A quick post to follow up on my tweet last night.
I went on a very wet, cold and rainy ride last night with Paul G and Mark N. It was awesome because even though the weather said "Stay at HOME!" none of us wanted to be the one to call off the ride. Man up and ride!
The trail up Rollercoaster was nasty. The combination of recent heavy rain and the large amounts of clay in Riverdale dirt meant my wheels turned into heavy, non-mobile, clay laden donuts. It was nasty and took some work in a puddle to clean off the mess. I also noticed that my brakes were acting "quirky" - still stopping, but rather less responsive than usual.
Fast forward through some more climbing/riding/descending (Red Trail -> No Shirt, No Service -> Mother T -> Go T -> bottom end of Downtown Boogaloo -> Boogaloo Heights -> Upper Boogaloo). I was beginning to notice a significant lack of stopping power though Go T. It took some serious weight shifting to make the corners.
It was at the top of the fun valley section of Upper Boogaloo that I noticed that I pretty much had no more front brakes, they kinda worked. Still, I was in the zone so I ripped it down.
... until the last hard left just before the trail crosses the powerline. My brakes were totally gone, no stopping power, no slowing. I was going pretty quick. I forgot the golden rule of mountain biking - if you look at the tree you will hit the tree - until the last second that I went to the right between the tree of tooth loosening and a big piece of deadfall. Teeth intact, I came to a stop - giggling - and walked out and called it a ride.
On the way home I figure the combination of *a lot* of descending over the past month plus the clay conspired to eat away my brake pads faster than expected. I thought I had at least the rest of the season left in my stoppers - I am glad I was just XC riding, if it was more steep I might have less teeth!
Moral of the story - stay off your brakes in Whitehorse clay!
Hello all and Happy 2009!
This is the second MeltDown scheduled to re-occur every 6 to 8 weeks. The last event was awesome!! Thanks to all that attended and Outside the Cube for hosting.
For people unfamiliar with this event see this link: http://www.justwerks.com/site-
MeltDown 2 will again be hosted at the Outside the Cube offices, details below, where there will be some nibbles and drinks and space to chat in. There is not a lot of power available so bring fully charged devices if you are planning on bringing them.
This time around we will have a short presentation by Glen Jolly of Pinnacle Systems Consulting on the topic of:
XML: It's for more than just configuration files. When should you consider XML storage as an alternative to relational tables?
Glen will start his presentation at 5:15p and will be taking questions after.
Event Details:
Location: Outside the Cube offices - 2nd Floor, Horwoods Mall (right
above the Baked Cafe)
Time: 5pm
Date: January 12th
Duration: 1.5hrs - if people have an urge to go longer we will be migrating to a nearby pub to continue the evening!
Join the Discussion on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/group.
Last night an eager group of attendees at the MeltDown happily mingled, chatted, and (re)introduced themselves.
The evening was well attended with some awesome exchange of ideas, some possible projects discussed and a mountain of information was gathered. There was some keen interest in keeping events like this rolling and I will be doing my best to make sure this event keeps happening every 6 to 8 weeks.
There was a keen interest expressed to do a short presentation at the next MeltDown. This is exactly what the MeltDown is about - conversations on technology and all the implications it can have on us, regardless of location.
To all the people that attended: Thanks!!
To the people that could not attend: See you next time!
Special thanks to Outside the Cube for hosting this iteration and providing the snacks and drinks.
Come one, come all!
This is the first of what I hope will become a series of meet-ups for Northern based technology pundits, thinkers, visionaries, developers, tinkerers, and new arrivals looking to meet the locals! The purpose of this event is to mingle, chat, demo cool technologies and/or brag about recent cutting edge thinking in your field or specialization.
To make this work we need your presence! The inaugural event will be hosted at the Outside the Cube offices, details below, where there will be wi-fi, some nibbles and drinks and space to chat in. There is not a lot of power available so bring fully charged devices if possible. I have no doubt missed some people so please forward this on to others that fit the above description. Please RSVP via the Upcoming.org link so we can get a rough idea of the numbers. If people have an urge to go longer we will be migrating to a nearby pub to continue the evening!
We are exploring a couple of options for presentations so if you have something that you could talk about for 10 minutes or so then please join the Facebook group and we can work out the details!
Join the Discussion on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32095888353
Hope to see you out!
