Cycling UK Forum

For December through to February I am essentially off the bike, except for the odd lunchtime trip to the shops. I haven't found anything that will counteract the effects of wind chill in triggering Raynaud's phenomenon in my hands - once I start to chill, the fingers (and increasingly, the feet) just go, and nothing except whole-body heating will bring them back. It gets to the point I can't change gear or even brake safely. During November & March, I use electrically heated gloves, but they aren't enough by themselves. I've always been susceptible, but it has definitely got worse as the years pass. Fortunately, hiking, being slower and much less efficient, doesn't pose the same problems so I'm still getting some exercise (and also swimming).

I'm a bit too big for my Brompton, but not enough to stop it from being eminently rideable. My longest ride so far has been about 45 miles, from the very centre of Amsterdam out into the country, stopping for a nice meal at an outdoor restaurant, then down the Vecht and back along the BIG canal bank. Arrived back at the hotel about 11:30pm. Very pleasant, but about as far as I would want to ride it in one stretch. It's a 3-speed, with the lower gear option. Not hard work to pedal at all, just slower than a proper bike. But I was able to take it along on Eurostar!

I just switched back to using a fountain pen for handwriting (lab notebooks at work). The biros supplied are the most wretched, blotchy cheap things that give me cramp to write with for extended periods. Sometimes I buy my own fibre-tip pens, but they always seem to get lost. So I searched out my old fountain pen which dates from my schooldays (1970's), took it apart & popped it in the ultrasonic cleaner* for 30 minutes to remove the fossilized ink, popped in a new cartridge, and I'm away!

Much easier to write with, and I think it has improved my handwriting a bit, too

Max

*Every home should have a ultrasonic cleaner!

There is another contradiction on the original picture. Directly below the sign prohibiting all vehicles is another sign mandating one-way (vehicular) traffic. I suspect the 'flying motorbike' sign may have been tampered with.

Re: Capacity of batteries

Postby Trigger » Tue Apr 01, 2014 9:49 pm

kwackers wrote:

Trigger wrote:Not tried it on a meter, I just tried two or three other new batteries and got the same result.


I guess you start with the obvious, the device works and it *will* work with a new battery.

You've checked the batteries and they're good (incidentally checking with a meter isn't much use, a flat battery will show the correct voltage, the voltage only falls under load).

That leaves only one other possibility, the new batteries aren't making contact with the battery terminals. Prise them out slightly see if that works, failing that have a good look around the problem will be mechanical rather than electrical.



It's a good fit, nice spring on the -VE end. I've tried various brands of new battery and none of them make it work, the battery that is in is a rechargeable, I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

I have had a similar experience with a battery clock, which came with a single no-name AA cell. I replaced this with a Duracell AA, and it didn't work. I eventually tracked it down though. At the positive end of the battery, the Duracell has slightly 'squarer' shoulders to the case, where it steps down in diameter to the positive contact button, compared with the original. These impinged on the plastic moulding of the battery holder, keeping the battery contact button from touching the positive terminal of the holder, although it was being firmly pressed by the spring at the negative end. A bit of judicious filing of the battery holder allowed the battery to move down that extra fraction of a mm to make contact. All a bit of a faff, but worth it as this clock changes from GMT/BST and back again all by itself!

Product data sheets for Duracell alkaline batteries are available here:
http://ww2.duracell.com/en-US/Global-Technical-Content-Library/Product-Data-Sheets.jspx?icn=Prim/PrimNav/Product-Data-Sheets&cc=Primary
A 'proper' LED light should be a constant power discharge, but I would wager a modest sum 99.9% are closer to constant-resistance load (i.e. the light gradually dims).

The Brompton battery rear light is BS marked, and is available as an aftermarket accessory. It includes a reflector, and I think the marking applies to both light & reflector - I'm not able to check at the moment. This is made by Spanninga, and against expectations, fits the standard two holes back-of-rack bracket. I've got one on my Giant.

Everywhere is in walking distance, given enough time.

There is an inscription found, I believe, at the Hadrian's Wall fort of Vindolanda, recording the presence of a cohort of Syrian archers. They almost certainly walked* all the way...

*well except for the wet bits, anyway

Sorry I haven't got a map handy at the moment. If you mean the 'white road' that heads South from a roundabout at in the middle of the Romsey bypass, on the South side of the town, that is a private drive to Broadlands House (although it used to be the public road until about 1850, when it was diverted to the current route of the A27, as part of the 'deal' that saw the construction of the railway branch line from Redbridge - now the Wessex Main Line)

There is a paved pathway on the left hand side of the A27 which many cyclists use to get access to Lee Lane, by the Ashbridge railway bridge. I've never been sure if this is actually a cycle path, as the signs are confusing. The recent reconstruction of the rail bridge included provision for cyclists to cross the A27 from this path to enter Lee Lane, but this is no guarantee! Outside rush hour, I'd probably use the road as the path is narrow and liable to be overgrown at this time of year. But the surface is (I am told) not bad. It's a 50 limit, dead straight, single carriageway with good visibility, and a moderate level of cycle traffic.

A slight correction: the service is approximately every 30 minutes, with trains alternating SWT/FGW. Both companies use class 158s, but most (not all) of the FGW sets have a third middle car added. This is actually a modified driving car from another set, with the driver's cabin sealed off

Two rail companies operate trains on this route: SWT, as part of the 'figure-of-6' Salisbury-Romsey-Southampton-Romsey' service, and FGW, as part of the Wessex Main line routes (Brighton/Portsmouth to Bristaol/Gt Malvern/Cardiff). The FGW trains are 3-car sets, and run about once per hour at about 20 past the hour. The SWT trains run once per hour at about 10 to the hour: these are 2-car sets. The SWT service stops at the intermediate stations & is a bit slower as a result.
You may have better luck on an FGW train rather than an SWT, but the official capacity is 2 bikes: however, reservations are possible on this route. On the other hand, the SWT trains are generally less full outside peak hours

Most unusual animal I've ever seen in the garden was a polecat. I came down one morning, opened the curtains, and there it was, sniffing round the water butt not 6 feet away. Unfortunately, it had gone by the time I returned with my camera
According to Wikipedia, the New Forest is a bit far south for polecats, but I had the opportunity, a few days later, to talk with a ferret expert, who showed me an orphaned polecat he happened to have handy, and it was unmistakeable.
Really a rather attractive animal - to look at!

Dogs? You should worry! Riding in to work this morning a cow* wandered across the road right in front of me and forced me to brake.

*to be more accurate, a bull calf

From Ken Shirriff's analysis of fake a iPhone charger:

You might think USB chargers are interchangeable and plugging a USB device into a charger is straightforward, but it turns out that it's a mess of multiple USB charging standards, devices that break the rules, and proprietary protocols used by Sony and Apple. The underlying problem is that a standard USB port can provide up to 500mA, so how do chargers provide 1A or more for faster charging? To oversimplify, a charger indicates that it's a charger by shorting together the two middle USB pins (D+ and D-). Proprietary chargers instead connect different resistances to the D+ and D- pins to indicate how much current they can provide.

This means e.g. an Apple iPad charger can charge an iPad at a high rate, or a non-Apple device at either of the 'normal' rates (100mA & 500mA), but may not be able to charge a non-Apple device at a high rate, even if the charger could provide the extra current if it was asked nicely.

You can learn more than you ever wanted to know about USB chargers here, and one particular horror story here.