A few months ago I found another PC in the garbage.  Much like Trash Server, this one was (mostly) functional.  But unlike trash server, I didn’t really have a use for it.   This beige mini tower sports a 733MHz Pentium III CPU, a couple smallish hard drives, and a dead CD drive.  After sitting in the corner for a few months, the new trash PC has a use.

What are we looking at?  This is a 733MHz battery charger.  While it may not be the most efficient, it was certainly the least expensive (free) option.  Why did I do it?  I have an older dual-beam bike headlamp that has a 110V/60Hz-only charger (Australian AC power is 220V/50Hz).  To charge the headlamp batteries I could either buy a new charger or buy a step-down transformer to use the current charger.  Either option would have cost more than the headlamp.

After poking around the garage, I found my automotive 12V to 110V power inverter.  This would work fine as-is, but the headlamp battery charges overnight, and I don’t have many all-night road trips planned.  Obviously I needed a 12V power source other than a Subaru, and this is where the PC comes in.  The PIII, with it’s ATX power supply, makes a great 12V power source and a convenient flat surface on which to charge the battery.

Not much is going on here, so I’ll share some minor and likely boring updates.  I haven’t mentioned any computer issues, projects or upgrades recently.  So, here is one:  I swapped the 2.5″ 500GB 5400RPM hard drive in the newest of the Mac Minis for a 2.5″ 500GB 7200RPM drive.  In an equally interesting news, I used that 5400RPM drive to upgrade the TV Mac Mini from an internal 100GB plus external 250GB to a single internal 500GB.

While waiting for my 380GB disk image to transfer to the new drive via a painfully slow SATA to USB adapter, I made some unexciting changes to the Gunnar.  After reading about cloth grip tape and the interesting ways in which it can be applied, I changed the chainstay protector.  Don’t follow?

The Gunnar did have the standard inner tube chain stay wrap.  However, the Gunnar doesn’t see much trail use these days, so the inner tube was overkill.  I would just leave the chainstay bare, but it is pretty beat up.  What to do?  Start with two colors of vinyl electrical tape and a lot of patience.  Electrical tape isn’t the easiest to work with as it stretches, folds and sticks to everything (it is tape, after all). After several attempts, this was the result:

While not pictured, the grey and black electrical tape matches the grey and black Gunnar logos.  Oh, and this technique also works with inner tubes.  Inner tubes are easier to work with, protect the frame better, and will probably soon end up on the Eriksen:

I’ve decided to ride in the 2010 Mutual Community Challenge Tour, which consists of riding one of the stages of the Tour Down Under. This year the stage starts in Noorwood and ends in Goolwa, and is 160.5km long.

In preparation, I’ve been riding the Gunnar on many of the local bike bikeways and trails. These maps have been very useful.  Yesterday I managed 123km in a little over five hours. My average speed was almost 5kph off of this ride, which did involve riding in a group, but I still have some work to do. A couple weeks ago I rode around 83km, and a couple weeks before that I rode around 100km.  These rides, in addition to regular XC rides on the Eriksen, should put me in fairly good shape.

The tour is in January, so I think I have plenty of time to prepare. My last tour was the 2006 MS 150. The dual-century option I chose was about 332km over two days, so hopefully this 160km won’t be too bad.

I think I need more links in this post.