Posts

• Mar 31, 2008

  Scotland On Rails 2008

  Scotland is hosting it’s first every Ruby On Rails conference this coming friday and Saturday. Despite living just around the corner from the venue, I had totally forgotten to register by the deadline.

  Thankfully, the thing that reminded me was EngineYard’s offer of a chance to win a pass for the conference.

  So I was first in with the email, and am now thoroughly looking forward to it. Thanks very much to the conference organisers and of course EngineYard.

• Mar 29, 2008

  K Capital Cup Round 2 2008

  Jack and I headed out to Northern Ireland last week for the second round of the K-Capital Cup, at Moneyscalp Woods. This, as it turns out, is the alternative to going to my going to Cyprus or somewhere else sunny.

  Day 0 (Friday)

  I was missing my forks, as they hadn’t returned from warranty the day before as promised. I took my old Marathon SLs off Emma’s bike. I also broke my pedals the weekend before, so had ordered a new set, which also hadn’t turned up (same supplier in both cases here!), so I had to go buy the cheapest Eggbeaters available at full retail price from the Bike Coop.

  Jack phones me at about 8pm to tell me that he’s booked the ferries the wrong way round. I laugh, right before mild panic kicks in. We decide just to rock up to the Cairnryan ferry and see what happens.

  Bad Karma for the weekend over, woo!

  Day 1 (Saturday)

  

  Jack picks me up at 3am, I barely had 4 hours sleep after finishing work. The journey goes well, and we’re at the ferry terminal early. We pull up to the check-in, keeping our cool. We hand over the booking number to the check-in girl (OMG, the suspense!). Turns out it was all cool, the girl swapped the bookings round with no fuss, so it must happen fairly often. So, muchos thanks to P&O Irish Sea.

  

  After a brief blow about on the decks, we napped for the rest of the ferry journey. We get to Larne, and hit up the Sainsburys in Belfast for some porridge and coffee. I also had a roll and sausage, because. Much hilarity was had at the green rugby shirts and potatoes in the shop, much to the bemusement of the other customers.

  

  We headed straight for the course after this for some practice laps. You’ll hear this again, but Moneyscalp woods is one of the best courses I have ever ridden. It starts with a steep fireroad climb, before hitting some steep rooty/rocky/loamy singletrack for most of the rest of the course, apart from about 1km of flat fireroad in the middle. I was totally loving it, and apart from a few tricky spots we rode over several times, it was amazing. Our welcome from the organiser was great to, it’s nice to get some banter and a smile in a strange place.

  After a few laps we headed to the accommodation, which was to be Mourne Hostel, right in the heart of the Mourne Hills. You know your accommodation is going to be good when you get a phone call before you arrive to check that the ferry crossing went well, especially when this is a hostel we’re talking about. The hostel was in fact, amazing. Clean and tidy, en-suite room, nice kitchen, 50” plasma TV on the wall, etc! We couldn’t have been made to feel more welcome.

  Day 2 (Sunday)

  Due to not having got round to organising a BC license upgrade to expert, I was riding in the sport race, so midday start it was. After a feeble attempt at a warmup I headed to the start. Gridding was hilarious, as none of the called-up riders made an appearance at the front, so I got on the front row by virtue of luck! Thinking about what the sport races were like in the SXC a few years ago, I was expecting my lack of speed work to be a real problem for me, so had made the decision to follow the fastest guy’s wheel off the line, and see what happened.

  The whistle went, and we were off. I got onto the fastest guy’s wheel as planned, but then, as the track steepened, he was going too slow for me. Steep for me is good, or any climb really. I locked my forks out, popped into a higher gear, and put the hammer down. So, from 100m out, I led. This definitely worked to my advantage, as even though I was right on the limit, going as fast as I could, I was getting a clean run at all the technical stuff.

  I never saw anyone for the three laps, apart from the juveniles who had started a few minutes prior, and those members of the field who I lapped. A pretty comfortable win, with 11 minutes back to the second place rider, in a race lasting just over an hour.

  (Rules is rules, my expired license says sport, yet I’ve raced expert for three years in the SXC due to loose rules. I will have an expert license for the rest of the season, with this race being ultimate proof that I deserve one.)

  

  Jack was racing in expert, and despite feeling tired beforehand, came through the feed zone after lap one in second. Ben Reid, the Irish DH champion was leading, elbows out, baggy shorts, the whole shebang. Jack was catching him lap by lap, and eventually made the pass on the third lap.

  Going into his last lap, Robin Seymour had just passed him, but Jack decided to pass him again in the feed zone, shaking his fist in glee, with a huge smile on his face. Robin didn’t look impressed, and passed Jack again further up the hill.

  So Jack took the win, and after a half hour of not believing me, had it confirmed by the second place rider who came over in the car park (field) to shake hands. Optimal!

