London to Southend Bike Ride 2008

Writing about web page http://www.justgiving.com/jarvism

Once again me and Chris have completed yet another sponsored bike ride!
BHF Hearts First London to Southend Bike Ride 2008.

My speedometer clocked it in at 54 miles completed in a trip time of 4 hours 22 minutes.

The sponsorship page can be found here and is still accepting sponsors!

I’ll probably expand on this post at a later time, it was a busy holiday week afterwards and I have returned to a busier working week!

On a random note, one of my previous blog entries about the bike ride had been found by a rider who approached me at Battlesbridge and asked about it! I didn’t catch his name but I believe he was numbered 1679 (I think). I reckon he recognised my face from photos or more likely the air horn as, once again, I was the one and only “Horny Rider”.

Mark Jarvis : 29 Jul 2008 21:52 |  Tags: Bhf Hearts First Bicycle Bike Cycle Cycling |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Cycled to destruction

This is what happens to a bike when you ride in excess of 8000 miles on it over at least 7 years. This happened shortly after my birthday towards the back end of February. I was cycling at the time and the fork half snapped, only the horseshoe shaped V-brake assembly and front wheel axle was holding it together. It wobbled all over the place, especially when braking as the wheel wasn’t true and the braking was uneven.

Over 7 years of rain, 8000 miles of pounding, hard braking and all sorts of abuse did this. It lasted through 6 London to Southend bike rides so helped me raise lots of cash for charity. The bike served me very well, although over the years, I had put on it 3 new front wheels, 4 new rear wheels, about 8 tyres, an entire replacement drive train (including rear gear derailleur, chain, cranks, front and back sprocket sets), new gear shifters, at least 10 pairs of brake blocks, 5 rear axles and associated bearings, 4 new gear cables, 2 new brake cables (including outer sheathing), countless inner tubes, new saddle, seat post, 4 sets of handlebar grips, 3 sets of V brakes arms, and god knows how many lights, speedometers etc…. but when you have a catastrophic frame failure like this, its time for a new bike.

I now have a GT Avalanche 1.0, 27 gears, front suspension, twin dual-cyclinder hydraulic disc brakes (which are the sharpest brakes on the planet), suspension saddle post and a heavy duty pannier rack for carrying all my shiz. All on this on the Warwick Cycle Scheme which I highly recommend to any Warwick Staff member.

Mark Jarvis : 28 Apr 2008 23:46 |  Tags: Bicycle Bike Broken Cycle Cycling Destruction |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Wastage on campus

Writing about web page http://go.warwick.ac.uk/environment

Havent you ever noticed how the IT Services header pages are totally pointless?? Why tell us how much credit we HAD before printing our current job? Its a waste of time and paper and ink. Also, have you ever noticed how computers seem to be left on 24/7? Its a bit excessive. Also, lights being on when the sunshine blasts in through the window. Or how about heating running while the windows are all open? WWWHHHYYY???

I now work in estates as a utilities technical assistant and the people I work with are keen to hear about unnecessary wastage on campus since we all ultimately want to stamp down our carbon footprint. I’ve mentioned a few of my own observations like these, as well as things like massive food wastage after a conference buffet lunch and tons of left over paper being binned and not recycled in some case.

Can you think of more incidents like these? Or other areas of wastage or inefficiency? DO YOU LEAVE YOUR SHIT TURNED ON ALL THE TIME??? Do you drive your car from campus to Tesco just to buy milk?? You lazy bastards. tut tut.

Why do people do these things and waste so much of everything? What criminal wastage have you seen happening out and about? What have you done about it or would like to see done about it? SPEAK TO ME!!

Mark Jarvis : 19 Sep 2007 23:19 |  Tags: Campus Environment Estates Green ITS Recycle Waste |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

How big is A0?

For part of my final year project, I have to make an A0 size landscape poster. In order to try and get a sense of scale I made a page at this size and then put a few boxes on which would be the size of my monitor, TV and a normal A4 sheet of paper. All of this was to put A0 in terms of things I can relate to. Hopefully this might help fellow final year poster makers! (Or just scare you)
Here is the result to scale:

To download a 100% scale PDF of this, download this: How big is A0?

Mark Jarvis : 30 Apr 2007 15:27 |  Tags: A0 Poster Project |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Blue LED Fiber Optic Lights

Blue LED Lights (26-05-06)
Canon Powershot S2 IS
Lens Aperture: F/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/25s
Focal Length: 72mm (432mm eqv. on 35mm)

This was one of my early shots when I was playing around with my camera and testing out the zoom. I think i was on the other side of the (large) room.

Mark Jarvis : 25 Apr 2007 10:50 |  Tags: Canon Photography Powershot S2Is |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Extreme Cold

Liquid Helium return line on Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (25-01-07)
Camera: Sony Ericsson P990i SmartPhone

This was my first attempt to properly use the camera in my new phone. Using the macro function here to get a good close up view of the frost formations on the excessively cold piping. This frost formed within a minute of liquid helium (-196ºC) flowing into the VSM as we filled it. It later engulfed most of the pipe and made it about twice the size in solid ice. Its amazing to think that all of that water is from the air.

Mark Jarvis : 04 Feb 2007 20:44 |  Tags: P990I Photography Physics |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Brighton Pier

Brighton Pier (16-12-06)
Canon Powershot S2 IS
Lens Aperture: F/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
Focal Length: 51mm (306mm)
Filters: UV & PL

View of the West Pier from the East Pier near sunset. Couldn’t help the blur unfortunately, I had the aperture wide open and the camera sitting on the railing and it still blurred! I think the auto focussing let me down.

Brighton Pier (16-12-06)
Canon Powershot S2 IS
Lens Aperture: F/8
Shutter Speed: 1/30s
Focal Length: 15mm (90mm)
Filters: UV & PL

This sunset was only at 3:43pm, not too long later and it was really dark. Quite depressing really.

Mark Jarvis : 28 Jan 2007 21:47 |  Tags: Brighton Photography Pier |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Earlsdon Sunrise

Earlsdon (10-12-2006)
Canon Powershot S2 IS
Lens Aperture: F/2.7
Shutter Speed: 1/13s
Focal Length: 6mm (36mm)
Filters: UV & PL (Through double glazing)
Post Processing: Changed the levels on the skyline part of the image for some weak attempt at a higher dynamic range.
The photo didn’t look anywhere near as vivid as reality so I had to try and digitally recreate it without blowing it all out too much. It kinda worked, but its not great I admit.

Mark Jarvis : 25 Jan 2007 23:35 |  Tags: Photography |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Kenilworth Fireworks

Outside Kenilworth Castle Fireworks Display (04-11-2006)
Canon Powershot S2 IS
Lens Aperture: F/8
Shutter Speed: 2s
Focal Length: 8mm (48mm)
No tripod

Mark Jarvis : 22 Jan 2007 23:59 |  Tags: Fireworks Kenilworth Photography |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Southend Pier

Southend-on-sea, Essex (23-09-2006)
Canon Powershot S2 IS
Lens Aperture: F/4
Shutter Speed: 1/250s
Focal Length: 45mm (207mm)

The pier is 2158 Meters (1.33 Miles) long, and the visibility was particularly good when I took this, good enough that you can almost see the Kent coast nealy 10 miles away.

Mark Jarvis : 19 Jan 2007 14:13 |  Tags: Photography Southend |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem