Finally worked out how to use that Hebie Elastic Strap for pannier racks

It took way too long, but most of that time was procrastinating.
Next step: test carrying pizza home on it. I'll need to insulate the pizza box too. Hopefully a plastic bag will do.

Also known as Hebie Quicksnap double tension belt strap 0199 DH.

Repairing Shimano SL-M770A gear indicators

When trying to get the gear cable out of my Shimano SL-M770A 9-speed shifters, I did something silly and took the current gear indicator hastily. I managed to snap off the white plastic part that gets pushed around by the main indexing mechanism. Having persisted for several months not knowing which gear I'm in a convenient manner, I did a dodgy repair.

I drilled a 0.7mm hole into the remaining length of the plastic column and inserted a PCB header pin. It was then cut to match the previous height.

Since it was a few months since disassembling and shelving the project before getting around to fixing it, I wasn't sure about reassembly. None of the exploded diagrams go into this level of detail. Hopefully this is the correct arrangement of internal parts. It seems to work.

Why do certain people work so hard?

Hmm... maybe the reason some people throw themselves so hard at work is to avoid actually having to find hobbies and interests. Kind of like the simple, single goal to do well during schooling. Thoughts?

Teclast x89 - all the things my netbook couldn't

I bought a Teclast x89 tablet. I suppose the important specs are the screen - 2048x1536 in 7.9" - and the CPU - an Intel x86. I'm hoping to use it in all the ways my netbook wasn't good enough for. Mainly that it didn't have enough grunt or was still too big to carry around.

Anyway, to make it really useful, I decided to get rid of the Android OS and let Windows use up the full space on the eMMC.

http://manguiro.blogspot.com/2015/03/guide-teclast-x89-installation-guide.html

That guide can mostly be followed for the Windows flashing. You can use only the WINPE drive and go interactive with diskpart. The script in WIMPART-PRE mostly dance around the Android partitions which weren't relevant. I found that I could step through the WIMPART script interactively except that I was missing a convert gpt near the top, after clean.

Another task was to set the microSD card up as an alternative to the eMMC, which was only 32GB. Dropbox won't store on a removable disk so there's some trickery involved. I started here:

http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/threads/win-8-1-format-a-sd-card-with-multiple-partitions-make-it-gpt-uefi-bootable-make-any-removable-storage-usb-appear-permanent.59815/#post369322

I found that the diskmod filter driver worked well by itself. It didn't need the powershell commands either since Windows 8.1 with Bing (32-bit) is installed. It did take some fumbling around with the different ways to recognise and store the microSD card identification in registry - drive letter, device etc.

I did end up using the VHD(x) method though.

http://mattblogsit.com/windows/configure-surface-to-use-microsd-as-primary-storage

It takes a little while longer to load after boot but I think having files inside the VHD container rather than out in the open will help stop silly things from happening when I do need to put the microSD card in other device or reader.

Next time - I may or may not be reporting about my success in getting the screen to turn off while continuing to play music.

Caves cycletour 2015

Day one: Canberra to Crookwell

The morning was pretty cruisy with some light showers and the odd patch of gravel. James mentioned that we were "gunning for Gunning". I later found out that a colleague was on the road at the same time and with the Strava Flybys feature, one can even work out when we passed. We rolled into Gunning and had lunch at a very casual 2PM.

The afternoon was a bit more of a struggle. Showers became more continuous and the temperature dropped rapidly. I absolutely don't like having no plans so Spud Murphy's Inn was our target for the night. I thought it was good to have a known location to travel to, rather than wander around for half an hour like in Eden. It turned out to be a good move as wandering around town in the dark and rain would not have been pleasant. James was only wearing shorts and was getting shakey hands. He needed help getting his torch mounted because his fingers weren't working properly.

Finding the entrance was a bit of a challenge. It turned out to be around the back up stairs. Barry, the owner, was surprised by our appearance and had turned off the heater to the room thinking we wouldn't be silly enough to ride bicycles through this weather. We then appear to be in a room with a heater with tea, soup and bread. This temporary room appeared very dainty, apart from the LCD TV on top of the wall gas heater, and was furnished with a four-post bed. We grab dinner at the pub and try to arrange everything else to dry for the next day.

Day two: Crookwell to Wombeyan Caves

Barry mentioned the locals are much more supportive of bicycle riding and we noticed this with the very generous overtaking clearances. Rather than repeat yesterday's miserable end, we prepared with multiple layers of clothing and looked for supplementary supplies. Overpants, beanies and dishwashing gloves were procured in town to augment our existing weatherproofing.

We encountered sticky clay roads on the way to Taralga. There was a fair bit of intermittent cross wind to keep us lively, along with constant drizzle. On the home straight to Taralga, we were pushed along by a tailwind. This wind kept up until after lunchtime and made it rather unpleasant to stay outside.  Portions at the pub were rather ridiculous. I don't like to see waste so I helped clean up two slices of Andi's pizza, after finishing my own fish and chips.

