Will Knott

I showed up at track training expecting it to be cancelled again due to rain and thinking I could pick up a few essentials from the shops on the way home.

Well that was my first track cycle in the rain. It was also the first track cycling session that Sundrive has done in the rain.

Needless to say the shopping wasn’t done.

An outdoor velodrome in Ireland has an obvious problem. Rain.

Rain isn’t the problem as such, the banked track getting slippery from the rain is the problem. Based on the training session tonight the solution seems to be to do short sprint training and seated acceleration exercises. That and doing group exercises slowly in case slipping occurs.

Seated acceleration is exactly what the name suggests. Everyone knows that you can get a more more power on the down stroke while standing when peddling than you can when sitting. However, in a race situation, the standing rider advertises to everyone that the hammers have gone down and that a challenge is being made. Yes folks, track cyclists also have sneaky techniques.

The solution; don’t stand. The problem with this solution; its hard. In order to get this acceleration you need a whack of upper body strength to replace what gravity isn’t providing since you’re not standing. In practice, you’re pulling your body down to give each down stroke of the pedals an extra boost.

That however gave me a new problem… I twisted the handlebars around the centre (my drop handlebars were no longer dropped) and kept pushing my saddle down in to the frame. Maybe some of this weight is actually muscle! (pause for laughter).

Anyway we got drowned in the rain, my kit is slowly drip drying away and a very tired rider is typing away.

If anyone wants me I’ll be lying down.

And if you’re wondering about the title, its from the Blue Nile song.

Will Knott

arse.

No I’m not complaining. that’s the advise I got at my first track cycling training session (yes, I’m accredited now, and I have a Track License in the works).

You see in your typical Road Racing Cycling group, you end up having to watch the rear wheel of the bike in front of you. If the rider swerves, chances are that there is a pothole or obstacle in front. So eyes to the road to see what to avoid.

In track cycling, you watch the bottom of the rider in front of you (in all its lycra clad undulating glory) as you don’t have to worry about the potholes on the track. You do have to worry about sudden moves, usually because of a crash, or an attempt to take off at speed. Either way, you need to see more and watch the indications. Usually one of the cyclist looking behind them to see if they are clear to overtake.

I don’t know who “B Cunningham, Project Manager” is, but his name is plastered across every bum of the Lucan Road Cycling Club. Maybe Project Manager is some sort of super hero title. After all its odd to see it in the “underwear on the outside” spot. Interesting spot to pick.

Here I go for another training session,
may I recover from the first!
Will Knott

I’m having (OK getting) a hard time getting out on the bike. So I thought “let’s try a more organised approach”. I tried out for the Track Cycling Ireland Open Day in order to get accreditation and try out track cycling properly.

To begin with track bikes are different to road bikes. Imagine a standard road racing bike. Then remove all the brakes and gears. It turns out that a track cycling bike is a fixed gear bike. Namely there is only one gear, and no freewheel. To go faster, you pedal faster, to slow down, you slow down pedaling. To stop in a hurry… well trying to back pedal is an interesting thing to do once you have a bit of speed built up. Its a different mindset to standard road cycling.

The truly weird part of being on the track; once you’ve picked up speed, you feels like you’re playing a racing game with the sound down. It might be me, but there is a slight disconnect between your legs motoring away, and your view of an empty track.

The velodrome on Sundrive Road in Crumlin is interesting too. Its an outdoor track in the middle of a park. Apparently during training you can get spectators hoping for a crash.

Its been upgraded, but since its an outdoor track, and track cycling is a high speed event played out of very thin pieces of rubber, if it starts raining heavily it becomes a dangerous practice.

About halfway through the accreditation, it started raining heavily. So I’ve not got the paperwork. yet.

The season starts properly in May, and I’ll have to try to finish things off on May 11. A bit like Tog, this is something I want to do.

And maybe try out the legs in a few open championships.

I can dream.

Will

No this isn’t a trailer for the sequel to the 1948 movie Ladri di biciclette or (as far as I know) the sequel to the 2004 movie Banlieue 13 (there is a part 2 called B13: Ultimatum). But it could be.

