Another new chain

After embracing the “quick release” chain link on my previous dura-ace chain and religiously removing the chain to clean it, it turns out that this was not a good idea and has shortened the life of the chain. An annoying clicking sound when under power that I initially thought was the bottom bracket, turned out to be “chain suck” due to stretching around the quick release link.

At 24,400km I have another new dura-ace chain without a removable link and the shifting is once again smooth and quiet.

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More cables

Andy dropped around with his steel frame steed and we swapped the casette, deraileur cable, rear deraileur and cleaned the front chain rings for what must have been the first time since he got it. We also realized they he needed a 10 speed shifter to match the casette so did not manage to get him back on the road.

I switched my rear deraileur cable in the process at 24,000km on the odmeter.

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New training wheels

The hand-me-down Mavic Ksyrium Equipe wheels finally gave in at around 30,000km ridden with a crack in the rims.

They have been replaced with a set of Dura ace carbon laminate 7850 which are proving to be fantastic so far.

Note to self: Wheels changed at 21,500km on the odometer.

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Another 10,000kms

This morning’s Cootha session marked the 2nd time my trusty Cateye has ticked over. 20,000km on the Cervello now in almost exactly 2 years of riding.

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More rear derailuer cables

At 19,400 I’ve replace the cables again. They were beginning to fray at the shifter end and a had the telltale loosening of the cable that results in the slight loss of precision in shifting.

So for my riding style with dura ace shifters, cables last approximately 5,500km.

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More new derailleur cables..

Note to self:

Front and rear derailleur cables replaced at 13,800km ridden

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Configuring the Nokia E71 VPN client for a Cisco system

I embarked on this effort in an effort to syncronise my phone calendar and contacts with the Exchange server at work when I was unable to get the desired 2 way sync over the air using the other tools that are out there at the moment (Google mobile sync, Nokia PC suite etc).

The Nokia VPN client supports a variety of VPN systems which is one of the reasons that it is a nightmare to configure. That coupled with a baffling “Configuration Tool” that lists a raft of parameters and settings, none of which seemed to be mentioned anywhere in the Cisco VPN client that I had on my PC and was trying to emulate.

All I really wanted to configure were

  • a VPN gateway (IP address)
  • a Group name
  • A Group Password
  • A username
  • A user password

This proved a lot more difficult than I expected. 

It turns out that the terminology I needed to know, that was used on the Nokia VPN configuration tool was

  • The Cisco VPN that supports Group and User authenticate is “Cisco ASA using Private Shared Key” authorisation – There is a template that you can load which populates most of the settings
  • Authentication method is Pre Shared key
  • Identity type is 11 – Vendor specific
  • Identity Value is the Groupname
  • The Preshared key is the group password (un-encrypted)
  • There is nowhere to provide the username/password, you are prompted for this by the client when you connect
  • This form of authorisation, Group > User is called XAUTH which should be set to TRUE in the tool
  • I needed to change the Encryption algorithm to 3DES-CBC in both the IPsec settings and the IKE proposals section so I recommend fiddling with this setting if nothing is working
  • I also changed Send notification in the IKE settings to TRUE but I don’t know if thats important

Good luck!

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Clocked the Odometer

About 13 months after I jumped on the bike (and fitted the speedo soon after), I discovered that it only goes up to 10,000kms. 

 

I thought I had better mark the occasion as I don’t trust myself to remember when or how many times it has happened. 

 

Onwards to the next 10,000…

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The Cootha Challenge

Half way up Cootha

Well about 1 year and 1 month since I first donned the cycling gear, clipped unsteadily into the Keo pedals on my Cervelo Soloist Team and pedalled out onto the asphalt, the Mt Cootha Challenge has come around again.

This was the first organised event that I entered so I was not going to miss the opportunity to smash myself all over again.

As expected, ot felt just as hard this time around but my 8:18 time was a considerable improvement on the 11:43 it took last year.

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Twitter Updates for 2009-03-09

  • Waiting for a bus. Haven’t done it in so long I’m a little nervous #
  • celebrating with some penfolds RWT (on special from BWS) the birth for my first nephew. #

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