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Broken Time Machine

Published August 14, 2010

This is not good.

Danielle’s computer has been failing to back up properly to an AirPort-connected Time Machine volume, so with her volunteering at the 3-Day this weekend I figured I’d spend some time getting to the bottom of why.

First I thought the issue might be the questionable USB enclosure that the backup hard drive was in, so I swapped to another. No luck. Then I figured maybe the backup volume was corrupt, so I wiped that, but that didn’t help either; the backup still wouldn’t run. Next I thought that perhaps the local drive might be having issues, so I ran the Verify Disk function in Disk Utility, which promptly informed me that the volume was so damaged that I’d have to boot some install media and do an offline test. I did this, started the check, and received the message shown above informing me that the volume is so corrupt that it cannot be repaired. It will now not boot, sitting only at the Apple logo / spinning progress indicator screen.

This is not good.

Now I will have to back up all the accessible data by hand, and hopefully I’ll be able to get all of her music, documents, and photos along with config files needed to restore them. I’m hoping that this can be accomplished by hanging an FireWire disk off of the machine, installing OS X there, using Migration Assistant to pull data over, wipe (and test) the main drive, reinstall the OS there, then again migrate all data from the FW drive.

While it’s difficult to say what caused this, I strongly suspect it’s related to an alarm clock application that she’s been using for a while. This application will wake a Mac from sleep and sound an alarm. As her machine is a Macbook, which is not designed to run while closed (since they dissipate heat through the keyboard area), a program waking the machine from sleep while the machine is closed results in the machine immediately putting itself back to sleep. This would repeat over and over until the alarm was canceled or timed out. With this app in use for the last year or so, odds are good that this super-fast wake/sleep cycle has happened hundreds or thousands of times.

Due to the extremely complex things that happen when a machine is sleeping and waking, I strongly suspect that some things didn’t get read from or written to disk quite properly during the wake/sleep cycle and the disk became quite corrupt. Then, the software designed to repair this corruption couldn’t deal with how bad things were, left the disk in a less-usable state, and the machine is then left where it now is: failing to boot.

UPDATE: This corrupt disk problem was fixed as I hoped it would be above, with the external FW disk. Unfortunately Time Machine still isn’t working. Time to keep digging…

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Stuff For Sale: Gary Fisher X-Caliber 29er and Wet Saw

Published August 10, 2010

I have some things for sale. Anyone want to buy them?

The first is the wet saw seen above, which I used to tile my kitchen, laundry room, and foyer. I no longer need it, so I’d like to sell it. Asking price is US$30.

One is my sister’s Gary Fisher X-Caliber 29er, size 17.5″ / medium. Asking price is US$1000 or best offer. It’s barely used, and has seen very little time on trails since she has found that she prefers road biking. Please check out this post on the MMBA Forum for more details and photos.

UPDATE: Both items have sold.

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Dusty August

Published August 9, 2010

Here is a photo of a dusty Kenda Small Block 8 from the rear of my Titus after doing two laps of Maybury State Park with Erik and Kristi on Sunday.

This has been a nice weekend for riding, with things working out so I could rack up 40.31 miles on Saturday (Home to Stony Creek, River Bends, then back), 29.09 miles yesterday (2x Maybury, 2x Addison Oaks), and 20.1 miles today (Home to Sherwood Brewery, River Bends, Sherwood, then Home). I’d like to continue this throughout the week, but I suspect that weather and other obligations will preclude this.

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Busy Day, Good Day

Published August 8, 2010

This morning was fairly non-stop busy. I woke up, ate breakfast, set out on a bike ride that ended up being a bit over 40 miles (and just shy of three hours), came home, showered, then set out for my sister and brother in law’s place for dinner for my sister’s birthday. Lots of driving was involved, but it was a good day.

Along the way I ran into a bunch of people that I knew, rode with some, and talked with others. I picked up another GPS to repair, tried out a Banana Hammer-brand gel (it’s good, but a bit thick even when hot), and generally had a good time. Now I just have to wait for bike clothes to finish washing and then I can hang them up and go to bed. Currently I’ve got two rides scheduled for tomorrow, each on opposite ends of the Metro Detroit area, and each likely a bit over 15 miles of single track each. Yay!

