Brief update with details from my cycling & camping tour to Loire Valley in August 08

940km total
15 days cycling
63km/day average
~40kg gear on bike

Tour photo set on Flickr

The canal route was pleasant, and I don’t regret cycling it, but now that I’ve done it, I think I’ll stick to a road route in future - the canal section was just too slow and wasted a lot of time early in the day. If I was on my hardtail my average speed would have been a lot better on the canal section (but not on the road ) I did take quite a few photos, but had the camera in my bar bag so that didn’t slow me up much at all. Will post all 4 videos I took while moving onto YouTube, first here: Royal Canal

Flickr set with all pictures is here

Fuel strategy was good. I made an enormous pasta bake the evening before (enough for 6 people ), ate it for dinner that night, and for breakfast, lunch and dinner on the cycle. Had 1.5l of DIY sports drink (oj/water/salt/sugar), and a camelbak of plain water. Bought some sweets (see pics) towards the 100km mark when I thought it might prevent bonk, though I was still going strong - increasing speed in fact!

The route was along the towpaths from Croke Park as far as Kilcock, then after that I was on the old N4 for most of the way. I’ve thought a lot about the next route that I’ll do, Dublin-Mayo, I’ll write up a new post for that in a couple of weeks.

All videos will be here after YouTube processes them

By the numbers

Distance: 133km
Time: 7 hours 40 mins
Avg: 17.3 km/h (approximately 12-13 km/h on the canals, 21-22 on the road)
Mechanical: 1 (broken front fender after going over a branch)
KCals (according to HRM): 6557
Average HR: 126
Max HR: 163

Check out a small selection of photos on flickr, we’ll have more pictures and hi-res videos of the heats uploaded to Vimeo in a couple of days time (it’s hard to find bandwidth to upload several hours of 1080P).

My call on the match is very tight, both in terms of scores and playing style, with a fair amount of kicking in the first half, opening up a bit after the 30th minute or so when people settle. It’s too close to call a winner, but I just think Munster might shade it. I had a look around the online prices from the bookies and across the board they’re all shading it Munster by 1-2 points.

Current odds, 3 hours before kick-off:

VCBet Munster 8/11, Toulouse 11/10
Blue Sq Munster 8/11, Toulouse EVENS
Bet365 Munster 4/5, Toulouse 11/10
Stan James Munster 5/6, Toulouse EVENS
Celtic Bookmakers Munster 4/5, Toulouse 11/10
PaddyPower Munster 4/5, Toulouse 23/20

Well, good luck Munster!

Before we do, I’d just like to point out the incompetence of our manager, Eddie O’Sullivan. I say incompetence, because he is simply not a competent manager in this day and age. This kind of idiocy makes me livid:

“Substitutions are my decisions. We make substitutions late in the game occasionally - if we’re in a certain position,” he said.

“We don’t tend to make substitutions in blocks. I’m not going to change my philosophy on substitutions. I’ve done the same thing for however many years now.

“I have a logic and a reason why I do it. I know people don’t agree with that, but that’s OK.”

(Source: RTE News)

Eddie, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Finding live games online

I’ve been looking for some sites to watch GAA (Irish football) when I’ve been away on business, I still haven’t found one (you can watch it live if you’re within Ireland but that doesn’t help me!). I did find a site which shows live soccer matches, might be useful especially with the Euros coming up.

Update: Giants destroyed the 17-0 dream in a fantasic Superbowl - what a great game, the best I’ve seen in years.

I am absolutely ****ing livid that anyone could even consider anything else for Irish rugby right now.

The honourable thing would be to resign but for financial reasons he probably won’t do that and I understand his position on that front. The IRFU board members responsible for the contract extension should also resign on general principles.

I’ve heard a lot of talk about “not making emotional decisions”, “let the dust settle”, “wait until after the competition before the inquest begins” and lots in a similar vein.

For us, the competition is over. The dust has settled. We still have a lot of unanswered questions, all of which are real and valid, and none of which are emotional (although I must admit they inspire a lot of frustration).

• How could this group of seriously talented players fail so completely?
• Why did we not make use of our squad?
• Why do we never make tactical substitutions?
• Why didn’t we know how to ruck?
• Why don’t we change our lineout when it’s not working?
• What exactly did Geordan Murphy, Alan Quinlan et al. do to gain social outcast status?
• Just how badly does our out-half have to perform, game after game, after game, after game, to get dropped?
• What’s different about scrum-half that he can get dropped?

