With the new saddle onboard and the updated brakes starting to bed in I went on a looping cycle around Castletroy, in the search for a nice loop that is pleasant to cycle with as little problems as possible. I’ve found that the cycle lanes on the south side of Castletroy (Groody link road, Monaleen Road, SchoolHouse Lane) are not suitable for cycling a road bike at normal speeds (20-35kph) as the surface is rough and rattley with broken surfaces and really poor path-road interfaces. Some places on the paths are rough even at walking pace! I’ve found it is better for my safety to be on the road and able to maintain speed and visibility for roundabouts instead of possibly surprising some poor motorist. Some of the cycle paths are good for kids and people ambling along, but not really for commuters or sport cyclists. It’s a pity that there is little desire to fix the problem and less cash available to implement the fixes. Then again, with a County Council that in all their [lack of] smartness put a pedestrian crossing within the average modern car braking distance from the exit of a roundabout across two lanes – there’s little hope of getting sane and coherent cycle paths that go from A to B.

It was a pleasant enough road cycle, and one of the best bits was accelerating away from cars at the Golf Links Road traffic lights by the Spar, and overtaking cars on the way down to the roundabout! Just under the road speed limit in the are so all legally too.. 56.7 kph according to Node2, 56.09 kph according to Cyctastic.

Masters: Week 10 has just ended. Loads of assignments to complete for the next fortnight, then study for the exams that will complete the 5 modules that will constitute the first semester of the Masters of Engineering in “Information and Network Security” that I am currently pursuing in UL. It’s been good so far to get back to UL as a student but this time with an appetite for success that wasn’t really there in the past (for whatever reasons..). There’s a desire now to get through this with good results. I like the subjects, I’ve got a good crew of classmates and the craic is good enough. It’s tough for sure with time management being the hardest part so far. I have no spare time to relax this year. At all. It’s fun learning how to use Maple, MSProject and things like that. Weird having to buy textbooks again, but good to have them to refer to anyway.

Work: I’ve completed probation, and am now a fully fledged employee. The shift is not the easiest to manage but it’s not that bad – I still get to sleep at a somewhat sane time and it’s consistent at least. Some shifts of course I’m up the walls and I mightn’t get back to the house till gone half 2 or 3 o’clock with lectures at 9 or 10 in the morning and another night’s work the following night. Learning a lot, still got so much to learn. Trying not to forget what I learned at the start – that’s kinda hard.

Car: The Audi is paid off. Finally. It’s now just a car, with no intention from me of making it any better. It’s got too much mileage to consider tarting it up any bit, and it’s a useful tool to use instead of a pursuit in its own right. I don’t have the time to do anything really useful to it other than put diesel in every month or so. At least my driving mileage has severely decreased now that I’m back in Limerick full time. Due another tyre change soon, may but top-tier all-season tyres on it to safeguard me through the winter.

Sport: Very little time to get out on the Reign for a cycle. :( No time in a boat in quite a while – no free weekend gets in the way of that, but that is what I’ve signed up for! Put a deposit down for a good road bike for the Bike-to-Work scheme – a 2011 Trek Madone 4.5, secondhand, with uprated lighter Mavic wheels with the blade spokes. I’ll upgrade a few bits and pieces on that bike, including as good tyres as I can get. I will cycle to work on it at least once ;) and I’ll have to cycle home for lunch to get the car to drive home when the shift is over. It’s not good to be physically pumped at 2am trying to get to sleep. It’ll be useful to have that bike for the cycle around northwest France next summer just before Dave’s french wedding.

Other stuff: 5 years since fun and games, so that’s an interesting milestone passed. Nothing else of note there that I’ll put down here ;)

Astro: been out maybe 3 times since the start of the summer. Been pretty crap for astronomers in Ireland recently – and pretty crap for someone that works evenings and has college during the day! Starting to see the utility of a good quality grab and go setup that will give good views without needing to cooldown – maybe a 100mm short refractor on an alt-az mount?

Sarah: She passed her Viva with flying colours, a very positive impression from the examiners and a trivially small number of corrections before final submission of the thesis document. Her hard work and perseverance (and slight craziness) paid off big time. She’ll get the hood in January.

All-important: keeping the bike on the trail….

Descending Minaun, easter 2011

Fun!

Then later in the day myself and Damien went to BallyH for a loop of the Brown, and it was tiring and good fun overall, thoguh Damien did find out how slippery the boardwalks can be if you are not smoothly cycling on them..

So I decided that I would get the cash together to be able to replace with a bike of somewhat the same type and spec. On donedeal.ie I had seen that there was a Reign X1 for sale, a little outside of my price range, but the seller was open for negotiation. Last week I called down to the seller and I drove home with the X1 on the roof.

It’s a 2009 X1 with the pierced downtube, 160mm Fox Van R 36 forks, Fox DHX3.0 shock with a 500×2.35 spring giving 170mm of travel on hte rear, Hayes stroker trail brakes (not even fully bedded in), Sram X7 drivetrain with RaceFace rings cranks and BB. It has the grey paint of the standard X1. I’ve obtained replacement grips as horns were installed by the first owner, and I’m getting a new seatpost as the original was cut too low for me. There are Shimano dual flat/SPD pedals. The tyres were the standard WTB prowler tyres, but I’ve exchanged those for my standard favourite Maxxis Advantage 2.1 tyres. It took a bit of effort to get those seated correctly on the rims but they are on now and there’s not a wobble on them.

Getting used to the SPDs is interesting. I’ve only had 2 offs so far that are related to SPD issues but the tension was far too high. That’s fixed :) The shoes I got at a cheap price in Decathlon in France are pretty good, comfortable and not giving me any hotspots so far. They could do with a better grip on the flat side of the pedals though.

This bike is now insured properly (I hope) but I don’t want to be the victim of crime again.

I’ve been around Derroura, the green loop in BallyH and a nice fireroad climbing loop on the side of Sliabhnaman so far, as well as a nice loop to Salthill from the house in Galway.

Hope I stay on it..

It’s a metallic green Giant Reign, with RockShox Recon 335 front forks, and a Specialized V-groove saddle. The bike has sentimental value apart from the actual cost to me to replace it.

If anyone sees this bike either in use or for sale please get in contact with the Gardai in Henry Street, or contact me directly by phone or text on zero eight seven, six four three eight seven two five.

There’s a decent cash reward for information leading to the safe return of this bike.

Great weather for it – not too cold, not too warm, and dry.

2500 people entered, and I have to thank the Attachmate/NetIQ Sports/Social for the entry – I hope I didn’t leave ye down!

Or in other news, in the recent face-off between the WellGo replica V12 pedals vs FSA Alph Drive cranks, the cranks came out worse, bending and deforming. However both components just couldn’t overcome the might of a foot-cubed sized rock of a trail anchor on one of the last sections of the BallyHoura brown trail.

Yes I had a bit of an ‘off’, with some damage to the bike, and a bit of damage to myself too..

I was pelting down the section between the last boardwalk and the bridge in middle 7 or so, and I clipped the left pedal on a large rock on the left while trying to throw weight through a little s-bend. the bike went airborne, and I stopped heavily against the right-hand bank. The crank is bent and the pedal threads are deformed. It looks like that the pedal is okay though. I made shite of the helmet as well!

As for me, I’ve bruising in lots of places. Nothing broken (I think anyway), just a bit of sensitivity around the head, shoulder, forearm, hips, knees, neck and some scratches on my nose from the glasses!

I’ll have some damage (bike) photos soon enough.