Ayup Roadie - Ayup Multisport revisited

I did a post on the Ayup roadie lighting kit a while back.
These lights are a bit viral. Once you see them you just have to have them. At least 4 of my workmates have them now, and 1 nutter has 4 pairs. Everyone I know who has brought lights in the last year has gone for Ayups, except for 1 person who opted for the grunty NZ made Night Lightning. More on that later.

The attraction to these lights seems to be the overall package. No one thing really stands out, except maybe their simplicity, and the weight. If you are a weight weenie, this is the system for you. The Ayups are so small and light that you can even mount the 100 gram 3-hour battery on your helmet and hardly notice it. The light units themselves weigh only 58 grams. This is where all the other systems come a distant 2nd place. The aforementioned Night Lightning iBlaast has a large unwieldy lamp, and the battery is large and heavy by comparison (to the Ayups). There is no doubt the iBlaast is more powerful, but that is the one thing it has over the Ayup. A very important consideration for sure. The Ayup Roadie Kit is now called the Ayup Multisport kit, which is pretty much the same, except you get 2 x 3 hours batteries instead of 1 x 6 hour.

There have been a few upgrades from Ayup in the last year, and they now have a dedicated head mount for night running and multi-sporting which seems to work well with their minimalist approach.

I had never actually run my battery completely out, so I decided to test it to failure the other day. You are supposed to get 6 hours out of the bigger battery, but 8 hours later it was still going. Admittedly it was a lot dimmer, but they weren't going yellow, just a very gradual lessening of intensity over time.

After a year my battery’s cord developed a small nick in it where the cord comes out of the casing. An email to Ayup and within a week they had replaced my battery. That’s pretty good service.

I think the next part of their arsenal to try is the new “gecko” version of their helmet mounts. The old one didnt agree with my old helmet’s worn out padding so well , so I will let you know if I get my hands a the new one.

The heavier 6 hour battery still only weighs 156 grams and is about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

Shown here are the handlebar mount, helmet mount, light and a 6 hour battery (and a ballpoint pen for scale).
Another review here from a unicyclist.

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Auckland harbour bridge: the 30 year plan

How are they going to build a bike trail the length of NZ, when we cant even ride over the Harbour bridge?

Last weekend a bunch of people stormed across the Auckland Harbour bridge on foot and bike.

Listen to these podcasts on national radio. The first interview is by Rowan Quinn who talks to Bevan Woodward from the "Get across campaign".

The second interview by Sean Plunket is with Wayne McDonald, the "Regional Director for Northland and Auckland" at Tranzit New Zealand.

Hear Wayne McDonald say that the plan is to wait another 30 years before doing anything about a walk-way or cycleway.

You can hardly blame people for getting a bit militant.

Podcast 1.
More bridge protests promised if access call ignored. (Stream)
A protest group is promising more traffic-halting protests across Auckland's Harbour Bridge.
(duration: 3:38:)
Download: Ogg or MP3

Podcast 2.
Protestors' fight for right to cross harbour bridge not over. (Stream)
The organisers of a traffic-halting protest on Auckland's Harbour Bridge aren't ruling out taking further action. (duration: 4:36:)
Download: Ogg or MP3


A link to a public address blogger who was on the ride.

Some very good video of the event from SportZhub.
http://www.sportzvibes.com/vibes/

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How to remove spider from Tune Big foot crank

I have had this Tune crank lying around for a few years. It's never shifted brilliantly but I have always liked the look of its smooth lines.

I ordered a new spider in the hope that it might help in the shifting department. (From old-style down to compact). I probably could have bought a whole crank for the price of this spider !

My next dilemma was how to get the spider off the crank. Its screwed on via male threads on the crank arm.

The answer to the predicament was quite logical.

1. Remove the small anchor bolt at the bottom of the spider.
2. Loosely attach the crank to the compatible bottom bracket of a fixed-gear bike.
3. Pedal backwards slowly, with force, until you feel the crank arm move independently of the spider/sprocket/chain/wheel. Gently continue using the crank pressure, or remove and continue doing it with your hands.
4. Pre-heating the crank with a hair dryer may help to loosen it.

