A lovely sunny morning greeted me when I got up: unfortunately it was slightly deceptive to start with: there was a heavy frost which made my ride up to Astwood rather nippy on the fingers.  Still, by the time the small and select group of foolhardy riders lined up to start, the conditions were getting milder by the minute.The event was really billed as a 10 mile 2-up, but at the time we all went to the line, there were only five riders.  Now this, ignoring the 'odd man out', wasn't really much cop for a 2-up event, so we decided to ride it as a solo event.  Needless to say, a few more riders turned up, so there was at least one 2-up team riding.Off I went, and after about a mile, I was seriously disappointed by the lack of energy in my legs.  I actually toyed with the idea of packing - but of course this would have been the beginning of the slippery slope.  I pressed on with the idea that it would at least be a good training session, and help to regain fitness lost recently through injury and illness.  The frankly pretty moderate head wind on the Chicheley leg of the course (the BBC weather page suggested it was a measly 4mph) did seem to dent what little speed I could muster, as once I rounded the turn at Chicheley, I found my speed picking up.  Unfortunately, this didn't last, as I climbed the awesome 'Col de North Crawley' (it's a tiny rise in the road - it just seems big when racing!) and wound my way past the University and returned to the finish line.As usual, the elastic nature of time when time trialling was evident - I genuinely though I'd improved to a long 24, but in the event I finished in EXACTLY the same time as last week (25:28).  Most disappointing, though I must be honest and say that training has been minimal over the past week.  Still, onwards and upwards.  I hope.2-up event:

1	8	Ian Marshall	TeamMK	24.38	V42
		Richard Golding	TeamMK		V42

Solo event:

Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	Vets Std
1	6	Simon Cannings	TeamMK	23.06	V40	25.30	.+2.24	1
2	4	Robert Saunders	NBRC	25.28	V51	27.46	.+2.18	2
3	1	Steve Abraham	NBRC	28.08	S
4	2	Ian Stokes	NBRC	29.12	V51	27.46	.-1.26	4
5	3	Gilbert Wheelwright	NBRC	30.29	V68	31.45	.+1.16	3

Timekeeper: Tony FarmboroughPusher-off:  Bryan Scarborough

This event was the first in the 2011 series of North Bucks club events, and followed a period of injury and ill-health on my part: beginning with a spectacularly painful back injury (which led on to sciatica) and followed by a cold for most of the week prior to the event.  This has been particularly disappointing, since all the signs were that my winter training had been going well as far as early February.It was with some trepidation, therefore, that I set out for the event, which was being held on the popular Astwood 10 mile 'sporting' course.  There had been some discussion about whether the village hall had been hired: in the event, it turned out it hadn't, and a last minute booking enhanced the social aspects of the event.  In fact, the morning proved quite mild, with overcast skies, with sunshine peeping through and a 13 mph SE wind.The event itself was a bit of a struggle for me.  I couldn't get particularly comfortable, nor could I bash out enough effort on the tougher uphill sections.  I finished in 25:28, a rather disappointing time though not surprising given the last few weeks.  Simon Cannings pulled off a long 22, which was pretty damned good for the time of year (he'd said before starting that he'd done masses of base training but little speed work and was unsure how he'd do - well I guess he answered his question!).Result of the NBRC time trial 12/3/11 (Astwood, F5v/10 - including medium gear event)

								Pos. on
Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	Vets Std
1	9	Simon Cannings	TeamMK	22.54	V40	25.30	.+2.36	1
2	8	Lindz Barral	i-teamCC	23.54	S
3	5	Phil Melling	TeamMK	24.22	S
4	12	Richard Golding	TeamMK	25.20	V42	25.54	.+0.34	4
5	11	Robert Saunders	NBRC	25.28	V51	27.46	.+2.18	3
6	10	Ian Marshall	TeamMK	25.33	V42	25.54	.+0.21	5
7	7	John Buchanan	TeamMK	27.00	V40	25.30	.-1.30	7
8	2	Yvonne Gurney	Baines Racing	27.48	SL
9	4	Clive Faine	TeamMK	28.23	V64	30.45	.+2.22	2
10	1	Daren Haseldine	TeamMK	28.59	V44	26.18	.-2.41	8
11	3	Ian Stokes	NBRC	29.12	V51	27.46	.-1.26	6
12	13	Dave Carrington	TeamMK	30.22	V45	26.30	.-3.52	10
13	6	Katherine Dilks	TeamMK	30.46	LV41	27.20	.-3.26	9

Winner of the NBRC 2011 Medium Gear Event is:-

1

13

Dave Carrington

TeamMK

30.22

V45

Time keeper:- Tony Farmborough NBRCPusher off:- Bryan Scarborough NBRC

The Guardian reports that the police bill to protect the Liberal Democrats at their part conference in Sheffield this weekend will reach £2 million (Police spend £2m to protect Liberal Democrats at Sheffield conference| guardian.co.uk).

Police are spending an estimated £2m to protect this weekend’s Liberal Democrat conference, with measures including a 2.5m high steel and concrete fence to deter up to 10,000 protesters.A thousand officers will be on duty or standby from Friday until Sunday to shield the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, in his own city from anger over public spending cuts and his party’s U-turn on student fees.