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Edge 305: Crashed Hard

Published August 2, 2010

I’m working on a Garmin Edge 305 for a friend’s boss which was reported to have a problem finding satellites. After reproducing the problem I opened it up, only to find the body of one of the tactile switches missing and apparently nowhere to be found. This was quite a mystery, as the case had supposedly never been opened before.

After opening and closing the case the not-finding-satellites problem appeared remedied (likely by the full power cycle), but I was confused by the apparently missing button. Rob’s boss had reported that the missing button had been “acting up”, but with all these parts missing the button simply wouldn’t have worked. With the underside of the battery the only place the pieces could have possibly gone I popped out the battery only to find all three pieces stuck in the adhesive which normally holds the battery to the chassis. While they are the size of (large) grains of rice I was able to get the switch reassembled and functioning. Unfortunately, the not-finding-satellites problem is back.

This means that the owner had to have crashed hard enough to blow apart a tactile switch through the rubber housing, bounced it around enough to get all the pieces under the battery, then squished (squeezed?) it all back together. I suspect that in the process a (quite inaccessible) solder connection on the GPS module broke, the metal bits bouncing around the case shorted something out, or something else in the case broke leading to the issue of satellites not being found. It’s too bad I can’t fix that part.

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8 Hours of Bloomer

Published August 1, 2010

Today some friends (who are also team mates) and I made a four-person go at Fun Promotions’ 8 Hours of Bloomer race, another one of the Michigan Cup Endurance Racing series which also included the 6 & 12 Hours of Stony Creek race from back in May. Our team ended up placing second out of a pool of two, coming in only a couple minutes behind the winning team. I started out the race, then Erik followed, with Marty and then Nick taking their turns. All of us got in four laps, save for Nick who only ended up with three due to rain starting up just before Marty’s final lap and the cutoff time for leaving on a final lap being pushed back half an hour.

This was my first long ride at Bloomer, and I found this route to be rather enjoyable. I’d previously visited the park, but didn’t like it either of those times. One time was with an MMBA group, and the riding of a (very eroded) trail along the upper part of a very steep ridge (photo) scared me so much that I stopped tens of feet into it. The second time was with Derek, the guy currently responsible for overseeing trail maintenance at the park, and the route he took us on was very difficult and simply not much fun. This time the route was a bit shorter, but quite enjoyable. It also included the chute / switchbacks mentioned here (that photo doesn’t do it justice) which were a bit intimidating at first, but were much better after a few goes.

In the end with my four laps I racked up 23.15 miles over 2:00:32, for an average speed of 11.52 MPH. At some point I hit a max of 21.95 MPH, which isn’t particularly quick. Also, that total mileage is easily eclipsed by what Joe, Kelly, and Bill did during their solo races, with Joe approaching 100 miles, Kelly at 80-some, and Bill with a bit less than that.

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Sigma BC 1609 and Maybury

Published July 28, 2010

After having a bunch of issues with my other computers† I came across the Sigma BC 1609, a well-featured wired computer that comes with an optional (and thus detachable, as its not useful for mountain biking) cadence sensor. Costing roughly $35 at a local shop I’m really happy with it thus far and anticipate it performing well for a while. Beyond the online computer emulator/simulator which let me get a feel for the device’s UI and the standard speed / clock / elapsed time / odometer / average / trip computers, here’s what sold me on it, in no particular order:

· Wired.
· Thermometer.
· Weatherproof.
· Bike 2 Cradle Available. (Auto-switching to other wheel size.)
· Stopwatch. (Easy ad-hoc segment timing.)
· Count-down Timer.
· Quality Backlight. (Toggle it on, then it illuminates briefly at each button press.)
· Nicely small wheel sensor.
· Wheel magnet is very low profile and locks on with a sliding clamp.

