Engineer

I think I was always cut out to be an engineer. You should have seen the drawings I made as a child: here is the only example I can find in the archives.

What was I designing?

I wanted to study electronics engineering on leaving PSS but my headmaster considered this was beneath me, so I took Physics instead. But I ended up in electronics. I love to find an engineering solution to a problem, and yet I have no patience for puzzles for their own sake. Jigsaws, crosswords and the sort of questions you get in an intelligence test leave me cold.  But present me with a necessity or an idea and I will run with it. On the other hand I am not so good at coming up with the initial idea, possibly because I am more of a provider than a consumer.

I suppose that many of my readers are not engineers. Possibly the first thing you think of when you savour the word "engineer" is a spanner and greasy overalls. Real engineers do use spanners and are happy to get dirty but probably the person you are thinking of is a mechanic.

Think of the Shard, the Severn bridge, Dreamliner, the iPhone - it was engineers that brought these modern marvels to mankind. Not to mention a plethora of other inventions and creations that have become part of our lives. Engineers poured blood, sweat and tears in designing them, often literally.  Consumers take the design process for granted.  The engineer often does not get the financial reward or accolade.  For similar reasons stunt-men don't get Oscars. Until something goes wrong - it is then that the engineers are routed out and have to take the blame - after all they designed it so it must be their fault.

There are many views about the under-recognition of engineers: for me it is the very disposition that results in me being an engineer that prevents me from fighting for position. A true engineer does not engineer for accolade but to meet a need and for personal satisfaction.

No man cold - back to barefoot

My posts are getting horribly boring.  It is the time of year.  Sorry.

Eventually the symptoms of the man cold abated so yesterday I did the Kings River loop (almost 10 miles) and today to Hollywood and beyond (9.8 miles according to Google Earth). Brambles are not kind to bare feet. My daughter had taken some kids on virtually the same route (not running, not barefoot!) and I intercepted them at two points - they did well to make the course!

Erk! that's me (and the dog) - captured by my own daughter

Man cold

I can legitimately blame the absence of posts for the past week on this man-cold, thankfully all but over now. The usual headaches, feverish sleeping and a nose. Today I did my first run for almost a week. The bicycle is, I think, feeling as unemployed as Marvin.

Maiden voyage

At present there is no place to fit my smart-phone (work in progress!) so no pictures or track-log yet. The maiden voyage was to the Wicklow Gap and back - actually I had cycled into Blessington earlier in the week but that did not count because I forgot to wear the helmet.

The shoes with cleats that attach to the pedals are very good - it is surprising how much extra effort you can get by lifting the pedals up although I find it tiring because, I guess, I am not used to it.  However, on arrival at the summit I allowed the bike to come to a natural stop on the small incline up to the view point and forgot to release my shoes from the pedals - so the bike and I fell over very ungracefully. You have to preempt stopping otherwise there is nothing you can do other than fall off. Thankfully no damage was done: I was more worried about the bike than myself.

It was very cold on the way back - my feet were freezing. After warming up I took the dog for her customary run, barefoot of course.  Barefoot doesn't work for cycling, though: nowhere to attach the cleats!

So nice having 18 gears: 9 on the rear axle and 2 on the crank. The table below gives the resulting gear ratios. You are not supposed to have the chain at opposite extremes - this is called cross chaining and is shown yellow in the table. So that leaves 16 gears. And some of those ratios are so close that, really, you somewhat less than 16 gears left. The ratio of the minimum to maximum gear ratio is 3.74.

But still it is a whole lot better than my previous bike (5 gears) and they change so smoothly with the Sora handlebar controls.

Trip stats:
21.43 miles
42.9 mph max (the downhill near the YH turnoff on the back road)
11.6 mph avg