ALRS 2010

My last rocketry event of the year would be the ALRS event in Switzerland again, and despite depressing weather forecasts, it was actually sunny all weekend. A few regular faces were missing this year, but the event was still busy with plenty of flights.

I didn't fly much in the end, just the VB Extreme 29 on a 24mm E15 for a perfect flight, the Saucer twice on D12s (first one spat the nozzle out, so flew again successfully), and the LOC Legacy on an F52-4T (which landed safely, despite the shockcord coming apart in flight).

There were a few "mishaps"... Mathias has a catastrophic motor casing failure (Pro75?) which caused extensive damage to the back end of the rocket:

and Frank managed to lawndart a full-carbon Raptor, which ended up in 2 bin bags:

All pics can be seen here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/andysrockets/ALRS2010

Lake District and IRW 2010

This was the first time I'd combined a mountain biking trip and the International Rocketry Week in to one event. I'd had ideas about stopping off in the Lake District for years, but now it was to be reality.

Day 1
The first day was just a long drive to IJmuiden to catch the ferry to Newcastle with a car laden with bike, camping and rocketry stuff. Traffic at IJmuiden was dire due to some Tall Ships event, but the SatNav found me some back streets to avoid the jams and people.

Day 2
Drove from Newcastle to Carlisle to pick Phil up from the station. That was funny, cos they didn't open the door to get Phil's bike off, while some other guy was panicking about getting his tandem on! Eventually the guard opened the door and all was OK. Then it was off to Helvellyn YHA.

Day 3
Was p***ing with rain, but we met up with Howard at Whinlatter and did the Altura Blue and both halves of the Altura Red loop. Although we did have to stop for a warm lunch half way. Blue trail is very flowy. Red had some annoying climbs - the kind where you think there's no more up, but then another hill appears.

Day 4
We successfully rode up to the summit of Helvellyn. Well bikes had to be pushed for many sections, but we made it. I think going up Greenside Mine to Sticks Pass and then along the top to Helvellyn is not the best way. Should be much easier to carry on up the gravel track from Greenside Mine road up to Keppel Cove. That's the way we came back down, in 20 minutes, and that included a few brief stops and passing many walkers.

Day 5
Off to http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-5k2b6b to do the trails there. We hadn't spent much time planning our own XC routes, so figured it best to do another trail centre ride. The red Northface Trail had some pretty good sections, but also some annoying uphill singletrack rocky sections, and also some quite long fireroad sections between the bits of singletrack. In a way it's good - allows some people to to a gentle ride and others to do more techy parts and keep meeting each other along the loop. The last section of Red from Moor Top carpark back to the visitor centre is best, and all of the boardwalk stuff is there to cross bogs, not just for ewok village stunts.

Day 6 - Mon
Drove up to Largs for http://www.irw.rocketry.org.uk/. Only a few rockets were flown in the evening.

Day 7 - Tues
Flew the Qubit on D11-P, and the Saucer twice on Phil's and Dan's microhybrids, with Epoxy/Alumininium fuel grain. Beautiful weather too.

Day 8 - Weds
First day up on the moor, which was also sunny and calm. Flew the Qubit again, and the Saucer on Dan's microhybrid, this time with Epoxy/Garlic. Also flew the VB Extreme 29 on an E30-7T, which shot off the pad like a scalded cat.

Day 9 - Thurs
Saucer flight was attempted twice with Phils microhybrid, this time with Wax/Aluminium. First attempt failed due to injector in the wrong way. Second pretty much was a cold gas thrust.

Day 10 - Fri
Flew nothing

Day 11 - Sat
Flew nothing, but spent half the day helping Tom find his rocket that had spent a night out on the moor. Eventually it was found 1km away in a river!

Day 12 - Sun
Prepped Skyripper Hybrid motor (H124 - PVC grain) for most of the day, and then flew Slightly Scuff the Sky on it. Ignition was strange. The igniter went, and presumably most of the PIC. Then nothing. Still nothing. Then after some seconds, the motor just lit and the rocket flew pretty quickly, much quicker than I'd have imagined for a small hybrid. Unfortunately neither drogue nor main ejected, and it came in ballistic up on the moor, never to be seen again.

