ken.walker.name

Winter Bike Commuting

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 13:18:57 -0500

This is the first year I’ve just kept biking once it started getting colder and snowier. Pete, on my team, has been doing this for a few years and I decided to keep my bike fitness I’d do it as well. I’m also taking an Off-season cycling class at the RA centre which started focusing on core strengths and is now heading into pushing the aerobic capacity we’ve built up. Biking through the week is critical as just taking the 1 class per week was not going to cut it and I’d rather be on the road that sitting in a gym.

So what was required? Well I have a mountain bike I bought more than 14 years ago at Pecco’s bikes in Ottawa. I got one of their not so great frames but XT components and V brakes (very new at the time). I’ve beaten the snot out of this bike, really! I moved onto two subsequent full suspension mountain bikes (one was stolen) but have always had this one around as a commute without worry bike. The frame not being well painted was quite pitted and chipped so the bike looks like something not worth stealing. Sounds like a perfect winter biking solution.

Where did I start? I bought some Nokian Mount and Ground W tires (check down on the link for description of these tires) from my local Ottawa South bike store The Cyclery. These have 160 carbide studs and are specially formulated for winter riding. I also went to Canadian Tire and bought a balaclava and some snowmobiling mittens. These have now been labelled the Mutant Ninja Turtle gloves since they have two fingers instead of 4 to give dexterity but keep the fingers warmer.

The rest of the equipment I already had because I did ride in the fall and in the rain. So the next trick was layering my clothing and deciding what to wear based on weather reports. I started out dressing really warmly, two long sleeve layers under my biking gore-tex raincoat. The raincoat doesn’t really offer any kind of insulation but since it’s gore-tex it keeps the wind and sleet off. It also has a back zipper and arm pit zippers. I have the matching gore-tex cycling pants and wear them overtop of a pair of Chlorophylle Diversity Pants (I guess I’m diverse enough now). I have an insulated headband, a tuque and the balaclava I mentioned. I also have some excellent Descente Wool Socks which are insanely warm. For shoes I’m just wearing (destroying) my standard hiking shoes (not boots), nothing overtop just the shoe. I have some rain booties but they just don’t fit overtop of the hiking shoes, they’re meant for thinner cycling shoes.

The layering is really important and depending on the temperature I have to dress a bit warmer to ensure that I actually heat up. After that period I usually unzip the pits of my jacket and maintain a core temperature that’s comfortable and not too sweaty. For the legs I have discovered that if it’s warmer than -13˚C and not too windy I don’t need my gore-tex pants nor do I need to wear the mutant ninja turtle mitts, just my insulated gloves. Also the balaclava has only been needed a few times, it usually just makes my head too hot.

Lighting: Given that the ride home is always in the dark I like to both be seen and be able to see things on the roads before I hit them. For the front I have an excellent LED light from CygoLite the Mitycross. This is about a 30 watt equivalent and has a flashing mode I use in the morning. I also have this excellent rear light that’s like a lighthouse, the Planet Super Flash rear light. Most of my clothing also has reflective strips as does the back of my pannier and I just added another light to my rack which I won’t have flashing, just on.

Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance.... This cannot be underestimated when winter biking. I now have put aside 2 hours per weekend to clean up and lube and fix my bike. Clean up means just getting the crap off of everything but not actually washing it as I have nowhere to do that. I do a thorough chain cleaning with a tool and brush everything off as best I can. I’ve already installed new teflon coated cables for my rear gears as there were constantly sticking. I somehow ripped the stem off of a presta tube and had to change that. At work, luckily I can bring my bike inside and let the snow melt out of the inside of the gears. Everything on the bike not already rusting is certainly rusting now. Ottawa uses a lot of salt on the roads.

Traffic: So there are certainly no bike paths open at all and Ottawa has done a piss poor job of even having bike lanes on the roads in the summer. There are NO East/West bike lanes on either Carling or Baseline. Carling was recently all fully resurfaced and given it is a 3 lane road that doesn’t often have 3 lanes of traffic ever, I was hoping they’d reduce it to 2 wider lanes and a bike lane. No such luck. Even on Alta Vista where they have bike lanes AND they claimed that they were full season lanes, at the beginning of 2010 they had still not cleared the snow banks covering the bike lanes. This city is so screwed and backwards. I’ve volunteered for the Roads and Cycling Advisory Committee however it looks like my term will not start until November 2010 as the docket is full and people need to be cycled out so to speak. The drivers have actually been quite good, much better than summer even. I haven’t yelled at anyone or so much as waved a fist at a moron yet. In the summer that happens weekly even though I’m on the bike path most of the time. Perhaps, I’m hoping, there’s a bit of respect for freezing my ass on a hunk of metal (actually I’ve been warm all along but don’t tell them that). So if all goes well I hope to write a letter to the editor near the end of the winter and thank the people who commute like I do along my route and have given me a wide berth. Optimistic eh?

