I’m on my way with training for the Aids Life Cycle (ALC9) but I have a lot of work to do.  Mostly I need to increase the distance I can ride in a day, I haven’t really ridden more than 40mi in a single period, but that’s about to change.  The route requires between 66 to 108 miles per day, and a lot of the weekend group training rides are up to 70mi.

I’ve purchased an indoor trainer so I won’t loose any chances to train when I can’t get outside or for other schedule reasons.  But I’ve hit a few snags along the way, and learned a couple things too.  My first ride up to Tiburon ended with a broken spoke, not really the ideal end to a trip.  I’ve since gotten this fixed along with my shifter from a previous incident involving a pick-up truck (I’m sensing a trend).

Most recently (this morning actually) I thought I should really push my training and ride regardless of the rain and wind outside, probably not the best decision in the world.  Turns out the fancy pebble concrete on the way back on the Golden Gate Bridge is actually pretty slick when wet.  I totally took a fall in front of all the gawking tourists and children.  Looks like my new shifter lasted less than 24-hours without getting all scratched up once again, it’s just like old again!  So, time to make use of the indoor trainer and spin classes while it’s still all doom and gloomy outside.

I’ve been a “beta” tester of the new Translink card payment system for San Francisco public transport for a while now, but am amazed at the credit card payment process for these cards. As you can tell from the video below it appears to still use a dial-up process to authenticate and process credit card payments. So while you’re on your way to somewhere important, and realize you need to add value to your card you have to wait for a modem to dial up a credit card auth. I sure hope they speed up this process before it gets popular! Given, there are better ways to refill your card such as online or via the automatic enrollment. But this system is really supposed to be better than the old, and using a card to add value is now apparently two steps backwards.

I just registered for the AIDS LifeCycle, a 7-day 545-mile bike ride from SF to LA.   This begins June 6th and ends June 12th, and to participate I need to raise a minimum of $3,000.  I’ve kick-started this by donating $2,000 and setting a goal of $5,000.  I’m also going to match all donations up to $3,000 so if I make my goal it will mean a total of $8,000 in total donations!   I would love to be able to participate in this and reach my fundraising goals for this great cause, so I would love it if everyone could consider making a donation, no matter how small it might be.  I’ll do my best to document the ride with pictures and videos and post them here for everyone to see, even if this means me crawling the last few miles!

You can make donations online here, donations will benefit the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

I just downloaded the new swype beta for android and its absolutely fantastic. So much so that i decided I should write this entry for from my nexus one phone, something I wouldn’t have really been too encouraged to do before. In part because the default android keyboard doesn’t really work out that well for me leaving me with a lot of typos and frustration. The swype keyboard even in its beta does an amazing job at identifying long and not very precise input, a far superior input method. And I’ve only been using out for a few hours now!

I do need to get faster at correcting the typoes I do make, and I feel the suggestion menu is a little obtrusive. The keyboard, however looks fantastic. If you’re running an android phone I would default keep your eye’s out for this one.