Apparently Nick Clegg is to tell his party to ‘hold their nerve’ – I wonder how successful he’ll be with Lib Dem support slumping.  The Guardian reports (Clegg tells Lib Dems to hold nerve) that

The latest YouGov survey for the Sun puts the Lib Dems on just 9%, trailing far behind their Conservative coalition partners on 34% and Labour on 45% – the largest lead recorded by the poll for the opposition since the general election.

And this on top of their hardly stellar slump to 6th place at the recent Barnsley Central byelection.  I guess this is the penalty you pay when you discard your principles for a slice of political power.One wonders whether the 1000 or so police officers would rather be doing something else, particularly when faced by the police service cuts to be imposed by the minority Tory government with support from those LibDems inside the conference centre…

The BBC reports that Fred Goodwin, who led the Royal Bank of Scotland to financial[caption id="attachment_1350" align="alignright" width="189" caption="This man is not a banker"][/caption]disaster bringing the UK to brink of financial catastrophe has secures one of those bizarre gagging injunctions (BBC News – MP raises Goodwin media ban order).  This one of these bizarre “super-injunctions”, which not only bans the reporting of the subject of the injunction but also bans the reporting of the existence of the injunction.  This is an astonishing crushing of press freedom really.  According to reports in the Guardian (Fred Goodwin gets superinjunction to stop him being called a banker):

“In a secret hearing this week Fred Goodwin has obtained a superinjunction preventing him being identified as a banker,” said Hemming, the MP for Birmingham Yardley.

I suppose on the one hand, this smidgeon of information isn’t unreasonable, given that he presumably isn’t a “banker’ any more, but what else is in this super-injunction, and why should reporting of it’s existence be proscribed.  Anyway, the story’s now out and around the blogosphere (e.g. The Plashing Vole)This is a man who presided over a significant component of the financial crash that afflicted the UK, and other countries, and which has seen spectacular negative effects on large swathes of the UK population, who are presently suffering a largely ideologically-driven assault (by a minority Tory government shored up by the LibDems) on many fronts.  Meanwhile, the banking system carries on regardless, awarding themselves bonuses even as the banks make losses or at best marginal profits.

The 2011 UK census forms are being mailed around now.Visit the Census Campaign to find out why you should check the "No Religion" option if you have no religious belief.

This event is the usual curtain raiser for my racing season, and it's also the first 2-up event that I ride each year and as such gives an indication of how Team Grumpy's form is at this early stage in the season.  Usually, we also take advantage of the journey over to Wales to visit interesting archaeological sites, previous visits having included the Avebury stone circle, the Uffington White Horse and Wayland's Smithy.  This year was slightly different: we stayed in Bath for a couple of nights en route to Wales.I'd never visited Bath before - we enjoyed traipsing about seeing the Royal Crescent and visiting sites such as the Assembly Rooms, the Roman Baths, and the Herschel Museum.  Bath appears to be astonishingly well endowed with restaurants, and we visited a fish restaurant (One Fish Two Fish) and a Moroccan restaurant (Cafe Du Globe), both of which were excellent.On to Wales for the main event, and the signs were ominous.  Gerry's training programme had recently gone slightly off the rails, while as observed over at the Team Grumpy blog, I had suffered an extraordinarily painful back injury three weeks before the event which not only prevented training but threw my participation in the event into question.  To add an interesting frisson of excitement, it transpired that the Team Grumpy entry had been lost in the post, and only a phone call of enquiry from Gerry earned us a start in this event.Absorbing medical advice, I did in fact manage to recover in time turn up in South Wales in a relatively pain-free condition.  All that remained was to see how we'd perform on the day.In time-honoured fashion, we conducted our usual preparation: consumption of sufficient energy drink. Thus fortified (and indeed entertained by 80s pop music courtesy of Sky TV), I retired to dream soothing (and deluded) dreams of time trial success.The morning of the event dawned rather cloudy and cool - but not as cold as the sub-zero conditions faced by riders in the 2010 edition of this 2-up.  We set up the bikes with clear apprehension: what would the consequences of our combined lack of training and form be?  And would my back hold out for the whole 25 miles?  More to the point, what was the road damage on the second half of the course to which riders' attention was drawn on signing on?  And, indeed, how significant was the presence of traffic lights on the same section (to which the instruction that riders must 'obey the highway code' was appended?In an effort to answer these uncertainties, we mounted the bikes and nipped out for a brief warmup. It was quickly apparent that (a) the road was in a shocking state, and (b) the traffic lights were at the top of a climb and looked like they could present real problems if at red.With reconnaissance over, and all too soon, we were lined up and ready to go.  We launched ourselves onto the course (see map below), with only a brief backward glance from Gerry.  The opening dual carriageway stretch proved to be very fast, with a gentle tailwind.  We were pleased that we were able to fall back into 2-up mode straight away.  After the first turn, the going got a little harder, as the head wind was nagging.  We were gratified to see our "Manager" on a bridge apparently videoing proceedings as we made their way past the start area (see video below).  Once off the dual carriageway, the usually efficient Team Grumpy changeovers became rather ragged as the pitted and potholed road surface made it difficult to judge whether a rider was pulling out to let his team mate through or merely to avoid crashing through a pothole.A massive sprint pulled us into the traffic lights on amber, but at the cost of a bit of an oxygen debt: this rendered the approach to the turn somewhat arduous.  Returning to the traffic lights, delays were once again avoided.  This was just as well, as by this time we were hanging on for grim death, looking for the finish line, which seemed to take an eternity to arrive.  Eventually it did, at 1:04:36.This wasn't an excellent result (though not as bad as it sounds: the course is rather hard at times), but enough to take a composite team prize.  More to the point, at least Team Grumpy proved their ability to ride well as a team, even after a lengthy winter lay-off.Results are here.  And here's a map of the course: Here's a video, showing us coming out of a roundabout, and doing a changeover: PTW-2-up 6th March 2011.

