Glop

It doesn’t snow very often in Ireland but when it does, the country breaks down. Schools close, roads close, drivers forget how to drive and skid all over the road. People drive up into the mountains and have to get rescued by mountain rescue teams on skis

Still though, it’s great fun. However, not so great for road cycling. The road tyres are just a bit too thin for all that snow. Mountain bikes now, that’s the way to do it. So on Saturday, two weeks ago, myself and two others from the Cycling forum on boards.ie decided to see how far we could get into Wicklow.  We set out on our mountain bikes and one studded-tyre equipped cyclo-cross bike. I brought my Nikon D50 with me and got some good photos.

Studded Cyclocross

We set off from Dundrum, went out by Enniskerry and from there towards Djouce and Balinastoe. There was snow on the side of the road on the way out, but nothing too bad. Then we got to the turn off for Djouce/Balinastoe. The road was covered in compacted snow and ice.

After some slipping and sliding, it was off the bike and letting some air out of the tyres. Sorted, off we went. We stopped just before the hill going up by Djouce and got some photos.

Snow Fields

This was just a field, covered in snow, with the hills in the background. Fantastic. So on we went, the hill by Djouce wasn’t a problem like we thought it would be. On past Balinastoe and we got to the junction of the road going to the Sally Gap. One of the hearty trio departed and the two of us went on to see how far we could get.

Heading toward the Sally Gap

We encountered snow pretty quickly, but kept going. Once we got to the base of Luggala, that was when the snow really started to pile up ! Back off the bike, more air out of the tyres. Almost running on nothing at this stage.

Heading up Luggala

Unfortunately we got almost two thirds of the way to the top, but could go no further on the bikes.

Had to walk up the bikes !

We were determined to get to the top though and see Lough Tay. So we left the bikes and continued on foot. We bumped into some entertaining sights along the way

A guy just cruised down past us on his snowboard !

Eventually we got to the top and the view were just stunning. I’d never seen that much snow in Ireland before.

The view of Lough Tay

View over the hills

Back down we went then, skidding and slidding on the bikes, really great fun. A bit of a slog on the way home, but absolutely worth it. One of the best cycles I’ve ever been on

I’m still alive ! I thought I’d resurrect the blog a bit with some of my bicycle related shenanigans and anything else that comes my way. So first thing is the suspension fork on my mountain bike !

Manitou Axel Plus

If you have a Specialized 2004 Rockhopper, you may have a Manitou Axel fork on it. My basic Rockhopper has the Axel Plus fork. If one searches for this fork, one tends to find squat ! The Axel Plus doesn’t seem to exist. However, you may come across a service manual for the 2003 Manitou Axel range. The Comp, Elite and Super. I believe the Axel Plus is the Comp and the 2004 range seems identical to the 2003 range. As my fork started making strange clunking noises recently, I decided I better have a look at it. The fork would compress, but then not de-compress fully until receiving a whack. This de-compression was the clunk noise and tended to only happen when going at a bit of speed downhill. Slightly worrying.

I had a look at the service manual, bought some suspension fluid and also on a gamble, bought a softer spring for the 2004 Manitou Super. The manual said that my weight was just within range for the softer spring and I thought it might make a bit of a difference. So first off, remove the fork from the bike.

Fork Legs

To remove the lower legs, remove the bottom hex key bolts. The right leg (left side in the picture) takes a 2mm hex key. When this is removed, pull out the adjusting knob. Then use a 8mm hex key, inserted into the fork to remove the small bolt.

On the other leg, just use a 4mm hex key to remove the bolt. Grab the shiney metal stanchions in both hands and use your thumbs to push down the on the lower legs, pushing against the rubber seals. Keep pushing it down until the lower legs come off completely.

You should be able to clean the upper legs and the containing lower legs. I didn’t clean mine thoroughly as I didn’t have appropriate replacement grease for the inside. They were fairly clean anyway. It’s probably a good idea to re-attach the legs at this point as it makes things easier when replacing the suspension fluid and the spring.

