I had thought of writing a pointless article about the launch of Windows 7 earlier this week, but really, I couldn't be bothered.  The big news in the OS world for me is next week's release of Ubuntu 9.10 'Karmic Koala'.  I've been running Karmic in alpha and then beta for some time now, very happily.  It's running on a 2.5 year old Vaio laptop that was never really capable of running the Vista Business that it came with, and very nice it is too (last week I booted into Vista last week for the first time since January 2008, but quickly decided I'd had enough of interminable spinny "wait...wait...wait" type cursors).

Despite my dislike for Microsoft's bullying business style, I kinda hope that the gargantuan misadventure that was Vista may be behind them.  Certainly there's quite a bit of enthusiasm for Windows 7 out there (and I don't just mean the breathless puffery at the likes of the BBC website), but quite a bit of it seems to be based on the observation that "it's not Vista".  Many commentators are saying however that for many a significant hardware upgrade is still going to be needed to get the max out of Windows 7.

Apparently the Google Toolbar has a new addition, Sidewiki. It's kind of passed me by, as I don't use the Google toolbar, but it's a bit misnamed.  It's not truly a wiki, but it does offer website visitors an opportunity to leave comments about a website or webpage. 

These comments are only visible to Sidewiki users (see picture). 

Cyclingnews reports that Jan Ullrich visited Dr Fuentes 24 times. Which all goes to make me wonder how many times Alejandro Valverde (sorry, Valv. Piti) may have popped into see the gynaecologist with sporting interests.These are two cases where DNA fingerprinting evidence demonstrates that Dr Fuentes was storing bags of blood that are definitively linked with professional cyclists.

Ivan Basso, of course, took it on the chin with a two year ban (that mysteriously didn't seem to be followed by the ProTour ban the rules would indicate). But dear old Alejandro Valverde (sorry, Valv. Piti) continues to fight, claiming innocence despite CONI ruling that the DNA match was sufficient to ban him from racing in Italy (and therefore preventing him from riding the 2009 Tour de France). Meanwhile, it looks as though the Operacion Puerto affair will drag on till 2011, leaving UCI president McQuaid furious.

Here are a couple of other video segments, taken from the roadside at the 2008 Duo Normand.  Both videos were taken with a pretty basic 5Mp Kodak camera by Carol (who in 2009 had to drive the support car), and both clips are mercifully short, compared to the 2009 feature film. The first clip shows us leaving the start ramp, and climbing up the little lane at the start of the race.

Team Grumpy rode the Duo Normand again in 2009 (see this story, and also the Team Grumpy blog and website). Silent Movie is my first effort at editing video footage - in this case recorded from a video camera attached to "Grumpy" Art Vanderlay's tri-bars.  Thus, you can periodically see my backside and legs, but "Grumpy" Art doesn't feature much at all. I edited the video using the Linux package kdenlive, and rendered it as a 320x240 pixel flash video. Be warned, this is a 90' video, and if bandwidth issues result, I'll need to unpublish this article.  It's also rather boring for those not interested in the Duo Normand! The video seems to play well with Firefox on Linux and WinXP.  IE8 on WinXP seems to throw a wobbly about the Flash Player, though after installing Flash Player 10 it worked OK.  Haven't tried other browser/OS combinations yet.

This just in from the "foot in mouth" department.

The British Chiropractic Association has written a press release, or rather two in quick succession following yesterday's ruling that Simon Singh has leave to appeal against the BCA's libel case.

News is spreading across the blogosphere that Simon Singh has been granted leave to appeal in the libel case brought by the British Chiropractic Association. Rather that repeat what's being said, I'll merely refer to one of those blogs: Dr Aust's Spleen: Stop Press – Simon Singh granted leave to appeal where updates have been added through the day.  One choice quote:

Mr Justice Laws described Eady's judgement, centred on Singh's use of the word "bogus" in an article published by the Guardian newspaper, as "legally erroneous".

Stefan Schumacher, the former Gerolsteiner rider, has always claimed innocence over his positive test for CERA (and EPO derivative) during the 2008 Tour de France and the Beijing Olympics.  That comes as no surprise - few athletes admit to cheating, even when presented with pretty unequivocal evidence.

The announcements that samples taken during the 2008 Tour would be re-tested, and secondly that those 17 tests proved negative have apparently given new life to Schumacher's claims of innocence (Schumacher calls for withdrawal of positive results).

I have at the outset to say that I approach discussion of power metering in the context of cycling performance and training with something of a pinch of salt.  For many years, I've used heart rate monitors (most recently a Polar S720i wristwatch and bike computer unit) to monitor exertion and effort during my training sessions and in racing.  I have a pretty good understanding of where my training levels are (I am still using Pete Read's five levels, for this 0 to 4), and can judge not only where my limits are when racing on that basis, but also can judge when I'm not completely recovered and shouldn't train.  This has actually worked pretty well, probably most notably in 2001-3.  In recent years I've found that my working life has begun to limit opportunities for training (hopefully addressed now by moving to train before going to work!), and I've been seeking ways to better monitor progress.

In planning my 2009-2010 winter training programme, I'm a bit uncertain as to where power monitoring will fit in (though perhaps interested readers might leave suggestions via the commenting system).  I've always felt that the advantage of HRM-based training is that you're getting a readout of physiological response to a training load, which seems to me to be rather more important that knowing what power one's generated.  This is, I confess, an element of novelty spurring me on to train more seriously!

I recently bought a Polar CS600X bike computer/HRM, with an associated Power meter system - here I present an initial review of the unit.  I later bought the add-on Polar G3 GPS unit for use with it - I'll review this separately as I haven't had a chance to use it at the time of writing.

This year, we had little expectation of a good performance in the Duo Normand time trial. You can read reports of previous events over at the Team Grumpy web pages and the Team Grumpy Blog, as well as the preview of the race.

One addition this year was that we planned to record a video by strapping a small video camera to the tri-bars - if this can be made into manageable file size, I may post it on the web.

As usual, pressure of work led to frantic packing on the morning of departure.  This was followed by the drive to Portsmouth for the Brittany Ferries afternoon sailing to Cherbourg.  We arrived with plenty of time to spare (about 1h30!).  As was the case last year, we were the last car on, and so first off at Cherbourg.