The only real downside is the slightly thin wire, but hopefully it’ll be durable enough to last. If I’m really concerned about it I’ll just armor it with some spiral wrap or maybe cable housing.

After visiting the shop to pick up a new headset and chain for the singlespeed and random other things I headed over to Maybury State Park to ride the bike trails there. The last time I was there I wasn’t feeling too well and coupled with not knowing the trail I didn’t enjoy the ride. Today I did two laps and while on the first I wasn’t comfortable with the trail and didn’t enjoy it much, part-way through the second I began to feel comfortable. I had a feeling for what was coming up and was able to relax and allow the bike to roll faster and enjoy the trail. I’m now looking forward to going back out here another time, and maybe even racing in the Maybury Time Trial on August 21st.

Oh, and the Sigma BC 1609? Just kept on working, just as I expect. No weirdness at all like I’d had with the other computers.

† 1) Cateye Strada Wireless that had sample rate issues around 30 MPH, an iffy sensor, and interference problems. Batteries were changed, but things still wouldn’t work right.
2) NiteRider Rebel 1.0 which has UI issues where it takes up to three seconds to respond to a button press (longer when moving) and a very sloped face and thus a poor viewing angle when stem mounted. The button latency is terrible if you’re riding along and want to check the time or some other data. It’s also physically much larger than it needs to be. Not bad for a first generation computer from a company that normally doesn’t make them, but I expected more.

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Thorny Face Slapper

Published July 26, 2010

Face slappers, or thin vines growing out over the trail, are a common nuisance in mountain biking. One that I hit today on curved gravely hill caught me on the lip and made for some sudden pain and blood. Here’s a photo of Erik’s hand holding what I believe to be the berry cane that I hit showing its thorns. We went back and cleared back as many as we could, but I suspect they’ll grow back before very long. The bleeding stopped quickly and by the time I got home the scratches were no longer noticeable, but the hot sauce that I had on my pizza dinner did a great job reminding me where they were. Now it feels no worse than a chapped lip.

Oh, and the rest of the ride? Outstanding, save for the deer flies that were taking refuge in my helmet and occasionally biting my scalp. Every time I removed my helmet there were 3-5 of them hiding in the crevices. I can deal with swarms of mosquitos while riding, but I truly loathe biting flies.

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Sliding Dropout Issues

Published July 25, 2010

After washing off the remainder of the mud from yesterday’s race I set about trying to fix the problem with the rear wheel rubbing on a chain stay. This appeared to be due to one of the sliding dropouts sliding, but after looking into it more I think what’s actually happening is that the dropout is rotating slightly while braking due the the bolts being slightly smaller than the slots they go through. So, as can be seen above (when contrasted to this picture) I added some ground down wingnuts to the dropout adjustment screws and changed the outer plates to a set of flat and split lock washers.

The original outer plates appear to have raised ridges in them to alleviate this shifting, but the ones I have are so squished and worn that I don’t think they fit quite right and thus were having the same issue. I’ve tried emailing VooDoo Cycles on Wednesday to buy replacement sliding dropouts, but they haven’t replied, so I think I’ll have to take other steps.

Knowing what forces are in play on the dropouts will hopefully allow me to set things in proper place so they don’t shift any while riding. An initial test around the neighborhoods seemed to help, but not being on trails there was very little braking to be done. If this doesn’t work I’ll also try Fiber Grip to increase friction in the frame vs. dropout area, making larger outer washers/plates, and adding bushings around the screws. I’m also considering adding a link to the chain to both get a quick link in place and allow the wheel to be moved backwards putting the edge of the tire at a wider part of the stay to alleviate/offset the tire rubbing giving it more room to flex/move to the side if it does slip.

Here’s a couple photos of the bike with the new suspension fork, brakes, and Lagunitas Brewing Company cap (on a Niner YAWYD) on it: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4.

Save for the slipping dropout issue I rather like this setup. The fork isn’t the greatest, but it’s a good squishy fork that fits the bike well and is comfortable to ride on.

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