Road.cc reports that a (or, more accurately, another) major clenbuterol doping ring appears to have been uncovered in Spain (Where's the beef? Spanish police seize clenbuterol, and not a cow in sight | road.cc).  It's all highly topical, given Contador's 'get out of jail free' card this week following his positive clenbuterol test last year.  After successive failures at dealing effectively with sports doping, will this lead to greater crackdown?  This doesn't just reflect my unbridled optimism: incidents like the idiot Ricco's home-brew transfusion reveal the dangers inherent in tinkering with one's physiology.Recent news stories have failed to reveal any Spanish cattle containing clenbuterol, while here's a case of a doping ring actually dealing with the stuff.  Oh and EPO too.  Let's get real here, and not prat around failing to uncover the full story (c.f. the Fuentes affair).  And let's get the UCI and its constituent national federations singing from the same song sheet.A bit more information via BikeRadar.com (Spanish police arrest seven doping suspects): those arrested so far aren't cyclists.  But as Road.cc point out, clenbuterol's clearly in use as a performance-enhancing substance in Spain... An interesting point in the BikeRadar.com report touches on how the police got wind of the doping ring (which mostly targetted amateurs):

The operation began in December based on information received from a professional cyclist. The rider, who wasn't named, received an email "from a person he didn't know offering doping substances," the spokeswoman said. No cyclists have been arrested, but police have yet to disclose who was being supplied with the drugs.

I find I'm just getting used to the accumulated smudges on my iPad screen, and no longer obsessively wipe it clean. Now, I see that this represents a map of the iOS UI! (Remnants of a Disappearing UI: Design Language News)!  As it turns out, each app generates its own pattern of finger-smears, which is actually quite interesting from the perspective of UI design.  So for example, the mail app generates a very different pattern than, say, Safari use - and interestingly the article implicates personal usage patterns relating to how the iPad is held - portrait vs landscape.  The video app only has two fingertip smudges!Which all brings to mind a game I bought for the iPad the other day.  I was intrigued by Papa Sangre, a game with virtually no visuals, in which you navigate in pitch dark using binaural sound effects, in an effort to rescue a lost soul.  It's genuinely quite creepy, but you no need to have decent headphones, a reasonably quiet environment and not too many visual distractions.  Time will tell whether it's fun enough to keep my attention (I don't play too many games on computers or the iPad as a rule).The minimal graphics in Papa Sangre would undoubtedly generate a limited 'heat map': one only uses finger-swipes to orient oneself relative to the soundscape, then finger taps to regulate one's speed in the labyrinth.  And you can trip over your own feet!

One of the reasons I think modern doping in sport needs to be treated more harshly is that increasingly the doping products of choice are likely to be risky. Not only are many of the products biologically active hormones (such as EPO, growth hormone, testosterone), with unpredictable long term effects of the athlete, but it seems to me that practices such as blood doping are in themselves particularly dangerous.Hot on the heels of news that Riccardò Riccò (who has only just returned from a doping ban) had collapsed with kidney failure while out training, comes further revelations that he's to be investigated fro blood doping (Italian Police Investigate Riccò For Blood Doping | Cyclingnews.com).These practices can have dangerous consequences, and it's a shame that the Fuentes blood doping ring wasn't fully prosecuted by the Spanish authorities.I don't know whether he has been blood doping and in any case I hope Riccò makes a good recovery, but I also hope that if he is found guilty of blood doping he gets the life ban he'd be due.Update (0): Velonews reports that Italian media report Riccardo Riccò confessed to transfusion.Update (1): Road.cc reports that the Italian Olympic Committee is to begin a Doping Investigation into sick Ricco.

With news announced this week that the Spanish Cycling Federation is to hand down a one year ban to Alberto Contador for testing positive for clenbuterol in a sample taken during the 2010 Tour de France, I believe there is at least one issue that raises a concern about justice in this case. At the time news of this positive test result broke (see for example Alberto Contador Positive For Clenbuterol - BikeRadar), I noted one aspect of the case that worried me. A spokesman for the UCI is quoted as saying

"The concentration found by the laboratory was estimated at 50 picograms which is 400 times less than what the antidoping laboratories accredited by WADA (World Anti Doping Agency) must be able to detect," it said, adding that testing of a second "B" sample taken at the same time confirmed the result.