Our destination for day two was a friend's shed near Wombeyan Caves. It was a gentle descent but the road surface changed from sealed to gravel then narrow clay track. I managed to lose a bolt from my rear rack due to all the corrugations in the track. Once the gate was persuaded to open, we dealt with a misbehaving generator and low power on the solar/12V system. Even so, we had a fantastic fire and great supplies that Andi had conveniently transported by car a few days earlier.

Finding Foycett

Day three: Wombeyan Caves

Much of the morning involved coaxing a blunt chainsaw into cutting wood for the night's fire. Of course, it had to continue to rain for the whole day. After lunch we went for a visit to the Wombeyan Caves. On that journey I managed to lose the screw on the other side of my rear rack! We went for a self-guided tour. It seemed like sensors weren't set up correctly in that a voiceover would be triggered for a second round before you have time to move away. We also had trouble getting in touch with Jenolan Caves House, where we intended to stay for the following night. The main switchboard reported power failures during the day. Also the Telstra payphone was not working with a coin jammed error message, so we had to use the park ranger's phone. James bought more diswashing liquid as the gift shop happened to be selling some. There is no mobile phone reception at Wombeyan Caves.

Day four: Wombeyan Caves to Oberon

This day was originally intended to finish up at Jenolan Caves. Despite the best of intentions and waking up at 6:30, we didn't leave until 9AM. There was a fair bit of preparation, packing up and cleaning to do. Once on the road we made little progress in the morning due to niggling mechanical issues with one rear derailleur. I came off my bike when I tried rolling over a branch that was a bit too thick with not quite enough momentum. Andi tried to warn drivers about the tree that had fallen on the road near a corner. A few did stop to listen. We enjoy a nice descent to the Abercromie River, where the water is just under the bridge. I get to use my air horn at blind corners.

With every descent comes the hillclimbing on the other side. I can't recall at which stage of the day James and I confiscated Andi's half kilo of sunscreen, sleeping bag and first aid kit. Anyway, I recall starting to worry about timings after lunch. This was the first cycle tour that I hadn't tried planning into submission. I really didn't like the option of travelling through a forest on an unsealed road in the dark. The fallback option of going to Oberon was made more final after making a gravel skid entry to a group of parents waiting for the school bus. I found that I performed better with less waterproof gear that day, perhaps due to the slightly higher temperatures. I did, however, have to remove my glasses as the water collected between my prescription and outer lenses. It made for interesting riding in the dark and wet, but we were gliding along a forestry-maintained road.

Upon reaching Oberon I used my internet-enabled phone to find lodgings. The first Google search result turned out to be a fair way out of town, and Google Navigation suggested we cut across a street-end reserve, which was difficult to find. We had dinner at Oberon RSL, which happened to be run by migrants from Hong Kong.

Abercrombie Descent
Clockwatching into Oberon

Day five: Oberon to Jenolan Caves

This wasn't originally planned as a journey but turned out to be simple enough. Before we left Oberon, the motel let us know a pair of shorts had been left behind. There was a bit of climbing before we got to the Jenolan Caves descent. Andi thought my hillclimbing tactic was a bit strange. I try to rush hills but tend to climb really slowly if it's beyond a certain distance (with the random sprint somewhere in between).

The descent itself was quite challenging as my bicycle had trouble going at a sensible speed. One really has to slow to walking pace in order not to run out of road on the switchbacks. There were also some very inconvenient speed bumps near the bottom. When Andi stopped at the bottom, his front inner tube failed. The rim was quite hot from all the braking and probably played a part in the tube bursting. When replacing the tube and inspecting the rim, Andi says to James, "Can you put your finger in there and tell me what that feels like?" Oh my...

We took it easy in the afternoon and went for one cave tour. Apparently the group of three girls on that tour were checking us out but I was oblivious to all that. I finally had a use for my Telstra dongle that I purchased on sale last Christmas; there was no Optus or Vodafone signal at Jenolan Caves. As James and Andi investigated their options for the weekend and checking out more caves in the morning, my planning instinct kicked in. Using average speeds from the Oberon afternoon, the fallback option of returning to Canberra by the end of the day required an 8AM start. This was moderately tight with the buffet breakfast, and no other options available, starting at 7:30AM.

Jenolan Caves from Oberon

Day six: Jenolan Caves to Lithgow

It seemed like the Jenolan Caves hospitality operation employed more people from overseas with accents. Anyway, terrible coffee aside, I got a decent feed out of it, but probably not $25 worth. Oh well. Starting at 8:07 had me worried. It turned out to be a reasonable ascent. My air horn came in handy to alert other vehicles of our presence, especially around blind corners. There was one truck in particular which probably shouldn't have been going as quickly as it did around the two bends. It was James' turn to stack, with a low speed one in unexpected soft, gravelly shoulders. Only in these last two days did we have non rainy weather.

