andy jennings

Here in Australia the days are getting shorter. The nights a bit colder. So naturally thoughts turn towards ... lights. I run with two lights at the front, and two lights at the back. Surely this is a bit paranoid – why two? I'm talking about lights for commuting in a major city. With mostly bright street lighting. Not for touring. When the sun gets low in the sky I think of only one thing: stopping and putting up the tent. I don't like doing this in the dark. I used to be an Audax rider. If you are planning on doing all night rides, then look up the rules for Audax lighting. They know what they are doing. Some of my set-up comes from that background. Let's start with the back lights. Nothing special there. Running on rechargeable batteries, I have one on the seatpost and one on the frame. They are both visible when the bike is fully loaded. Why two? Well rechargeable batteries have one problem – when they run out of charge, they usually do this fai...

In 1989 I moved to Japan with my family to start work at the Kansai Advanced Research Centre, in Nishi Akashi. This was south of Kobe, a new research centre. We had an apartment about four or five kilometres from the lab. To get to work I could  get two buses, which took quite a while. But I decided to ride a bike. I hadn’t ridden a bike for a long time. But I just thought I would try it. Several times at the start I got lost. People always insisted on coming with me to show me where to go. Such kindness. It was in early Autumn. I can still remember struggling up the steep hill on the red bicycle. It was just a standard household bike - no gears. It took a long time for me to be able to make it up the hill without getting off and walking. But I was determined. I kept riding all through the winter. Even when it snowed. Coming down the hill at night, the sun setting early it would be really cold. A couple of times I couldn’t feel my fingers. Then I couldn’t fee...

The movie “127 hours” is about a weekend trip. I really relate to that rush at the start to get to where the trip starts. Lately I have been reduced to weekend tours. Just Saturday and Sunday, since I have work stuff on both Mondays and Fridays. It occurred to me that this is the situation for a lot of people, so I share here both the tour itself and how I plan them. It’s highly individual what people carry and how you go about things. But I find it valuable learning from what other people do. If you live or visit Melbourne and you want to do a two day tour, then this might be useful. Or even use parts of it for longer rides. This ride is from Cowes, across to Morwell. Cowes is south of Melbourne. In my case I got the train to Stony Point and then the ferry. It’s nice to get out of the city to start. In fact I find the outer suburbs really tough. There are usually not bike paths or bike lanes and the traffic is pretty intense. Ideally I’d like to start about 300km fr...

I have spent the last two and a half weeks on a holiday around Laos. This is sort of a blog about Laos, but you have to be careful. For the first week or so I kept coming across schools that were empty. This is terrible I thought, nobody in Laos goes to school. Yes, you guessed it, it was holiday time. So you've got to be careful about first impressions. I had the opportunity to visit quite a few villages, and it is a good place to think about issues like CO2 emissions. When you look at emissions per person in Laos, it is dramatically small. In the villages, I had time to just sit and watch the daily activities. When it comes to making do with less, these are the masters of the universe. Absolutely nothing is wasted. Watching them make their $100 houses - it was the house building season. Made from tree trunks and bamboo, erected in a day. Only last ten years or so, but then they just make a new one. Sitting there, and recalling the country tables of emissions per person, you...

(Disclaimer: they sent me a free copy of the map.) Why do you need a map? Ever tried to look at maps on your iphone in the rain? In bright sunshine? No bike path information either. Maps are fast, don’t need phone coverage and can be read quickly in any weather. I learned that the hard way last time I went bike touring: very embarrassing - I had to wave down a car to ask the way in the rain. This is a map of most of inner Melbourne: out to Brighton in the south, Oakleigh in the East. North to Fitzroy. It’s plastic coated. It is a real map. All of the details of the Melway maps are there, but with the bicycle information overlaid. In the spirit of “where to ride” it has bright red suggested routes, that combine bike paths and quiet roads. If you are a recreational rider that likes to get away from the traffic but you are not averse to a quiet road or two, then the paths suggested are very good. For example, going north-south it features the outer circle railway path: one of my fav...

So let's begin with an extract from Bjork's great song "Human Behaviour": "If you ever get close to a human and human behaviour be ready to get confused there's definitely no logic to human behaviour but yet so irresistible there is no map to human behaviour" Then let's continue with a couple of questions: In the Gaia theory of James Lovelock, which characterizes the planet earth as a giant intelligent organism, is the species known as human included as part of this organism, or does it stand apart somehow? Is human behaviour capable of modifying the macro environment of the planet ? In modelling the 100 year future of the planet, how should we model the influence of humans on that environment ? I really like that question about Gaia. I watched Virginia Trioli try to put that question to Tim Flannery at a public event. The question went straight past him. Hey Tim, wake up, it is the central question. This is not a book review of Jam...

Yes, I got a solar charger for christmas. Great! But it took a small extra purchase to get it working. What did I want? A stand-alone charger that didn't need to be connected to the iphone. Yes, on a rest day I might put it on top of the tent and charge it up. But more likely I would use it as an emergency charger. I wanted to strap the charger to the top of a pannier bag without the phone. Don't want the phone on, and don't want the drama of rushing for the phone in the event of a sudden downpour. Asmann charger seemed ideal. Two AA rechargable batteries, USB. Two modes "IN" charging and "OUT" powering by the USB. You can charge the battery pack via the USB port also. Very convenient. So I charge it up. Connect with the Apple cable (iphone USB) : nothing happens. Try the same setup on Nokia with the Nokia cable. Works fine. Back to the store. Turns out that iPhone is picky about the connection. This is some weird thing the Apple engineers ar...