I had high hopes for this evening's event - recent performances had suggested that my form was picking up under the onslaught of increased training load. Plus the evening's conditions seemed rather promising. However, there seemed to be  quite a bit of traffic, which was making many of us at the start quite nervous.Indeed, I did get slightly held up at the first roundabout, as a chunk of traffic got in the way. From there, things got a bit easier - I tried using somewhat lower gears than usual on the climb up to the dual carriageway section, but found this just slowed me down. Once on the dual carriageway, it seemed rather heavy going (aggravated by a bus passing me rather too close for comfort), but once round the turn, I seemed to be absolutely flying.I dared hope for a sub-23 minute ride, but was sadly thwarted, finishing in a not so great 23:20.Results at the NBRC website. Here's the trace:

Annual cycle tours by tandem

flies&bikes is an evolving website covering my interests which vary from biology through technology to cycle sport.  It is presently built using the Joomla! CMS.  The present incarnation now uses an integrated version of the well-known blogging software Wordpress, developed by corePHP. I maintain several other related websites: Wonderful Life is a blog covering my interests in atheism, particularly as they relate to biology and creationism. North Bucks Road Club is the website of my cycling club. Northwood Wheelers is a website dedicated to the eponymous (but now defunct) cycling club, of which my father was a member. Team Grumpy features stories concerning cycle timetrialling, particularly as they relate to 2-up team time trials. The Team Grumpy blog is Team Grumpy’s blog, and most definitely tongue in cheek. Professionally, I maintain the British Society for Research on Ageing’s website.

I attempted some modifications of my saddle - I attached a piece of cork bar tape to the nose of the saddle with a few bits of tub tape. Actually this was a bit rubbish, twice while riding to work in the morning, the tape came off and had to be rescued from my thighs! At work I fixed it better with some gaffer tape. This was probably just as well, since by the time Katja and I set off for Stony, the rain had begun to fall.After last week’s sunny conditions, it was perhaps unsurprising that tonight’s event was a bit like time trialling through a river. The rain wasn’t perhaps as who should say torrential, but it was very definitely heavier that one would like.I felt pretty good as I left the start line, and rapidly warmed up on the way to Beachampton. once through Beachampton, I climbed up to Nash. I usually attract all sorts of criticism for keeping my bike in a high gear and low cadence for the climb, so this time I thought I’d have a go a lower gear/higher cadence for the steepest bit of the climb. I didn’t really notice any greta benefit, indeed if anything I went slower!I negotiated the sharp left and right through Nash with caution, then sped up towards the turn. On the return leg, speeds were that much higher, as it’s more downhill. As it was still raining pretty heavily, I thought it prudent to take the corners with a modicum of caution. Despite this, I did clock some pretty good speeds on the main descents.I came in with 28:29, which I thought quite respectable given the conditions - good enought for second place, since one of the fast boys punctured with a few km to go.Oh, and the saddle modification not only lasted the course despite the rain but worked…Results at NBRC

This was a lovely sunny evening, though getting rapidly cooler as the evening went on. It was good to be back on the Astwood course - last time we were forced onto the alternative Stagsden course by road works.I felt reasonably OK - considerably more energetic than at Sunday’s ’25’ when I felt distinctly sub-par. Having said that, the problem with my over-slippy saddle was still noticeable. Every few pedal strokes saw me needing to push myself back onto the saddle again. Clearly some modification is needed! On the bright side, this was my first ride in the new club skinsuit. The current kit is sourced from Bio-Racer, and I was very pleased with its fit and construction (changing kit suppliers is always a bit anxious!).I finished with 24:42, I think - a bit slower than I’d have liked.Results at NBRC

I approached this event with some optimism after recent 10 mile results. However the event switched from the F1B/25 to the F1/25 due to roadworks. Everyone else seems to think the F1B/25 is the slower of the two courses, but I prefer it for a number of reasons. As an aside, this might be the last time I ride on the F1/25 - with the scheduled addition of traffic lights at the Black Cat, the course will be unusable.Over at Tempsford, we parked and were assailed with usual agri-stench from the nearby farm. The weather was exactly as forecast - only a gently 7mph westerly, and clear skies. Sadly it was rather cold I collected my number, donned my fleecy gloves, and rode off for a brief warmup. That left me feeling rather cold!From the off, I felt like I was ploughing through treacle. I hoped that I’d pick up a bit of speed on the slip road down to the A1, but that evaporated pretty quickly. I was riding along at 25-26mph a lot of the time, and I had a clear run through all the roundabouts. I did however find it pretty tough at several points after the Buckden turn, presumably a combination of gradient, the wind (albeit quite gentle!) and my general lassitude. By the time I crossed the Black Cat on the return, it was looking pretty touch and go whether I’d scrape under the hour (but frankly I though by then it would be unlikely). Indeed, I crossed the line in 1:00:40.I’m not sure what the problem was. I’ve suffered recently from pulling my rear wheel, but this was sorted the day before by a spot of judicious tinkering. I will admit to wondering if my wheel was rubbing on the frame after feeling so sluggish (but that definitely wasn’t the case).On the day, I just couldn’t lift my pace, and couldn’t get comfortable. Maybe this is just getting used to riding in the aero tuck position - which is made a bit more difficult as my new saddle seems rather slippy in combination with my club skinsuit. I’ve taken a bit of sandpaper to it (the saddle, not the skinsuit!) in an effort to make it a bit grippier.Davey Jones was out there on the course taking photographs. After the event, he lambasted me for using too big a gear!