To change the spring, unscrew the top left cap. (The one with the 2mm hex bolt in it.) Remove the bolt and pop the cap off. You can use an adjustable spanner then to open the 20mm knob (if you don’t have a 20mm socket). As this unscrews, the spring will pop out, attached.

Fork spring

You can clean and re-grease the spring. I tried to replace it with the spring I bought, but the spring appeared to be too small, and didn’t decompress the fork fully. I re-install the original spring.

Fork Fluid

To replace the suspension oil, remove the top right cap. Again, I just used the adjustable spanner. Pour out the old fluid. Take a long hex key or something long and push it into the open fork leg. This will force down the internal plunger and force the remaining fluid up. Pour this out. Pump the fork, pour out, push the internal plunger and pour out, repeating until no more fluid comes out. Pour in the correct amount, doing the same plunging technique to ensure the fluid goes everywhere it should. Re-insert the cap and tighten.

This is where I encountered a wee problem. The adjuster knob on the bottom of the right leg should screw in. Unfortunately I could not get the screw to remain attached after I screwed it in and then compressed the fork. Perhaps the internal plastic it screws into was damaged, but it didn’t appear so. The fork functions without it, so I just had to leave it.

Re-attach the fork to the bicycle. Be careful not to be a complete moron and put the fork on the wrong way around.

I saw a deal on komplett.ie last week for 16GB memory keys. They were selling them for 150 euro. I thought to myself,

“Wow ! 16GB, I didn’t realise they had ones that big. I’ll have a gander at eBay and see how much they cost.”

And there were several on eBay, a good bit cheaper than Kompletts 150 euro. In a moment of madness I decided to buy one. I found a gent selling them from Korea.

Now. In the past, my brother had bought a 4GB memory key while travelling through China. The 4GB key in fact turned out to be a 64MB key. Something of a disappointment for him (and for me because he gave it to me). So I was a bit wary of buying this 16GB key, as it looked very similar to the previous. However, the gents feedback was good, so I said right I’ll go for it. 79 euro, 21 of which was postage.

Around a week later, the USB key arrived in the Post. (This is a miracle in itself, An Post has a habit of losing/delaying my post). I whipped out the key from the generic, no-name brand packaging and took off the cap to stick it into the computer. The cap remained where it was and the rest of the casing came off, exposing the PCB. I was rather surprised.

I put the casing back on, gently removed the cap and put it into the USB slot. The drive popped up on my desktop. So I decided to test it properly. I used dcfldd to write a 14 GB file of text to my /tmp partition and then used split to break this file into 14 1GB files and then md5sum to get hashs for each file. I copied all the files onto the memory stick and then rehashed them. The last two files hashed correctly, none of the others. “Arse”. The stick was only around 2GB large.

I emailed the guy I bought it off, who promptly offered me a refund of my money (minus the postage costs). I said no thanks, I’d like a genuine 16GB key please. He said

Hello.

First of all, we truly apologize for this matter.
Please understand the fact that we have actually never opened the package
and therefore, did not know it has the problem.

Most of problems occur due to the incompetibility of motherboards and
USB-HC technology
since 16GB is the new model with completely new technology.

He also wanted me to send back an RMA form which listed the details of my motherboard.

So USB-HC ? What is USB-HC, I’ve never heard of this. I googled for this new USB protocol and of course found nothing. USB HC is Host Controller. It means nothing, it is not some new USB standard. I replied saying this and again that I would like a genuine 16GB memory stick.

The response to this was

Sorry once again for the terrible inconvenience.
Can you please complete the RMA we sent you?

We will check with your motherboard first.

Thank you very much.

At this stage it seemed obvious that the guy was going to get my motherboard model and say “Oh ! Sorry, not compatible, can’t send you a new one, we’ll just refund you”. I needed something more than saying that USB-HC was nonsensical. I opened the memory stick and took a photo of the memory chip on it and sent it to another of my numerous brothers.

The chip was a Samsung flash NAND chip. He found a sheet on the Samsung website describing the serial number. This sheet told us that the solitary chip onboard was in fact a 2GB chip as I’d already thought.I emailed the guy back with this new information saying

According to the Samsung website, the details for that particular chip
state it as being 2GB large.