I still track all my commuting on my trusty Garmin Edge 705 which hasn’t frozen up yet. Ha, what has frozen up is my water bottle. I usually put warm water into it but by the time I’m at work it’s all slushy.

Coldest ride thus far:
Dec, 18th, 2009 - -22˚C

J9 on an SD Card?

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 07:53:33 -0500

One of the guys on my team bought a SheevaPlug and in looking around at the options available found his own software.

J9 JVM + OSGi on an SD Card

Samsung/Vodafone H1/M1 with J9

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:21:09 -0400

Not often do I get to talk about the extremely cool devices that we get to put our J9 Virtual Machine and class libraries into. Unlike IBM’s Java SE SDKs which get a lot of press regarding benchmarks we in the embedded world often are under an NDA, some other agreement or just decide not to talk about it if the vendor doesn’t.

It makes it a little difficult to drum up business, in my opinion, if you’re constantly unable to toot your own horn and that of the company that’s got a significant investment in the relationship with IBM. Sun does a much better job of this in the embedded space often announcing at the same time as the vendor. I think we’d have more market share if we did this as well (and more money from licenses).

I’ve seen our technology go into Karaoke machines, music servers, Blu-ray players, set top boxes, cell towers, automobiles, fancy remote controls, millions of mobile devices (cell-phones) and many other pieces of hardware. I just don’t say which ones in particular. In addition, our Java class libraries and port library are also at the core of every Android device out there (you’re welcome).

Back to the post.... The Vodafone Samsung H1/M1 devices appeared on LinuxDevices.com and clearly labelled J9 so I’m figuring I’m not the first to talk about them. I’ve been waiting for these devices since I’ve been working on them from the beginning. Somehow it’s extremely satisfying to have a tangible piece of hardware that ships out of the box with the software you’ve laboured on for many years (not this particular device for many years, but the VM, JCL and other portions of J9).

This product was the result of worldwide collaboration and it’s inspiring to talk about. Inside IBM I met new colleagues on the other side of the world, ate some pretty interesting cuisine, had great technical discussions with a vendor and helped teams ship a significantly technical piece of machinery.

I’m quite passionate about embedded technology and love it when a plan comes together.

I’ve got a CD in iTunes!

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:29:45 -0400

Some people write books (I might yet get around to that) and others have art (same), but I’ve got music. It took a fair amount of effort to get a CD produced, printed and finally available in iTunes!

Butterflies & Zebras self titled CD is available for purchase (hint hint) online. I do have wads of physical CDs and will gladly mail them anywhere but most people find iTunes easier.

Butterflies & Zebras CD on iTunes
Butterflies & Zebras CD by snailmail

“An incredible 16 tracks of mesmerizing soundscapes interspersed with abstract, psychedelic passages and rhythms. From the opening drone of "Tapedeck" to the electric torture of "Porpoise Death", Butterfiles & Zebras explore the guitar and its full range of sounds. What sets Butterflies and Zebras apart from other bands is the distinctive sonic tapestry through which B&Z communicate with their audience. “

Garmin Edge 705 Bike Computer Review

Fri, 4 Sep 2009 18:04:36 -0400

I bought a Garmin Edge 705 with a heart rate monitor back in June 2009. I thought I’d wait a while before giving it a review because I wanted to get used to some of the features. I really have only used some of the features because it’s pretty crazy what is packed into the small package.

Don’t let the photos on the web fool you into thinking it’s a big honkin’ thing. It fits neatly on bars as you can see above. What is big is the price. This bike computer is roughly $500-$600 if you get the HR monitor. It is however a full GPS as well, not as fast or as good at car things as my Nuvi 360 but capable. But I didn’t buy it for the car, I use it for fitness. You can run with it if you just hang onto it which both me and my wife have done.

I use it primarily to gather information about my rides and sometimes to plan out a long route (50-70Km). The data uploads to Garmin Connect and you can have a look at my data for all my bike rides. Pick a ride and switch to the ‘player’ view. It’s really quite neat. The site, however, can be slow at times and they really haven’t quite figured out how to do upgrades without pooching the whole site.

I think I might splurge for a power meter during the winter and have it installed. I’m a bit of a data freak and that would be quite cool. I’ve been using my heart rate to try to figure things out but the heart rate lags behind your effort by a significant amount. Cadence I’m not so sure about. I think my cadence is fine (but it is more data....ha).

They’ve just announced a Garmin Edge 500 but I like the mapping functions of the 705. I use them quite a bit. For example, I mapped out a route and found out some 30Km from home the road I had picked was under construction and all gravel. So I just looked at the map on the device and picked a new route.