We don’t have a replacement for out-half, so that last question is unfair? Ok, well answer me this:

• Why in the so called “development tour” to Japan in the summer of 2005, did we play a half-back pairing of Peter Stringer and David Humphries? How is this “development”?

Could we have maybe tried a couple of new 9s and 10s (y’know, development)? We beat Japan 44-12 and 47-18. Was it was too risky with our Lions players and manager in New Zealand? Don’t bother telling me Eddie wasn’t involved in selection - this is his job, he’s a professional manager.

On the topic of O’Gara, I don’t care about his private life, it’s entirely his business. What I do care about is his form. His kicking and passing was way off form for every single World Cup game and he should have been dropped. That’s not the player’s fault, it’s the manager’s.

Speaking of fault and whether the players should bear the brunt of the blame… what a load of rubbish. The manager is the boss. The gaffer as Steve would tell us. “The buck stops here“. If there is a problem in the squad, with the players, with psychology or group dynamics, or social order, or the bloody breakfast cereal, it’s the managers fault.

Eddie, be a f##king man and put your hand up. Maybe you really don’t know the answers to why the team performed so poorly, but I know you can answer the other questions we’ve asked, like why you don’t use squad rotation, never make tactical substitutions, and never, ever change the pack. Your choices may not have been the sole cause of the embarrassing demise of this Irish rugby team, but you’ll find a hard job convincing me that they didn’t strongly contribute to it.

I’m not embarrassed by the Irish players. I’m fairly embarrassed for most of them who didn’t perform, and suspect they’re very disappointed with themselves. It’s worse for the likes of Hickey and BOD who did stellar jobs considering the circumstances and didn’t have support around them.

Standing in Parc des Princes on Sunday evening, roaring out “The Fields” as our World Cup lay in tatters, we did everything we could to try and help the team bar coming onto the pitch and actually driving over the rucks. I hope the players appreciate the noise we made in such conditions, they didn’t come out to us after the medal “ceremony” but I can imagine the absolute disappointment took hold at that stage. We will continue to try to be the best sports fans in the world, regardless of results.

IRFU chief executive Philip Browne told RTE: “We have put our faith in Eddie. We made decisions last May in terms of where we wanted to go over the next four years - we’re happy with that decision. In our view he’s the best man for the job.”

Browne added: “What we have is a situation where we’ve had three bad matches and people are very disappointed - no more than ourselves.

“But we also have to reflect on what has happened over the last four or five years, where we have had the most successful performance of any Irish team or squad.

“That, in effect, really dictated and set the scene or the context in which we made decisions.”

I think Philip has been going to the EOS School of Media Interviews. What we have here is a situation where we have a manager with what is the most talented squad of Irish rugby players EVER. That’s not even in question. What do we have to show for this? Two failed Championship efforts, a couple of Triple Crowns and our worst ever World Cup performance. Philip, I don’t know what planet you’re on, but we’ve had bad matches against Argentina (twice), Scotland, Italy, Bayonne, nearly beaten by minnows Nambia, scraped past Georgia without a bonus point (did you know they have 8 rugby pitches and three hundred adult players in the entire country?), beaten by a poor French team, and thrashed by an utterly superior Argentinian team for the 3rd time this year.

Do you want to talk about our great Six Nations instead? Where we were lucky against Wales, had a terrible first half against France, almost stole it but for our useless defence in the last minute. Yes, we annihilated England, and we’re finding out just what that victory meant with their performances in the RWC. We scraped a win in Scotland, and finally managed to throw away a Championship victory by letting Italy steal a vital try in the dying minutes in Rome. Yes, 2nd place in the Championship and a Triple Crown sound better, eh?

No, Eddie must accept responsibility for his squa team’s performance and the sham that has been Ireland’s greatest ever world cup preparation. Philip must accept responsibility for giving a 4 year contract extension blank slate.

In case any hacks attack me as an “anonymous internet blogger”, let me state that my real name is Alastair McDermott, and I am in no way anonymous.

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Rugby World Cup 2007 Statement

It is regrettable that certain members of the media should have decided to suspend pre-tournament coverage. This unjustifiable move is being presented as the direct response to allegedly unreasonable constraints on reporting imposed by the organisers of the tournament. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We (the IRB and RWCL) have been in dialogue with media organisations for over a year and we have made a number of concessions. There is nothing in the media terms and conditions that prevent media organisations carrying out their core business and covering the tournament. This is nothing to do with freedom of the press. All organisations have access to the tournament – on non-match days and match days - for written and photographic coverage of the tournament. There are also provisions for international agency TV news coverage.

