled.The evening was warm and sunny, with a stiff breeze that threatened to make the outward leg quite tough.  And so it proved.  Immediately after the start you have to muscle up a quite steep (it seemed to me) rise, where I found out rather quickly that my legs really hadn't recovered from the '100' on Sunday.  I reached the top gasping and wondering whether it was wise to continue - my thoat was burning with the hot air.  I had no idea what speed I was riding at, since my GPS resolutely failed to communicate with the bike computer.  From there it was a pretty standard ride on an undulating '10' course, past Astwood, through Chicheley, to turn at a roundabout, where ofr a change I had no trouble with traffic, indeed a huge lorry waited behind me before entering the roundabout.The way back was pretty uneventful, and pleasingly quick after the outward leg, and I came over the finish line quite quickly.  But by the time I reached the meeting point, I was coughing uncontrollably.  I coughed all the way home, and carried on coughing till midnight.  I'm writing this blog entry on the following morning, and I can still feel wheeziness in my chest and I'm coughing hard.  So something's not right, and I am wondering whether there was pollen in the air 9though I've never been prone to hay fever. I'm not particularly pleased with my time, which I estimate as 23:14 prior to seeing the results, and I didn't feel I exerted myself particularly, judging from my heart rate recorded during the event.Still onward towards the Verulam '25' on Sunday, where once again I will be riding on the F1.  Yawn,Here's a map of the course (finish point approximate) - manually entered to Google Maps since the GPS messed up. results to follow.
View Stagsden '10' in a larger map