Day 13 - Mon
Got ferry back.

Day 14 - Tues
Drove back home.

More pics here...
http://picasaweb.google.com/andysrockets/MTBLakeDistrict2010
and here...
http://picasaweb.google.com/andysrockets/IRW2010

GPS tracklogs are on Everytrail...
http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=786546 (Whinlatter)
http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=786556 (Helvellyn)
http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=786574 (Grizedale Forest)

MTB Slovenia 2010

After last year's mountain-biking trip to Slovenia, we just had to go there again. This time we split the trip between Soča valley and Maribor (last year was Soča and Prevalje).

The first day was a late arrival at the same guest-house in Drežnica as last year, who were kind enough to feed us at 9pm. The next day was thunderstorms and rain all morning, so we took the opportunity to walk up the path to Fort Hermann near Bovec (no bikes allowed). The afternoon was sunny, so we did a quick ride to Slap Krampež and then up the hill to do some rocky singletrack as a warm-up.

Second riding day was a longer ride from Bovec up the Soča and Lepena Valleys. Was very hot and sunny, and the icy cold river (makes your feet go numb if you stand in it) was refreshing. Unfortunately the driver's electric window broke on the car, making a really awful grinding and grating noise. Fortunately the free WiFi was put to use to establish that there was a dealer in the next town.

After a trip to the car dealer, who had to order in a part for the next day, the third day, and final in Soča valley was a ride from Drežnica down along the river to Trnovo, and then back along the Soča River. After stopping at a camp site for lunch, it was a long slog up the hairpins/switchbacks back up to the guest-house. Afterwards we managed a quick walk up to Slap Kožjak waterfall before dinner and packing the car.

The fourth day was an 07:50am trip to the car dealer again, for them to install what looked like half of the inside of the door! The old one was well and truly knackered, with broken cogs and a tangle of frayed steel cable. After that we drove via the 50 hairpin bends of the Vršič Pass between Bovec and Kranjska Gora, and on to Bled for some lunch. Then on to Maribor for the last few days. We had a few hours to spare that evening, and managed to find a friendly bike shop opposite the hotel, who gave some advice on going up the Ski Gondola and some routes to take. The hotel was famed for its icecream and gateaux, so we'd be eating one of each every evening!

First day in Maribor started with a ride up the Pohorjske Gondola, followed by another 2000ft of climbing. Then a 17km all downhill descent to Ruše (complete with 1 broken chain on Phil's bike, plus another stop to let brakes cool). At the bottom, a completely random guy abandoned his car on a roundabout and came running up the street, going "Wow! A Cotic Soul!". Apparently he'd heard about the bike I ride from the internet, wanted one, and had spotted mine as he drove past!

Last day in Maribor was a long ride out through the vineyards. A roadbike would have been more useful. Some of the bike paths were very well signposted, but for others we had to rely on a tourist info leaflet map and free OpenStreetMap maps on my GPS, but we got round the loop OK.

The last day was a trip back to Ljubljana in the rain, then a looong drive back to Germany.


Definitely Recommended:
- Turisticna kmetija Kranjc - Guesthouse in Dreznica
- Pohorska Kavarna - Hotel in Maribor (with excellent cakes + ice-cream!)

More Photos on Picasa:
- http://picasaweb.google.com/andysrockets/MTBSlovenia2010

Zotac Mini PC

Had been considering a media centre type PC for a while. Didn't want anything hard core near the TV, just something slim and quiet. Definitely didn't want Windows Media Centre, nor anything based around MythTV, and there's no need for ability to record TV, since that would be handled by another PC on the network.

So I eventually got the shortlist down to Acer Revo, and Zotac MAG. Both are an Atom 330 (dual core + HT) device, Nvidia ION for graphics. Both (afaik) have 2G RAM, 160Gig HDD, WiFi, plenty of USB ports, S/PDIF out, HDMI, etc. so there was not much to choose between them. Acer Revo non-Windows version was impossible to find online, but Zotac MAG only comes with no OS. So the Zotac won.

