The GTVeloce.com-munity

Summary of recent stuff

2007-04-24T12:57:00.001Z

Images

2007-02-21T05:45:00.000Z

OK, I love taking photos. The time and care in composition, matched by care within the darkroom - or in my case now the digital darkroom. Ostensibly much quicker, although I still spend as much - or more - time; I just try more variations! You can check out the full gallery of planes, trains, trams, cars, art, plants and birds here.

Check out the lap records

2006-12-07T06:05:00.000Z

Check out the lap records set at Adcock park by CCCC trackies...

Where the bloody hell are you? (As the saying goes...)

2006-12-06T11:54:00.000Z

It's the silly season for car journos

2006-12-05T22:22:00.000Z

Every newspaper and every car mag seems to have journos who like to vote for their own 'car of the year'. Let's face it - it's a wank. It's got precious little to do with actually choosing the car you want, rather it's an indulgence that makes the journos happy (because they get to drive lots of cars) and will please only the manufacturers who "win".

Look at this Aussie car of the year - the GM Holden Commodore. (From Carsguide.com.au) Heavier and thirstier than the previous model, it is a loathsome thing that will actually belt another nail into the climate change coffin. But it meets the criteria, doesn't it? Of course the journos set the criteria and off they go. In other places this is called corruption, or at least a conflict of interest.

But if we have an independent assessment of what's valued in a car, or even better if we select a panel of independent experts, they are deemed to 'not know cars'. At the end of the day journos need to sell newspapers (or websites, or mags) and will set the game up to be attractive to as many people as possible. So we can never get a true assessment of worth, as there is an inherent bias. We get what hey think we want. But what happens when the world is turning towards low-impact on the environment? Could it be that the journos will continue to feed us big, fast, fat cars as the "heroes" whilst we actually go out and buy smaller, lower-impact cars? Does anyone smell "irrelevance" here?

Well it's a start

2006-11-22T21:16:00.000Z

Car companies actually building smaller, from eco-friendly materials? How much is just show? How can we pick real ideas from marketing gimmicks? Fact is that steel and plastic cars consume something around 30% of their energy budget (on average) just being made and shipped. Now if these guys were serious they'd get some standards together about modular, replaceable, repairable components that could be plugged into any brand of car, rather than building cars with 5 year lifespans and guaranteeing "100% recyclability". How does one recycle without burning more energy? Where do we get this energy from?

What am I thinking?

2006-11-17T03:43:00.000Z

Why do I pretend I have a dot.com-munity happening? Pretend?? Well, it started in 1995 with just one small site at OzEmail in Australia. It looked a bit like this. It focused on cars and bikes - well Alfas and my cycling club, really, for about 4 years - and then it turned into the "old" gtveloce.com, which looked a little like this.

Now if you fast forward a few years from there you get several new things happening. Firstly the reunion of my old classmates from Fort Street High School, spawning this site, this gallery and this bulletin board. The amazing thing is that we left that school in 1975 - and despite the passage of time, and having previously only entertained 10 year intervals between subsequent reunions, the Class of 75 now meets online every day and face to face every few months. It's the power of the Internet, folks. Not only did the Internet facilitate the coming together in 2005, making it much easier to track people down and let them know what was happening, it has provided a method by which to easily stay in contact. Now if anyone ever tells you that computers are anti-social and impersonal... they have fewer legs to stand on than they think!

Which brings me to the blogging... which is just an expansion really of all of the above ;-)

2006-10-27T00:23:00.000Z

White & Nerdy

This is funny.. really funny. Well, I like it anyway! (And yes, Stephen Hawking's in my library, too. Isn't he in yours?)

The other thing keeping me busy

2006-09-20T22:28:00.000Z

Apart from the updates to content, the other thing keeping me busy - real work aside - has been making up new background files, like these. I realise there's a taste component, as well as a 'gee it's slow to download' factor, but I like it - and I have an xDSL line, so I'm OK.

Other than that it goes slightly out of whack when you use different font sizes to me! So don't do that, OK! It's meant to look good, not weird. (I guess I'll work on it some more.)

