Douglas F Shearer

Posts

  • Jul 29, 2007

    MTB Challenge 2007 - Poland / Czech Marathon

    A few Edinburgh folk and I headed out for MTB Challenge, a six day race through the border region of Poland and the Czech Republic.

    Update: At the suggestion of Iain I’ve added Google Maps links to the Start and Finish towns for each stage. The route and directions given at these links are the direct route by road. Thankfully we didn’t take this option!

    Hopefully I can add the proper distances and altitude gain at some point, once the MTB Challenge website updates the stages to reflect the true length of them, rather than being 20km shorter each day.

    Day One

    On the flight out the pilot appears to forget where we are going, his announcement goes like:

    “Welcome to this Ryanair flight from Glasgow Prestwick to” … * passengers nervously laugh * … “Wroclaw.”

    Sandy felt a little ill, then fell unconscious, hanging over his armrest into the isle. Must have been the amazing breakfast at 0430 in the airport. We were scared, then he woke up and we could laugh at him again.

    More vomiting from Sandy in the bus to Duszniki Zdroj, not helped by the driver’s maniac driving.

    Very warm, nice pizza in the italian, bikes built.

    Day Two

    Took a bus trip to a larger town to buy camping mats, as I’d forgotten to bring one, while Ollie and Tom hadn’t brought any sleeping equipment.

    Had another italian meal, then were chased down the street by the waiter who thought we hadn’t paid. Muppet.

    Went for an evening spin, which turned into a 50k loop, finishing in the dark. Amazing rocky descending, thought the near-vertical hike-a-bike at the start was a little less enjoyable.

    Day Three

    Quick swap of hotels, seems the Polish work out the inclusiveness of hotel dates differently from everyone else. Owner of new hotel is very keen and helpful. Offers us a ‘liquid meal’, but we settle for some pork and rice.

    Race signup and briefing goes smoothly.

    Stage One

    Up at 6am for breakfast. Bags on the truck by 9am, on the startline for a 10am start.

    Once the 1km initial road section is over, it’s onto a steep farm track, then some singletrack. Lots of swearing at people walking and mincing, this is to be the theme for the week.

    First 50k goes well, despite the amount of tarmac. I discover Tom hasn’t eaten anything since we started, so make him eat. He bonks, so we have to go a bit slower to the finish.

    Stage Two

    This was the stage with the most climbing, about 2400m in just two main climbs. Tom and I cruised past loads of people on the first climb, dropped a few places when I ripped a tyre on a descent, then cruised back up the field on the next climb.

    At the last feedstation, a volunteer said “Go for super downhill!”, something special was sure to come. It was immense, a sort of rocky gully, where you could switch lines by going from side to side. We went into the top behind about 10 guys, I passed all of them by choosing many sketchy lines, and avoiding those on the ground. Tom crashed, so I had to wait for a bit at the bottom.

    Stage Three

    Today we came pretty close to beating the ERC ’s Lawrence and Ken. We had yo-yoed around them for a while, and got caught again on the last section. Tom punctured on the very last descent, so we lost out at the finish.

    (Can you tell I’m getting bored of writing this?)

    Stage Four

    Since we started the day at 30th overall, we get to be in the front coral at the start, woo!

    Today was supposed to be the most technical stage, and thus the hardest. Apart from a few steep climbs, one of which was very rocky, it was just a series of small ramps along the border.

    Tom crashed pretty hard in the first 10km, hitting something in the bottom of a puddle. It took him about 30km to get it back together, and we started to make up places again.

    We took a trip through a mine, only for about 500m, but it was worth it for the 10C air inside, as opposed to the 30C air outside.

    Despite out early setback, we still finished well, and made up another place on GC.

    Stage Five

    This looked to be a tough stage from the route profile, which despite a similar amount of climbing to other stages, had around twice the number of summits compared to others.

    It was tough, starting with a brutal climb (Where Tom and I were in the top 10), then a brutal hike-a-bike up a near vertical slope. Then you had to go down a near vertical slope too. Tom punctured at the bottom of this, but we only lost a few places.

    We used this to our advantage, and despite Tom suffering a lot near the end, we put in our best performance of the race.

    Stage Six

    The last stage was another brutal start, with 3km of easy climbing, before another long hike-a-bike. We then went along a tiny bit of singletrack (Reminiscent of home) along the border. Tonnes of mincers on this section, many of which I managed to pass by using my cyclo-cross skills when it came to crossign fallen trees.

