End of Summer

Past the Equinox now, and Autumn is well underway.


It has been dark on the way to work for a few weeks now, but I am enjoying the light from my new headlight.

It was quite a Summer - first there was the
London to Brighton Bike Ride on old Post Office bikes.

Then I rebuilt Mermaid

And I did my first "century" ride

On the "Home Front", I have a new, larger, shopping pannier,
which means I have been doing my biggest trips to the grocery store too!

So, all in all, a great, and varied, year, with the other main highlight being when I broke the original cranks on Mermaid, and used a set of short 152mm cranks from a "teen" bike as a stop-gap fill-in until I got the parts for the rebuild of Mermaid mentioned above.

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Wonder what else I can squeeze in during the next three months before Christmas?

Playing with Velo Viewer

Many of you will have heard of Velo Viewer, a useful little program/utility/"app" that provides additional features that supplement a Strava account.
I started trialling Strava in the Summer, and I find Velo Viewer to be supportive of my efforts, and therefore I am more likely to ride more as a consequence.

The main feature that Velo Viewer offers that improves Strava is the idea of relative performance.
Strava tells me how I have done in absolute terms (10th place, or whatever), while Velo Viewer also gives me a relative score based on how many other folks have ridden that section.
Is second place amongst five riders better than 20th of 50?
Velo Viewer answers that question.

Veloviewer also does a nice little "summary" score, just taking the best quarter of your non-downhill rides (the cut-off is actually - 0.25%), and averaging them out to produce an overall score.

My segments, ranked in order of their Velo Viewer score.

You can compare this score with your friends, even those in other cities and countries.
So I can see how well I am doing against, for example, a rider 200 miles away.
If a little friendly competition results in more riding, then that sounds like a good thing!

The reason only the best quarter of the qualifying scores are used is that if a rider goes for a long ride (say 100 km or miles), then the rider will be going through a lot of distant segments at a "steady" pace, while a local rider can just go out and treat each Strava segement as a short sprint in its own right.
The analogy would be like comparing 100 meters running track performances with marathon running - many of us could run a particular 100m section of a 26 mile course rather well compared to a marathon runner doing the whole course, but what does it prove? It would also encourage folks NOT to run longer events, as their "summary" scores would be worse as a result!
THAT'S why Velo Viewer uses just the best 25% of scores.

And on that subject, my recent 100 mile ride really took a chunk out of MY Velo Viewer summary score, but at least I can "work my way back up" by selectively sprinting enough local sections, without worrying about the sections more than 20 miles away (where, of course, all the top spots are held by local (to them!) riders doing selective sprints)!

There are lots of other features I don't use quite so much, like an Activity Wheel, a "Heat Map", slope analysis, a 3-D segment visualisation, a segment list sortable by a number of factors (such as distance, location, leaderboard placing, slope, maximum speed, % behind the KOM etc. etc.) AND with various filters that can be applied (e.g. hide all the downhill segments). There are, of course, a lot of other little features and analyses that can be displayed as either a table or as a chart, and the feature list just keeps improving as the program is updated and expanded.

So there you have it - Velo Viewer is a useful little tool to allow you to get more out of a Strava account.

But as it is a small, private, "enthusiast" project, don't be afraid to make a donation to help with the running costs. How about donating, say, ten bucks if you really like it, and use it a lot?
Too much? How about five bucks then. Don't get much for five bucks these days!

What about me?
Did I put my "money where my mouth is"?
Yep. I made an online donation via PayPal.
For the amount of hours of pleasure I have had (and intend to have in the future), it is a small price to pay!

Now I just need a decent weight/diet tracker that integrates with Strava ...

Update: 13th December 2014
Now that VeloViewer is going "Pro" with MUCH reduced functionality, I an not expecting to be using it much longer.
I can no longer whole-heartedly recommend it to you.
If it does something you like and need, then good.
But for me, it is just not worth it, unless some major extra functionality is added, such as a decent weight tracker.