  

  So a double-haul it was for the Scotland boys! We both got rather snazzy glass trophies in a rather friendly presentation ceremony. We also got invited to ride the round 4 course at Castlewellan on Tuesday with some of the locals.

  Day 3 (Monday)

  

  For Monday we had planned a big mountain, based on a cursive look at an OS map the day before. We started at Bloody Bridge just south of Newcastle, and mostly carried the bikes through a boulder-field for 2km and 600m of climbing. Once at the top of the saddle we were treated to one of the best technical traverses I have ever ridden, which apart from both of us being blown down the hill at one point, was super fun.

  Once over to the other side we did a flying lap of the previous day’s race-course, lapping only 4 minutes slower than the day before. Not too bad after 4 hours of riding. Jack then time-trialled it back into Newcastle, with me nursing my knee on his wheel.

  Day 4 (Tuesday)

  We were a bit late to meet up with the locals at Castlewellan, but still managed to find all the course without a map. It was on similar terrain to Moneyscalp, albeit with even steeper climbs. Great fun, even on tired legs. After a few laps we headed back for a coffee in Sainsburys, then the ferry.

  The journey home was pretty good, apart from a small misdirection due to the lack of signage for Glasgow. Do Ayrshire council have something against putting Glasgow on the signs?

  Big thanks to Jack for the driving and organisation, the hostel for the accommodation, and all the great people we met at the race and elsewhere. We will be back next year for more.

• Mar 10, 2008

  Innerleithen MTB TT 2008

  The Inners MTB TT course has to be one of the most testing courses in the UK, and the most fun. You climb for 20 minutes on a mixture of manmade singletrack and natural rooty singletrack, then descent for five minutes down ‘The Tunnel’ and ‘New Luge’ of the DH tracks, followed by the ‘Merida’ singltrack, and finished off by the bottom half of ‘Caddon Bank’. Not much to complain about here, event with all the mud!

  Despite the noise, and exclamation from others (JFM!), I did my warmup on my rollers. The mountainbike isn’t nearly as stable on them as the road bike is, but it does give me the chance to get properly warmed up in a controlled environment.

  First lap went really well, with the only real problem on the up being harder than expected breathing. On the down I felt in control, despite going way faster than I had been going on the Friday when I practiced the course.

  On the second lap I went through right before Ben Thompson, James Fraser-Moodie and Andy Barlow. Ben caught me just before we went into the tunnel. I got a puncture, and while I was stopped Andy went past, closely followed by James. It seemed to be a bad day for punctures, as James got on a few hundred meters later, and Ben got one at the start of his second lap.

  With mine quickly fixed I was off again, round into my third lap. The third was pretty uneventful, I pushed almost as hard as I could, saving myself a little for the descent.

  Turns out I was fourth, behind Andy, Paul Newnham and Paul McInally. Pretty chuffed with that result especially with my puncture.

  So, top training tip people…. take 3 months off the bike with injury, train like a mad person for two weeks, then ride a course that is almost perfectly suited to you.

  Here’s hoping the last round of the SXC is held on the same course.

  Full results on the SXC Forum

• Mar 4, 2008

  Whacky Racing

  On Saturday I took part in my first race of the season. After almost 3 months off the bike, some would think making my first race the Scottish Cycling SuP6R Six first round was a bad idea. It was.

  About halfway through the first lap I was on the right side of the peleton, as we turned left across a very strong headwind. I pretty much got blown out the back. After a second lap of either being on my own or working with one or two other riders, I called it a day.

  Knee held up OK, and it did give me the opportunity to put some decent miles in with Vo on Sunday. Bring on the MTB TT next week…

• Feb 23, 2008

  Birthday, Lakes, and Injury

  

  Last Wednesday was my 23rd birthday, thanks to all those who sent me cards and best wishes.

  A week ago I went and stayed at Tim’s house in the lakes, and had some great riding with the EUCC chaps. Nice weather, crazy steep climbs and good company.

  Last up on this mini update, is my niggling knee injury. I took November off the bike almost completely, then started training again in December. Early on during a 4 hour ride in horizontal snow, I started to get a sore knee. I’ve been to the physio, and now almost 3 months later, it appears to be making progress. Taping and careful checking of my bike setup seems to be keeping it under control.

  Racing for the next two weekends, so will be interesting to see how it holds up, and if I keep up after all the time off.

• Feb 9, 2008

  15 Minutes To Build Campfire?

  Out of interest I decided to try and build a Campfire style IM app.

  After 30 minutes I had something usable working, with multiple users and auto-updating messages. Rails makes all of this pretty easy of course, but it was a good fiddle nonetheless.

  Maybe I’ll knock it into shape and create a 15 minute screencast, just to prove all the doubters wrong.

• Jan 20, 2008

  GMail SMTP with Ruby on Rails and ActionMailer

  Trying to use GMail SMTP (or some other SMTP authenticated with TLS) with ActiveRecord to send email in Ruby on Rails? Up till now this involved requiring smtp_tls.rb in your environment.

