xendistar.co.uk

Here is the situation, I needed some USB leads for work tomorrow, I thought I had some spares cables in my cable box at home but when I checked they were no where to be found. As I am leaving at the crack of dawn (or just after) I decide to go to the local techno store and buy some leads. Unfortunately the first shop only had one 1.5mtr lead and I was not going to pay £11 for a 3mtr lead. Just across the road was PCHell……sorry I meant PCWorld, not my favourite shopping place but when needs must etc. etc.

So having found the cable section after many minutes of searching (think 3inch high labels on the top of the racking), I could not believe what I was seeing a “HP High Performance USB Cable”………………….£54.99 you must be having a giraffe, in fact you are probably having the whole dam safari park!!! How the hell do they have any justification for charging such an insane price for a bit of cable?? It is even more sad to think that somebody will go into PCWorld not knowing any better and come out having purchased (that should read, having been ripped off purchasing) one of these cables.

It goes without saying that I left PCWorld without purchasing any cables from them. As the wife wanted to do some shopping in Tesco, I had a look in their Computer\Techno section and ended up purchasing 3 USB 1.5mtr cables (USB Type A – B, the sort used for connecting a PC to a printers) for £4.99 each.

So there you go, PCWorld the current No1 contender for Rip Off Shop of the year, unless you know different??

While I would hate to tempt fate by saying the tide is turning but at least this week a couple of things have gone my way for once rather than going against me. First thing to go my way was finding an Avid Brakes Bleed kit at nearly half price. Searching the Internet I found the kits available from £39 to £45, then I found All Terrain Cycles who were selling the kit at £24.98 (click here for details). To be perfectly honest at that price I was expecting something less than the full kit I had seen else where on the Internet, but I took the chance and ordered a kit on Tuesday night. I was impressed when the daughter phoned me to tell me a parcel had arrived for me on Thursday morning. I was even more impressed when I unwrapped the parcel and it was the full Avid bleed kit I had seen.

Having two mountain bikes with Avid hydraulic brakes, learning how to bleed my own brakes is not only going to be a useful skill to learn but also an investment as I won’t need to pay lbs prices (even though he his prices are very reasonable) to have my brakes bled in future (I hope!!).

The second thing to go my way was the fact that tonight I was able to bleed my rear brake on the Cannondale and get it working properly first time. Now I can insert the wheel without the disc binding on the brake pads, a quick spin up and down the road showed the brake working correctly.

Unfortunately I have to work tomorrow morning, so it will be an afternoon ride hopefully and a normal ride on Sunday (a first two ride weekend for a few weeks).

Something else that went my way this week (just remembered). I have now got Memory map running properly on my new PC. Since moving to the new PC I have not been able to get some maps working correctly. Well after seeking out a bit of help I got this working in the week. Hopefully this good luck streak will keep going (euro lottery hint hint!!)

I have done no riding this past week, woke the past couple of days and said sod it. In fact I had a lay in this morning to way past 10am, mind you it was nearly 2am before I went to bed. We were supposed to be going away this weekend (even took the Friday and Monday off to have a long weekend) but have had to cancel it as things have conspired to make it impossible to go away so I am thoroughly peeved with that.

I am currently sat on the sofa watching Pendulum at Glastonbury on BBC3 and typing on the Laptop, mind you I can’t use the PC as it is in the middle of backing up 235gb of data.

Came a cross this blog site earlier Coastrider 2011, the basics are Bobs has retired and is doing a coastal ride around the UK, 6000 miles in total. More info on the trip can be found here Follow Bob. Have already put a note in my diary for when he goes through Poole.

Only other news is the Bournemouth Cycle Track has opened. Went a long with my camera yesterday which failed to work due to memory card issues and the pictures I took with my phone look like a 3 year old had taken the picture. It was a dull damp day but it was interesting watching the bike goes round and that banking is steeper than you think.