    We got lost for a section with other riders, so wasted about 5 minutes. Turns out one of the signs had been turned the wrong way. No worries, has only lost us a few places.

    The last climb was up a steep road, and Tom was really suffering here. A good amount of encouragement got him up it without losing too many places. The last section was a 3km time-trial into the finish, I just burned everything I had left in my legs, making sure not to drop Tom.

    Another good result, meaning we finished 21st overall, and 20th in the Male Senior category.

    Would I Go Again?

    Yes, definitely. Was one of the most fun bike races I’ve done in a long time. Cheap (< £600 for the race, flights, transfers and food) too.

    I’ll need to see how it fits in with other races, I want to try out things like the Cristalp.

    Other Stuff

    Photos can be found from myself, Sandy, Tom, Ken, and on the official website, linked at the top.

    Results can be found on the official site, linked at the top.

    See the full loop on Google Maps.

  • Jul 17, 2007

    Gone Tubeless

    After a year of back-and-forth on whether to go tubeless. I even got as far as building up a Mavic XM819 UST onto a Hope Pro 2 hub, but even after a year I never got round to getting a UST tyre, partly through lack of choice, and partly due to doubts about benefits gained vs. weight gained.

    So in an effort to shift weight from the bike, and to get some tubeless on the go, I ordered a set of American Classic hubs/Stans ZTR Olympic rims/DT Swiss Revolution spoked wheels from JustRidingAlong (Thanks very much to Jon for his patient communication regarding stock, spokes, and flooding).

    The parcel man arrived on thursday, just in time for 10 At Kirroughtree at the weekend. I didn’t have time to set them up tubeless, so put one of my new Maxxis CrossMark tyres on the rear, and my favourite wet tyre, the IRC Mibro on the front. 300g saved in wheels alone!

    Unsurprisingly, the wheels worked faultlessly over the weekend, not even slightly out of true when I checked them on the wheelstand today.

    To go tubeless I needed a compressor, as mounting the tyres with a track-pump was hopeless. I was just using the yellow spoke tape inside the rims, no rim strip. The rear CrossMark went on almost instantly, almost completely sealing without any sealant in. The front took a bit more work, and eventually a small amount of sealant before it got a grip on the bead.

    So far I have only ridden them around town, but they seem pretty solidly on the bead. Running a non-UST tyre tubeless feels slightly odd. Very supple, yet really fast too. Maybe a UST tyre would feel the same.

    They’ll get a good testing in Poland, and if I do have any trouble, they come of with just your hands, so getting a tube in should be no bother.

  • Jul 17, 2007

    10 At Kirroughtree

    Team Macchiato hit it up at Kirroughtree this weekend past for 10 At Kirroughtree.

    Friday night was pretty wet, it rained constantly, making us a little despondent about the next day’s racing. Luckily it had stopped by saturday morning, and we were soon enjoying the muddy car park at Kirroughtree.

    The sun came out almost as soon as the riders had set off on the first lap. Vo was going first, with instructions to give it death. He got us round in a good position, leaving me with an almost clear course to blast round in the 5th (As announced anyway) fastest lap of the day.

    The course was amazing, and I do not use that lightly. It was so good everybody seemed to want to go back out, even when they were knackered. 10 miles, and just over 600m of climbing on every lap which used most of the red route, with a section of the blue to make up some distance. There was lots of singletrack on offer, with twisty climbs, and smooth rolling descents broken up by small rock gardens and drop-offs. There were 3 natural descents, which were a bit of a mess, but great for passing those who were re-enacting the human tripod as they attempted to stay upright in the mud. Only very near the end was there a horribly short steep climb, but the rest was pretty sweet.

    We hovered around 6th position for most of the day, doing lap about. While I was out on my 5th lap, it was decided that if I did a double-lap, we could get in under 10 hours and Vo could get a 12th lap in. I came in, was told I was going out again, and handed a bottle of coke. I was pretty pumped at this point, so I just went with it, knowing it would be my last lap. I got round with 3 minutes to go, meaning Vo was well rested, and could get a final lap in.

    We ended up in 6th place, 12 minutes behind the winners (Dave Preston and Euan Thorburn), so something to be proud of before I head off to Poland next week.

    Roll on next year, I’ll definitely be there.

  • Jul 16, 2007

    Fxyomatosis RSS Feed

    A little while ago I created an RSS feed for Fyxomatosis, which can be found at the following address:

    http://feeds.feedburner.com/douglasfshearer/fyxomatosis

    It features:

    • Text and images from the front page articles.
    • Links to the full article if there is more to read.