This was an overcast evening, but rather nice conditions for a time trial. We were all a bit concerned by road changes associated with the roadworks at the Kelley’s Kitchen roundabout (and the impact of the traffic lights on traffic flow. On the evening, we moved the start and finish slightly.I felt pretty good all round, but nothing spectacular. I had a pretty clear run through all the roundabouts, but flagged a bit on the rising road up to the dual carriageway section.Despite my hopes for a sub-23, I recorded 23:02 for second place equal in a field mostly consisting of  veterans. Quite an acceptable outcome! Full results at the NBRC website.

The F2A/10 is on the A428 dual carriageway, with a turn at Caxton Gibbet. It’s a bit of an exposed course, and in my experience is a bit susceptible to the effects of a windy day. And so it proved.Tony and I went over not quite knowing what to expect - in Tony’s case because this was his first event in 2014, and in my case because my training has a bit off the boil since before my last open event (the EC Cycles ’10’ in March).On the day, it was a reasonable temperature, the rain held off, but there was a significant crosswind out there on the course, which I found made my front trispoke a bit twitchy. I don’t know whether this is merely age-related caution or nerves, but I’m pretty sure I never used to find crosswinds so much hassle is the past. That, together with a close pass from a high speed car, made me rather unwilling to give it ‘full welly’!The initial couple of miles seemed to be slightly uphill, and I struggled to keep a decent speed up. Once over that, I had a reasonably straightforward ride, with little hassle from traffic, even at the turn roundabout. After the finish, I looked down and saw my rear wheel rubbing against the frame. This is a bit annoying - the little screw that’s supposed to prevent this is bent - and the placing of the disc wheel is difficult at the best of times because its profile doesn’t leave a lot of clearance at the chainstays.I finished with 22:54 - a little slower than my 22:47 at the EC Cycles ’10’ - a ride on a course with a similar profile but in much nicer conditions. So that’s encouraging at least.Other points of note, numerous dead badgers on the course gave it a rather gruesome appearance!Davey Jones was out on the course taking pictures!

In my first foray into Raspberry PI, I set one up as a Squeezebox networked music player using piCorePlayer - this one has a HiFiBerry DAC card and is remarkably easy to use - to switch it on or off you just plug in or unplug the power respectively. For the new project, I wanted to try the new Wolfson DAC card from Element 14, particularly as I was getting occasional crackles and pops from the USB output in Raspian. This DAC isn’t currently supported by piCorePlayer, so I was keen to take a different route.I ended up with a media player that didn’t have an obvious way of shutting it down, other than via the command line. So I wanted to figure out how to add a pushbutton that would shut the Pi down to state in which it can be powered down.

Installing the Wolfson DAC

Installing the Wolfson DAC card is pretty straightforward. It uses a set of sprung connectors to conenct to the P5 header of the Raspberry Pi, pushes on to the P1 header and fixes in place with a plastic screw. The screw is important to make sure the connectors are held against the P5. I didn’t bother with trying to set the DAC up with a stock Raspbian OS - Element 14 have an image file of a modified Raspbian with all modules etc set up from the get-go. It can be downloaded from here, though I found that the file wouldn’t unzip on my Mac, unless I used Keka, a third party archiver utility available from the App Store. There’s some discussion on the Element 14 discussion forums about the unzipping problem.I set up wifi and installed squeezelite as described in this tutorial - all pretty straightforward as I have a fair bit of Linux experience. I’m using an unbranded wifi USB stick that steadfastly refused to work with piCorePlayer - but it seems fine in Raspbian.In use, the Pi starts squeezelite when it boots, and it’s then visible to the LMS web interface and other squeezebox control apps such as SqueezePad and iPeng. I was using a terminal to shut the Pi down via the command line before powering down. This seemed less than ideal, so I investigated setting up a ‘shutdown’ push button switch for an easier and more orderly shutdown.

 3 Pin Header on the Wolfson DAC

The Wolfson DAC pretty much covers the main set of header pins, and makes three of these available via a three pin header on the card (referred in this thread).