We have invested significant revenue in full media facilities at all venues to provide an environment that enables the media to report on the tournament, including privileged seating for the media in sold out stadiums.

In reality, this seems to be about some media organisations demanding access to material in the venue on match day and rights that belong to other media organisations such as rights holding TV broadcasters. The media organisations concerned apparently do not like the reality that a major sporting event has some necessary operational conditions and wish us to abandon private rights altogether, even though they represent the lifeblood of international rugby. This is something the Directors of RWCL are simply not prepared to contemplate.

RWCL runs and manages the tournament on behalf of the International Rugby Board and its sovereignty ownership of the event must be respected. RWCL has the responsibility to run the tournament and how to conduct its commercial programme so that surplus revenues can be used to grow and develop the game of rugby in the future.

RWCL will not be swayed by unreasonable demands and the threat of non-attendance. RWCL welcomes all media to the tournament and simply asks that normal conditions be respected.

RWCL reiterates below the moves it has made following discussions with media organisations. These are now reflected in the relevant terms and conditions:

• All photo copyright and credits rest with the photographer and/or his company

• Media organisations are free to sell photographs to the public for non commercial use

• RWCL has no right to use any photograph taken at the tournament and must enter into agreement with the photographer and/or his company for the use of any photograph

• All media organisations are free to overlay text on photographs

• RWCL has agreed to a new process through which any accreditation breaches are dealt with

• RWCL has confirmed that mobile users can access text and photos on websites using their handsets and that sports text alerts can be sent to the handsets during matches

• RWCL has increased by 400% the amount of photographs that can be published live during a match on pubic facing websites. Media organisations can now publish 40 photographs per match. There is unlimited use of photographs before and after matches

• Photo agencies can send an unlimited number of photographs to their clients

• RWCL has clarified that nothing in the Terms and Conditions can be interpreted as restricting or preventing normal journalistic activities including expressions of comment

• RWCL is allowing the publication of 3 minutes of footage from official venues on non match days (such as training shots, interviews at media conferences, etc) on websites. Previously this material from official venues was prohibited. RWCL has also confirmed that the copyright of this footage rests with the media organisation generating the material.

In addition RWCL has agreed to enter into dialogue with media organisations on media accreditation terms and conditions for future tournaments.

What’s right?

Most of the elements of a successful e-commerce site are there, from the shopping cart to deal of the day, to the category layout, privacy and shipping informational pages. All the building blocks are in place.

What’s wrong?

Ok, so here’s a couple of things that I feel could be looked at. It’s an e-commerce site - you live and die by what customers think about your site, and this is mostly influenced by appearance. It looks like you have put a lot of effort into your back end structure in getting the infrastructure sorted out.

Where’s the bike?

But you’re missing a striking front end to the site - the current look and feel is lacking. One notable point- there is no picture of a bike anywhere on the homepage! I also think you could review the entire look and feel fairly easily.

I strongly recommend spending a couple of thousand dollars with a good web design company to get your cart template looking snazzy. Remember - e-commerce site - your website is not where you try to save money. I recommend finding a designer locally that you can meet in person and who you’ve had recommended by your peers.

Go international

Indie Bike does not ship internationally. International shipping will be offered in the future, but is not currently available.

Get it set up as quickly as possible. US based e-commerce companies are often surprised at how much of their customer base is international. For many countries in Europe, US prices are still the cheaper than local alternatives, even with high shipping costs!

Best of luck with it - if you’d like me to go into more detail than this 5 minute review you can contact me here.

Update: this Indie Bike Review was in dispute after ReviewMe.com refused payment despite it meeting all of their review guidelines. If you use ReviewMe.com I strongly urge caution. Tom from Indie Bike contacted me about this review and I understand that refusal of payment was not the fault of Indie Bike.

I’ve noticed a dramatic increase in my body fat and weight over the last 12 months and it’s past time I rectified matters. I measured a fantastic 110.8kg today — 244lbs or 17.5 stone in old money. Wow. I’m normally around 92kg or 14.5 stone. Time for a change :)

So similar to my blogging pledge, during the month of September I’m hoping to put a serious dent into that figure. Not by crash dieting or anything stupid like that, but just by healthy eating and a significant amount of exercise every day. I’ll report back here at months end and post up for the record how I got on.