    Made with:

    • Ruby (What else?)
    • Hpricot
    • Lots of fancy parsing and patience.

    Update

    In the course of adding the above feed to feedburner, I found that a Fyxomatosis RSS feed already exists, albeit without the pretty pictures and formatting that mine has. Strange Andy doesn’t publicise this.

  • Jul 3, 2007

    On Tennis

    Wimbledon is on at the moment. No, not the Wombles, the tennis! There are a few things about tennis that annoy me, let me list them…

    The Scoring

    0, 15, 30, 40, A. EH? Last time I checked numbers went 1, 2, 3, 4, 5! Then there is the whole match break, game break thing. Why not just make it best of 5?

    My solution to this:

    • Keep the same rules as to when the ball is in/out etc.
    • One point for each opponent foul.
    • Best of 25 (Any odd number).
    • First server decided by a coin toss.

    So why the complicated scoring? Without looking into it, it seems to be a class thing. All the ‘upper-class’ games such as tennis, rugby and cricket have non-simple scoring systems. Football on the other hand, is as simple as it can get. Football being a game for the masses.

    The Weather

    Why stop play when it’s raining? Are you a girl? Wait, half of you ARE girls (though some of those are questonable).

    I just don’t understand this one. The rain starts, the covers go on. What’s wrong with a little bit of mud, would make for some interesting pitch gymnastics.

    If you’re that worried about it, go back indoors all the time.

    The Real Reason

    A tennis game runs for an indeterminate amount of time. Thus if it’s being televised, it will more than likely cut into whatever is following it in the schedule.

    And yes, that is quite often the cycling. We got 45 minutes of the Paris-Roubaix this year, because some frenchman no-one had ever heard of was playing some other similarly famous frenchman in a qualifying round of some random tournament. Meh!

    I therefor propose a second scoring system:

    • Time limited to an hour.
    • First server determined by a coin toss.
    • No breaks or time-wasting allowed.

    This would make for a far more TV-friendly game. It would fit into a TV schedule, and be a lot faster than the pace of the game as it currently is.

    Rant over.

  • Jun 28, 2007

    Etape Caledonia

    Team Macchiato (John, Vo and myself) flew (drove) into Pitlochry for the Etape Caledonia last weekend.

    We stayed at The Pitlochry Backpackers Hotel on the saturday evening. This proved to be great accommodation, apart from the taxi rank directly below our window, where what seems like the entirety of the surrounding area’s young people procure their transport home. So that was 2 hours sleep then…

    Luckily we had prepared the bikes the night before, so all we had to do in the morning was get up, eat, and collect our bikes from the van (Thanks to Colin of MacDonald Cycles for the loan of it).

    Our start was at 0810 (Early or what), so we were off 10 minutes behind the first starters. Vo and I stuck with John until the first decent climb (Pics here and here) where the groups began to splinter. We got with a fast group, but had to stop for a toilet break a bit further on, so lost out on that advantage.

    Groups came and went, and some were just too slow for us, so we’d blow off the front. About 35 miles in we got with a really good group which had a Perth RC guy on the front who refused to yield for anyone, so we were happy to sit on wheels.

    We stopped at the bottom of Schiehallion for yet another toilet break (Toilet breaks wasted us 6 minutes!). The group of 50 or so guys we were with trundled on. Another 50 guys trundled past. 2/3 of Team Macchiato started the ascent.

    We had decided that we should stick together, except on the climbs where we were free to reign terror on those more gravitationally challenged. I passed all 100 guys before the end of the first steep section, spinning freely while others seemed to be pushing silly big gears, and weaving all over the road. I was on my own for the next 5 miles across the top to the feed station. There I filled up my water bottle, and planned to wait on Vo. He was right behind me.

    We started the descent, which due to closed roads meant we could use the whole road to get round the corners (Did I mention it was either raining or just wet the whole time?), with the added advantage of having no-one else to get in our way. At the bottom we started to put more effort in than the first half, knowing we only had 25 miles to go. We caught a few people up, got a little group going, then stopped, again, for a toilet stop.

    Now we started to chase, for 7 miles we took short turns on the front to keep the speed above 25mph. the carrot of the group just in front of us was too much to resist, and based on it’s previous speed, we had decided to sit in for a few minutes, then go to the front and see who else still had fresh legs. We caught them up, sat in for a minute or two, then got caught by another faster group. Doh! Should have known and just waited.