Wolfson_Card_J8-1:RPI_TX  ->  RPi: P1-08 - TXD0 (ALT0) - GPIO14Wolfson_Card_J8-2:RPI_RX  ->  RPi: P1-10 - RXD0 (ALT0) - GPIO15Wolfson_Card_J8-3:GND

[caption id="attachment_2527" align="alignleft" width="400"] The J8 Header[/caption](GPIO14 is the pin closest to the edge of the DAC card, and GND is the one furthest from the edge). I connected a pushbutton switch on a breadboard to GPIO14 and GND for testing purposes.

Setting up the shutdown script.

Bearing in mind I’d never done any prior work with hardware interfaces, and never done any python work, this proved an interesting exercise!First, I installed RPi-GPIO:

sudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get -y install python-rpi.gpio

I don’t recall installing the time and os Python modules, so I assume they are there by default. I copied the shutdown code (from here) and saved as /home/pi/scripts/shutdown2.py. Note that the comment lines indicate sources - all I had to do was to edit the pin numbers from the original to use Pin 14.

# This script will wait for a button to be pressed and then shutdown

# the Raspberry Pi.

# http://kampis-elektroecke.de/?page_id=3740

# http://raspi.tv/2013/how-to-use-interrupts-with-python-on-the-raspberry-pi-and-rpi-gpio

# https://pypi.python.org/pypi/RPi.GPIO

 import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

import time

import os

 # we will use the pin numbering of the SoC, so our pin numbers in the code are

# the same as the pin numbers on the gpio headers

GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)

 # Pin 14 will be input and will have its pull up resistor activated

# so we only need to connect a button to ground

GPIO.setup(14, GPIO.IN, pull_up_down = GPIO.PUD_UP)

# ISR: if our button is pressed, we will have a falling edge on pin 14

# this will trigger this interrupt:

def Int_shutdown(channel):

# shutdown our Raspberry Pi

os.system("sudo shutdown -h now")

# Now we are programming pin 14 as an interrupt input

# it will react on a falling edge and call our interrupt routine "Int_shutdown"

GPIO.add_event_detect(14, GPIO.FALLING, callback = Int_shutdown, bouncetime = 2000)

# do nothing while waiting for button to be pressed

while 1:

        time.sleep(1)

To run the script at startup, I added this line to rc.local:

sudo python /home/pi/scripts/shutdown2.py

One reboot, and voila! My first attempt to use Raspberry Pi GPIO pins was a success! I’ve now soldered the switch to a couple of push-on connectors which fit to the J8 pins 1 and 3 (GPIO14 and GND respectively), so it’s a little fragile in the absence of a proper case! Pressing the shutdown button shuts the system down. I suspect that a reset button connected to Header 6 would re-start the device from that state, but I’ve yet to investigate.I’m presently using this Pi as a small player to drive a pair of headphones - it sounds rather good. Here's a photo of the finished device:[caption id="attachment_2526" align="alignleft" width="1000"] Raspberry Pi with Wolfson DAC (click to enlarge)[/caption]

This event was transferred to the backup course - the Stagsden ’10’ - owing to roadworks on the Astwood circuit. It was another cold and windy morning, and I was feeling decidedly ropy after my recent trip to Africa. Not because I’d caught anything, but maybe because of the continued antimalarial tablets. Anyway, on the day I felt distinctly sub-par, and shortly after starting I found myself on the climb up to Astwood into the teeth of a stiff and cold breeze. Sadly, I was struggling and couldn’t keep a decent speed up. Once past Astwood, things did improve, but the nagging headwind really did keep me in check. As I moved up to catch my minute man, I found my progress impeded a bit by a line of cars behind him (the leading car seemed rather timid), but eventually I made it.Once round the roundabout, things were a bit better, indeed I topped 37mph. But it wasn’t enough to compensate for my lack of form on the outbound leg and I finished with a long-ish 25. What was worse was that I had a horrible cough - and that was still with me on Sunday!Ho hum.Results at the NBRC websiteHere’s the Garmin trace (to be added)

I rode this event solo which, as it turned out, was no bad thing! I was keen to ride the event in part because that afternoon I was off to Kenya for a few days work. The morning was fairly breezy and quite cold. I left my jersey and backpack with the timekeepers, as I wanted to make a quick exit so i could pack for the Kenya trip…within a few meters of starting, it was clear that I had a mechanical issue. Looking down, I could see that my rear wheel had pulled and it was rubbing tightly against my frame. With a bit of a curse I stopped and climbed off to reposition the wheel. This took a fair bit of time, and I don’t think I recovered my composure!Another issue I noticed was that with the modifications to the big A5 roundabout near the start (which includes several traffic lights), the traffic along the course seems to come in ‘packets’ which can be a hassle when negotiating roundabouts on the course. Indeed, I got held up a couple of times for a few seconds - nothing major, but a distraction.So, mechanical ineptitude aside, how did the race go? Well, as I say, I didn’t really regain my composure, so I was reasonably pleased with 24:37!Results at NBRC websiteGarmin trace will be added 