  Thankfully, Kyle Maxwell has come up with a neater solution.

  Install

  It’s a plugin, which you can get with this command in your Rails root…

  ./script/plugin install http://svn.kylemaxwell.com/rails_plugins/action_mailer_optional_tls/trunk/

  Due to continued downtime of Kyle’s site please use the following URl:

  ./script/plugin install git://github.com/collectiveidea/action_mailer_optional_tls.git

  Setup

  You can turn TLS authentication on and off as you need in your environment with a new key that is added to the smtp config, tls. To use with gmail, the following should be in your environment.rb…

  
  ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
      :tls => true,
      :address => "smtp.gmail.com",
      :port => "587",
      :domain => "YOURDOMAIN",
      :authentication => :plain,
      :user_name => "GOOGLEUSERNAME",
      :password => "GOOGLEPASSWORD"
    }
  

  And that’s it. Enjoy.

• Jan 11, 2008

  SVN Server Address Change

  Due to my recent server move the URL for my public SVN has changed from svn:// to http://.

  The new URL is now shown on the relevant pages:

  • Acts As Indexed Plugin
  • Will Paginate Search Plugin

  Hopefully other sites pointing to these should be updated in the next week or so.

• Jan 9, 2008

  New Server

  After several years of home hosting, I’ve finally decided to move to a dedicated (albeit virtual) server with Slicehost.

  The Good

  • My sites are now served about 4 times faster, almost purely due to a faster connection speed.
  • I don’t have to worry about downtime due to powercuts or network outages.
  • I now have a futureproofed setup, regardless of where I live geographically.

  The Bad

  Not all of my sites are up and running at the moment, currently:

  1. Training site is not available. Now available.
  2. Public SVN is not available. Now available.

  I’ll update this list as I get things up and running.

  The Ugly

  Nothing!

• Dec 31, 2007

  2007 In Review

  Just like I did last year , I bring you my review of the year, in the form of one of those annoying round-robin email type question things. Yeah!.

  1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?
  Took part in a stage race.

  2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
  No idea if I made any for this year, doubt I will for next.

  3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
  Not that I can think of.

  4. Did anyone close to you die?
  Nope.

  5. What countries did you visit?
  Cyprus, Czech Republic, Poland.

  6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
  More focussed training, along with getting to races south of the border. So, the same as this year.

  7. What date(s) from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
  24th June 2007 – The day team Macchiato rocked the Etape Caledonia!

  8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
  5th place in the Drumlanrig SXC. I’ve had higher placings, but this one felt especially satisfying.

  9. What was your biggest failure?
  Not finishing the Glentress SXC due to illness, and the string of injuries that have blighted my training plans since August.

  10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
  August – Trapped nerve in back.
  September – Fever (Glandular fever re-occurence?)
  October – Trapped nerve again.
  December – Ligament damage in knee.

  11. What was the best thing you bought?
  My Bianchi, though there have been a lot of great things.

  12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
  James, he graduated!

  13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
  Royal Mail, again. Oh, and the RBS business team for being slooow.

  14. Where did most of your money go?
  The bikes, one bike, and most of another two.

  15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
  The Etape, see above.

  16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
  Radiohead – Reckonner

  17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
  i. happier or sadder? Happier.
  ii. thinner or fatter? The same, as always!
  iii. richer or poorer? Richer.

  18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
  Racing, taken more photographs. Same as last year.

  19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
  Sleeping in.

  20. How did you spend Christmas?
  Mum’s for Christmas day, Dad’s for Boxing day.

  21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
  Clients, nailing down specs for work. Again.

  22. Did you fall in love in 2007?
  Yeah, she ’s lovely. :o) Again!

  23. How many one night stands in this last year?
  That’s a bit rude! But since you ask, none. Again, woo!

  24. What was your favorite TV program?
  That 70s Show.

  25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
  Nah, I’m pretty mellow with everyone. Same again.

  26. What was the new best book you read?
  The Death Of Marco Pantani – Matt Rendell.

  27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
  The new Radiohead album! Not much of a discover, but it rules.

  28. What did you want and get?
  A fancy road bike!

  29. What did you want and not get?
  A badger. I did see a fair few though.

  30. What was your favorite new film of this year?
  Lives of Others.

  31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
  I was 22, and I have no idea what I did.

  32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
  A badger.

  33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
  It was the closest thing to hand when I wanted to put clothes on. Same as last year.

  34. What kept you sane?
  The bike. Same as last year.

  35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
  Um………none come to mind. Again.

  36. What political issue stirred you the most?
  The fact that other people get so worked up over it?!? Again.

  37. Who did you miss?
  Umm…

  38. Who was the best new person you met?
  My fellow ZoeCity developers.

  39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
  Say hello!

  40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
  “Whoa whoa, we’re halfway there!”