Anyway, it was a great success. Now I change my spiders as I need too.

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A new wheel.

I've just built up a new front wheel. Its has a Tune front hub and a Stans Olympic Rim (335 grams) with DT Swiss Revolution spokes. This is 140 grams lighter than my old wheel. I guess most of that is in the rim. The Stans rims seem to be pretty popular around Wellington. Its pretty easy to run tubeless on it although I dont know if I am convinced of the merits of tubeless yet. I guess I need to try it again and see. Last time I felt it was a messy pain in the butt.

I have re-installed my old Tune crank as well, after getting a new "compact" spider for it . I had to "wind" the old spider off by installing the MTB crank on my fixed gear track bike and pedalling backwards!!! I am not sure if this was money well spent, as the difference in weight between the Tune Big Foot - (one of the lightest cranks in the world), and my old 1996 LX Shimano crank was 83 grams...

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Monkey vs. Pigsy

Take that Pigsy you swine !!!

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Kermie lives!

Kermie came away with a 2nd place in Pro Women at Xterra 2009. Well done to the pilot Susie Wood !

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Grape Ride

Last weekend we jumped on the Blue Bridge Ferry and headed south for the Grape Ride. A 101 km fun-ride that starts in Marlborough in the middle of a vineyard. It has a romantic sound to it, but the realities of 2,500 fun riders taking off in a driveway narrower than the one at your house means that its a bit of a mission.

Accomodation was courtesy of the "Voodoo Lounge" (see pix below) at my parents place in Blenheim. We also got picked up from the ferry terminal in Picton by my mum.

A quick shop and we had stocked up on some local produce to get us through the weekend.
The team was Dave, Neil, Ran, Kathleen, and my wife Kay. Everyone was keen to give it a crack, and Kay had even been riding to work (2okms each way) in a bid to get fit. Dave catches some Zeds in the Voodoo lounge!

The day dawned very crisp and we got stuck in these massive lines of people "walking" to the race start. A sign of the kind of people that do this race. They were not in any kind of a hurry!

Some 15 mins after our "punters" race had started I managed to leave the vineyard in about the 5th wave I guess. We had a big bunch that seemed to have a high percentage of Onslow Tar Babies in it. They were reasonably keen to work though so we made pretty good time til Picton, where 4 of us rode off the front on the hill just out of town. One of them was Alan Williams, a team WARM-UP rider from Christchurch who was doing the two lapper, he had just caught our bunch as we left the start and was very keen to lap it out. We just kept catching people all the way through the beautiful Queen Charlotte Sound, and all the way home. We were still catching people at Okaramio. Somewhere long the way Alan's acclerations had despatched two of the guys, and we picked another up momentarily. One more surge on the last climb before the Wairau and Jurgen got spat as well. True to his word Alan offered to buy me a beer! He had just won the two-lapper by about 11 mins I think.

Neil was going good and came in well under 3 hours. Ran and Dave were about 15 mins past the hour and while Kathleen had to pull the plug, due to not having done any training (she lasted for 60kms!) Kay finished looking very fresh, having had time to stop and gorge herself on road-side Banana Passionfruit and Walnuts and she also stopped to buy a pie!

That night we went to local Restaurant "Roccos" for a very nice meal, and the next morning we checked out the local Farmers market for more local produce. Hmmmmm. Roast chestnuts, local cheeses, etc etc.

A real good use for Cervelo S2!

Girls can do anything! Tyre changing 101

I think this guy is a local celebrity, check the gold shoes.

Kay finishes, content that she found time to stop for walnuts, banana passionfruit and a pie!

The most enduring part of the day, the prizegiving.

Neil was beta-testing these new reflectors for Team Cervelo

These guys did very well and got into the local spirit.

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A new handle for the axe. Santa Cruz Superlight

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Karapoti revisted

Its a hard road planning out your season. For the past two years I have watched in envy as every man and his dog are doing PB's at Karapoti. A weird desire to do my first poti since 2003 came over me and I decided to do a couple of races to reacquaint myself with the dirt.