I have to add that, as I recall, the UCI later revised this from 400-fold to 40-fold.  Nevertheless, I believe this to be problematic in delivering justice in dope testing, chiefly because of the sensitivity in testing.Let's assume that Joe Bloggs, a cyclist in another team entirely was tested at a different event. He has a similar (very low) level of clenbuterol in his urine as did Contador.  However, the organisers of his race send the samples to a different testing lab, one which can only detect clenbuterol to the level specified by WADA.  Under these circumstances, Contador comes out positive, but Bloggs does not.Is that fair?  It does seem to me that where WADA make a specification of the testing sensitivity that accredited labs must deliver, that has to be the limit above which a result is declared positive.  This is important as analytical techniques and equipment continue to be improved, delivering greater sensitivity.I don't know whether Contador did dope, and I do applaud the efforts of the UCI, WADA and race organisers to weed out doping, but I do have concerns about how these cases are handled.

According to a report in the Daily Telegraph (Last refuges of England’s rarest species revealed), Natural England has released a list of the most sensitive SSSIs, often the refuge of some of the most endangered species in the UK.It's often seemed to me (on the basis of nothing more than reports in the national media) that SSSI status offers little in the way of protection.  Indeed, in my (increasingly frequent) moments of black humour, I often suggest that SSSI status seems to indicate the next place to be tarmacced over in some property development.Anyway, it turns out there are over 4000 SSSIs, including the habitats of the startlingly lovely ladybird spider (illustrated in the Telegraph article), and the alarmingly named Queen's executioner beetle.  I looked up the Queen's executioner beetle in Wikipedia, and discovered that it's only had that name since July 2010, when a newspaper competition was run to find a common name for it.

The full calendar of club time trials organised by the North Bucks Road Club in the 2011 season is now online over at the NBRC website.  Also available at that page are links to events organised by the Northants & District Cycling Association and Team MK.

My cycle commute is a little over 6 miles each way, and takes me through unlit country lanes for part of it.  At this time of year, my working hours mean that both journeys are in the dark, particularly the homeward leg.  I have been riding this route for about 11 years, and during this time I've used a Cateye Stadium 3 lamp (which is no longer available).  This is said to pump out an equivalent to an 84W halogen lamp.  It's given me good service over the last decade, and indeed its durability does seem good.  It's always been a bit of a faff to take on and off the bike (it effectively has three parts: lamp, ballast and bottle battery).  Charging the battery is a bit problematic, the charger that was supplied blew when I connected it by mistake to the output cable; it was prone to overcharge (so the lamp wouldn't light).  The replacement charger couldn't be relied upon to fully charge the battery. Recently I was plunged into darkness en route to work when the battery ran out of juice.  Time for a change, I thought.Browsing the Lumicycle website, one thing was striking: the modularity of the lighting systems.  Initially, this makes deciding what to buy a bit complex, but it does mean you get to select the lamp configuration that is best suited to your needs.  In my case I like to have something that really will illuminate the road ahead in the pitch dark of country lanes at night.  I chose the high end LED4Si lamp.[caption id="attachment_1293" align="alignleft" width="250" caption="Lumicycle LED4Si"][/caption]This is a very compact four LED lamp, with an impressive array of features.  The lamp unit has a single switch and a single power input.  There is a multicolour LED indicator that indicates the brightness mode (of which more later) and the battery state.The switch operates by upward or downward presses, and is sensitive to short and long presses.  This enables the user to select four different brightness levels and modes.  At first this seems complex, particularly when confronted by the switching diagram in the manual (below), but in practice seems very intuitive.  The base level that the unit is in when the lamp is turned on is very bright. A short downward press switches to the low setting.  Alternatively, a series of short upward switch presses take you to high and then boost brightness levels.  The first boost level is set to operate for 3 minutes before dropping back to high.  This is particularly useful when negotiating stretches of dubious road surfaces or conditions.  A long upward press takes the unit to permanent boost.  Obviously the brighter settings use up battery power more rapidly.  This arrangement is illustrated below (click for larger version).  Trust me, it's easier than first sight might suggest![caption id="attachment_1289" align="alignnone" width="471" caption="Lumicycle switching diagram"][/caption]The beam pattern seems to be very even - more so than one might expect from a set of four super-bright LEDs.  It's helped by the shape of the housing, which encourages a downward spread.  The lamp unit itself has a simple quick release clamp that can be used on either standard or oversize bars.  This makes it very easy to move the lamp between bikes - unless of course they have different diameter bars.  Fortunately I'm a fairly conservative road cyclist, and most of my road bikes have standard bars!So, what sort of battery life does one get with such a high spec lamp?  I selected the top option, the Li-ion bottle battery, because it seemed the easiest to attach to the bike (in the bottle cage) and because of its high charge capacity.  The battery comes with a neat charger that seems well designed to avoid over-charging.  A full charge is indicated by the LED indicator changing from red to green.  The small (but very informative) manual is very clear on how to treat the battery - it is a general manual, so it also covers NiMH batteries as well.Run times (claimed by Lumicycle) range from 4.5h at boost level through 19h in mid brightness to 63 h in low.  Using the flash mode gives a whopping 144h.  On the very limited testing so far (I generally prefer not to let rechargeable batteries discharge too much), I've no reason to doubt these figures. Indeed since I commute using the lamp in high or medium with a short period in boost, I'm unlikely to see the battery discharge unless I miss several daily topups.So far, and on the basis of only a couple of commutes (four rides), I'm very impressed with the system, and highly recommend it.  On the long term durability, I can't of course comment yet, but I do note that all the components are available separately. It's not a cheap system - the system reviewed comes in at £305 - though cheaper (and indeed more expensive twin lamp systems) combinations of lamps and batteries are available.