I've been busy

2006-09-12T07:03:00.000Z

It may not look like it but I have been busy. Apart from working for a living - which is not what you see here - I have been creating or updating a few blogs and image galleries... like...

My portals

My Alfa pages

The Rust-free Alfa Romeo page: guaranteed since '95
All about Alfas, especially GTVs
The car gallery

My bike racing pages

Addicted2wheels, bicycle race wheels: my most popular blog
Bike racing for almost anyone
The bike gallery

My myths and Legends pages

Myths, legends and weird stuff: Mythoblogia

My sustainable business pages

The business of sustainable business
My MBA resource blog - thespiel.com
Out Out Damned Blog - a wilder ride
The Offline blog for quieter web-rants

My overly long list of blogs

Addicted2wheels, bicycle race wheels: my most popular blog
The site that started it all for me in 1995, Colnago - the blogger
The Rust-free Alfa Romeo page: guaranteed since '95
My MBA resource blog - thespiel.com
Myths, legends and weird stuff: Mythoblogia
The Abecedarian Insult: A2Z, the blog
Stuff I think you all mustknow
All about Alfas, especially GTVs
The business of sustainable business
Bike racing for almost anyone
The Offline blog for web-rants
My all purpose writing blog
The Class of 75 blog
The gtveloce.com-munity blog
My genealogy research blog
Out Out Damned Blog - a wild ride

My image galleries

DAP: the digital image gallery
My mostly digital image blog
DAR: the digital art gallery
The aviation gallery
The aviation image blog
Trams, trains and buses... yet another gallery
The bike gallery
The car gallery
The flora and fungus gallery (I kid you not)
The New Fortian gallery
The Original Fortian gallery

Community and networking pages

Sponsors and other pages

Buy my mugs and t-shirts from Cafepress
Buy my books and images from Lulu
The mustknows

Surely that's enough for now!

My reading list

2006-08-25T01:29:00.000Z

Way out but worth it

Because I can, I will share here some weirder choices from my personal bookshelf. You may not agree with 'weird', indeed weird is the wrong word. Nevertheless I use it advisedly in the sense that I will cover subjects beyond literal truth. And I use truth advisedly as mathematics is the only provable truth. Everything else is either awaiting a mathematical proof or is a belief, a theory or an assumption.

Just to explain my thinking: you may believe in what you can see, hear and/or touch, and that's cool; but it's not necessarily a literal truth. Even if a thousand people see, hear and/or touch that thing it doesn't make it true. It may be real enough to the people concerned but it's not an incontrovertible truth. It may be an illusion. It may be a shared thought. It may be a shared assumption. It's something, but it's not a literal truth. To be a literal truth requires proof. To my mind we can only be certain of mathematical proofs, as I haven't seen any other proof that convincingly lives outside the mind or perception of man.

And I could be wrong about maths. Perhaps there is no independent proof? Ahhh, but that's an undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns....

So to the first installment of my 'way out but worth it' booklist, in no particular order:

Bill Shakespeare's works in full. An essential lesson in the use of the English language, up there with Fowler's.

The Elegant Universe (by Brian Greene. Post-Einstein string theory to get you thinking.)

Anything by Richard Dawkins or Stephen Jay Gould. As I said, there are mathematical proofs and there are theories. Some theories are more compelling than others.

The Torah (the Pentateuch, the Book of Moses: a lively read, basis for Judaism and the Old Testment and a fascinating read on any level)

The Bible (Greek for 'Books'; The Old and New Testaments: basis for the Christian cults and a brilliant read)

The Koran (Arabic for 'Recital': another excellent piece of writing and the basis for Islam. I have the Dawood translation)

The History of Magic (by Eliphas Levi: a great, compelling read. Spot the a ha! 'Harry Potter' moments and see the footprints of Rowling's research)

The Theory of Celestial influence (by Rodney Collin: immensely detailed, it wallows around trying to 'prove' a case scientifically but falls magnificently short. Can be heavy, clumsy and painful to read... but still worth it for the determined!).

