08 Feb 10 iPhone …or perhaps I don’t any more
iPhone Apps - Want them more than need them?
I found myself not using the iPhone recently while doing a load of Mountain Biking. I put it away safe in a drawer while doing rufty tufty phone threatening activities. Instead, I dragged one of the collection of old phones out of a drawerr, I got a free Orange PAYG card, filled it up with £20 and it has lasted months. I stick it in my pocket and use it if I get lost, when I fall off and need someone to put me or my bike back together.
But it has had a sobering effect. I have started asking myself what the hell I need an iPhone for at all. It’s a shame as well. I have an App called Map My Ride which is great for Mountain Biking. But I don’t use it because it s not so good if you smash your phone while taking a tumble. To give you an idea, I fall off at least once every time I go out on my MTB and usually a lot more. I started thinking that if I were to break, lose, or get my iPhone stolen etc. then I would suffer a load of cost and the sickening feeling you get when you break something nice. If I break the old Nokia, I rip out the sim card, bin the bits and get another cheapie out of the drawer, or on Ebay
iPhone meets mountain biking - not a good combo
Mountain Biking is good for the soul in many respects. All that exercise and fresh air combine with the pain and repeated falling off and landing on your head. It knocks some sense into you. With regard to the iPhone, my MTB epiphany on the off road trail to my metaphoric Damascus led me to suspect that I want it more than need it (note to self: Design iPhone App based on lyrics, such as Glenn Campbell’s ‘Wichita Lineman’). I make myself use apps because they are there and handy, but in some respects they add extra chores to my day rather than save time. I like the idea of iXpenseIt, but it takes loads of time to use and the pics of the receipts are rubbish because the iPhone camera is poor indoors and poor at close-up – exactly the setting where you take pics of the receipts. I actually create more work for myself!
Then I have to wonder again. My old friend Ravi Damani and his cousin Chetan over at Imano are developing brilliant augmented reality apps. But do I really want to augment reality – I might find that I am superfluous rather than my phone. I could then send my iPhone to work and sooner or later it would realise that as much fun as I was, I was just expensive, stupid and unnecessary. It would dispose of me!
Meanwhile, back in the real world, I think everyone should try putting their iPhone / Blackberry away for a week and instead go back to a basic handset. You’ll be surprised at how superfluous a lot of its functions are. Funnily enough, I got used to using a phone based camera when I got an iPhone. But the iPhone camera is not particularly good. I wonder whether I should get a decent pocket camera and a basic phone instead of paying £30 / month for the pleasure of keeping a beautiful design icon in my pocket.
17 May 09 Hanley WYLD team pic
After a frenzy of media activity, the press have pursued Mountain Mayhem team Hanley WYLD and a feature is now imminently due in the Hanley Swan Parish Magazine.
Under extreme pressure, the team was rounded up and coraled into a corner and photographed. It has to be said that the setting is not really moutainous, nor particularly off-road in the biking sense of the words and somewhat puts to the sword any mythology about how WYLD the team actually is.
15 May 09 Mountain Mayhem team wear designs
Courtesy of the excellent people at Albion Lodge care homes we (that is team Hanley WYLD) can now look forward to having some excellent team wear for Mountain Mayhem. We are workng with thecyclejersey.com to get them out before the deadline. The proposed design is below:
12 May 09 Mountain Mayhem Training
With a month to go, the training for Mountain Mayhem is going well.
Since the team (Hanley WYLD) is based in the shadow of the Malvern Hills we feel we have a bit of a home advantage. We train on the hills, probably on parts of the yet-to-be-revealed course. We usually do this in the dark, although as the days get longer the terrain becomes mercifully more visible.
So far I have suffered a chipped bone in my wrist. Unfortunate but at the same time could have been much worse: About 9.30 pm, fog at about 1000 feet, pitch black, Cateye lights from Halfords, and completely worn out brake pads on the Specialized Rockhopper. The combination meant that I was completely unsighted and completely unable to stop – even if I had seen a totally invisible boulder (football-ish size). I managed to execute an elegant dismount via the handlebars at full-tilt, gracefully meeting the ground like a swan in jackboots.
So £165 later I have new AVID Juicy 3 discs brakes and discs fitted by the excellent bike shop in Malvern. For another £60 I have a 2nd hand set of Vista Lights plus ‘candlestick’ batteries. This can be added to the £250 spent on the bike in the first place, not to mention the £100 worth of ordinary clothes I ruined and the £150 I spent on proper mountain biking clothing. Then there is the oil, Muc-Off cleaner and all the useless lights I bought from Halfords. I now realise that what Halfords call bike lights are only fit to be put into my children’s bedrooms at night to enhance the effects of the blackout blinds.
Anyway. I do feel a lot fitter, although the evidence of that is not particularly visual. (See the picture here, taken just having come off the top of Worcestershire Beacon yesterday, with Summer Hill behind). I can now make it from Hanley Swan to the Wych Cutting in about 34 minutes (in February that took an hour). And last night I made it to the top of Worcestershire Beacon, along the ridge to British Camp and cross country to Welland and back to Hanley Swan (I think about 18 miles) in two and half hours with a few stops and a bit of social chit chat in places. The best thing was that I didn’t have to get off and push once (other than falling off and finding a good place to get going again).