According to a report at road.cc (Valverde loses Swiss appeal, considers taking case to European Court of Human Rights), Alejandro Valverde has failed in his bid to get his ban overturned.  The ban was for his apparent involvement in the Fuentes blood doping ring.  A blood sample taken while he was racing in Italy apparently matches DNA in one of the bags of blood found in Fuentes' fridge, helpfully labelled 'Valv. (Piti)' - Piti supposedly being the name of Valverde's pet pooch (names of pets seems to have been the code names used).So, assuming the DNA work was done correctly, it would seem to be an open and shut case, and one wonders why Valverde will continue to take the case to ever higher courts.  Of course doping athletes do seem to press on with delusional self-belief in their innocence beyond the evidence.  Examples (not related to the Fuentes affair as far as I know) include Tyler Hamilton (and his vanishing twin), Floyd Landis, and the fabulous tale of Richard Virenque (who famously came clean and confessed in court).  It's a shame they don't all take the rap for doping as openly as David Millar.Still, I have some sympathy for Valverde.  Why have so few athletes faced justice over the Fuentes affair? And I don't just refer to cyclists.  It doesn't seem right for only a handful for Dr Fuentes' clients get taken down, when all the others can just carry on.

The cyclingnews.com website released the results of the readers' poll on best technical innovation of 2010 (Electronic widgets voted Cyclingnews Best Tech Innovation - where you can see the full results).Somewhat bizarrely, pedal-based power meters top the list with 26.9% of the vote, edging GPS-enabled bike computers into second place.  But isn't that a bit odd?  After all GPS-enabled bike computers have been doing the rounds for some time.  Indeed, I bought a Garmin 500 in the summer of 2010.However, we have two contenders for the pedal-based power meter category.  Firstly Metrigear's Vector system.  This has been widely discussed by Metrigear via their website and blog, detailing the ongoing product development, but it's not yet been released, despite slipping past several proposed launch windows.  And since Metrigear has been snapped up by Garmin, not much information has been released.As for the Look/Polar confection, supposedly based on Look's Keo pedals, all I've seen has been some CAD mock-ups of what the pedal will look like.Yes, these would have been significant technical developments or innovations of 2010 - it's just that they weren't.  Having said that, I will quickly join the queue to buy one (preferably the Garmin) when they do emerge...

As usual, I turned out for the club's New Year's Day 10 mile time trial on the F5d/10, which makes use of the new Stoke Hammond bypass.  This year, eight hardy souls rode the event (but two as a two up team on road bikes with mudguards, I believe.This year's event benefited from above zero temperatures, but it was still rather cold and clammy with periods of drizzle.  Immediately from the off, I noticed my additional bulk (accumulated as my mileage dropped off during December's snowy conditions) as the road rises to join the new dual carriageway.  Annoyingly (having remarked on how light the traffic was earlier), there seemed to be a bit of an increase in traffic levels around the time we started event.  I got a little slowed by traffic at the first roundabout (and again by a single driver at the penultimate roundabout), but to be honest the road surface at that roundabout is so poor I always take it rather cautiously.Once on the dual carriageway, I focussed on catching my minute man, which I did shortly after the turn.  After that, it was a rather uneventful ride.  However, I did feel rather awkward on the bike - it was the first time I'd been out on the time trial bike since the Duo Normand on 19th September, and not only did it feel both very twitchy in the steering but I certainly didn't feel comfortable in my aero tuck!I finished in 24:21, about 14 seconds faster than last year but beaten into second place by Lindz Barrall with a very fine 23, who increased his margin over me from last year's 10 seconds.  Nevertheless, it earned me the New Year's Day '10' trophy for the fastest North Bucks Road Club rider.Results below the map...

Solo event
Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	Vets Std
1	2	Lindz Barral	i-TeamCC	23.48	S
2	4	Robert Saunders	NBRC	24.21	V51	27.46	.+3.25	1
3	5	Richard Golding	TeamMK	24.47	V41	25.42	.+0.55	2
4	1	Steve Torley	TeamMK	24.55	S
5	8	Julian Lane	NBRC	25.50	V44	26.18	.+0.28	3
6	3	David Carrington	TeamMK	26.08	V45	26.30	.+0.22	4
Two Up TTT
	6	Jason Gurney	Baines Racing	27.35	V41
	6	Stewart Williams	TeamMK	27.35	V51

2010 has seen some shifts in my usage of computer technology.After many months pooh-poohing the iPad (after all, what would I need an unfeasibly large iPod Touch for, anyway?), I had something of a change of heart. This was largely brought about by a trip to the USA for a conference - after a bit of thought, I picked up a 64Gb WiFi iPad, which proved an excellent device to cart about documents, pdfs, books, music and video. I've previously posted an overview of my favourite apps for the iPad, but this list just keeps on growing. Recent additions to the roster include:

• Air Display - this enables the iPad to be used as a second monitor for a Mac or PC, though sadly not Linux. It's pretty cool, but it remains to be seen how useful it is in practice.
• World of Goo - I recently bought the ludicrously popular Angry Birds for the iPad, but in my view, World of Goo (originally available for several platforms including Wii, Windows, OSX and Linux) is possibly the most charming app I've bought, beats Angry Birds hands down, and is a game format which works almost perfectly with the iPad's touch screen display. In my less well-guarded moments, I've been known to comment it is the kind of thing the iPad must have been invented for.
• Flipboard is a neat app which uses a neat and intuitive interface to let you rapidly and easily access news from a variety of sources, including Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, and more beside. This is a useful an imaginative way to get at these feeds. I'd previously used The Feed to monitor Google Reader, but it seems to be rather flaky since the iOS 4.2 update.

In any event, the iPad has become a pretty indispensable tool for me, not only at home where I use it for web browsing, controlling the Squeezebox music system etc, but at work, where it's a star turn for MS Outlook related activities, note taking and holding my collection of pdf documents.Every so often, I come across an iPad app that really changes the way I think of interacting with a computer (even if the iOS family of devices should really be classed as 'appliances', rather than computers).  Even my initial antipathy towards the App Store and it's Jobsian control freakery has lifted somewhat.  I'm very much less enthusiastic about the prospect of the soon to be launched Mac App Store (of which more later).Just as that seemed to be pushing my usage of Linux into the background, I had so much hassle delivering a PowerPoint presentation that included video clips that I decided to plump for a Mac laptop, choosing a 13" MacBook Pro. Since that time, I've spent a fair amount of my computer use with OSX. Interestingly, and this perhaps reflects my own preferences and expertise, I don't find OSX as wonderful an operating system as its often very vocal supporters would have it. While I hugely prefer it to Windows 7 (a aesthetic disaster in my opinion, though it does seem pretty solid and a big improvement over Vista), I don't find the Mac way of doing things superior to the configurability of a decent Linux distribution such as my favourite of the last few years, Ubuntu.  I occasionally toy with the idea of installing Ubuntu on the MacBook...Mostly I dislike OSX's use of an application dependent desktop menu bar (I don't know what it's called in OSX). This seems to fly in the face of reason, and makes it a bit harder for me to know what windows are open. And why can't finder include a toggle to show/hide hidden files? Anyway, using the MacBook pro is generally speaking a delight, not least because of the physical quality of the hardware.As for the App Store for Macs (to be launched early in January, I believe), well, I've been very happy with the Debian derived Ubuntu repositories from where software can be installed pretty much at will.  And as it's all open source, generally at no additional cost.  One of the disturbing things about buying into a closed source OS ecosystem is that a new computer comes with little in the way of serious applications, in contrast to the typical new Linux installation.  It's amusing to see how I've pretty much stocked my new MacBook Pro with a variety of open source software (sometimes not open source but free in the financial sense) that I've used for a long time on my various Linux machines, applications such as GIMP, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, GoldenCheetah, Filezilla, Mendeley Desktop - the list goes on.  I even found a file manager (XFolders) which lets me see hidden files!Having said that, I picked up iWorks quite cheaply when I bought the MacBook, mostly for Keynote, but I've found Pages to be rather a nice word processor too.  I have the iPad iWorks apps as well.At work I was supplied with a new desktop PC, and even better I've been allowed to install Linux on it!  Of course, I'm on my own in terms of configuring it...not much Linux support at work unfortunately, outside of a neighbouring Department's Linux cluster.  I've already got it synchronising my documents folder with its counterpart on rather aged (nearly four years old now) Sony Vaio notebook which currently runs Ubuntu 10.10.At home I configured an old desktop PC with Mythbuntu.  This works really very well (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), but the case is so unsightly that I've removed it from the sitting room. I'm now planning to reversion an old laptop as a Mythbuntu front-end for it.  In fact  the Mythbuntu box proved to be very much more reliable than our Humax box (which needs to be reformatted two or three times a year).  I guess I'll work on this over the coming weeks.I've extended the home network to include a Squeezebox Radio, and couple of Squeezeslaves running on the MacBook Pro and on a desktop PC running Ubuntu 10.10.  So I've got music systems all over the house...

2010 seemed to bring with it several directions for my web presence. My main Flies&Bikes website tended towards becoming a vehicle for reporting on my cycle racing, usually amplifying on the reports on club events filed at the North Bucks Road Club web site, but also reflecting on the open events I rode during the year. Interestingly some of these articles actually do seem to be read, with at least one time triallist over at Tempsford making a specific request that I note the weather conditions for a particular event had not been good - and this before I'd even changed after the event, let alone got home to write the report!I've been moving away from posting on politics and higher education at Flies&Bikes, and have moved that activity (which is always a bit sporadic) over to my posterous account.  Similarly, my blogging on internet privacy has dropped in frequency, particularly after my departure from BT in favour of a more enlightened ISP a couple of years or so ago on the back of the Phorm phiasco.  I do still blog about techy things that interest me (see tomorrow's post).Team Grumpy blogged sporadically, with brief flurries of excitement as our main event of the year came along, and more extensively with a report on our first visit to the podium (did anyone mention the Duo Normand?)Over at Wonderful Life, my activity increased with the establishment of the UK's first major foray into the wholly risible rehash of creationism, Intelligent Design, in the form of the Glasgow-based (but funded via Guernsey) Centre for Intelligent Design. This has provided considerable meat for the blog, particularly given that its three guiding lights appear to be deeply evangelical (and largely biblical literalists).  I was invited to join the committee of the British Centre for Science Education (website, forum, blog), an invitation that I accepted and a role that I hope I'll be able to take part in more fully in the future.