My first was a PNP race at Mt Vic where I did my only ever face-plant in my life and smashed my lid. Then the next race was a Nats final, in muddy Mt Vic where my very rusty skills became even more obvious.

My ribs still havent recovered from being acquainted with my bar-ends there, and watching Geoff Notman riding away from me on his over-geared single-speed hardly built my confidence. I pulled out before I expired. A sad day. I blame David Blake for making me build a fence out the front of my house. Its the mother of all fences, and gets more complements than anything I have ever had anything to do with in my life. I burned a lot of matches with that fence!

You'll note I stayed well away from Makara Park races, where you have to know the names of all the tracks to have any chance of not getting lost, and I dont know my "uncle Bobs wheelie" from my "Leaping Gecko".

I had some good Time Trial form but I couldnt see how that was going to help me down the Rock Garden, and Google Street View isnt what its cracked up to be in the Akatarawas. Some Hill reps up Belmont Trig did me no harm but my technical riding was confined to riding up and down Danzig. When NIWA announced that it was the wettest February for some time, I knew that it wasnt gonna be a fast year. Too bad, I had already entered.

Karapoti 2009 - The didymo conspiracy.....
I reckon I had a problem with the didymo procedure. I got to wash my wheels with soapy water, which is what you do to seat tubeless tyres? I was tootling back to the car and ka-boomb! A gigantic hole 4cms long is ripped into my tube....

I walked back to the car, stressing as I only brought one spare tube. I ripped off my tyre which was a narrow-ish aggressively knobbed green michelin with big spaces between the knobs... I had once used it as tubeless set-up and there were remnants of dried latex crap in it. My tube had stuck to the tyre, and I believe it slipped on the rim after it was didymoed, tearing my tube to shreds. Crap.

I got a new tube and took off with the Pro men. I was having a great race, and had decided to pace myself for once. Not long after Ricky Pincot passed me in his big ring after Deadwood I had a nasty crash on the slick rock at speed. I banged my head, leg and ac joint badly. Had to reset mt head set and straighten fork and from then on rode even more like a complete nana.

My left shifter lever was torn off in my crash, but if I could find a 2mm stump to tickle to change down if I was careful, the upchanger was still there. My right shifter was barely working, but was very painful on my shoulder with the amount of force I was having to put into it.

The Rock Garden was hard work with my confidence and gone and my shoulder giving me grief.

A high-light was seeing an eel, or a trout jump out of a puddle at the bottom of the stair-case into the stream alongside !

Anyway, I grovelled up the staircase pushing (not carrying) my bike. The only person I saw the whole time was a very cheerful Craig Madsen snapping fotos. Some time later as I was tootling up dopers, I had just caught Scott McLachlan... ka-boom! My rear tube exploded on me again. Some how it jumped out of my tyre and wrapped itself around my v-brake mounts! What a mess. It had a giant split in it, just like the first one. My mousse would have been a useless on that kind of a flat. Traction was great everywhere I went (in pro) so I guess it was a combination of the slipping tyre (soapy water) - against the rim, the tube sticking to the tyre, and a very grippy tyre that was causing my problems.

If not for the mishaps it would have been one of my most enjoyable karapoti's ever. I can also reccommend the A&E in the Hutt hospital. The camaraderie amongst the Karapoti refugees in there was great. Very very quick to process us on a saturday night. According to the radiographer its way busier in Wellington than the Hutt on a saturday night. Keep that in mind if you have a choice!

Cheers
jeff

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Ruamahanga 50 time trial -2009 - Power and pacing geekfest

There are some things that are kind of peculiar to Wellington Cycling, and one of them is the Ruamahanga 50, a very old-school 80km time trial organised by Dave Holey from the Wellington Veterans Cycling Club. It's one loop of a circuit that is mostly flat, and goes around Lake Wairarapa.

Apart from the distance, the main challenge in this event is the savage gusting side-winds that are present most years down the western side of the lake. Some years the field has been decimated down to about 5 finishers, as those who value their life more than the challenge have reluctantly pulled the pin. Lets face it, if you are up for 80kms of pain, you are not going to take quitting lightly.

