Archive for March, 2009

A road less travelled – Canberra to Mullion

March 15th, 2009

I know just about every roadie in Canberra does the Uriarra loop. In the anti clockwise direction we all go down the hill to Uriarra crossing and turn left and go back up the hill. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you went straight at the intersection?

Well this is the road less travelled, Fairlight Road. After Uriarra Crossing there is a climb to get out of the valley, this is pretty much the same as if you had of turned left at the intersection. The road goes for about 2.5km to the ACT/NSW border. At this stage the average roadie would turn around when the road turns to gravel. This is where it gets interesting, the next 2.4kms is unsealed road. Taking a road bike on an unsealed road is always a good way to improve your handling skills. My tip is to relax your grip, look down the road, pick your line and stick to it. The road is not too bad but does have some corrugated sections but at 30km/hr on a road bike it gets bumpy.

Training Stromlo - Uriarra 15-03-2009

After that the road is pretty good condition except another 1km unsealed section about 5kms from Fairlight. The road continues after Mullion up to Carvan Rd which is the main road to Wee Jasper but I had to turn around to get back for coffee and the Sunday Paper. Maybe next I’ll organise to go through to Wee Jasper. BTW Mullion is just a homestead, there are no shops or services there.

Training Stromlo - Uriarra 15-03-2009, Elevation - Distance

 

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Uriarra Homestead Graded Scratch Race

March 8th, 2009

Here is a summary of Scratch race conducted by the ACT Vets on the 08/03/09

Distance: 40:05km for all grades
Temp °C: 15.2
App Temp °C: 14.6
Rel Hum %: 80
Wind Dir: ESE
Wind Speed: 6km/hr
Wind Gust: 7 km/hr
Avg Speed (B Grade): 35.1km/hr

Perfect conditions for racing and what appeared to be a good turn out for a club race. So much so that the course had to be shortened due a lack of marshals.

From my view in B grade; Had a hard time keeping up at first thanks to a slight cold but we kept it together and only lost two riders before the main hill. At the main climb at about 18km in the field got blown apart with 3 riders going off the front, another 3 of us clinging on about 300 metres behind and the rest of the field falling away.

image

I was sure I would fall away too but for some encouragement from James Jordon, we kept chasing and brought it back together by the time we got back to the finish line for the last lap.

The pace was off for the last lap with some surges to keep us honest. I led a few but didn’t have enough in me to try a break away.

Not sure all of the final six tried for the sprint finish, I found myself picking up third place with a surge for the line rather than a full on sprint.

Full result can be found here
http://www.actvets.cc/html/main.html

image

 

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Inspecting Carbon Fibre Bike frames

March 2nd, 2009

This was reproduced from a work forum and is an interesting read
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NDT Capability when inspecting Carbon Fiber Bike frames.

Carbon Fiber bike frames are very difficult test and for that reason alone, most reputable manufactures will actually just replace the fame under warranty as long as the original owner has not abused the frame.

Checking if a frame is cracked is not that simple, if the crack is thru the full thickness of the carbon fiber there is a good chance that it will appear on a radiograph. However, if the crack does not go thru the full thickness of the carbon, it may still be cracked, however this may not appear on an x-ray.

Additionally Carbon Fiber is highly susceptible to a phenomena called Barely Visible Impact Damage (BVID). The Carbon Fiber looks fine on the surface, however the structural integrity of the fibers below the surface is less than satisfactory. The amount of damage below the surface varies depending on the type and amount of force of the impact. NDT is able to detect this damage using ultrasonic’s, if they have a suitable standard to compare the frame against. If not detected or repaired this can lead to catastrophic failure. Could get really ugly on a downhill run.

For those of you that do ride carbon frames my suggestion is to handle them with great care. If you have had some sort of impact damage or it appears there is a crack on the surface get it checked. Check you warranty booklet and be familiar with what you can and can’t claim.

On another note, Carbon Fiber is also Hydroscopic (absorbs water), therefore if you get a chip in your paint/gel coat get it fixed ASAP, as this also can have detrimental affects to the strength of your frame. Water absorption can cause a corrosion cell to form on those bikes that are glued together to aluminum lugs, or have aluminum lugs as strengthening members under the carbon fiber. I’ve had 3 TREK OLCV 5500 frames replaced for this reason alone.

 

Posted in Bike Equipment, Bike Repairs and Maintenance
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Garmin Support

March 2nd, 2009

Here’s a surprise. I’ve been having problems with my Garmin Training Centre software crashing continually, as I don’t use TC as my authoritative cycling dairy I wasn’t too worried so I lived with the application crashes. Every time the application crashed it would present the usual application error and ask that you send it to Garmin Tech support, being conditioned to ignoring these types of messages as you do when working with Windows I ignored it.

Then a couple of nights ago, out of boredom I think it was, I actually sent the error message to the address given. Thinking it was just going to some automated mailbox I didn’t think too much more about it. Then imagine to my surprise when I woke up this morning to find a reply a from Garmin detailing how to fix the problem. Well I tried the solution and it worked. Good stuff Garmin.

The interesting thing I have found with Garmin support is that the local support in Australia erm umm sucks! Whereas the US support is really on the ball. Last year when I was having problems with my EDGE 305 the local support was dragging its heels so I fired off an email to the US support team and then suddenly the next day the local support responded to my query. This happened on more than one occasion.

Morale of the story: If you have a problem with your Garmin product try the US support team first.

 

Posted in Bike Equipment, Bike Repairs and Maintenance, Garmin Information
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