As I said, I have hardly use any of the other fitness features like intervals or alerts for ranges for various things. I’m just starting to get into the training aspect of cycling but alas winter is just around the corner.

My goal is to get to 3000Km this year. Wish me luck!

A Photo Portfolio of Sorts

Sun, 5 Apr 2009 12:03:50 -0400

While re-setting up my AppleTV I wanted to have a good selection of photos to use for the slideshow/screensaver. The AppleTV can easily get content from MobileME galleries of course and I have several but I didn’t have a generic gallery that could be used for slideshows and/or screen savers. So I started trolling through my collection of photos and have placed what I consider to be reasonably generic shots anyone might enjoy. The images can be downloaded in a large format so feel free to change your desktop every once in a while. I hope to add to the collection as I continue to peruse my own collection of over 18 thousand pictures.

Here is the link to my Backdrops and Slideshows

Help me pick a Wii game(s)

Sat, 4 Apr 2009 13:41:39 -0400

Heading for a weekend cottage trip (mooching a cottage really) and since the weather has been a bit crappy I’d like to be backed up by some video games (vs. good old fashioned fun). I need some good 2 player Wii game suggestions. Leave a comment or send me an email at kwalker {at} gunshy.ca . Hey if you want to lend me one, bring it to work... well MY work...

My currently lame collection can be found here.

So today’s the announcement about Sun

Wed, 1 Apr 2009 07:15:45 -0400

Well, an email was sent out early in the morning at work today and I guess in other parts of the world they may have found out before me but it appears that the long wait is over with the IBM/Sun thing. I’ve been asked by way too many people if I knew anymore more than the average joe but no of course not, they keep their lips tight during acquisitions. For good reason this time too, although the press had some good speculation about the fact that talks were going on between IBM and Sun they completely missed what was up. At the end of the day it turns out I’ll need to hand in my IBM badge and become a Sun employee. Yes, seems that SUN was the one buying IBM. It’s expected that by the end of the day Sun stock should climb to over $100 per share and IBMs to drop to around four bucks ($4). Apparently without pre-announcing their plans, Sun is able to sell short all that IBM stock (worth $96.89 when the markets opened) due to the fact that people would naturally want to dump it as quickly as they could given the news. Brilliant move!

What does it mean for the average IBM programmer/customer? Likely a lot. Already the memos about mandatory pony tails have been sent out. Have you seen MY hair lately, it’s going to take a while. As well the popular IMPACT conference IBM holds will now be completely taken over by only Sun presentations and no customers are allowed only Sun employees. They’re also toying with renaming it JavaTwo.

Apparently they’re going to can immediately all things labelled WebSphere and put all products under the name Cronos. “It’s not because we’re bitter”, Jonathan Schwartz was overheard saying. “It’s more along the lines of if you don’t like our choice of restrictive licenses, vetos within the JCP and fake’o widgetry instead of SWT then you can stuff your opinion up Uranus!”

I’m out of garbage bags?

Sat, 3 Jan 2009 12:24:09 -0500

Ok, I’ve finally run out of plastic grocery bags that we’ve been accumulating forever. In the switch to easier to use and more robust grocery bags we haven’t been collecting the plastic ones. Every week we use a few in the kitchen garbage and it seems I’m all out! Now what the hell am I supposed to use? Real garbage bags? Do you know how much those cost? Damn this environmental shift....

Recumbent hunting

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 09:51:55 -0500

I’ve been riding Mountain Bikes to work for over 16 years now and I think I’m due for a change. My current bike is a full suspension beast with XTR and Disc Brakes. Pretty cushy but not great for speed or comfort. I usually ride somewhere between 1200-1600km every season now but would like to get into some distance cycling as well as my commute. I was looking at some road bikes but lately when I ride, remember I’m getting old, I find my butt, back and neck hurt more than they used to. Mostly my neck. I could solve that with a more upright commuter bike for sure. But, I’m thinking, why not try something different.

Recently I found a link to the following page regarding bike styles and what impressed me was the chart with speeds at 250 Watts. 250 Watts seems high for me at the moment and likely what I would consider “honkin’ it”. However, when I get home from my 13km commute and my average speed on knobby tires and a heavy mountain bike is 29 km/h I must be putting out some decent amount of power. I’ll have to ask Dean at work since he’s been doing power training for the last year.

So without going for the most crazy profiled recumbent I should get a reasonable speed boost and forego all the other problems I have. I’d actually like to be as close to traffic height as possible since I do sometimes ride in traffic and I’d also like panniers. I have to haul everything on my back currently since my bike is fully suspended.

There’s only really 1 dealer in Hull that carries recumbents in Ottawa so I think I’ll have to make a Spring trip to Toronto or Montreal and sample some.

Here’s a great site called ‘Bentrider Online that is very up to date with recumbent information.