Rather than stay on Jenolan Caves Road, we took a more direct approach to Lithgow. At the turn off, we nearly get taken out by a ute coming travelling in the same direction.  It was a pretty fluid descent to Coxs River, however, the road condition was very patchy. There's not much to say about the rest of the way to Lithgow, except that we arrived with about an hour to spare. I did struggle a bit on this day as I had offered to take Andi's D-lock and cable. I think that put me over the threshold.

The noodle shop in centre of town made me quite a salty char kuey tiao. They didn't seem to have much business. Perhaps an 'investment' for citizenship...

I think we caused a bit of distress for other bike riders by using up most of the bike racks on the train. The views on the line were nice but I nodded off. It was a ridiculously long train ride. I don't think cities should be this big.

There was just under two hours at central station before our Canberra train departed. We used up that time pretty well with buying tickets, and informing the staff that we would like to use the buy-one-get-one-free offer that they failed to consider when giving us a total price. Getting bicycles into boxes was good fun as always. The boxes they have are ridiculously small. Andi and I get caught up at Hungry Jack's queue. James avoids the queue and ends up with an unreasonable amount of sushi handrolls. I say to James that it isn't mandatory to finish all of them before boarding the train.

Coxs River 

Joke bike

About a year ago I bought a folding bike on Ebay. It was the cheapest one with an aluminium frame and came to around $240 shipped. I found that the ones below this price were generally steel and were closer to 18kg; this one is a more reasonable 13.5kg.

TL;DR: I did have grand ideas about this bike but it turned out to be too rickety.

It's fantastic in that it folds up. I thought I could ride one way and catch a lift back with the bike in the boot, ride to the airport and check it in as luggage. Unfortunately there's some pretty major faults that are a reflection of the price the bike was sold for.

Initially, the riding the bike didn't give me confidence so I swapped out some parts to see whether that would change the handling. I ended up with something looking like this.

When unfolded, the frame still looks like this though:

Bah, who needs a straight frame anyway?

What's worse is the play in that main hinge in other directions. It means that going over bumps and while braking the bicycle will compress a millimetre or two. It's a really bizarre sensation.

The drop handlebars helped get rid of the overly upright feeling and widely-spaced grip. Originally it had trigger shifters that felt decent. The handlebars still like to rotate by themselves. Fortunately for me, the brifters could take up enough cable with the somewhat mini V-brakes. The saddle is adequate however the seatpost likes to rotate or descend during a ride. Quite the sinking feeling.

Actually riding the bike left a lot to be desired. The bottom bracket had a lot of resistance. When opened up you could see the ball bearings. I think the length was wrong too. The crankset was too far out and made the chain drag along the derailleur cage. The crankset was also painted and silvery bits flaked off. I found that most of the gears are not required with such small wheels. With the single main tube across and small, narrow wheels (20 x 1-1/8) I found that it felt clunky. The narrow tyres made finding spare tubes a little more difficult. I found some on Torpedo 7.

There are no mounting points for rear racks. Another point was that I found after leaving the bike for a few minutes, the wheel would become off-centre and touch one side of the brake pads. It was very fiddly to tinker with those nuts instead of having a standard quick release.

I'm thinking this exercise was renting something from mother nature and that I'll have to return it to her soon.

2/5 Would not buy Fusion Folding Bike again.

Melbourne Bike Share review

This weekend I tried a one-day pass to Melbourne's bike share scheme. I did find the initial process a bit clumsy with 80 pages of terms and conditions to agree to.

At least it's not an EULA with "I Agree" at the bottom of the document.

Also I didn't realise that it was a two-step process in that I had to buy the one-day pass and then get a bike-unlock code separately. If there was some prompt on the screen, it wasn't helped by the poor lighting at the Flagstaff Gardens station where I completed my transaction.

The bike itself feels 'squishy' in the same way that a recent Holden Commodore feels squishy with the steering. It's good in that the bike bounces over bumps but quickly runs out of gears. The frame shape is very practical. The bell, however, doesn't seem to work so well - I think it was supposed to work by rotating the cuff around. I could not find a lever. Also, the bike seems to auto-correct steering back to straight. It's not a twitchy bike at all.

The station where I started from had two bikes with loaner helmets. This seemed to be a common number for the stations that I passed. There was no 7-11 store for me to buy a helmet nearby. I probably wouldn't want to as it'd be annoying to carry around a helmet with me.

The website states that you need to wait five minutes between rentals. However...

Keep your trips under thirty minutes and take two minute breaks.

I'm sure you've seen the bike-only lane on Swanston Street and how wonderful it is. Here's Collins Street instead.

Drain is about shoulder width.

It's always good fun when your bike lane exists entirely in the door zone.