That's just for starters. Let me know what you think.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 9:51 am and is filed under No idea where this one goes, Writing, Religion and Essential Truths. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

TdF 2006 images

2006-08-23T07:38:00.000Z

Some pics from the 2006 Tour, courtesy Brett Lyons.

Does it ever stop?

2006-08-08T03:17:00.000Z

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Brown wins Stage 4 in Germany

Graeme Brown finally delivers for Rabo (Cyclingnews quote and link): However, with 500 metres remaining, the field came back together, just in time for one last suicidal attempt from Jens Voigt (CSC). With that over before it even started, Australian Graeme Brown threw his bike across the line and took his first victory of the year, beating Schumacher and Zabel to the post.

What a relief! He's had his ups and downs, but he looks pretty happy about winning a stage of the Deutschland Tour. Renshaw was in the Top 5 and Zabel has taken the lead. Can he hold on over the mountains? You'd like to hope so, but with Vino one of many contenders just 48secs back, highly unlikely.

On Landis: It's hard to know who's clean, what with masking agents and autologous transfusions, and we have to trust the integrity of the sampling and testing procedure. So is it as robust as we'd like? Cyclingnews gives a rundown on the B sample result here:Christian Prudhomme, Director general of the Tour de France, said Landis is no longer considered champion of the 2006 event, but added: "Until he is found guilty or admits guilt, he will keep the yellow jersey. This is normal. You are not sanctioned before you are found guilty.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Aussies in Germany and Denmark

A good result for 2 Aussies in Stage 3 of the Tour of Germany, as reported by Cyclingnews:
1 Gerald Ciolek (Ger) Team Wiesenhof Akud 4.56.22 (41.16 km/h)
2 Erik Zabel (Ger) Team Milram
3 AndrÃ© Greipel (Ger) T-Mobile Team
4 Luke Roberts (Aus) Team CSC
5 Mark Renshaw (Aus) Credit Agricole

And O'Grady takes yellow in Denmark, again reported by Cyclingnews:
Stage 3 - August 4: Kolding - Odense, 203.7 km FÃ¶rster scores for Gerolsteiner, as O'Grady takes yellow

Friday, August 04, 2006

Aussies in Denmark

Some Aussies are doing well in the Tour of Denmark... stage 2 - see Cyclingnews for the report: 2 Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Team CSC 0.21, 4 Cadel Evans (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto 0.23, 5 Baden Cooke (Aus) Unibet.com, 14 Gene Michael Bates (Aus) Team L.P.R. 0.39

Monday, July 31, 2006

Other sports and doping

Because I can, I will comment on drugs, doping and what have you. It's just my opinion but I personally realised something was truly happening - as against being told by press or dodgy friends what "was" happening - when I spent time in an eastern suburbs gym in Sydney, building up for bike racing (more of a psychological boost than a physical one). This was the mid 1980's. These big, shiny, oily pimply guys were always there lifting massive weights (and gazing into mirrors) and they could sell you "stuff". It reminded me of 'under the stairs' deal at high school, actually, but different stuff. That other stuff you got at the pub and was detrimental to sports performance, or general sanity for that matter. (Not that I did, but some people did do that other stuff, anyway!)

So you could buy any sort of body-building drug at that particular gym, in my experience. Presumably other gyms as well. I also "knew" about the occasional cyclist's drink bottle ("bidon") that (it was suggested) contained alcohol, to give some sort of kick up hills or before a sprint. Don't know how effective it was, but a few people seemed to like it and claimed to "know". Bikes of course are build to carry bidons as well as riders and musette bags, but what about other sports?

'No-Doze' was also big in the '80s for that caffeine kick, and coffee itself gained notoriety in sports where being "aware" and awake was important. Again in cycling there were "special" bananas to be eaten just before a race finish. Now these were reputedly spiked with amphetamines, but who knows the truth? No-one did a laboratory analysis on this sort of stuff at the time and it may have been riders just bragging. But very, very few people were drug tested pre or post race, even at elite State level back then, so anything could have happened. (And I have yet to see a club-level drug test, even now. Tell me if you've seen one!)