Instead here is a video of Inspired Bicycles team rider and The Clan member Danny MacAskill showing a collection of street trials riding/ bike parkour / dangerous stunts shot on (and over) the streets of Edinburgh.

In the video, Danny does stuff on a fixed gear bike that would fit in a District 13 sequel. And suddenly I want a fixed gear bike for a different reason.

(some RSS readers may need to click through to see the video)

take care (on the bike)
Will

A wise woman pointed out that it is perfectly reasonable to talk predictions for the year ahead up to and including 31 January! Well I’m going to type about resolutions.

Yes its a bit late to talk about new year resolutions, but here goes.

Get in to fights again

I ended up dropping out of Capoeira in 2008. A mixture of class clashes and commuting.  Now I can start again, probably from scratch. Of course, if that fails I may be asking for a different kind of trouble. In short, I need to do something which involves a bit of movement.

In camera

I got caught up in an interesting discussion about “what makes a photoblog” om Twitter, well lots. I play with photography, but I think its time I moved up to a better camera. I’m not going D-SLR this year, but I have my eye on something and I want my wallet to match. On a related note, I need to go to more events. Since I’m sort of bi-locational at the moment, when the weather gets brighter things might get interesting.

More sleep

An idea stolen off Phil IcedCoffee; I just need to get to bed earlier. As if that all.

Re: cycling

It’s usually better to keep old resolutions than to make new ones. — Chloe Sevigny. I’ve copied this quote off Tim Ferris‘ resolutions.  And I’ve copied this resolution from last year. This year I think I’m a commutable distance to work, but without showering facilities things could get sticky. Still given the Mad Cow traffic holdups, cycling to the office may not be a bad idea. The only reason I’m delaying this one is making sure I can do it, and timing a weekend run first.

Change the decor

Now that I’m the master of my own domain, it almost been a year since I moved in. Its time to redecorate a little. I had planned to use the Carrington theme with pallet swaps and image swaps (its the one Joe Scanlon is using) but I recently stumbled across a theme on Smashing Magazine which is almost perfect. Things may look a little odd here over the next few weeks.

I had also planned on trying out the Google Friend Connect here too, but I’m not so sure now.

Write more fiction. Read more fiction.

I more or less stopped reading fiction when my studies restarted. With the exception of one Cory Doctorow (which I inhaled in one weekend), the Pseudopod short story horror podcast and the NSFW Tales fomthe MU novel experiment in blog form,  I’ve not read anything for a while. To that end I’ve finally started reading “The Idiot” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (for historical reasons) and a few others thanks to the DailyLit. I’ll take suggested reads from their list please.

The spippets feel too small for me, but I’ll live.

As for writing. When I took part in the Blogmas Christmas Carol, I liked it.

it had been years since I last wrote fiction, and I’d like to start again. A few short stories may appear here. I also have an idea for a very free form group fiction blog. Ask if you’re interested.

Well, thats it. I can see the cycling waning again this year, and I don’t know if I can find an accessable Capoeira group, but the others are managable.

What do you think?

Will Knott

Ferg and Si are cycling around the world. Literally.

And, among other things, the are cycling to support the charity Aware.  Aware provides support for those suffering from depression and is working to de-stigmatise depression and suicide in Ireland. Aware provide a wide range of services to ensure that help and appropriate therapies are available to those who need them. And over Christmas a lot of people need help.

So help Aware.  Ferg and Si are selling Revolution shirts for €20 where 100% of the proceeds go to Aware. So go and buy a shirt.

take care,

Will Knott

Well 2007 is on the way out. And as usual in Ireland, all things come to a halt for a while. Christmas is a scary time of the year because, usually, everything gets changed this week. This is probably the reason why resolutions are saved for this time of the year in this part of the world. You’ve just survived one week of changes intact. Why not make more…

For some people, this is a time of the year when they are handed responsibilities that they normally don’t look after. (Some even learned new skills this way). These people (of which I’m one) have their lives thrown a little off kilter for a while. And they have to consider what’s important and what needs to change.

For others everything comes to a stop. Work stops. The life of the office stops (and some people try to hide the evidence of what happened at the office party… ah flickr and facebook) and the news cycle slows. For them this comes as a chance to think. And they have to consider what’s important and what needs to change.

