The last race of the 2009/2010 AMTBC Summer Series was yesterday.  The race was held at Flinders University on some of the trails near car park no. 3.

This was the first time I had ridden on these trails at Flinders as they are normally closed to bicycles.  The course was a mix of singletrack and fire road with some moderately technical sections and a fair amount of elevation change.  The weather was cool at around 20°C with light rain starting about half way through the race.

As in the previous two races, I was in the C grade.  The C grade raced four laps of the roughly 4.5km course.  This time I decided not to lead from the start, and let someone else set the pace.  This worked out for the first couple of laps where I held a close third or fourth place.  But, by the third lap my fourth place was significantly behind third.  In the end, I finished in fourth with a time of 1:03:08, 30 seconds behind third place, and with fifth and sixth place not far behind.

A brief update on the BB7 brake upgrade:  The BB7s worked very well in the wet and muddy conditions.  My feel for the brakes has improved significantly in the almost three months that I’ve been using them.  I initially had some concerns about rear wheel brake modulation, but the modulation seems on par with the Motolites now that the brakes are fully bedded-in and I’m more used to them.  Also worth noting is that after the initial setup, the brakes haven’t needed any adjustment.  Overall, I am very happy with these brakes.

My official results; hours:minutes:seconds:

For comparison, grade average lap times; minutes:seconds (number of laps completed):

Do you want more data?  Well, I noticed that a large number of people in my race grade were named David.  In fact, 7.8% of people racing at Flinders were named David.  Furthermore, 66% of those named David finished adjacent to another David.  Overall, those named David had a lap average time of 16:29, which is 29 seconds faster than the field average.

Helmet-cam video of my first lap:

My second AirPort Express died.  But, a quick search suggested that the problem might be as simple as a dead power supply.  This sounds simple, but like most Apple products, the AirPort Express is not easy to open.  After a long struggle, the AirPort was open and it was clear that the power supply was dead.

According to this site, the AirPort Express requires +5 VDC and +3.3 VDC.  Not surprisingly, a standard ATX power supply provides 3.3, 5 and 12 VDC.  If you think you may have already read something like this, you have.

This time I didn’t use the power supply from the PIII I pulled from the garbage, but the power supply in the P4 ‘Trash Server‘ (that I pulled from the garbage).  The original reason I wanted to use this AirPort Express was that the wifi card in Trash Server hasn’t been very reliable, and there is no easy way to run a cable to the server.  So, Trash Server had a conveniently unused power cable with +5VDC, +3.3VDC and ground.   In less time than it took to open the AirPort Express, I spliced the power cable from the old power supply into Trash Server’s power supply, added a zip tie, and had a working network again.

Trash Server in its element.  I chose to attach the AirPort Express to the outside of the server to increase wifi range.  But, you’d have to agree that it does look nice.  Right?  Anyway, an external antenna could be easily added to the AirPort Express; I just don’t happen to have any extras around.  One AirPort Express easily covers our entire house, so I don’t think I’ll be adding any antennas anytime soon.

If you have a dead AirPort Express and don’t happen to have your own Trash Server, you can power a dead AirPort Express from many sources including USB, or a spare power brick.  See 2 Ways to “Fix” an Airport Express for more details.

Thursday was the third and final ‘Dirt Crit’ in the 2009/2010 Summer Series.  I raced in the first Dirt Crit, but missed the second (oops).  Anyway, I finished last in the B grade in the first race, and decided to try out the C grade this time.

The B grade in this race was quite large with 15 riders.  I began the race out in front, not because I planned on winning from the start, but rather because I didn’t want to inhale the dust from 28 other wheels.  So, I ended up holding the lead for 6 of 15 laps, and ultimately finished in 4th.  From what I remember of grade school, I think this would get one of those purple ribbons, or perhaps they were green…

Back to the race.  During the time I was leading the race, I considered the group of riders not too far behind me, and assumed they were waiting for me to either make a mistake or wear myself out.  Neither really happened, but they eventually made up the ground and passed me near the end of the race.  I suppose I could have used some strategy and not lead the first half of the race, but I didn’t.  Maybe next time.  Overall, I’m very happy with the results, and I think that I’ve found the right race grade.  On to the results:

My official results; minutes:seconds:

For comparison, grade average lap times; minutes:seconds (number of laps completed):

The first Dirt Crit was held on the same course, so the results are comparable.  And, in comparison to the first race my average time dropped from 2:20 to 2:12 per lap.