In 2013, Team Grumpy regrouped as usual for the Port Talbot Wheelers 2-up ’25’, but on that occasion I was suffering too much from a bad back to ride. This year, work commitments made it impossible to enter that event (which was a week or two later in the calendar), so we entered the EC Cycles ’10’, on the R10/22A. Unfortunately, this event had no 2-up event listed either at entry or on the start sheet (though indications from at least one results listing indicated 2-up entries had been expected).After a few days of typical Team Grumpy preparation (i.e. takeaway curry and Leffe), we set off for the event, some 45 minutes from Team Grumpy’s welsh base. On the drive over to Resolven, the weather just improved steadily, and ulimately we rode the event in quite balmy conditions - bright sunshine, warm temperatures and a light breeze from the south-east.We warmed up briefly on a nearby road, and found no mechanical issues - unlike two years before, when I punctured while warming up! Gerry was down to start a minute ahead of me, so we finished our warmup together near the start.The course starts some way down a minor road to an industrial area, and no sooner had I got up to speed than I had to do a sharp left turn onto the dual carriageway at a roundabout. This briefly checked my speed, before accelerating again. The outbound leg is largely a gentle descent, though it does undulate somewhat. I was cruising at a decent speed in the southbound leg, often at more than 30mph, but though ny HR seemed to be up where I expected it, my legs didn’t seem to be chucking out as much effort as I would have hoped.I reached the turn having caught my 2-minute man, and never saw another rider in the race. I negotiated the turn as best I could given I only ride this stretch of road once a year - it’s an extended flyover junction that seems to go on for ever! The return leg was quite a bit tougher, as it was mostly slightly uphill, and what little breeze there was didn’t seem to offer any assistance. But then again, it dodn’t seem to offer too much hindrance, either! The finish is just off the same roundabout that we entered the dual carriageway section, and I gave it everything to get round the corner quickly, then motored on to cool down on the smaller road alongside the course.I finished with 22:47 for 18th place, not bad for this point in the season, though my legs didn’t feel like they’d done enough work! That being said, my heart rate was about where I’d expect it to be… Result EC Cycles 10 Mile Time Trial (9 March 2014) Course R10/22A (revised)