So I can imagine, and it is just imagination fueled by innuendo and availability (particularly via the Internet), that some bike racers are using performance enhancing agents to "get noticed"; firstly at club level (basically weekly racing thoughout the year) and probably at State level. They would effectively get away with it. Testing remains something done at higher levels of the sport, not below. Not often, anyway, in my experience, would they get caught. On the other hand I have never myself seen a culture of drug use in cycling at first hand, beyond caffeine and stories of what other riders did. I heard about but didn't see the evidence.

Nevertheless we quite possibly get riders started on this stuff early and then they either chicken out, or get smarter. Or dumber? If there's money involved there's temptation. Of course cycling is not as "wealthy" as some other sports.

So what happens in other sports?

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Web resources - Roadcycling UK

An interesting take on the UK road and TT scene is to be found at RoadcyclingUK. Worth checking out. Here's a snippet on starting road racing in the UK:
Road Racing from scratch By RCUK "I could do that!" Almost invariably it's around the time of the three great tours that many occasional cyclists get so carried away by the unfolding drama, passion and competitive spirit of the Giro d'Italia,Tour de France and Spanish Vuelta that they picture themselves flying along in the midst of an illustrious bunch or riding with relative ease up steep mountain climbs with cheering crowds lining the road. At least that's what appears to be the case, even though you know that the apparent ease at which the riders are "flying" along at an average speed of 45k per hour is deceptive and the whole idea, in fact, may seem totally mad and completely and utterly out of my league - even more so as the prerequisite is incredibly hard training, unbelievable talent and a super-human physique. But cycling is all about sticking at it.

Le Tour de France 2006

2006-07-26T07:49:00.000Z

My 2006 Tour de France Wrap up, all wrapped up

Back to normal

Stage 20 - Le Tour 2006 - the dust settles

Stage 19 - Le Tour 2006 - the TT decides

Stage 18 - Le Tour 2006 - Status Quo

Stage 17 - Le Tour 2006 - Floyd flies!

Stage 16 - le Tour 2006 - Floyd falters

Stage 15 - Le Tour 2006 - Alpe d'Huez

Rest Day 2 - Le Tour 2006

Stage 14 - Le Tour 2006 - France over Italy this time

Stage 13 - Le Tour 2006 - Voigt's day in the sun

Understeer - 116 style

2006-05-30T06:06:00.000Z

OK, I like sustainable motoring in an equitable balance. But in 1982 I owned an Alfa Giulietta which cornered on rails with just a touch of understeer. 1.8 litre, high compression motor. Front engine, rear gearbox and clutch. Inboard rear disc brakes. Good economy, excellent performance. Apart from wearing out the tyres I wasn't as wasteful as some... was I?

Hitting the nail on the head

2006-05-26T01:23:00.000Z

An excellent article entitled 'More mall pall than Pall Mall' By Elizabeth Farrelly (May 24, 2006, Sydney Morning Herald). It begins, "Fantasise this: for some reason - dollars a barrel, airborne particulates or, conceivably, government backbone - petrol is all but prohibited. Car use, while not banned, has shrunk to maybe one-20th of present levels. Sydneysiders drive only as absolutely necessary. For the rest, we walk, cycle or take trams. What would change?".

Indeed, lots would change - for the better, as Elizabeth goes on to say. There have been reports in Sydney that the rising cost of petrol is driving people out of their cars and back onto public transport. Whilst we are a long way from returning to villages and corner shops, it's a start. I think also that the hypermarket malls will fight back, possibly by investing more heavily in public transport that feeds directly to their shopping plazas. We shall see.

More from Elizabeth here.

Musings on traffic flow

2006-05-24T06:35:00.000Z

Hybrids and ROI

2006-05-17T06:47:00.000Z

I’ve said it before, but here goes. You buy a car and it’s already consumed somewhere between 40 and 60% of it’s ‘carbon quota’. The numbers vary with size and complexity, number of miles driven, total life-span of the car but the point is that fuel use is only one factor. Unless your new car’s steel and aluminium was smelted with hydro or nuclear power it’s likely as not come out of a coal-fired oven. Then there’s all the petro-chemical plastics that go into a car…plus the shipping of parts and the finished good to you by ship and truck. The math is not as simple as ‘oh, hybrids are better because they save fuel relative to a petrol car the same size’. Read more...

