Monday, August 17, 2009

Ian Finishes His First Real Century Ride

So yesterday (Sunday the 16th of Aug) I rode my first real century ride. A proper 100 miles in one day event. Well in Canada of course that is 160KM's. I have ridden many metric centuries in the past which are 100KM's, but never the traditional style.

Anyway this was the Middleton Century Ride, in Middleton, Nova Scotia. They were celebrating their 100 years as a town. And what a great event. Rest/food stops each 25K for the first 100K then a brief water stop at the 130K mark before a final ride back to the beginning.

I rode originally with 2 friends from my riding team, the Spinachers. Mike and Fred decided to sign up for the metric century as the time needed to complete the whole ride was going to be too much. So at the 100K mark I waved goodbye and moved on solo for the next 30K. At the final water stop I met up with Dave who I had spoken with a few times in other legs of the ride and rode off with him. Then a large group of moderately fast riders came up, we joined in and off we went. A minor crash later and we managed to finish with a riding time of 6:08:35.

My final computer readings were for 164.31 KM at an average of 26.7 KM/H.

Most important is that today, though tired, I am not at all sore or stiff.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Ian discovers......

So I am not always fast when it comes to web apps and useful tools. I am also not always the first to jump on the its so cool bandwagon. But often I do get there. Anyway I just picked up 3 useful things lately.

1. Chrome Web Browser from Google. Why another web browser? Well I use a lot of Google products (search, mail, calendar, blog, photos....) and this browser runs them all very well. Also it is super fast compared to the latest offering from Firefox. And I can move the tabs around on the top of the browser to reorganize things. Sure it is a bare bones look, the style just isn't there yet. But I suspect it will be soon. And I hope they get some sort of add blocking app for it as well. For that reason Firefox will stay on my computer.

2. Twitter. Okay so I do Facebook already, I don't own a smart phone (nor do I make many cell phone calls) and do people really care if I just went for a swim (see my 4th Twitter post). Well maybe I don't need Twitter, but if is growing in popularity, it is free, and I thought I should grab my user name of choice prior to it going away. And while I was at it I might as well have a few posts added for good looks. Will I keep up the Twittering (or Tweeting)? Maybe, but as they say, if a tree falls in the forest....

3. stuffwhitepeoplelike.com Yeah I know. Everyone else already knows about this site. Well I did too but just never went there. Finally did. Good for a chuckle. I do like satire (see: The Onion)and this site is full of it. But mostly I like reading some of the comments on this blog, as so many people don't seem to understand satire at all and take this a a truth giving site. Oh my.......