    We sat near the front in case anyone decided to go, but we didn’t get the time. Someone shouted ‘steep climb’, we saw it up to the left, heading up at almost 20%. ‘Time to go’ I said to Vo, and instantly dropped the hammer right from the bottom, dropping everyone. I upped the gears in my usual sequential style as soon as the climb eased for a short distance, keeping my pace high.

    I ran over a patch of gravel, and thought I had a puncture, but it turned out to be one of the East Kilbride RC guys, Guto Williams, catching me. He had a little dig on the next steep section, but I wasn’t going to be dropped on a climb, not that day! I chatted with him over the flat top section, speaking about who I knew that was in the EKRC.

    A short descent took us to the main street in Pitlochry, where I just span up, not interested in a sprint. So why bother with beasting the climbs? That was just for my own head, to validate my form, and to take revenge on all the bigger guys who give me a hard time on flatter sections.

    I finished the route in 4 hours 6 minutes. Vo was a minute behind, and john 30 minutes down. I was 18 minutes down on the winner, so definitely more work to be done for next year.

    I’m still on a bit of a high after it, and was super chuffed with Vo’s performance to. And of course John, who finished with a VERY respectable time, despite doing about 4% of the training Vo and I had done.

    Roll on next year!

  • Jun 26, 2007

    Not Another New Design!

    A few months ago I created a new look for my blog, but then I decided this was a chance to implement some of the newer Rails features, so i held off on it’s release.

    I hope you like the new design, I was going for something simple in both look an functionality. Gone are all the features nobody used, like the tag clouds and individual RSS for each blog post.

    I have a whole raft of new features in the pipeline, mostly on the admin side of things to make my life easier.

    The only thing that I don’t like about this new design is that Internet Explorer doesn’t make a very neat job of the bottom border above my text footer. This is something I can live with, but will have to spend a bit of time to get it perfect.

  • Jun 21, 2007

    Migration Complete

    Over the weekend I completed the migration of my local infrastructure over to OpenSolaris.

    It went rather smoothly, and has yet to provide fault. I even took the time to optimize my Folding at Home stats project data gathering, reducing each 6 -hourly run from ~25minutes to less than 20seconds. Now that’s optimization. I will eventually get round to publicly releasing some of the features I’ve been quietly working away on. This is (hopefully) not vapourware.

    I’ve also started work on a new website for the Edinburgh University Cycling Club. It’s probably going to be another Wordpress, as the host is unlikely to support Rails. Just sorting out some database stuff at the moment.

  • Jun 12, 2007

    Ruby Gems Installation And Compilation On OpenSolaris

    I’ve had a bit of trouble installing various Rubygems on my system, mostly Hpricot and Ferret which both require some code compilation. In an effort to save others the same trouble, I’ve compiled a list of tips here to make life easier…

    • Change your rbconfig.rb file in the RubyGems folder using the one created by Joyent’s Benr. This will help RubyGems find make, cc, gcc etc, which are not in their usual places in Solaris/OpenSolaris.
    • Install cc by getting the Sun Studio. You have to be registered, but if you downloaded OpenSolaris from Sun, you’ll already have an account.
    • Install gcc3. If you are using BlastWave to manage your packages simply run pkg-get install gcc3 to get it.

    Hopefully this will help some of you out.

    Other Great OpenSolaris/Solaris Tips

    Fellow Edinburgh Rubyist Graeme Mathieson has put together some great posts on his experiences with Solaris on his new Sun Thumper. Very lucky man!

  • Jun 11, 2007

    Migrating To OpenSolaris

    I received my new server last week, and thus began my quest to try out new things, and move all my stuff from my old server.

    My previous OS choice was Ubuntu, and Fedora before that. This time I’ve decided to go down the OpenSolaris route.

    Once I got over the initial culture shock of the new environment, found out that the registration screen that appears on login to Gnome desktop is only for Solaris, and then abandoned the GUI altogether, I discovered that OpenSolaris is a very nicely organised and setup OS.

    I just did the default full install, and probably got loads of stuff I’ll never use. Once I had bash setup as my default shell, I was off exploring the various features.

    My favorite things so far are:

    • ZFS Volume management has never been so easy.
    • Zones/Containers A (semi-)isolated OS virtualization technique, that makes separating your environment so easy.
    • BlastWave Although not actually part of Solaris, this package manager makes installing software almost as simple as apt-get in Ubuntu.

    So far I’ve migrated my MySQL server to it’s own isolated Zone, and shall be moving my web servers across in the next few days.

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