I’m afraid it is not an issue of incompatability with my motherboard.

Could you please send me a genuine 16GB memory key.

He replied saying that the stick has multiple memory modules to make up the 16GB and that the rest must have failed, only one was still working. More crud. There is definitely only a single flash chip on that PCB. He then followed up with another email saying

You mean by Genuine which I believe is refering to normal USBs using one
nand tech not the USB HC tech.

Sorry but we have HC technology ones only.
I don’t think there is any one nand 16gb available yet.

So, it was obvious at this stage I wasn’t going to get my new USB key. I got the cost of the key refunded. If I post the key back, I will get the cost of delivery (21 Euro) refunded. I don’t think I will post it back, seeing as it will cost me money to post the key to Korea. 21 Euro for a 2GB USB key is not terribly unreasonable.

After some quick looking around I discovered that fake USB keys are actually a big problem, not just on eBay or dodgy Chinese back allys. This is a good article about someone buying one from a store in Canada. There is also an eBay page describing the problems with USB keys.

The seller of the USB key certainly sounded genuine and did refund me the money. He also does have a high rating for other items. It is possible he was fed the USB-HC and multiple module stuff from his wholesale seller. He did ask me to describe in detail the problem so as he could deal with the manufacturer. I did this and also suggested cancelling his current sale of the 16GB keys.

He has not done this as yet. My brother also pointed me at toolhaus.org. As such I suspect he is well aware of the nature of the memory keys.

Addendum: I changed my mind and will post it back. 78 cent from AnPost and the guy will refund me as soon as I send a photo of the key in the envelope. This way I can use the 21 euro to buy a genuine 2GB key with a casing that doesn’t fall apart !

Update 15/May/2007 As soon as I sent the above photo, my postage cost was refunded.  

Tiddlywiki is a great tool I came across recently while looking for something to manage my data. I’d previously used hnb but found it slightly restrictive. I couldn’t easily check it when away from my machine. Checking it requires ssh’ing into my pc in college, which requires a sshkey that I don’t always carry around with me and also making sure I had Internet access !

I don’t recall exactly how I ended up encountering the TiddlyWiki tool, I think I was reading through a Nokia 770 email list and saw it mentioned. I was really impressed when I saw what it could do.

Tiddlywiki is a wiki, just like MediaWiki, TWiki etc. The difference with TiddlyWiki is that it is completely client side software. The wiki consists of a single file with a good deal of javascript in it. When a new entry is added to the wiki, that file itself is edited by the Javascipt and the new entry stored in a div. This means you only need to use your browser to manage and store your information, todo, notes, ideas, documentation etc.

There are several tutorials linked from the tiddlywiki website which explain how to get going. It does take a bit of getting used to before one starts getting things done, but the learning curve is well worth it. Data is entered into constructs called Tiddlers. By typing in a wiki formatted word like AnExampleOfAWikiWord, this word becomes a link to a new Tiddler called AnExampleOfAWikiWord. Clicking on the link bring up the tiddler, you edit it and save your data, nice and simple.

Another great thing about TiddlyWiki is how extensible it is. Numerous plugins have been written for it, from simple things like adding timestamps by inserting a {ts} to comprehensive calendering and ToDo systems. A neat thing about the plugins is how easy it is to install them. A plugin distributed with the default wiki file is an import plugin. If you see a tiddlywiki you like, point the import plugin at the url of the wiki page and it will list every Tiddler on the page. You can pick which ones you want to import and it will save them into the local file. A decent plugin website is http://www.tiddlytools.com. The trick is to keep your Tiddlywiki as simple as possible. There are an awful lot of plugins out there that are just useless and slow the system down.

Along the same lines, there are also plenty of nice themes for TiddlyWiki. Check out http://tiddlythemes.com/ for a very nice site with some decent themes.

Of course, there are serverside implementations of TiddlyWiki so as to write data back to a server, at the moment I carry mine around on a usb key and store it in a version control repository. I’ll probably move it onto a web server soon enough.