Last night when I saw the new Mac Book Pro I was turned off by the lack of USB-3 ports. To me that lack of ports made the machine unattractive as I do not want to use dongles or pay a premium for thunderbolt drives.
Ingestion of data from fitness devices is by USB ports so I would need a dongle for that. I would also need a USB to Thunderbolt 3 adaptor to ingest from the SxS cards I use with the Sony PMW-200.
The Mac Book Pro becomes interesting when you look at the storage options of either one or two terabytes of internal storage. My current machine has about 250 gigabytes of internal storage so I only keep the project that I am currently editing. Once I finish I shift it to an external drive. With the new system I would have more headroom. I could easily have a number of projects on the machine and would need a thunderbolt 3 to USB-3 dongle for archiving that material.
It means that I would use my current mac book pro for my fitness trackers, USB-3 drives and more. The new machine would be a dedicated editing machine as my current MBP was until the Mac Book air stopped being a reliable machine.
As the investment for a new machine is so high I would wait until I have a number of projects to work on. At that point I might consider upgrading to the new machine. You might also remember that I posted that what I wanted was a dual screen editing laptop where the keyboard part of the machine would be for the timeline whilst the monitor would be for the playout monitors and more. With the touch bar we’re a step closer to what I wanted.
Mountain biking is a sport that is growing in popularity. We see that technology is keeping up with the riders. Between suspension, specialist tires and safety equipment the sport has had the freedom to become more adventurous. Bigger jumps, more travel, stronger components all allow the sport to become more extreme.
In this video we see a fourth option. An electric mountain bike. I like the idea of mountain biking this way. I like the notion that the mountain bike will assist with getting up the hill more efficiently. Several times I have cycled up a 10% gradiant for a distance of 12.7 kilometres. With the mountain bike I use it takes 2 hours of almost non stop pedalling. It leaves me with little energy to enjoy going off road at the top. With a flyer I’d let the bike get me to the fun part and then use my own power to play up there.
I won’t buy one of these bikes but the video is interesting to watch.
Today I participated in two Zwift events, a social ride and a race. The social ride was one hour of pedalling at a comfortable pace trying to keep to the same speed as the group. Rather than trying to be as fast as the group I was trying to pace myself to be within the peloton rather than riding off.
Social rides are amusing because you start on the peer and wait for the counter to get down to zero and when it does you go from being on a home trainer in the real world cycling on a home trainer in the virtual world to cycling on the roads of Watopia. Social rides are interesting because you have people from Australia, England, Denmark and many other countries, so long as they are in a timezone where it would be reasonable to cycle at such a time of day.
It’s the first time that I get out of bed, look at the schedule for Zwift events and feel excited about doing something virtual like riding a bike. Keep in mind that today I could have burned diesel by heading to St Triphon to climb with people I know. I felt no motivation to drive that far so I was happy to stay home.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that riding a bike on Zwift is riding an apartment bike because it isn’t. It’s similar to riding a bike in the real world, with real hills, virtual drafting, virtual fellow drivers, no cars and more. What is real is the conviviality, the desire to share a few phrases, the cheering and the desire to ride as a group.
During the ride we did sprint twice and on the first sprint I beat my personal record and on the second go I had less energy remaining. During the first sprint I put out up to 934 watts in theory. That’s enough energy for me to rest on the handle bars for a little bit before catching my breath and continuing.
When I ride in the real world it’s usually alone and I race against myself but when it’s on Zwift I have a choice between virtual social rides, virtual races, training, or just a “as the wind takes me” option. Of course there is no wind, I mean that you ride for the pleasure of riding.
A Race up a Volcano
The second ride of the morning, about 15 minutes after the first ride finished was a 15km race up the side of the volcano on the Watopia map. I thought that with my abilities I should select group D. I pedalled during the countdown to keep warm and a few seconds before the race started I pedalled at a higher cadence to compensate for the lag that I experience with my current setup. I started well but I tired more quickly than most. While I was trying to maintain 200 or more watts they were racing off into the distance. I found myself in 110th or lower positions but I continued pedalling. I tried to maintain between 180 watts and 220 watts. I kept looking at the riders beside me and most were category C riders.