This year everyone made it through, but the as the winds increased over the space of an hour, the last riders to leave were at a distinct disadvantage.This year there were at least 6 of us riding with power meters so we have tabulated a bit of data for geeking out on.

Despite the appalling conditions this year, local pro, Scott Lyttle smashed the old record of 1:56 held by Brent Backhouse with a 1:55. Unfortunately Scott didnt use a power meter... or even a speedo, so the only things he could supply to geek off were his rediculously low heart rate figures. I dont think I could have driven a car around with a HR as low as his.

Anyway, the following guys fronted with the following hardware, and we got splits for each 10km segment of the course.

Ben, Garmin 705 with Power tap.
Jeff, Jason and Matt with Power taps .
Peter with an SRM, and Craig with a Polar.

We tabulated the data so you we could see where our weaknesses were. If you know what you are looking for you can see where the different riders fortunes changed for better or worse.

Jason was probably the most consistant all round but rode on the limit the whole way and faded slightly before the end. Ben put in a scarily fast leg down the lake edge where most of us were hanging on for dear life. This moved him into the "virtual lead" of our group, but "discomfort" in the saddle area became a real problem on the home stretch. Matt also suffered with this. For myself I suspect I may have started a tad too easy, as I seemed to have a bit in the bank for the final run in. Peters power numbers dont look that big for a big guy, which implies that he has good aerodynamics on the bike for him to be going so well. Craigs heart rate was up and down a little so possibley a bit more focus is needed.

If you wanted to compare our power output with each other you would need to assume all the power meters were correctly calibrated, and even then you have to divide your watts by kgs.
Here is the actual course as a Google-flyby.

Craig splits
10km NP/AP splits
dist. watts np/ap hr time.

00-10 236/223W 176B 20.25
10-20 207/204W 171B 21.05
20-30 203/199W 170B 16.15
30-40 195/193W 166B 17.05
40-50 217/254W 170B 16.20
50-60 182/178W 165B 17.30
60-70 212/196W 170B 16.35
70-80 203/197W 173B 16.55

Peak 20min (223 watts):
Peak 30min (216 watts):
Peak 60min (209 watts):
2.22.

==================================

Peters splits
10km NP/AP splits
dist. watts np/ap hr time.

00-10 274/271W 134B 18.32
10-20 258/257W 135B 19.00
20-30 257/252W 135B 14.48
30-40 262/261W 134B 15.20
40-50 259/254W 135B 15.26
50-60 254/253W 135B 15.14
60-70 264/258W 136B 15.21
70-80 265/264W 142B 15.30

Peak 20min (272 watts):
Peak 30min (267 watts):
Peak 60min (261 watts):
2.09.

==================================

Matts splits
10km NP/AP splits
dist. watts np/ap hr time.

00-10 274/273W B 19.17
10-20 260/259W B 19.57
20-30 256/253W B 15.38
30-40 247/246W B 16.13
40-50 261/258W B 15.12
50-60 249/247W B 16.16
60-70 245/237W B 15.34
70-80 234/231W B 15.45

Peak 20min (272 watts):
Peak 30min (269 watts):
Peak 60min (261 watts):
2.13.49

============================

Jasons splits
10km NP/AP splits
dist. watts np/ap hr time.

00-10 284/274W 164B 17.16
10-20 274/273W 172B 17.49
20-30 264/263W 175B 14.24
30-40 268/266W 175B 14.49
40-50 263/261W 174B 14.35
50-60 266/265W 176B 14.21
60-70 253/249W 176B 14.31
70-80 252/251W 176B 14.19

Peak 20min (274 watts):
Peak 30min (274 watts):
Peak 60min (270 watts):
2.02.48

===============================

Jeffs splits
10km NP/AP splits
dist. watts np/ap hr time.

