Cycling Adventure · 8:00am Jun 22nd, 2019
Some time ago my crazy brother Tom (aka TwoSteamPonies) announced a mad plan to cycle from his home in Scotland to the Isle of Wight to raise money for the hospice which cared for our father before he died.
At the time I casually remarked that if he got as far as Oxford I would join him for the final stretch, with no great expectation that this would happen. Surely he would downscale his ambitions as soon as he realised how far it was. Or drop out after pulling a muscle or something.
Thursday he arrived at my house.
So I have just been plotting a 170km route, replacing the brake pads on my old bike, oiling my chain.... and mounting a brushable Rainbow Dash on the front of my bike, in the hope of picking up some fraction of her speed to help us along the way. And I want to see how awesome that mane looks in the airstream.
Read about his adventure here, and if you have any spare cash, consider giving a donation to this good cause.
Today is also coincidentally my birthday.
Happy Birthday!
That brings back a few memories. In my youth a friend of mine did Lands End to John O'Groats one year. Having succeeded in that he attempted the coastline the following year. If I recall correctly he managed something over three quarters before he ran out of time, money or stamina.
Well done to your brother (it's a loooong way), and good luck to you both. Also, happy birthday.
Hope the weather stays good for you, and at least theres one piece of luck. On a bike, even without rushing, you should be able to pull that distance off in one period of daylight. Been some very intresting articles recently about microbiomes, walking distance, optimum human excersize, energy consumption rates etc.
Simple value is, if resting is 100%, then optimum effort for maximum duration for minimum stress is 2^8. %
Weird, that just like the numbers you got for using unsigned 8 bit values instead of packed BCD when making games on the old 8 bit machines.
Good luck on the run, compare Google Cycle route generator with whatever other method you use to see if its any good for you?
¡Happy BirthDay!
Taking care of a dying parent is hard. I currently take care of my dying mother. Pseudoscience basically killed her:
She developed Type Ⅱ Diabetes. Her Dietician is in to the Naturalistic Fallacy. She told Mom not to eat artificial sweeteners. My Mom loves sodapop (that is how she probably developed diabetes). Because of the bad advice of the Dietician, Mom drank far too much sugar. This destroyed her kidneys and liver. Now, her health fails. She is 68 years old. Her mother lived until 91. If she would not have wrecked her liver and kidneys because the dietician believed that sugar is better than artificial sweeteners, she would certainly would live into fer 80s (someteen or umpteen years in the future). As it is, she has almost certainly no chance of living another year.
This brings up the SodaPopTax. This tax is the Naturalistic Fallacy:
¡It all bubbles and some of it has artificial sweeteners; so therefore now, it must be evil!
Bubbling and artificial sweeteners are irrelevant. What matters is the sugar. It is better to drink a gallon (4 liters) of Diet Grape-Flavored SodaPop than a glass of Grape-Flavored FlavorAid. Besides, skeptics do not drink Grape-Flavored FlavorAid anyway. That would make far more sense is a tax of added sugar:
Imagine a tax of 1 cent per gram of added sugar. That would be a useful tax.
You and your brother have my sympathies.
So, uh, how do you bicycle onto an island?
(Okay, there's probably a bridge or a ferry or something. But taken at face value, it's a little silly.
)
Oh man, it’s been a while since I did a long bike ride. Have fun!
Happy (belated) birthday!
5078073
Plan A: Mount a ramp at the end of a pier and cycle up it fast enough to fly across the mile-wide stretch of water.
Using Twilight’s equation we can calculate we would need a launch speed of…
Mach 0.38.
Except that neglects air resistance so it would need to be even faster.
We went for plan B and took the ferry.
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I shall take a leave of absence for taking care of my dying mother. When times will get tough, I shall ask myself "¿What would Pineta do?".