The British Centre for Science Education (BCSE) is the leading anti-creationist organisation in Europe. We are a well established professional group dedicated to promoting and defending science education in the UK. The BCSE is run as a cooperative organisation by part-time volunteers with paid membership and a community forum where the general public can debate the key issues involved. It believes in the tools for everyone to think for themselves - Science, Education and Reason - and the outcome – Democracy, Pluralism and Liberty.We have become deeply worried about attacks on science education, particularly from creationists funded from the USA and Australia, and our campaign is dedicated to keeping all forms of creationism including Intelligent Design out of the science classroom in the UK.

My twittering (#grumpybob and #teamgrumpy) has been sporadic, and often seems to fill the role of providing content to my FaceBook account.  Website activity at the Northwood Wheelers and Team Grumpy websites has been minimal.

How did the 2010 time trialling season pan out?I approached the 2010 timetrialling season having made some changes in the organisation of my training.  I had decided that I was no longer able to continue training in the evenings after work because I was getting home later due to work commitments.  Instead, I was to be found pounding the turbo trainer in the garage at 6am…often dark, generally cold (sometimes extremely so!), but as it turned out a more effective strategy.Another change made at the outset of the training phase had been the adoption of a power meter on my turbo trainer.  I have never been particularly impressed by the concept of power measurement in cycle training: too often I’d seen riders become obsessed with their power data (“Oh, but I rode a power personal best” is a common refrain after a mediocre performance).  Because I was less than fully convinced of the value of power training, I chose the “budget solution” – a Polar CS600X with Power and Cadence, which I fitted to the rusty old turbo trainer bike.  The Polar power meter works on chain vibration (apparently rather like a guitar string and pickup) – the system needs to know the chain mass and length – and seems to work reliably enough.To back this up I used Hunter and Coggan’s Training and Racing with a Power Meter, now in its second edition.  This gives a pretty good overview of how to look at and analyse power data in the context of a training programme.  Of course all these data are pointless without some means of dealing with the number crunching – for this I chose the excellent Golden Cheetah, an open source programme with significant capabilities.  During the year I've been using it, it has seen significant development, reaching the version 2.0 milestone a few weeks before Christmas.A further hardware upgrade was the new time trial bike.  For my 50th birthday, I received a Cervelo P3 frame and forks – I built this up mostly by transferring kit from the old time trial bike to this one, with a few new components.  This machine has been a delight to race on, from 1st January to the Duo Normand in September.Pre Season TrainingMy preparatory training for the season generally begins in late October after a brief gap in cycling (at least intense cycling).  I decided that I would be rather circumspect in how I made use of power data, and pretty much continued my usual programme, which fairly closely follows Pete Read’s Annual Manual (aka the Black Book).  It’s probably inappropriate to detail this programme, as it’s undoubtedly copyright, but suffice it to say that it involves a steady base that gradually builds through progressive interval sessions to deliver one in good shape at the start of the season in late February or early March.The Black Book uses heart rate as a measure of effort: the main criticism by power meter afficionados is that this can be a poor reflection of effort due to “thermal drift”, and indeed this effect was quite clear in eyeballing the traces from turbo sessions ridden at a steady heart rate – generally power readings would start declining after bout 12 to 20 minutes.  This was quite interesting to see, and when I moved into the season, I focussed on interval training for this reason.Of course, I did monitor my progress by analysing the quality of each session, and by periodically estimating my threshold power.  However, the proof of the pudding was in the racing.  How did my season go?Early season events -  a mixed bagI turned out for the club’s New Years Day ’10’ and did a reasonable performance on a bitterly cold morning – it was about -4 Celsius.  I think this result surprised me a bit, and it was probably the closest I got to Tony P’s time all season!   Then it was back to the turbo treadmill before the NBRC club events got under way.As in recent seasons, the first four or so club events were held up at the Astwood circuit – these were rather uneventful.  This account really deals with the open events I rode in 2010, so I’ll mostly ignore club events.  The 2-up time trial outings with my regular Team Grumpy team mate Gerry are pretty rare nowadays since we live about 250 miles apart.  It has to be said that this year our two traditional early season 2-ups were not especially successful.The Port Talbot Wheelers 2-up ’25’ is held on the first weekend in March on a course near Neath in South Wales – the course is about 50% dual carriageway and 50% severely undulating back road, and this year the weather was dry but bitterly cold.  It’s actually rather a nice course, but not particularly quick.  Usually at this time of year, I spend a considerable proportion of the race grimly hanging on Gerry’s wheel.  This year I seemed to be setting the pace a bit more strongly.  