Keeping up
I worked hard to keep the power up and at moments when I felt that I needed to rest I changed gear, changed my cadence, but tried to keep the cadence up. Usually my cadence is about 85 when I’m riding alone but in this race, as I tried to keep up it reached an average of 105 strokes per minute. Over the duration of the race I was generating about 2.61 watts per kilo.
I didn’t know what to expect from the other racers so my goal was simply not to be dropped into last position. After that and as I got closer to the end my goal was to be within the top one hundred so although my body wanted me to slow down I kept working at it. I was pushing at over 200 watts for 14:45 in this race.
I spent hours and days training on Zwift before I felt ready to try a race. I trained for multiple sessions and those sessions got me used to pushing beyond my comfort levels for minutes at a time and it paid off in this race. If I continue training I can aim for better positioning. Today I was in 6th place in D category out of over 40 riders and 99th out of 180+ riders. So half of the racers have trained more than me. I can continue training and see where I come up next time.
What I like about the race, that I don’t have except for sprints is information on how far it is to the end of the race. If I know for how many more kilometres I have to make an effort then psychologically I can push harder. This was just a short race at 15km and I would struggle on a longer race and I would struggle on the flat.
I want to participate in more races and I need to choose which training course to attempt next. It’s nice to race virtual cyclists rather than real cars, e-bikes or people on lighter bikes than the one I ride in the physical world. In the virtual world today I was riding a trek emonda. This might be geeky but it’s pushing me to be fitter so fewer people can object.
Today was the Global Action day for Burma. The event was centered around a march from the Tate Britain, via the Houses of Parliament before arriving at Trafalgar Square at which point several speeches were made.
You can recognise those who were part of the protest for the red ribbons they wore and the t-shirts.
I met two friends who were taking photographs, Danfung Dennis and Crina Boros. Danfung has had quite a few interesting assignments. Crina was doing an MA whilst I was completing my final year of studies.
I have just three kilometres to go before I reach the Activity goal of walking 298.8 kilometres in a month. Reaching the goal in and of itself is relatively easy. What makes it a challenge is doing it during a pandemic when you need to keep a safe distance from everyone. Some days I got tired of avoiding people so I felt like giving up but I kept at it and now I know I will succeed.
298.8 kilometres is shorter than the distance you cover for the Via Alpina from Lichtenstein to Montreux on the Via Alpina. I didn’t have much vertical travel walking locally but I did get to know the local countryside better. I’ve explored even more variants than over the last two years.
I avoided the shops entirely today. I know they will be busy and that it will be impossible to avoid people. It’s not worth the frustration. During COVID-19 as a single person you have all of the pressures of society without any of the advantages.
It’s a fantastic time for couples. Imagine being with your loved one 24 hours a day, imagine not having to see each other’s friends. It’s like a couple’s retreat or a honeymoon but rather than lasting for a weekend, or a week it’s lasting for up to a few months. Such a rare and privileged position to be in. I’d have found it so good when I was in relationships not to have to go out and see their friends sometimes.
During my walk I saw this sign from a theatre along one of my routes. I also saw that the Barbecue and Flammenkuche place is still going. I’d like to think that rather than ordinary life being frozen as Chappate joked in one of his cartoons life has been reset and now it’s time to adapt to a new way of being.
If we’re lucky enough not to be trapped at home then this is the time when we invent new careers, new way of doing things. We can be early adopters and alpha testers of a new model. If I wanted I could eat Hamburgers and Flammenkuche and I could even have some flowers to go with the meal. Of course, I’d do it in solitude for now.
Solitude is not hard. It’s not having opportunities to have more that’s hard. A woman said “I’m feeling lonely on twitter, I lost six followers” and an army of men started following her and suddenly she had a crowd. By then I had unfollowed. I want to be a conversation, not a statistic.
I should prepare dinner now. The sun is setting and I’m terrible at eating at a reasonable time at the moment. The meal is quick to prepare anyway.
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