00-10 290/285W 164B 17.13
10-20 271/269W 167B 17.39
20-30 267/260W 168B 14.34
30-40 249/244W 167B 14.52
40-50 253/242W 166B 14.44
50-60 251/248W 169B 14.36
60-70 269/254W 171B 14.20
70-80 275/274W 177B 14.10

Peak 20min (283 watts):
Peak 30min (280 watts):
Peak 60min (268 watts):
2.02.21

===================

Bens splits
10k NP Splits:

00-10 328W 171B 17.28
10-20 315W 171B 17.45
20-30 300W 171B 13.45
30-40 292W 169B 14.50
40-50 284W 165B 14.33
50-60 290W 167B 14.40
60-70 279W 168B 14.36
70-80 266W 169B 14.28

Peak 20min (323 watts):
Peak 30min (320 watts):
Peak 60min (306 watts):
2.02.53
=================

More geekage.. (from Ben)
on elapsed time by end of each 10k stage who was ahead?

Splits Ben    Matt  Jeff    Peter   Jason
00-10  17.47   19.28  17.22   18.53   17.27    Jeff
10-20  35.22   39.23  34.87   37.53   35.08    Jeff
20-30  48.97   54.87  49.43   52.33   49.48    Ben
30-40  63.80   71.08  64.30   67.67   64.30    Ben
40-50  78.35   86.28  79.03   83.10   78.88    Ben
50-60  93.02   102.55 93.63   98.33   93.23    Ben
60-70  107.62  118.12 107.97 113.68  107.75   Ben
70-80  122.88  133.87 122.35 129.18  122.80   Jeff

This is the final 10km stretch which is pretty telling in the overall picture.

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If its FIXED, dont BRAKE it....

We had the final local evening Time Trial this week - 3 days after we had all munted ourselves on the Ruamanga 50 (80km) TT. I had decided not to do the evening TT, but would go and support my buddies Dave and Neil who had come to support me in Australia in 07 at the Master Track Worlds. I was encouraging Dave to do the TT on my dedicated TT bike as his bike is a standard road bike.

As I was prepping Daves bike I looked into the shed and spied my pursuit bike hanging up. Hmmmm. Conditions were pretty good. Another calm Wednesday night. We had had over a month of them, mostly light southerlies. Admittedly our summer was arse, but the mid-week TTing was great.

I could go down and give it a crack. I had no idea what gearing was on it, or why I even had a front brake on it? Maybe I did some road rides on it last year.

Anyway, we all went down and had a great time. Neil beat Dave, Dave got a PB, so it was win-win. I seemed to be a bit short on gears with my 50-15 (90 gear inches) and was doing 111rpm at my top speed of 47kmh. In the end I averaged about 41.5 kmh and it was a real blast. I had no problems on the rollers and could have done with heaps more gearing.

In the UK TTing community a lot of them swear by riding fixed gear. I am not sure why. My old steel pursuit bike is way heavier than my TT bike, which isn't particularly light anyway.

Anyway, to finish off the story. On Friday night I get an email from 72 year old Garry Humpherson who sent me the results from a local 40km TT he did in his new hometown.
He rode his world champs Alan track bike, Fixed gear (96 inches), 808 on the front with a rear disc, and he cranked out a 58.27 !!!!!!!

He just gets faster.....

FYI. See the results for this season's evening TTs as organised by the Wellington Veterans Cycling Club here. They start in December and go on until late February. 6.30 on a wednesday night on the Liverton Road Circuit.

• http://wvcc.org.nz/staticinfo/results/results08_09/20090225.html
• http://wvcc.org.nz/staticinfo/results/results08_09/20090218.html
• http://wvcc.org.nz/staticinfo/results/results08_09/20090211.html
• http://wvcc.org.nz/staticinfo/results/results08_09/20090128.html
• http://wvcc.org.nz/staticinfo/results/results08_09/20090121.html
• http://wvcc.org.nz/staticinfo/results/results08_09/20090114.html
• http://wvcc.org.nz/staticinfo/results/results08_09/20090108.html
• http://wvcc.org.nz/staticinfo/results/results08_09/20081217.html
• http://wvcc.org.nz/staticinfo/results/results08_09/20081210.html
• http://wvcc.org.nz/staticinfo/results/results08_09/20081203.html
  
  

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Gazzas new wheels

Gazza is thinking of borrowing my TT bike for Triathlon Nats in Wellington. I fipped the stem for him in case he wants to run after he finishes his bike!

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