|
|
||
|
|
I’m such a lousy blogger, I haven’t updated my blog for ages. Instead, I’m spending more time on Facebook and Twitter. Anyways, biggest update is that I’m in Paris for PBP. I’ve been updating on Facebook so it’ll be easier to just follow me there to follow my progress throughout the event: [singlepic id=2914 w=720] This is Audax Randonneurs Malaysia‘s first Permanent event, a 100km ride starting from Bukit Jelutong and passes through many popular spots including Kundang, Ijok, Bestari Jaya and the Selangor Fruits Valley. They have even prepared a very nice-looking medal for the event: [singlepic id=2915 w=720] All in all, a pretty fun and interesting route. Here’s the ride video: In the latest video of my Randonneuring series, I explain why the way you manage your time off the bike is more important than speed in completing an audax ride successfully within the cut-off time. [singlepic id=2912 w=720] This was a relatively peaceful ride — mostly quiet countryside roads passing through a lot of estates, padi fields and the like with little traffic, except for the few main roads connecting towns. The night riding was very nice, but I can’t say the same for the daytime climbing and rolling roads under the afternoon sun. Oh well, that’s how it is with our Malaysian climate! Participation for this ride was pretty low, with only 64 registered participants attending. It might be that a lot of randonneurs have already achieved their Super Randonneur 2019 status and are taking a break. Perhaps the start location is quite far up north — it was a 4+ hours drive for me just to get to Aroma Hotel where the ride began. Due to the low participation, I found myself riding solo for large portions of the ride. It’s not just any ordinary solo riding, but I didn’t see a single cyclist for entire stretches of roads, which sometimes made me question my position in the event: was I still ahead, or was I last? I later found out that I was ahead, and finished in a pretty reasonable time of 24h 39m, but regardless this was a pretty good exercise in mental endurance; not a particularly enjoyable thing to train for, but at the same time an extremely critical aspect of ultra-long distance endurance cycling. Anyways, ride video coming up! Remember to like and subscribe! Update: New “Director’s Cut” version with commentary track added: [singlepic id=2911 w=720] This morning’s ride brings us to the town of Bestari Jaya via the GCE. Turnout was not as big as last week, but plenty of fast legs today. Another significant difference was the weather; although it rained heavily the day before, it got hot pretty fast but that didn’t stop everyone from ramping up the pace to an average of 34-35km/h along the flats. Ouch. [singlepic id=2910 w=720] Today’s ride menu is a short 75km jaunt from Bukit Jelutong to Batu Arang for some wan tan mee and back with PCC. Nothing particularly interesting about the ride, just the usual punctures, amputation threats, poopy roads and all-out hammer-fests. Yep, nothing special at all. Ride video was taken with a single GoPro Hero7 Black in 4K60p mode, thus allowing cropping and panning as well as a little bit of slow motion in post for a 1080p target. Have to say though that a 1080p crop from the 4K footage isn’t as sharp and detailed as if the video was properly shot in 1080p. Probably due to the bitrate being insufficient to provide enough detail for the crop. Anyways, you know the drill, like and subscribe! 🙂 100 subscribers! Yeah!! Okay, so 100 is not really much, but in YouTube space it still has some special meaning. Watch the video to find out what that is! Also like and subscribe! 🙂 On another note, about the audio problems I have been having, I’m narrowing it down to a problem with my Canon EOS RP. The audio from today’s video was recorded on a lavalier mic connected directly to the camera, so proving it’s not the Rode VideoMic Pro+ that’s at fault. The weird thing is that there are clicks and pops only when I’m speaking, and none during periods of silence. Something up with the camera’s preamp, or encoding algorithm? Regardless of the reason, I’m slightly disappointed. I was hoping the EOS RP would be my primary vlogging camera. I’ll now have to further investigate and see if this is a common issue with this camera, or just my specific unit. If the former, guess I might have to fall back to my Panasonic G9. If the latter, then I guess it’s back to Canon for warranty. I made a short video of my first impressions on the idea of using triathlon shoes for road and long distance cycling. Some weirdness with the auto ISO going on in the video. I thought a white subject should make the meter underexpose, not the opposite way around. Regardless of the reason, still my fault. I should have just used full manual exposure in these kinds of shots. Also finding out something is up with my audio recording. Can’t pinpoint the problem currently, but I’m suspecting the +20db boost of the Rode VideoMic Pro+ isn’t as good as it seemed… but I’ll need to conduct further testing to be sure. One last thing, I’m trying to post this from the WordPress app so let’s see if this link works: My latest video on cycling tips and tricks covers the mounting and unmounting of wheels, specifically the real wheel on a bicycle with rear derailleur mechanism. Unfortunately I flubbed it when I kept talking about tyres and wheels interchangeably, when I actually meant wheels. Funny thing is I never noticed throughout the entire editing and proof watching process… I guess maybe in my mind I just correlated the two and never thought of them as separate things? Oh well… anyways, go watch the video, hope you enjoyed it and leave a like and subscribe if you did. 🙂 600km done and dusted, completing the final ride I need for Super Randonneur 2019 and also qualifying for Paris-Brest-Paris 2019! At first glance it doesn’t seem like that difficult of a ride, but like the BRM400 last month, the heat wave came and upped the difficulty to 11. Combine that with the cold morning, headwinds alongside the east coast, and lots of rolling roads and we have a perfect recipe for another tough ride. Anyways, this is just a quick update. I might come back and add more to the post later but in the meantime, enjoy the video, leave a like and hopefully, subscribe! Update: And here’s the Director’s Cut version with the additional commentary track: |
|
|
Copyright © 2025 Adrian's Corner - All Rights Reserved Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa |
||