So the adverts change from “buy this” to “stop smoking” or “start a new hobby with this magazine” and of course “sale now on…” since the Christmas stock costs too much to store.

And so the resolutions begin. The “I’ll never rush in to a sale again” is heartfelt but unheeded within a week. So I’ll ignore that one.

Yup… resolutions.

What do I want to do or change? Trust me I’ve had a while to think about these things so…

1) Be master of my own domain…
I don’t mean tidy the house (but now that you mention it, the bathroom mirror does need to b put in the bathroom. I mean it’s time that WillKnott.net and WillKnott.ie actually got used as something more than a redirect. Part of this is to do with changes that seem to be afoot. The “cork” in “cork-host” may need to change.
All advice gratefully accepted.

2) On your bike…
Personally, I need to get out more. I’ve used every excuse not to cycle this year. 2008 will see a saddle put under strain. Regularly. That and go back to Capoeira again. Things sort of stopped over December.

3) Learn (or relearn) a language…
I’ve always been more a OnLamppp man than an AJAX man. So I’m going to refresh and perfect my Perl, python and PHP. I do intend to get Ruby (and maybe rails) in my head. Sort of useful with a domain eh? Somehow I just know that Java will need something more formal than a commitment by me. Any pointer to classes or tutorials would be appreciated.

What, you assumed French? (Actually Portuguese would be useful for Capoeira but that’s another story.)

4) Take time to smell the roses…
Or actually plant them. Simply put, my garden is a mess. Actually that not true. I was careful. My garden is black. Black weed-proof plastic. I need to do some things. Lay a patio. Do “something” with a terrace. I genuinely don’t know what should happen out there. I do know I need the hardscaping finished. Help?

5) Give voice…
This is neither a resolution nor a commitment. But my attendance at PodCamp Ireland and the forthcoming Creative Camp gave me an idea… which I’ll post later.

I think that is enough. You can’t make yourself too many resolutions simply because putting too much pressure on yourself almost guarantees that you won’t do any.

Any resolutions or advice?

take care,
Will Knott

tags : 2007, 2008, change, resolution, domain, WillKnott.net, WillKnott.ie, cycle, capoeira, onlamp, garden, PodCamp, PodCamp Ireland, Creative Camp, podcasting

I’ve done the 400 miles.

I’ll get around to putting up the days events in order (which is hard since the days tended to merge apart… it feels like I’ve been away for a month!).

Yesterday was a “rest” day. A lot of sitting down and pottering. Just as well I was away from work since the phrase “hard of thinking” could have applied all too well.

Anyway, for those interested, the collectors got €7500-ish on the streets and Motorola stumped up another €10,000 for the Marie Keating Foundation.

I’m off for tea and a clear head.

take care,

Will

Gentle reader,

Last night I got off my arse and did something less boring than watch TV.

Actually yesterday I did a lot of cycling, so the state of my arse and bruising (and given the potholes in Turner’s Cross, my ability to ever father children) were actually on my mind, but that is a rant for another day.

I went to the Lobby to see Saucy Monky in action. They are good. Very good. And more to the point, I’m not the only one to notice. They are releasing a single, I think it’s “Make-up” but I could be wrong, at the very end of November, I’m guessing Friday November 28 in Ireland and December 1 in the UK I guess. This means that it’s being released for the Christmas market (the last date for a Christmas number one is Friday December 19 in Ireland, and Monday December 14). In the UK the charts are released on a Sunday, in Ireland it’s either on a Friday.

This means that it’s going to get released in the cacophony that is the Christmas singles market, and that someone in their record label trusts them. (January releases are traditionally for the “no expected to do that well”)

Oh, and Namiee, from the little bit that I heard, you sounded OK. Just get a jar of honey for the throat and the diet be dammed.

They are playing Whelan’s in Dublin tonight, appearing on Today FM’s Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show, sometime after 8.30, and on Friday 19 they will be performing with Namiee again in Connolly’s of Leap.

I actually do have lots of gig news but I’m leaving it unwritten until tomorrow.

In the meantime I need to lie down.

Take care,

Will