Out and about - another four bike sightings

Going Dutch in Oxford - a bakfiets makes for a substitute for a small motor vehicle.
This one is a bit like a bike with a big wheelbarrow at the front, and can carry
passengers or cargo

practical, efficient, transport for a lady with two trailer passengers

Not seen one of these before.
It's a 15-speed Gitane Glacier, in a poor state of repair, but still in use.
Gitane was one of the big French manufacturers, along with
Motobecane and Peugeot.
"Back in the day" riders such as Hinault and LeMond rode
Gitane machines in the Tour de France.

You're never too old for a bike (or in this case a trike).
A gent in Oxford enjoying a ride in the city centre.
The rear basket is a handy way to get groceries as well!

Mermaid's repair/rebuild

Bike components wear out.
Bits get changed as time goes on.
Mermaid had developed several faults after I broke both the cranks, so it was time for some major repairs.
While I was there, rather than just substitute "like for like", I made a few upgrades as well.
A new pair of tyres, too.
Schwalbe Marathon Plus, naturally.

New bike lights from Lidl

New bike lights from Lidl. Rated at 30lux/1watt for the front, and a fifth of a watt for the rear.
They don't look that bright in the picture because I am using a 4W LED table lamp only about
15cm (6 inches) away to illuminate the photograph!

Went to the Lidl cycling promotion today.
Got a set of new lights for the winter.
1 W front (rated at 30 lux), and a 0.2W rear.
It seems to throw a decent beam up the garden, even though it isn't dark yet.
As I do most of my "night" commuting on an off-road cycle route, that'll do nicely!
There is also a 30/15 lux high/low power button on the headlight that I'll need to fiddle with, just to see what it does :-)
The lights come with "disposable" batteries, but the instructions say they will work with rechargeables too,
So when the included batteries need replacing, I'll be fitting rechargables!
The headlight even has a recharging socket on the bottom! (but no charger in the pack),
I guess it is the same pair of lights being packaged in a number of different ways to fit more than one price point!

Anyway the beam is noticeably whiter and a good bit brighter that the 2.4W halogen light we bought from the same store a couple of years ago, which, iirc, was rated at 15 lux, rather than the 30 of the new unit.

Update: 1st November 2014
When the "standard" batteries included in the pack ran out, I put four 1.2v NiMH batteries in the light instead.
And it works!
Although the nominal voltage to the bulb has dropped from 6v (4x 1.5v "alkaline") to 4.8v (4 x 1.2v NiMH), it has no effect on output.
I rather suspect that the 6v battery input was regulated down to a similar level to the 4.8v input anyway!

Now for the second test - can I recharge the NiMH batteries IN the light, using the charging socket on the bottom, and an old charger I found at home?
Yep, that works too!
I have a 6v, positive centre, charger that came with a haolgen headlight I bought from Lidl a couple of years ago and it works fine.
(I also have an even older 7.5v charger that came with an earlier light set from Lidl, that isn't suitable, and, very sensibly, Lidl have put a different "tip" on the cable of that one, so it won't fit into the lamp's charging socket anyway!)
To date, I have recharged the NiMH batteries twice so far, both times "in situ" (that is to say, without having to take the light apart).
Takes all night to charge, though, but that was true of the halogen light set that the "old" charger came from, too!

So my earlier guess was right - the front light from this set IS exactly the same as one that would be sold with rechargeable batteries and a charger (at, presumably, a higher price point!)

So if you have a 6v +ve centre charger or a universal charger with a variety of tips) then this light is even better value, as the included batteries can be swapped for four rechargeables, and it works fine, AND the batteries can be recharged without taking the lamp body apart!

One other thing, although the (plastic) mounts could be a bit more robust-looking, they are fine for the price this light is sold at, and the front mount has a useful "pivot" feature, so it can be swung a bit to the left or right, which is handy when coming up a cycle path next to the "wrong" side of the road, and one doesn't want to dazzle other road users.
The rear mount is a kind of clip round affair, which is pretty adapatable in what it can be mounted to - much more than most of the cheap rear brackets whic seem to only really fit a seat post. I have strapped this one to my rear luggage carrier (which is where I like my rear light!)

So all in all, 10 out of 10 for value!
as for durability, only time will tell, and I will write a proper test review when I have used it a bit longer.

But so far it is a fabulous light that only cost me in the region of 10 bucks (about 6 or 7 pounds)

Update: 23rd November 2014: The front light doesn't work anymore. Grrr!