Musings on traffic flow

2006-05-15T03:17:00.000Z

More musings... why is it (in Australia at least, although I've seen research on some of this from other places) that drivers do any or all of the following:

(1) On the freeway especially they will stay in the 'slow' lane (here it's left but right in the US) only if there is no-one about. Any sign of other traffic and they head for the middle. Why is that? Fear of having to change lanes at some point, so let's get it over with now?

(2) Again, on the freeway, when faced with increasing traffic volume the centre lane (assuming 3 lanes each way) is vacated increasingly and the far right (or left, y'know - the 'fast' lane) becomes over-crowded. This continues until saturation is really obvious, so more cars are in the fast lane, fewer in the centre lane and often very few in the so-called 'slow' lane. Why is it so? What is gained by saturating (and often tailgating) one lane to the point where it's actually no faster - and possibly slower - than the 'slow' lane?

(3) I mentioned tailgating, so I'll ask 'why'? What is the gain in driving too close to the vehicle in front? Is it fun? Even more so when the road is wet?

(4) Lane changing. What is actually gained by constantly adjusting your lane? Anecdotally I would suggest nothing, or very, very little over most journeys. It may be fun, perhaps, as you get to do more driving (especially accelerating and braking to get into tiny spots).

(5) Accelerating to bridge a gap and shut the door on others. You know, you are 10secs behind the cars in front and you feel the urge to get closer, as in 2 secs maximum. Why? What's wrong with holding station at 3-6 secs? Do you feel there's safety in numbers? Are you hoping to draft the car in front to save fuel?

I'm going to suggest that risk is one aspect in common, in that some people like a bit more than others. But I suspect ignorance plays a role too, in that many people do not self-analyse their actions and thus don't even realise that what they are doing is actually contributing to the slowing traffic flow. That urge to catch the guy in front, even when all you are doing is catching up to traffic and adding to it, is one twisted competitive urge that really doesn't need to be expressed on public roads. Does it??

Cheers, Rob.

IMHO

2006-05-04T03:41:00.000Z

As always, my timely reminder that these posts represent my opinions only. If I quote someone else I attribute. If I recommend a web site it's because I use it myself. If an advert appears it's because I affiliate with Google and others similar in nature and usually means nothing more than that... the Internet is a wild and untamed place folks, so please tread warily. My opinions are just that and do not constitute advice or legal opinion of any sort.

All original material is copyright 2006 by myself, too. Other than that, please take advantage of the site, just remember to ask first or attribute fragments in the normal, polite way.

Traffic calming - what works?

2006-05-02T06:29:00.000Z

Noticed that one bumpy local residential street was being revamped. It's a pretty street partly on the waterfront involving a blind complex curve after a long gentle sloping straight from the north and a similarly long straight that's slowed by a couple of near-rightangled turns to the east. There aren't many intersections but there are plenty of houses and driveways, a public wharf with parking and some bus stops. It also narrows around the wharf and as I said is bumpy as hell.

Before the revamp the only things slowing drivers were the bumps - pot holes, really - and the narrowing. So I was interested to see what the revamp would look like in terms of traffic calming. Taking the bumps out was going to speed the traffic - a v. bad thing.

Well it's pretty good actually. The footpaths have been widened (and a cycle path included!)and landscaped and the road is smoother but narrow. The wharf area is neatened and the blind corner eased slightly. The curbing is rounded. Best of all - 2 circles. Both on the straight to the north, one just past a gentle curve. No intersections, these are pure traffic calmers. The road is widened in a circular fashion and then narrowed with a roundabout to slow traffic. Buses squeeze through.

I wonder how long before people go right over the top? Hopefully there will be some further landscaping to dissuade off-road adventurers. Gosford Council, I salute you!

Here's an interesting read on what traffic calming works, btw.