Rank	Rider	Club	Cat	Time	No.
1	Billy Oliver	RST Sport/Aero-Coach	S	20:27	90
2	B Xavier Disley	RST Sport/Aero-Coach	S	21:02	80
3	David Brice	Bynea Cycling Club	V	21:29	65
4	Joseph Beech	Ogmore Valley Wheelers	S	21:30	20
5	Anthony Mark Jones	Bynea Cycling Club	V	21:32	32
6	Adam Jones	EC Cycles	S	21:37	76
7	Harry Edney	Scuderia R T	S	21:38	30
8	Christopher Gibbard	Bynea CC	S	21:53	79
9	Richard Wilder	San Domenico	V	21:55	19
10	Gareth Rees	Cwmcarn Paragon	S	22:00	70
11	Christopher Jones	Ride Bikes Wales	V	22:05	56
12	Courtney Rowe	Cardiff Jif	V	22:09	15
13	Chris Tatton	Sodbury Cycle-Sport	V	22:09	29
14	Rob Jones	Ogmore Valley Whs	S	22:10	75
15	Thomas Weir	CC Ashwell	S	22:27	61
16	Gareth Thomas	San Domenico	S	22:33	27
17	David Medhurst	Cardiff Ajax CC	S	22:46	25
18	Robert Saunders	North Bucks RC	V	22:47	48
19	Daniel Gough	Swansea University Cycling Club	S	22:48	59
20	Thomas Ashford	Cardiff Jif	S	22:51	39
21	Ian Rees	Pontypool RCC	V	22:57	35
22	Gerard Oram	Bynea Cycling Club	V	23:00	47
23	Jonathan Pitt	Monmouthshire Wheelers	V	23:00	82
24	David Evans	Worcester St. Johns CC	V	23:02	40
25	Wayne Thomas	Pontypool RCC	S	23:08	87
26	Leigh Jones	Ride Bikes Wales	S	23:14	37
27	Richard Beech	Ogmore Valley Wheelers	V	23:19	21
28	Steven Madeley	Ogmore Valley Whs	V	23:25	38
29	Mike Broadbent	Bynea CC	V	23:25	69
30	Steve Morris	Ogmore Valley Wheelers	V	23:41	88
31	Lee Watts	Bynea Cycling Club	S	23:47	49
32	Chris Massey	Cwmcarn Paragon	V	23:47	77
33	Mark Nott	Ogmore Valley Whs	V	23:49	41
34	Alexandre Touche	Cwmcarn Paragon Road Club	J	23:54	54
35	Stephanie Post	Cardiff Ajax CC	W	23:59	6
36	John Regan	Pembrokeshire Velo	V	23:59	18
37	Colin Richard Wallice	Merthyr CC	V	24:00	50
38	John Shehan	Bynea CC	V	24:11	67
39	Richard Lawton	Newport Phoenix	V	24:13	55
40	Richard Hayes	Taff Ely Triathlon Club	S	24:13	63
41	Adrian Sullivan	Merthyr CC	V	24:17	71
42	Jonny Webb	Gannet CC	V	24:25	26
43	Ian Mcdonald	San Domenico	V	24:26	84
44	Andrew Harries	Ogmore Valley Whs	V	24:27	51
45	Mark Cane	Cardiff Ajax CC	S	24:28	89
46	David Wilson-Evans	Bynea CC	V	24:32	81
47	Edward Malarczyke	Cwmcarn Paragon Road Club	V	24:34	34
48	Thomas Vale	Swansea University Cycling Club	S	24:45	68
49	Mathew Atkins	Cwmcarn Paragon Road Club	V	24:50	53
50	Nigel Thomas	Bynea Cycling Club	V	25:00	52
51	Paul Griffths	Cardiff Ajax CC	V	25:01	74
52	Georgina Harper	Cardiff Ajax CC	VW	25:03	1
53	Hamish Belding	Cardiff Ajax CC	S	25:04	86
54	Christopher Goodwin	Ogmore Valley Whs	V	25:13	28
55	Ayrton Peel	Swansea University Cycling Club	S	25:22	57
56	Jason Strange	Ogmore Valley Whs	V	25:34	64
57	Andrew Grist	Bynea Cycling Club	V	25:42	42
58	Nic Forbes	Bynea Cycling Club	V	25:47	43
59	Chris Barnett	Bynea Cycling Club	S	25:55	33
60	John Diffey	San Domenico	V	26:05	16
61	Kevin Thomas	Pontypool RCC	V	26:26	62
62	Heather Dennis	Cardiff Ajax CC	VW	26:26	2
63	Lloyd Morgan	San Domenico	S	26:44	22
64	Sally Wilder	San Domenico	W	26:45	13
65	Gareth Robert Hill	Abercynon Road Club	V	26:45	73
66	Susan Burnett	Newport Phoenix	VW	26:46	10
67	Phil Bradshaw	Cwmcarn Paragon	V	26:48	78
68	Suzie Warren	Cardiff Ajax CC	W	26:54	5
69	Frances Williams	San Domenico	VW	27:18	7
70	Sally Harmer	Pembrokeshire Velo	VW	27:33	8
71	John Seaward	San Domenico	S	27:53	36
72	Sue Hollin	Monmouthshire Wheelers	VW	28:01	3
73	Tim Raine	Ogmore Valley Wheelers	V	28:23	83
74	Chris Jowitt	Monmouthshire Wheelers	S	28:30	46
75	Paul Rees	Bynea Cycling Club	V	28:40	23
76	John Evans	Bynea CC	V	29:08	72
77	Nia James	Cardiff Ajax CC	W	29:14	14

   