Unfortunately Gerry punctured about 3/4 of the way through the event and despite pressing on (at his behest), it was game over for Team Grumpy.Team Grumpy’s second 2010 outing was at the Icknield RC’s sporting course time trial in late March on a 30km circuit.  Unfortunately the day before I’d punctured on the way home from a club event and had to walk a considerable distance.  the consequence was that I’d got mud in my Speedplay pedal cleats.  A tiny amount of mud, but enough to prevent me from clipping onto my pedal.  So my race was over before it began – Gerry rode solo in the event (but of course his ride didn’t count).  We rode no further 2-up events until the Duo Normand in late September, of which more later.Mid-season eventsThe first significant ’25’ was the Lea Valley ’25’ on the E2/25 over by Newmarket.  This was the first of three outings on this course in 2010, and saw Tony and I sitting in his car by the HQ before the event apprehensively anticipating how we’d do – this being our first ’25’ of the season.  In the end, we did rather well, and I did my best time in about 5 or 6 years, recording a 55:38.  I never managed to rival the E2/25 times with performances on the F1!On the two subsequent outings on the E2, I recorded 55:29 on a spectacularly horrible day that saw many riders DNS, and a 55:43 while trying to take it easy the day prior to riding a ‘100’ on the F1.  Actually, none of those events were on particularly ‘float’ days.That ‘100’ was the North Middx & Herts CA ‘100’, and by the time I’d plugged up and down the F1 for 86 of the 100 miles, I was getting distinctly bored.  Unfortunately the finishing circuit was truly brutal, with a nagging headwind adding to the misery of cramping legs.  I was riding unsupported, relying on a Camelbak for my nutritional provision.  This was rather problematic as the Camelbak’s bulge interfered with the tail of my aero hat.  Still, despite the previous afternoon’s ’25’ I managed to finish with a 4:25 – not as quick as I’d have liked, but not bad all things considered.‘10’s don’t figure very highly in my usual programme of open events, partly because there just don’t seem to be many locally, and partly because I prefer longer events.  Anyhow, a good ’10’ time certainly seemed to be likely by the time I rode the Norlond CA ’10’ (25/4/10).  This event was on the F1/10, and was on a particularly wet morning.  By the time I reached the turn, I was closing on my minute man.  Unfortunately just after rounding the turn, I suffered a puncture and had to make a rather soggy return to the HQ, pondering what might have been my best ’10’ in several years.It wasn’t until an evening event on the F20/10 (the Whitewebbs CC ’10’ on 3rd July) that I pulled off a decent ’10’ – a 21:05.  Once again this wasn’t a particularly quick feeling evening, but the time was only 14 seconds slower than my all time best ’10’ – and my second fastest ever.The club’s designated ’25’ championship event was the Hemel Hempstead ’25’ on the F13/25 – the odd course that has traffic lights at a pedestrian crossing!  The lights are marshalled, and anyone jumping the lights gets disqualified.   I was the fastest of the three NBRC riders to take part, and did a respectable time for this not-very-fast course.  Similarly, I was one of the few NBRC riders to ride at 50 miles this year, and I think the only NBRC rider to enter the nominated ’50’.  My top 50 mile performance was at the Finsbury Park CC event on the F1, where I recorded 1:57:45, my best in the last five or six seasons.The Duo NormandThis was Team Grumpy’s seventh ride in the Duo Normand, and we’ve posted write-ups online (see flies&bikes and the Team Grumpy blog).  Suffice it to say that while this wasn’t our fastest time, we did win our category (Corporate), had the glory of a motorcycle outrider, and climbed onto the podium to receive a glass trophy, a bunch of flowers and the all-important podium girl kiss.  Well, we got the podium kiss once they'd realised we were cyclists and not a pair of old duffers who'd climbed onto the podium van by mistake!All things considered, 2010 was an excellent season: my entry forms will have 2010 times for 10, 25 and 50 miles.  Sadly, I couldn’t quite get there at 100 miles (and there was no way I was riding a '12' this year!), but hey – not bad for someone just starting their second half-century!  But what of our touring?2010 Summer TourThis year's tour once again saw us returning to the Hebrides, with a route encompassing several ferry crossings - visiting Barra, The Uists, Skye, Ardnamurchan and Mull.  While a little cold to begin with, we got away with decent weather.  Except, that is, for the time we spent on Skye, when it pretty much tipped down mercilessly.  By the time we made it to Ardnamurchan, the weather was delightful.  Unfortunately, that didn't last, with the final day's cycling from Tobermory to Oban being rather murky and drizzly.  We stayed in B&Bs and Hotels, accommodation highlights being the Tigh Dearg Hotel in Lochmaddy (North Uist) and the Salen Hotel.Normandy 2010In September it was back to our stamping ground in Normandy - once again we took the trusty tandem for a spot of cycling, this year mostly after the Duo Normand.  As per usual with our cycling jaunts (and this is a recurring theme in write-ups of our tandem tours) a lot of our energy is focussed on finding nice food and drink to consume.

I've posted a brief article (On the gain of genes and gene function) over at Wonderful Life on two recent papers that reveal something of the rate and nature of gene duplication and diversification within the species of Drosophila.  This is by way of response to recent review article written by the prominent supporter of Intelligent Design creationism, Michael Behe.