On the front panel there's: Power Switch, (white) HDD LED, (blue) WiFi LED, USB 2.0, SDHC/MS/xD etc. Multi-card Reader, Mic, Phones/Audio Out, and also an extra USB 2.0 on the top.

On the rear panel there's: eSATA port, 4x USB 2.0, LAN, VGA, HDMI, S/PDIF Out, Power In.

First boot from an Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx beta on SDHC card worked faultlessly. So I used that to partition the HDD as: 2x 6Gig for 2 distros (allowing me to try 1 distro without affecting the current in use one), 4Gig swap, the rest for /home. Downloaded official final release version of 64bit Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx in the meantime, and then burned that to SDHC, booted, and installed.

So the Atom 330 really is dual core + HT, as evidenced by the System Monitor claiming there's 4 effective 1.6GHz CPU cores :)

First boot time clocked in at about 36 seconds :) (off to logged in, with auto login). Installation was 20 minutes (boot, type in user, passwd, hostname etc., install, reboot). Restart time after installing Nvidia drivers clocked in at 42sec.

XBMC was my Media Centre of choice. Installed it just by enabling repo and doing an apt-get. Works just nicely :) So far I've only enabled media sources from my main PC, but it plays really well. Oh and the current version also allows scrobbling to both last.fm and libre.fm :)

Optical audio out to the amp was not too tricky to sort. Had to enable digital audio (IEC something) in Ubuntu Sound Hardware settings (forget where), and then the same again in XBMC settings. And remember to switch amp to the right input channel ;)

Still to do:
1. get HDMI and plug in to telly (running VGA at the moment) [Update: now done]
2. sort out 1080p playback
3. work out what remote to use with it

Skiing in the Dolomites (again)

After last year's Snowheads bash in the Dolomites, there was no way I was going to miss the opportunity to return. The scenery is stunning, and the snow fantastic. Last year we stayed in Campitello di Fassa, but this year we stayed 1 pass further east in Arabba.

Drove down in the snow Friday night, collecting Talltone from Munich Airport, and then onwards to Innsbruck where we stayed over until Saturday morning. The other guys were arriving at Innsbruck from Gatwick and Manchester, although the Manchester flight was diverted to Munich after an aborted landing due to weather. They all eventually arrived a few hours after us.

Sunday was an easy day, to get the legs working, and to check out a new pair of Salomon GS Race skis. So a few of us headed over towards Corvara and San Cassiano to play around on some mostly blue runs.

Monday was a day to push the skis a bit more, so another group of us did the 40km anti-clockwise Sella Ronda circuit.

Tuesday was the first day to ski over to Malga Ciapella and take the 3 end-to-end cable cars up to Marmolada, just over 1 mile higher. The view up there is amazing, and seriously recommended.

On Wednesday a group started the Sella Ronda clockwise circuit early, but I decided to have a late start. Eventually, 2 of us decided that as we were both on GS race skis, we could chase them down and catch them up by late morning coffee break. It turned out that we actually beat them to the coffee bar by 5 minutes, even though we were doing the same route! Then all of us took a diversion from the circuit to visit Santa Christina, which involves a snazzy funicular, a gondola and then a chairlift. The area is brilliant, and the 1st pizzeria from the top of the mountain was the best pizza I've had outside of Rome/Frascati. After that, we finished the circuit at rifugio Plan Boè, where the entire group met for dinner, followed by a torch-lit night ski back down in to town.

Thursday was another easy morning, but then 3 of us decided to squeeze in another trip up to the top of Marmolada. This was the fastest descent I've made from there, which is extremely tiring due to the lower oxygen levels at altitude.

Friday was the last day, so a few of us just headed back over to Corvara to play around in the powder snow that had fallen overnight. Visibility was a bit poor, but the snow was superb.

Can't wait to go back to the Dolomites again next year!

Pictures are here...
http://picasaweb.google.com/andysrockets/SHBB2010Arabba