I mentioned at the end of my previous blog article on the Raspberry Pi that I had a DAC board in transit. Well it has arrived, I’ve fitted it and after a few trials and tribulations, it is set up and working well.The attraction of having an onboard DAC in the Pi is really one of neatness. It also frees up one of the USB ports that I would otherwise use to feed a USB DAC (for example I can boot the Pi into Squeezeplug, and use the Pi as a Logitech Media Server with Squeezelite as a player). The case that I’m using for the Pi doesn’t really offer a lot of room for manoeuvre when installing additional boards, but in the end I bodged together a neat enough solution.The HiFiBerryThe HiFiBerry DAC is a small printed circuit board about half the area of the main Raspberry Pi board. It attaches to a set of 8 connecting pins - the onboard sound connector P5 - you have to solder an 8-pin header to the Raspberry Pi main board first.I’d ordered the board with two RCA connectors, but no headphone style jack plug. The RCA connectors were three pin sockets, obviously intended to be soldered to the board. It was immediately clear that this would mean the Pi would no longer fit in the case, so I decided to connect the RCAs via wires to the board, and mount the RCAs in the lid of the case. The board came with the GPIO and P5 sockets already soldered.AssemblyStep 1 - I soldered the P5 header to the Raspberry Pi board. This proved pretty easy. The P5 sits right next to the GPIO connectors.Step 2 - I soldered four wires to the output terminals intended to output to a 3.5mm jack. Two from GND to the GND tag of the RCA sockets, and one from the L and R channels to the appropriate tag of the RCA sockets.Step 3 - I drilled two holes in the case lid. I also needed to remove some bits of plastic from what appear to be strengthening ribs in the case lid to allow it to fit over the HiFiBerry board. I fixed the RCA sockets into the holes, which needed a spot of araldite to hold them firm.Step 4 - I mounted the HiFiBerry board on the P5 connector - it also slots onto the GPIO header for added support. The card came with a polythene pillar and screws to further support it in place, so I fitted those.Step 5 - I assembled the case back together, inserted the SD card and booted the Pi.[caption id="attachment_2499" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Upper side of HiFiBerry board[/caption]You can see the wiring I added to connect the RCA sockets to the board. Obviously, the sockets supplied are intended to be soldered to the board in the positions labelled 'Left' and 'Right'.[caption id="attachment_2501" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The underside of the HiFiBerry board[/caption]There's not much to see on this view of the HiFiBerry - other than my soldering, and the two connectors that attach the board to the Raspberry Pi - the board came with these already fitted.Using the piCorePlayer web interface, I selected the option for the HiFBerry DAC, determined the ALSA settings for the HiFiBerry and entered them, and saved the whole setting to the SD card. Then I excitedly hooked up the phono cable to my amplifier, booted the Pi and sat back to listen to the music.Well, I could listen to the right hand channel, but the left channel was sadly absent!A problem!Clearly I’d done something wrong! I referred to the forums on the HiFiBerry site. Most people having this sort of trouble had evidently made minor cockups with soldering, though there were hints that some cards may have been defective. A quick email elicited a rapid response suggesting I check the connectors for evidence of shorting out. I did this, finding no problems. As an aside, I found Daniel at CrazyAudio very responsive and polite in the face of a neophyte solderer asking questions.A little while later, it occurred to me that the two non-ground pins of the RCA connector might not be equivalent - in particular, it wasn't easy to see how they connected within the socket. I plugged in an RCA plug into the L channel socket and used my multimeter to determine if the signal wire from the plug actually made electrical contact with the tag to which I’d soldered the wire from the board. It didn’t, so after a bit more investigation I detached the wire and soldered it to the third tag of the connector. At this point the Pi was properly outputting audio from both channels!Triumph!So, how does the Pi perform as a media player with the onboard DAC? First impressions are that it compares well with the two external DACs I have available, though both are budget items (a Cambridge Audio DACmagic 100 and DACmagic XS). More on this later, though I'm not really a serious audiophile and I've no way of doing a proper blind test.

Adventures in Raspberry Pi LandWhen the Raspberry Pi was announced a few years ago, I was rather attracted by this low power but very flexible educational computer but never bought one until recently, when I fancied having a bit of a play with setting up a Raspberry Pi as a Squeezebox player.After a bit of a sidestep in the ordering, I ended up with the following:

• One Raspberry Pi Model B, with SD card containing NOOB
• One USB WiFi USB stick (not the Edimax stick I originally planned - more on this later)
• One clear plastic case
• One power supply

piCorePlayer installationThe SD card that came with the Raspberry Pi had the NOOB collection of operating systems. However, I began by overwriting the SD card with the piCorePlayer 1.12a image. I connected the Raspberry Pi to my router with an ethernet cable, and booted it up. Booting piCorePlayer takes only a few seconds. Connecting vis SSH was trivial with Terminal on the MacBook. Recent piCorePlayer releases include a rather nifty web page based configuration system, so it really didn't take long to set up the connection to the Logitech Media Server, rename the device, and set up the audio via the spare USB port to a small Cambridge audio DacMagic headphone amp. Here's a quick snap of the device with ethernet connection to the left and power supply to the right with the SD card protruding. You can see the WiFi stick to the left, next to the ethernet connector.So far, so good.PiCorePlayer successfully saw the Wifi network. I entered the SSID and password, but the wifi stick resolutely refused to play ball after a reboot, leaving the device uncontactable except via ethernet. I subsequently investigated reviews of the Wifi stick I'd chosen. Turns out that the thing won't work with piCorePlayer, but will with Raspbian. Ho hum! I then ordered an Edimax device, which I should have done in the first place.In use, the Pi seems to work well, and plays audio robustly, no pops, clicks or other audio artefacts. In its transparent case it looks quite attractive in a 1970s Blake's 7 budget SciFi kind of style, what with the various flickering and flashing LEDs.A couple of days later, the replacement WiFi stick arrived. By this time, piCorePlayer version 1.12c was released. I reflashed the SD card, and repeated the setup routine. I also expanded the second partition to fill the rest of the SD card. This should allow me to install further extensions to piCore. The Edimax WiFi stick does seem to play ball with piCorePlayer, which can now take up residence next to the HiFi. I note that selecting the correct ALSA parameters for the external DAC is important to avoid pops, clicks and other audio degradation. PiCorePlayer's web interface makes setting up the audio (and Wifi) very easy and straightforward.The Pi is hooked up to a Cambridge Audio DACmagic 100, and thence to a Naim Nait3 integrated amplifier and Mission 720 speakers. I also tested it using a Cambridge Audio DACmagic XS DAC/Headphone amp.Next up...I have a HiFi Berry DAC card in transit. I have also soldered up an expansion board for a 2 x 16 LCD display.

