Simon Rumble’s blog

Yesterdays ride ended up about 120km. My legs are very very tired, but it was a good ride. Good preparation for our big ride in a couple of weeks too. Gonna be a few days around that distance!

Part of the reason for the extra length yesterday was Lonely Planet's shitty directions and maps. It got me thinking: why hasn't someone come up with a satellite navigation system for this kinda thing? I guess cost is still too high, and probably not enough demand compared to cars.

For city cycling, though, it should be a relatively easy matter to overlay the government-provided cycle maps onto an existing map of a city. The navigation engine would be programmed to prefer the cycle routes, avoid motorways and A roads, and prefer shorter distances. I guess it could get difficult in hilly cities, a bit more complex as going downhill is a very different thing to uphill.

Perhaps something for the hobbyists to start?

Phew. Mammoth photo upload session and here they are.

• Memorial ride for James
• Visit to Sam, Stu and Alfie in Leicester
• Birthday drinks last week

So has summer finally arrived? BBC weather forecast has five days of sunshine. First time I've seen that in a long time! We're going cycling on Saturday, so some sun would be good!

Got my bike serviced yesterday (Mend-A-Bike in Fulham, very good) and oh what a joy it is now. All I hear is the wind whistling through my ears, which makes a change from the grind-crunch it's been making the last month or so. Worn out bottom bracket, it seems.

Only complaint this morning was that every piece of sand and grit in London seemed to be making a beeline for my eyes. Very windy day, you see.

We've moved into our new pad in Barons Court. Very nice place! Lots of sunlight in the lounge room and both rooms are very big.

Now waiting on Ikea and their crap delivery service so we can get the rest of our new furniture.

Wow, apparently my work's stock is worth something, which means my stock options are actually worth something. Well, there's a first time for everything!

Must be time to buy into Bubble Goo again.

We're still in Sydney, until Sunday this week anyway. If you haven't managed to catch up with us, get in touch. Probably do drinks in Newtown on Thursday night.

I'm actually working in the Sydney office of my employer this week. That way I won't blow the whole three weeks in holidays. Also useful to get some work done here as the developers are available.

By the time we arrived in Oz, my computer seemed to have lost contact with the outside world. The ADSL it's on might have crashed, but who knows. Major pain in the arse.

If you're in Sydney, you can call me on 02 9879 0308.

Well here's an example of how not to handle ticket sales for a large, high-profile event. Glastonbury tickets just went on sale, which meant getting up at 5am here in Sydney to start trying. It's now 8:45am and I've finally discovered I have some tickets.

I only worked this out, mind, by giving up on their web site and phoning the UK, where I was told I already had tickets. The web site certainly hasn't told me this useful bit of information!

But the good news is, we have Glasto tickets. Woo!

Holly and I are off to Sydney tomorrow morning for three weeks. If you want to call me, I'll mostly be at my parents place: 02 9879 0308. Should have access to email while I'm there too.

Holly's having a party on her birthday, 8th April, so come along!

Back in London on 19th April.