Vale Sheldon Brown

This has made me rather sad: Sheldon Brown died on Sunday. I had no dealings directly with Sheldon (was never one of the hundreds who emailed him daily) but have enjoyed his writing and benefited from his knowledge—freely shared—on countless occasions. Others will eulogise him far better than I, but I think we'll all miss this genuine character in the cycling/online world.

Sympathy to Sheldon's family and friends.

Bike ban?

How to comply with the bikes on trains ban: buy an extra bike, and a lock for the bike locker. Oh yeah, and by the way there aren't any lockers spare…or are there? It ain't over yet. [via Bin the Bike Ban]

More maps than you can poke a GPS at

55 Free Bike Route Mapping Tools

Put yourself on ICE

Recently mentioned on the Audax-Oz mailing list was the ICE concept. As outlined at ABC Online:

The idea is that you store the word ICE in your mobile phone address book, and against it enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted "In Case of Emergency". For more than one contact name ICE1, ICE2, ICE3 etc could be used.

As part of a complete personal identification scheme it could be pretty handy. This is one of those things I've been told about before (several times) but I finally pulled my finger out and I've just added a couple of ICE numbers to my phone.
By the way, the story that "ICE" entries stored in mobile phones allow viruses to access those phones and drain them of their credits is a just rather stupid myth.
Brrr!

Another type of ice: more observations on cycling in the snow by Peter Chen. This time with video!


[Photo credit: Solitude 008 by Mike Mc on Flickr]

Comments

Zed

Sheldon Brown - total legend - can only agree that the Melbourne Summer Cycle ride needs to be well patronised. I'll be on it and thinking of another MS sufferer I know.

Treadly and Me

Although it appears that the heart attack that took Sheldon Brown's life was not related to his MS, you need only look at his health journal to see the effect the progressive disease had on him. Yet he faced it with a positive, even humourous, attitude. I suspect that was characteristic of the man.

Tweed Coast Treadly

On the ICE ing your phone I've always used Ahome or AAhome etc as the names in the contacts so that Axhome always appeared first in the auto dial and so avoided the in the dark without your glasses dialing and accidental calls by not having the keypad locked etc all going to my home number, since changing to a new @#$%ing NextG handset this still works but the phone doesn't on most of my rides! Sorry for this being oftopic a bit cheers dave

lelak

ICE ICE baby. Thanks for the reminder - I never did re-ICE my phone after the SIM card fried in the old one.

Treadly and Me

lelak revealing her vintage there…

(I wonder if she's sitting in the Internet café ICE-ing her phone right now?)