I’ve blogged in the past about the really rather wonderful but sadly discontinued Squeezebox system of networked media players (see for example 2013 – My year as a music consumer and Squeezebox RIP). It hadn’t escaped my notice that the tiny computer Raspberry Pi has been used as a low power Squeezebox, and I fancied a spot of tinkering to make a backup Squeezebox device should some of my current Squeezeboxes conk out (though it has to be said that I have two Squeezebox Radios, one Squeezebox Touch and one Squeezebox Classic, and I’ve never had any hardware problems to date).I looked around the web for tutorials on setting up a Raspberry Pi as a Squeezebox, and there do seem to be several ways to achieve this.First up would be to install Squeezeplug. This sets up the Raspberry Pi not only as a player, but as the Logitech Media Server (LMS) itself. As far as I can deduce, this setup would be useful as a low power media server that would be left running 24/7 - obviously with an external drive to hold the music files. Since I’m running LMS on a QNAP NAS already, I think this might be overkill!I then found this tutorial on installing Squeezelite on an Raspberry PI, with the stock Raspbian operating system - Installing Squeezelite Player on Raspbian. The same author decided to use a different OS to make a device that could be switched on and off without problems, resulting in...Unpluggable Squeezelite Player on TinyCore. This uses a small linux distro, PiCore (based on TinyCore) which runs in RAM and uses the Raspberry Pi’s SD card in read-only mode, meaning it can be switched on and off with no damage.As an alternative, there’s a pre-built version of the above, called PiCorePlayer. This may be the most straightforward way to set up the Raspberry Pi, and will be my first foray into the world of Raspberry Pi.Just now, I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of my Model B Raspberry Pi (complete with SD card), a small plastic case and a USB WiFi stick.

Cost so far:Raspberry Pi Type B with 8GB SD card               £27.40Edimax Wireless Nano USB Adapter                     £8.95Case-CLR 1 Raspberry Pi Type B Case - Clear      £3.99Total (inc VAT) is                                                    £48.41

The 8Gb SD card is probably overkill for the purpose I have in mind. The RS website says it has the stock Raspbian OS, but I could put the multi-distro NOOB on it. I probably have a modestly sized SD card kicking around - the PiCorePlayer site says the entire thing is only 26Mb (though the latest img file is around 57Mb).I need the WiFi adapter because running an ethernet cable to the eventual location of the device is likely to be impractical. I expect to do all the set up on the command line, starting with the device hooked up by ethernet until the WiFi is setup, though if necessary I can borrow a keyboard and mouse for the setup. I have several 5V USB power power supplies that should fit the bill according to the Raspberry Pi website.My immediate plans are to hook the PiCorePlayer to a DAC via USB. Another future possibility would be to add a HiFiBerry DAC card. This would be rather fun as it’d require me to get out the soldering iron!

It’s always struck me that handwriting was a natural way to use a tablet computer, though maybe this is a hangover from my days as a Pocket PC user! But the Apple Way is not to use a pen or stylus but to poke at a touch-sensitive screen with a finger tip.Steve Jobs famously disliked the idea of using a stylus with a tablet.

(Steve Jobs) It's like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it.

So iPad users generally have to make do with either their finger or a third party ‘stylus’ that mimicks a finger tip, usually with a squishy rubbery tip that frankly is not much use when it comes to writing. I’ve tried a few of these, without really finding the experience useful for writing - they are a bit more practical for scribbling quick diagrams in my experience.I also have a Samsung smartphone, the Galaxy Note 2. I bought this largely because it comes with a stylus and surprisingly good handwriting recognition software. I can use the stylus for text entry for most, if not all, of the apps for which it would be appropriate. The stylus fits snugly and neatly into the phone’s case.  It’s not a simple device - (this article explains how the thing works - Break It Down – How Does The S Pen Work?) but it works admirably, giving the real sensation of writing. In contrast to the spongy rubber blob of a typical iPad stylus, you pretty well know where the line you’re writing will appear on the screen. The S-pen is good enough in use that it may well be the deciding factor in which model of tablet I buy to replace my iPad3 in the future.There are several iPad apps I’ve always felt would benefit from the use of a stylus:

• Any of a number of note-taking apps - ideally with handwriting recognition.
• Sketching apps (which would include the Evernote app Penultimate).
• Pdf annotation apps such as iAnnotate or Papership. Papership is particularly useful to me as it accesses my library of pdf files indexed and organised in Mendeley.
• Evernote. This would be a dream, but really I think script entry would be limited to Penultimate. On my Galaxy Note 2, I can scribble into Evernote to my heart’s content.

