Powertap problem

I went to Velo yesterday afternoon. My Powertap is giving me grief.

The brand new batteries I had put in the hub two weeks ago were already empty again. At least that's what I thought when there was no signal during my ride with John yesterday. The battery life span gradually shortened since I bought the Powertap. Right from the start they never lasted the 300 hours they are supposed to last but at least I got three to four months out of them (approximately 120 hours or 3000-4000 km). This life span became shorter and shorter until, in January this year, I managed to do three or four rides before I had to change them again. I saw Velo in January about it and they said they would contact the distributor and get back to me. They never did.

So with my wheel and CPU I went there again yesterday afternoon. It was nice of them to change the batteries again but they couldn't find a problem. No moist in the hub, no obvious fault. They cleaned the contacts, bearings and did what they could but the short of it is: the hub is not sending any signal now, not even with brand new batteries. It's dead and going through every troubleshooting advice on the Saris website and their instruction manuals can not wake it up.

I sent an email to Saris customer support last night and hope to hear from them soon.

The tests I had scheduled for next week - I guess I will have to postpone them.

Has anybody experienced this problem before or got any advice on what else I might be able to try?

I'm back

What can I say? A lot is on my mind, so many things that I feel I’m going to explode.

Two weeks ago I was pining to get on my bike or update my blog but there was no spare time to do either. It stressed me. And then I couldn’t stand this anxious feeling any longer and the only two things I could afford to drop were riding and writing. I could hardly decide to skip work, couldn’t I? I knew I would have plenty of time to ride and write again once my parents were gone home and once I stopped trying to squeeze everything into my hectic life I relaxed. It felt liberating ... until I started wondering why I'm riding and blogging at all.

My parents left last Tuesday, full of beautiful memories. Tears at the airport, but only after I had turned around and walked away.

Now I have plenty of time but no motivation to get out on the road nor to sit down and concentrate.

I feel exhausted from all the excitement and turmoil of the past two weeks or maybe even months. Maybe it goes back even further, all the way back to Alberto's accident and my accident and racing in Bright and my parents arriving and Trouble dying and visiting Ayers Rock and my birthday and the business trip to Darwin and my parent’s good bye.

And now the house is quiet and empty and the rain makes the world look grey. Not grey in a sad, depressed way. Rather grey in qualm, centred way.

I'm back and I have lots to write about, so much that I feel I'm going to explode if I don't get it down soon.

And the bike? The training program received a make-over. I mightn’t have made it out of bed at 5:45 am but I rode with John in the rain and it felt great.

Respect

Can one demand it or must one earn it?

I'm not a journalist nor is this blog intended to provide social or political commentary on events of the cycling world. Someone doped? Killed on the road? Won or lost a race? Joined or left a team? It's mostly outside the normal field of interest of this blog.

We returned late last night from Ayers Rock. This morning I searched for that front page Brisbane Courier Mail article that stirred a huge debate. Countless outraged tweets, forum posts, emails and comments on blogs popped up all over the internet, while I enjoyed the red beauty of the Australian interior.

Possibly the most scenic dinner setting

I found plenty of newspaper articles about cyclists, a great blog post by Matthew Keenan on SBS's Cycling Central and also the one in question.

I'm torn between sharing my personal view or keeping with my blog theme. Lots has been said and I'm afraid that all I will do is fanning the flames generated by this "news" story.

My New Year's resolution this year? What's that got to do with a newspaper article you might think! I didn't mention my New Year's resolution this year because it meant having to admit to sin. I've decided to come out and admit it in public now. In future I will obey all road rules and stop running red lights. As with every bad habit, it's hard to kick, especially at five o'clock in the morning at that traffic light that my 65kg body+bike combo doesn't trigger and I'm running late and friends are waiting for me at another intersection.

I slipped once, ran a red light that morning I met Colin at the Regatta Hotel. It's a while ago, at least a month. When cyclists swoosh pass me while I'm waiting at a red light I get annoyed now.

I do believe that respect has to be earned.

Often I make eye contact with the driver in a car next to me or behind me when waiting at a traffic light. I smile. Often! It breaks the ice. When I plan to turn right I indicate to the driver what my intentions are and more often now I get a smile in return, and if not a smile than at least a nod and plenty of space once we get moving again.

It may take many years of debate and education and government intervention to turn around the situation on Australian roads but at least I do my little bit. Please do yours, too!

Creating memories

Smack bang in the middle of the Australian continent is a rock. There is not much else out there.

Riding my bike alongside two of my Australian friends yesterday I mentioned - a passing comment only - that my parents and I are off to see the rock tomorrow. Excited exclamations followed, how nice it was of me to take my parents out there. They hadn't been.

It appears that not many Australians in fact have been because my work colleagues showed very similar reactions. Most Germans have, though. And Japanese probably, too. Maybe it's the product of some clever marketing guru at Tourism Australia (not that they had many clever marketing ideas in the past decade) to cajole tourists into the red centre of Australia? A big rock. Made in Taiwan. There's not much else out there, and Australians love their 'big' things, "The Big Banana", "The Big Pineapple", "The Big Prawn" and I don't know how many more big things.

The whole reason I'm taking my parents to Uluru is to end their exposure to ridicule by their German friends. "What? You guys haven't seen Ayers Rock? You haven't really been to Australia if you haven't seen Ayers Rock!"

I'm excited to go. It's been over ten years and I heard it rained recently so we may even witness an once-in-a-decade spectacle: the wildflowers! Stay tuned for photos on Twitter.

The downside to all this traveling is missing important training days. With work requiring my presence in Darwin the week later, I will put an even bigger dent into my training schedule. There is no point stressing about it now. The training schedule will be re-arranged when my parents fly back home. They have less than three weeks left and I haven't been able to talk them into extending their stay. (I bet AMR just cringed reading this)

Off to create memories ...

Cloudland*

Like every child I often looked up to big white fluffy clouds in the sky and imagined them to be gigantic fairy floss. In my childish innocence I thought one could lay in them like in a big bed of fluffy cotton balls. I dreamt of reaching the clouds.

When we approached Mt Mee yesterday, we rode right into them. But there was no comfortable white fluffiness, only rain, heavy at times. So with the clouds so near, in my adult imagination I pretended to be riding high up in the French Alps.

The rain pelted on the veranda roof when we were still in bed. Alberto got up and made coffee. We weren't going. Then we were. I didn't mind the rain, at least not once we were soaked the first time and that was very early into the 97 km ride. I even enjoyed the rain. It was warm rain, more like liquid sunshine really.

Later in the day, long after I had dried and tried to recover from the effort of keeping up with three strong guys for so many hills, messages would come in like "I can't believe you got out in the rain" and I wondered why people fear riding in the rain. It's fun.

* Cloudland was a famous Brisbane dance hall that was demolished in 1982.