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Sustainable Mountain Biking in NSW - Management Strategies for NPWS Discussion
As some of you may have read, Mike Baird is helping mountain bike riders with issues they have been having with regards access in National Parks, and particularly here on the Northern Beaches (Mike's electorate of course, which is where his interest lies).
As the press release linked above points out, yesterday Mike met with Carmel Tebbutt (Deputy Premier, Minister for Climate Change and the Environment, and Minister for Commerce) to discuss these issues.
I was privileged to attend this meeting and put the case for mountain bike riders in the discussion. We as a group should also be very thankful that certain individuals are so generous with their time as to support these efforts and produce documents like the Oxford Falls Submission.
To support the meeting agenda yesterday these tireless authors again came up with another outstanding document on sustainable riding practices and strategies for an amicable way forward. Copies of this were handed out at the meeting and have linked a soft copy here for reference:
Sustainable Mountain Biking in NSW - Management Strategies for NPWS Discussion
Massive thanks once again to Mike and his assistant for their support and everyone else involved in this.
As for the meeting... In my view it went very well and was very positive. We are awaiting clarification on a couple of points but hopefully there will be some nice news to report shortly. Stay tuned!
NoBMoB Response to Oxford Falls Regional Crown Reserve Plan of Management
.jpg "Oxford Falls Plan of Management - NoBMoB Response (cover)")
As discussed in the forum (http://nobmob.com/node/8862) I was contacted by an environment consultancy asking for suggestions or recommendations for a proposed Oxford Falls Regional Crown Reserve POM.
Thankfully a few fellow NoBMoBers stepped up to help and put in plenty of effort and a couple of late nights too.
Attached is the result of our labours which I've just sent off in response:
Thanks for the help and let's hope something good comes from this. If nothing else at least we've now got a document that shows the massive demand and woeful provision for riding in the Northern Beaches.
Access Denied! A look at regulating MTB in National Parks.
Anthony Seiver looks at why regulating mountain bike riding in national parks is necessary and ultimately in the best interests of the sport.
The regulation of mountain biking riding in national parks triggers condemnation from some riders and acceptance from others. Those who condemn the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) feel that there should be no or few controls on mountain biking in national parks because it is public space and they believe that it has no impacts. More reasonable riders accept that NPWS has to regulate mountain biking to find the balance between conservation, public safety and our right to enjoy our sport. The Royal National Park to the south of Sydney provides examples of good and bad regulation. I have closely observed mountain bike regulation in the Royal and my attitude has changed from condemning NPWS' heavy-handed imposition of mountain bike regulation in 2001 to an acceptance of its need. This article outlines the reasons for my shift in attitude by identifying why and how mountain bike riding in national parks should be regulated.
Rob's Homemade LEDs MkII
There will be some gumf about these lights soon. In the mean time, peruse some pictures:
How to Mount a Garmin Cadence Sensor on a Cannondale Rush
This is a very quick description of how I managed to get the cadence sensor from a Garmin Edge mounted on a Cannondale Rush.
The problem with the Rush is that the rear wheel 'hangs' from a swing arm that is higher than most. Definitely higher than the designers of the Garmin sensor intended.
There were two possible options to solve this problem:
- Disassemble the sensor, mount the main body somewhere else, then extend the wiring between it and the wheel sensor and mount that on the rear arm.
- Create some kind of mount that hangs under the rear arm and holds the sensor in the location it was intended.
Although several articles can be found that describe success with the first option, the latter sounded a little easier and less prone to bad mistakes - if you don't get the measurements quiet right you've just ruined 20c worth of aluminium, not a costly sensor.
Highland fling review 2006
Well what an event. There was quite a lot of reference to 109Km this year, even from Huw at the presentation. I thought is was harder than last year, probably for two reasons, 1. it WAS harder and 2. I think in hindsight I might not have been as well prepared as last year.
This year we stayed in a nice big house "Inverard". The crew (Craig, Jemima, Christine, Will, Sergio, Sharon, Dwight and Justin) had arrived by dinner time Saturday night. I had decided at 7:00pm that the chain issue had to be fixed so off to the boys at legend cycles for a new middle sprocket. While I was away dinner was being prepared. A rather large amount of pasta was cooked up for the eight hungry mouths. Huge logistics doing 3 courses for 8 people!!! There was a stack of yummy food full of carbs and sugar. Couple of beers along the way to add to the carb loading. 500ml cans I might add. We were all asleep by about 10:30pm.
Rob's Homemade LEDs - Performance
Don't look directly at the lights!
Erm... does my helmet need a wash? 
So - what everyone wants to know is, "Just how do these perform?"... the good news is: very, very well :)
Rob's Homemade LEDs - Batteries
The rule of thumb for driving LEDs with the 3021 seems to be: Sum the total voltage drop over LEDs to drive and add 1v for headroom.
NB: in fact any source above 16v (up to 32v) will probably do the job given the specs of the 3021. And if you're willing to spend a little extra and get the 4015 BoostPuck (which is pin compatible and should work with the circuit above) a voltage source less than this will do. Erm... although at the moment these only seem to come in 350mA flavour so you'd be sacrificing a lot of brightness or be looking at LEDs of different specification.
Rob's Homemade LEDs - Hardware
It had always been a plan to mount the LEDs and optics inside Berocca tubes. Initially the thought was that the tubes could be kept separate and be fixed at various locations on the helmet. Cool as this sounds after a bit of thinking it was never going to work, and so decided it would be best to bolt LEDs on MCPCB through the bottom of the tubes and into something more solid. Aluminium angle seemed like a good choice and was freely available in various sizes - a number of designs emerged...
Rob's Homemade LEDs - Electronics
Parts purchased from Cutter Electronics... Cree XR-E LEDs, Luxdrive Buckpuck and L2 Optics... erm... optics and diffusers.
Plus an AA battery and Berocca tube for scale.
Testing Cree XR-E LEDs... on the right is a single XR-E with L2 Optic mounted. This is driven from the Luxdrive 3021 BuckPuck with about the lowest current that it can supply and still have the LED light - about 5mA! On the left is a 'standard' green LED for comparison.
This is pretty amazing given the Cree can be driven up to 700mA or with 140 times more current.
Best laid plans
Ah yes - and it all seemed so simple... the 3021 data sheet explained how one should feed somewhere between zero and five volts to it's control pin to control the light output level from the LEDs connected. I have a Petzl LED headlight which works with a single push button to cycle through four stages of off->full->dim->dimmer->off. Simple enough to replicate I soon had a J-K flip flop design made up, driving what was basically three logic controlled voltage dividers to connect to the control pin of a 3021. Prototyped on a breadboard and with a standard LED placed where the control pin should be, sure enough this changed the brightness of the LED and therefore the voltage going in, and would therefore work the 3021. Erm... well, as it happens, no!
Once the parts arrived it was sadly discovered that no amount of tinkering or experimentation could cause the 3021 to work as anticipated with the logic controlled dimmer. Back to the drawing board.