road bike upgrades

So a bicycle mechanic friend sold me this great frame, 1990s group set and slightly worn wheels, for a song. Apollo was/ is an Australian bicycle brand. Frame made in Taiwan, which is literally the best place for a bicycle frame to be made, both in 1990s and still now.

 

Cables, housing, bar tape and assembly are mine, all with some tyre switching.  Bar type isn't glued on, it sort of friction fits by wrapping onto itself and the you tape only one end. A sort of fabric magic trick.

 

I rode the 50km Round the Bay event. Fun, a bit stop start, and got rained on.  Got some fancy road closures include two lanes each way of the large West Gate bridge, which is about 3km long.

At the last minute I discovered that red stripe tyres exist, so maybe we use them in the future; 

Vittoria Rubino Pro IV Road Tyre

Shimano RX 100 group set info is here.  Dealer manual scans also around to see how to service.

 

Shimano still sell spares for this approximately 30 year old design; part numbers of my brakes were dutifully listed on the back of the pack at a local bike store! I like!

Ubers' Slow Death

Here's is a great article about Ubers slow and inevitable death:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/05/a-lousy-taxi/#a-giant-asterisk

Uber doesn't have an innovation to go with it's share price and will eventually be priced like a taxi company instead of a tech company.

I'm picking Uber to pop it's share price first, then shortly after Instagram will do a myspace, then years later Facebook will ruin itself.

Recently Finished Things

I've finished several unrelated things in the last 6 weeks which doesn't happen often so I think I should write them down!

God of War 4 game on PC; This is a great game. It is extremely well produced, directed, written and motion captured. The game is very cinematic. I enjoyed it a lot.

Weaponised novel by Neal Asher; This was a good read with a story with many enjoyable twists. Unlike most of Ashers writing, I didn't just hoover this book up at the fastest possible rate. I sort of wanted to enjoy it smaller bit sized chunks. I think that says good things about Asher's dynamicism as an author.

Knife Sharpener Tool v2.1; I've been slowly 3d printing this knife sharpener. I couldn't get one of the non-printed parts in quite the right size, so I had to learn how to modify an existing part from another author. Fun project. Project is here on thingiverse.

Playable Ur; I'm still hacking this on web page Royal Game of Ur implementation in KotlinJS. I need some clues about colour, some sound adjustments and also a colour theme.  It has a very simple computer player, my first coded computer player that I can recall.