We are ridiculously well organised. We are confident of arriving at Mountain Mayhem with a water bowser and generator, a power hose, a portable shower, a bike rack, enough tents to house Her Majesty’s Expeditionary Forces and bespoke designed team clothing. There is a chance that in packing all this we will forget our bikes. I suppose we are not too far removed from home to go back and get them.
The team do have some concerns over Andy’s team spirit. Specifically we are worried that he will not want to camp preferring instead to take up residence in Eastnor Castle – he’s bound to know his Lordship and the temptation of quails eggs and kippers, with the footman dropping him off at the start line from time-to-time, may prove too tempting. The alternative being a cold tent shared with a wet bicycle, while fed only on plastic mugs of tea and burnt beans from the camping stove. Nevertheless a team we are, battered, rattling, bruised, overweight, over-spent, over-budget, but not nearly broken.
06 May 09 Why Mountain Biking
While I’m changing everything about this website, I thought a bit of context to the montain biking obsession I currently have.
In June 2009 Mountain Mayhem will be held at Eastnor Park in Worcestershire. Mountain Mayhem is a 24 hour endurance mountain bike race which involves teams of four people (you do get soloists as well) riding a 8 to 10 mile course non-stop for 24 hours. The team who does the most laps, wins.
Last year, some friends did the race and so I went along to put up tents, clean bikes, make tea and get in the way. I became very interested in getting involved this year and so four of us with a combined age of neolithic artifacts are entering the race.
We are called Hanley WYLD – we live in a village called Hanley Swan and our surnames (Adrian White, Dave Yates, Bob Lewin and Andy Darwent) give us the WYLD suffix.
In a few short months it has to be said that I have become very hooked on mountain biking and cannot help but ramble on about it here. I do intend to put a little more substance to these rambles as time goes on. Bear with me.
24 Apr 09 Mountain Mayhem – broken arm
Latest in the Mountain Mayhem saga is training on the Malvern Hils in heavy fog, bad lights, non existent brakes. Hit a very small boulder. Fell off, Chipped bone in arm. £250 later, new lights and Avid Juicy 3 Hydraulic disc brakes.
Barn door firmly shut. Horse nowhere in sight.
09 Apr 09 Back on the bike
Escaped the HONC this weekend and all those who entered are too knackered to go training so I have been responsibly riding to the pub instead oof over the hills.
Harsh reality about to bite – big ride later.
12 Aug 08 Progress
'I am heavy and I'm not your brother'
Mountain Mayhem Preparation
10 months to go : 17 stone weight : Fit as a hippo : Equipment status = Shite
Took a 8000m (5 miles) ride up over the Malverns last night as part of the monday night ‘training’ for Mountain Mayham 2009. Then another 7000m (4.5 miles) home.
The general idea is that four forty-somethings with middle-age spread, no cycling experience and absolutely no idea what they are getting into will enter a team in Mountain Mayhem in 2009.
Currently, four weeks into this decision, we have been out every Monday night and pushed our bikes up the Malvern hills, then free-wheeled down the other side. At least I have. Everyone else is a lot fitter than me (or perhaps less unfit).
Forest of Dean Expedition
However, I reached a watershed this week. I took my six year old son to The Forest of Dean camping and cycling – me on my ‘Jeep Grand Bucket-of-nuts’, my son on a tag-along. We went with a couple of other team members and free=-wheeled all the way down to the river EWye and alomng to Symonds Yat. But then came the massive ascent back again. My team mates were sprightly and full of well meant platitudes – “Keep it up” they advised. “You’re doing really well” they lied.
But it was my son who proved to be the greater motivator. I was shocked at the level of his disappointment in me. While all the other Dad’s cycled up the hills, I got off after a few agonising yards of heavy pedaling. Then falling off the bike, I huffed and puffed and pushed the bike and him on his tag along up tracks and roads for miles back to the Christchurch camp site. “All the other Dad’s can do it” he said as I approach cardiac arrest. “Go on Dad, you can do it …go faster …win …go on”.
Silence…
“You’re not a very good Dad are you?”
Something has to be done. I needed a new attitude and it started on Monday.
The Malvern Hills:
For those that know the area, we took off from the Quarry Car Park (south side Castlemorton Common). Long pull up onto the Malvern ridge, ascent of about 130m over 900m (or approx. 15%). Along the ridge and then a steep drop onto a fast descending muddy track for a mile or two. Took a long trail coming out on the Herefordshire side and then across fields and tracks back to the car. Hard work, no getting off and walking (new resolution to not give up). Really good ride. Lots of surprised comments from my comrades. “you’re up for it tonight” they said as I wasn’t the last person on the the top. I was last person abck to the car – long haul up a gradual incline did me in, but I gave myself penance and made myself ride four or five miles home instead of putting My bike on a car rack and getting a lift.