Why 'speeding' is plain wrong

2006-04-28T01:43:00.000Z

Let's define terms - by speeding we mean to say excessive, deliberate or inadvertent velocity beyond a posted speed limit. Legally it's anything above the speed limit, be it 1kmh or 5 kmh. But let's be generous and define excessive speed at anything beyond 5kmh above; although a case could be put for 10kmh, or perhaps more logically a 5-10% buffer above the posted limit. I'd recommend no more than 5% myself and would back 100% compliance if pushed, but it's open for debate. I'm simply allowing for some variation in attention, practical effects imposed by local hills (both going up and down) and inaccuracy in speedometers.

OK, so why is excessive speeding bad? Plenty of people do it. I stick pretty rigidly to the limit, as do most people, by what I see. But maybe 30% of drivers either miss a sign or choose to ignore it. By that I mean 60-70 in a 50kmh zone (past my house!) is pretty common. And 120-130 in a 100kmh zone, for another example. Hey, it happens, sure. Sometimes you just have to get someplace and are running late. But do you understand the risks and the impact on others, or do you just think the law's an ass and out to get you for no good reason?

Here are my top reasons to slow down and stick to the posted limit:

1. Traffic is more predictable when it flows at the same rate; by speeding at whatever rate you choose you are by nature unpredictable and are the cause of disturbance and risk to all traffic. Don't let anyone tell you it's 'safer' to speed, no matter what the stats supposedly say! (There are lies, damned lies and statistics... you can correlate something with anything if you try hard enough!)
2. Other drivers cannot as easily judge a speeding vehicle's closing distance and will seemingly jump out in front of you at intersections and make 'sudden' and inopportune lane changes or other manoeuvers. Slow down, let people come out of their driveways and intersections without having to guess what speed you may have chosen today. Let me guess, currently you are blaming them for your poor judgement!
3. Speeding screws up the traffic; by gaining on the cars ahead you eventually meet them and cluster in a group, forming an unnecessary bottleneck, especially when a hazard or delay is reached. Why not stay back, don't gain on those ahead, stay at the same pace and let the traffic flow?
4. By speeding you reduce your reaction time to the unexpected. Unless you are on a road with no other traffic, no potholes, no animals, no driveways, no intersections and no other unexpected obstacles, what makes you think it's safe to choose any speed you like?
5. Faster means more energy expended; so not only are you burning more gas and making more air and noise pollution you have raised the energy level in any collision that occurs. Instead, slow down, reduce the cost of your travel and reduce any impacts that may occur. Don't imagine it's more 'efficient' to go faster - any open road gains are lost above about 80kmh and in city driving any speed gained in quickly lost as heat when you apply the brakes for the next red light. Slow down, anticipate traffic flows and see the $ benefit yourself!
6. Other people live here too. Just because you can get away with it, why is it right to speed past other people's homes, workplaces, parks or whatever? It may seem 'safe' but only because other people fear death or injury and have learned to lock their kids and pets away from the roads and to shut doors and windows to keep the noise and fumes out
7. In summary, speeding is plain selfish and simply bad manners - why do you think that you can cause disruption to traffic, get ahead of everyone else, cause undue noise and fear and raise the risk of injury for everyone?

In answer to that last question, you are probably not even thinking about it, just doing what you see done to you. Whilst we respect each other when we meet face to face and usually don't push into queues, when sealed in our steel capsules the normal rules and niceties go out the window and it's open season on civilised behaviour. Why not set an example and buck the trend?

The GTVeloce.com-munity

Summary of recent stuff

Images

Check out the lap records

Where the bloody hell are you? (As the saying goes...)

It's the silly season for car journos

Well it's a start

What am I thinking?

The other thing keeping me busy

I've been busy

My reading list

TdF 2006 images

Does it ever stop?

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Brown wins Stage 4 in Germany

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Aussies in Germany and Denmark

Friday, August 04, 2006

Aussies in Denmark

Monday, July 31, 2006

Other sports and doping

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Web resources - Roadcycling UK

Le Tour de France 2006

My 2006 Tour de France Wrap up, all wrapped up

Recent posts from GTVeloce

Understeer - 116 style

Hitting the nail on the head

Recent posts - a summary

Musings on traffic flow

Hybrids and ROI

Musings on traffic flow

IMHO

Traffic calming - what works?

Why 'speeding' is plain wrong