A few weeks ago, the Evernote Market Place (which pops into my awareness from time to time when using Evernote) advertised the Jot Script iPad stylus by Adonit, which has the nearest thing to a pen-like point that I’ve seen in an iPad stylus. For a third-party iPad stylus, it’s a bit on the pricy side but I thought it would be worth a punt. This is something of a preliminary review after a few days of use.The Jot Script stylus works with all iOS devices, though you need to have Bluetooth 4 for all the advanced features such as palm rejection - this includes iPad3 and later models (and the iPad minis). Also, unlike the Samsung S-pen, it’s powered (by a AAA cell). You need to turn it on and let it pair with the iPad. In the hand, the Jot Script feels very much like a pen - it’s got a pretty fine point to it, and it’s pretty much the same length and weight as a largish ballpoint pen.I’ve tried the Jot Script with the following apps:Penultimate. This is a graphics app for sketching that’s part of the Evernote family, so your sketches and scribbles end up in Evernote. The difficulty I’ve had so far (only a few days in) is that the line being drawn doesn’t always appear where you think it will. I imagine this may get better with practice. I don’t find my handwriting particularly legible. The software offers quite good protection against accidental ‘inking’ by one’s wrist. Penultimate also offers a ‘drift’ function where you can zoom in to a page, and it drifts across as you write. This allows you to generate pages with reasonably fine text, but it strikes me as a ridiculous workaround of a pretty glaring defect in iPad design - the lack of a really functional stylus from the get-go. Still, it is quite good, and works quite well.JotStudio - made by Adonit, this is a pretty basic sketching app. It has a few pen types, and limited ‘pressure sensitivity’ - line width seems to be mostly dependent on the speed at which the line is drawn (this is true also for Penultimate). Only seems to function in landscape orientation. This works quite well, but has limited functionality.WritePad - this app features handwriting recognition and is made by PhatWare who used to make handwriting apps for the old PocketPC platform. I have trouble here because, as with the other apps, there’s a bit of uncertainty where the line will appear and when it’ll start appearing. I find it quite difficult to write sufficiently clearly (given the limitations of the iPad screen and the stylus) for effective speed writing and handwriting recognition. I find that if your wrist contacts the screen, you can’t write with the stylus (and you make a random squiggle where your wrist touches the screen). Limited use for me, but perhaps it’ll get better with practice.iAnnotate. Perhaps the leading pdf annotation software. The stylus is useful for freehand annotations. Works pretty well, though the highlighter tool seems to select rather more text than I intend to with the stylus.Papership. This is a pdf viewer and annotater that works with Mendeley libraries. The app is free, but the full range of annotation tools needs a £2.99 in-app purchase. This is worth it in my view. Papership is for me one of the killer apps. Annotated pdfs are snychronised back up to the Mendeley server, so the annotations are visible on your desktop PC or laptop. The Jot Script stylus makes reading and annotating research papers really easy and intuitive.My conclusion is that the iPad remains pretty much unworkable (for me at least) for text entry with a stylus, but that for quick diagrams and, more importantly for me, annotating pdfs, the Adonit stylus is a useful addition and one that's much easier to use than a finger tip or the more usual blunt rubbery stylus.For handwriting entry on a tablet or phone, I reckon that Samsung’s S-pen wins. When (or if) I’m in the market for a new tablet, I will try out the Galaxy Note 10.1 with the S-pen.

I'm a little late with this update, but since things are as usual a bit quiescent in January that's not so important. After the New Year's Day '10', I've been trying to knuckle down to some proper training. As usual, this corresponds to quite a lot of turbo training, and if anything this aspect has assumed greater proportions than in previous years, since the weather has been frankly hideous! Unfortunately my working pattern has made effective training something of a challenge.It's too early to say whether my form is coming along well (my feeling is that I've plateaued a bit since Christmas), but at least I've survived so far without illness or injury. I managed to cock up some dates in March, so due to work commitments I won't be riding the usual season-opener, the Port Talbot Wheelers 2-up '25'. Instead, Team Grumpy will ride a '10' on a similar course - solo of course - a week earlier.On website matters, the site devoted to a defunct bike club - the Northwood Wheelers - that I maintain had a bit of a boost over Christmas after a former member made contact and sent some memorabilia, including 20 issues of the club newsletter/magazine dating from the 1950s. These have now been scanned in and can be read online.After the last North Bucks Road Club AGM, I've taken over the club chairman role. This means I have to attend all the meetings so I can chair them! This as well as maintaining the club website...