I heard something go on my bike. I say bike, it is a toy look-a-like, all branded up as Jeep Grand Cherokee Sport. It actually weighs about as much as a Jeep 4WD but does not really perform off-road with the same aplomb. I think it is probably a robust bicycle for going along gentle paths in the park, but it is getting shaken to bits on more extreme terrain.
It has twisty handles gears which jump all over the place and, I am told are the sign of a really cheap bike – I do not have much difficulty believing that! In fairness, it does have a really low gear for steep ascents (I do need that at my level of fitness) and the suspension seems to be on the okay side of squashy. But it’s all round performance does not really make it a serious mountain bike. Too heavy, crappy gears that won’t stay in place. The gearing is very low, you reach top speed quickly with nowhere to go and it has a lot of gizmos on it which make it seem fully specified but are really lipstick on a pig.
Took a closer look and I think one of the forks has probably gone. I need to start looking on eBay before it really does give way.
Tags: Cherokee, Herefordshire, Jeep, Malvern, mountain, mountain bike, Mountain Biking
06 Aug 08 Mountain Mayhem 2009
Following the brave exploits of four mates, who in June this year entered Mountain Mayhem, myself and three friends have decided we need to do the same next year.
Mountain Mayhem is a very hard-core mountain biking event. It is a nine mile course, up hill and down dale all over the Malvern Hills. The trick is to do as many laps as a relay team of four in the time. The last lap must be started within the 24 hour time limit, but can be finished outside of he limit. The winners were as follows:
| 1 | Scott | 31 | 24:09:13 | |
| 2 | Science in Sport /Trek | 31 | 24:27:50 | |
| 3 | Extra UK | 28 | 24:04:04 |
Hanley heroes were marked down as being 205th out of the 246 in the Sport Men Category – not bad since one of their number had to retire before starting with a lacerated leg and anoth ha dto have medical treatment for a severe cut o the hand while changing a tyre.
Hanley Heroes
| Lap | Number | Rider | Time | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1019 | Richard Ladd | 01:20:57 | 6.45 mph / 10.38 km/h |
| 2 | 1017 | Jon Senior | 01:01:22 | 8.51 mph / 13.69 km/h |
| 3 | 1018 | Richard Turner | 01:10:54 | 7.36 mph / 11.85 km/h |
| 4 | 1019 | Richard Ladd | 01:07:41 | 7.71 mph / 12.41 km/h |
| 5 | 1017 | Jon Senior | 01:00:59 | 8.56 mph / 13.78 km/h |
| 6 | 1018 | Richard Turner | 01:11:51 | 7.27 mph / 11.69 km/h |
| 7 | 1019 | Richard Ladd | 01:20:12 | 6.51 mph / 10.47 km/h |
| 8 | 1017 | Jon Senior | 07:47:52 | 1.12 mph / 1.80 km/h |
| 9 | 1018 | Richard Turner | 02:00:10 | 4.34 mph / 6.99 km/h |
| 10 | 1019 | Richard Ladd | 01:33:45 | 5.57 mph / 8.96 km/h |
| 11 | 1019 | Richard Ladd | 02:38:39 | 3.29 mph / 5.30 km/h |
| 12 | 1018 | Richard Turner | 01:23:19 | 6.27 mph / 10.08 km/h |
| Rider | Laps | Best | Average | Worst |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Richard Ladd | 5 | 01:07:41 (7.71 mph / 12.41 km/h) |
01:36:14 (5.42 mph / 8.73 km/h) |
02:38:39 (3.29 mph / 5.30 km/h) |
| Jon Senior | 3 | 01:00:59 (8.56 mph / 13.78 km/h) |
03:16:44 (2.65 mph / 4.27 km/h) |
07:47:52 (1.12 mph / 1.80 km/h) |
| Richard Turner | 4 | 01:10:54 (7.36 mph / 11.85 km/h) |
01:26:33 (6.03 mph / 9.71 km/h) |
02:00:10 (4.34 mph / 6.99 km/h) |
The event is grueling to say the least. This year it attracted more than a few world champions as well as the usual bunch of extreme ironing teams and mountain unicyclists!
Anyway, since this is our ‘hood’ we thought we really ought to have a crack next year before they take the event somewhere else. So with ten months to go we set out on Monday evening to do a bit of training …oh dear! I am unfit. I am over-weight, the bike I have is apparently one big welding mistake with a couple of wheels. It hurts – a lot. I know there is ten months to go, but even so, this is not looking good.
Progress reports to follow.
Tags: Hanley Heroes, Malvern Hills, Mountain Biking, Mountain Mayhem
25 Jul 08 Hello World
Following the most impressive WordCamp UK conference in Birmingham – a review will follow at some point – I am persuaded to start a blog. To date I have resisted this, being busy and not at all convinced that my ramblings will be of any interest to anyone. However, I am already convinced that WordPress is the new way of doing the web for me and my customers, I am persuaded that this is now absolutely necessary for me to explore the entire potential of the medium – so here is the blog. It is an exercise in learning through spouting off. And I can sound off on most things. (more…)
Tags: blog, CMS, Design, guitars, InterconnectIT, Mountain Mayhem, Realitus, WordCamp, WordPress