If breaking the home computer last weekend was not enough and breaking the Canondale the weekend before, I have broken the Whyte this weekend. I fitted a new chain (Sram PC971) on Saturday morning ready for another ride with Dorset Rough Rider. The chain had just reached the .75 mark on my Park Tool chain checker. With the chain changed, everything seemed ok on the bike stand so I loaded the bike on to the car I set off to the meeting point. No sooner were we off down the Castleman Trail towards Delph woods and I noticed that putting any pressure on the pedals was causing the chain to jump. I am not sure why as I put a new cassette (Sram PG990) on the bike at the last chain change because I had overlooked the chain wear and when I did check it was beyond 1% and a new chain was skipping on the cassette. I carried on with the ride choosing lower gears rather than pushing a higher gear hoping that the problem is only a minor mismatch and the chain will bed in. It seems to have improved but if I try to push a higher gear up hill it will try and skip.

Despite the chain problems yesterday ride was very good, plenty of new areas (to me) were ridden and when it came to the hills I was able to hold my own on most of them, towards the end I was at the back but I was not miles behind. By the time we got back to the starting point my legs were feeling it but I had pedalled 17 miles in a group which meant it was a faster pace than I would of ridden at on my own.

This mornings ride was a normal Sunday Throop loop, unfortunately I was only a mile or so into it when problems struck. The rear brake was rubbing so I stopped to adjust the calliper when I noticed not one but two broken spokes. I can only assume that I broke them on yesterdays ride at some point and failed to notice them when I got home last night. Fortunately the wheel was still running pretty much true so I opted to carry on with the ride and take each part as it came. I avoided as many of the bumps and roots as I could and managed about 75% when I caught the edge of a root with the back wheel which made a lovely twangy noise which had me thinking I had broken another spoke or two, I decided that I won’t push my luck any further and headed for home. So currently both bikes are off the road and little chance to get them sorted until the end of the month.

To continue my theme of breakages, I seemed to have broken my credit card, I had to get some fuel for the company car, I inadvertently gave the cashier my personal credit card rather my company credit card and then wondered why it would not accept the (company credit card) pin number, I only realised when the cashier said because of all the failed attempts my card was now blocked. I phoned the credit card company up and apparently there is a password on my account now since I had the fraud earlier in the year, I don’t remember setting one for being asked for a password and I certainly have not received any notification of one being set to me. Unfortunately they can’t tell me what it is (which is fair enough) or do anything to my account until I give them the password. The only way to get the password changed is to write a letter (as in snail mail) to credit card company and ask them to reset it. Not overly impressed to be honest.

Tomorrow is weigh in night, not to sure what to expect this week, I think I have been good but don’t want to get my hopes up only for the scales to tell a different story………………

Now continuing my infrequent dip into my gallery, here another picture for you

Two kite buggies on an alien planet

There plenty more photos in my gallery (click the link)

Well the home PC front is slowly improving, I now have a home PC I can use, running Linux at home things take a little longer to set-up and resolve (no reflection on Linux just me setting it up). Things are not helped when I took the opportunity to change the version of Linux I use (think moving from Windows XP to Windows 7). I am slowly getting system back up and running, recent sucesses are printing, access to my network & USB disks and recovering my old bookmarks from the old PC hard disk. Not being helped tonight by a very slow internet.

Went for a ride last night, not sure how far I went as the gps on the phoned decided it did not want to work (what is it with me and technology lately) but it was in the area of 25 miles. From my house out to Canford Heath, then into Delph Woods and onto the CastlemanTrail, down to Upton House then back up the Castleman Trail to the Willet Arms, down to the river and along the river to Canford School then back up to Canford Heath and then home, just under 2.5 hours quite a good ride really.

Mondays weigh was what I had expected, I really need to get my head straight on my eating, it not so much my main meals but my need to snack and what I choose to snack on is what is hurting me at the moment.

A couple of blog’s ago I mentioned about my ears, well I got to the docs last Thursday and it turns out that one ear is blocked with wax and the other is half blocked. So since last week I have been putting Olive oil in my ears twice a day to soften the wax up ready for an ear syringing this coming Friday, can’t wait to be able to hear properly again.

Now for something rather silly