Well, I’ve just got back from the Frimley office where we are holding the training next week, and am very pleased – the room is basic, but complete, and has the right sort of hackerly air for security training.
Plus: they are going to be installing a SunSafe there, the week of the training, so we can do prettymuch everything that’s planned, on-site!
Whilst I am reinstalling a laptop with RedHat 7.2, I am now in a position to finish-off my posting from this morning…
I declined having sunday evening dinner with Whit and the Pipers, in pursuit of getting-up early to go motorcycling; therefore it was inevitable that I should wake up to the horrible blatting note of rain (not condusive to novice off-road motorcycling) and so I instead spent the morning cleaning house post-Diffie, waiting until the promised sunshine appeared to go out on the bike.
I’ve not really been off-roading before, but the bike does have enough suspension travel to cope; some people will think I am mad for not having a real off-road bike to do this on, etc, but if my bike is cheap enough to experiment with, and general-purpose enough that it can cope with anything from touring to off-roading, then I say “why not”?
My only real bike worries were (1) having ordinary road tyres, (2) not clogging the front hugger/mudguard, and (3) not trashing the bike’s bodywork too much. The latter point was moot because I have already got a few scratches that need touching up, so I had to rely on the word of my colleague Simon that the track was in a good-enough state for me to ride.
My destination was “Five Lanes’ End”, a few miles from my house, on the North Hampshire Downs:
…and is a tree at the centre of a five-way junction, approached by farm-tracks of grass, gravel and mud that vary between 2..4Km (1..2½ miles) long. The riding got easier as I gained confidence, stood-up to the obstacles (pits, bumps, potholes, etc) and – most importantly – learned that patience and being content to pootle along in 1st gear were the best ways to stay safe.
I did drop the bike whilst stationary, in mud, nose pointing downhill, whilst checking the map, but no damage was done. I may try protecting some of the more exposed bits of bodywork with duct-tape, next time I go out. The hugger didn’t get clogged, but there is a good layer of mud that I shall have to jetwash off, and I imagine that it’s be more of a problem if I lived in an area with clay soil. They tyres worked okay, but I definitely would have been better-off with real knobblies.
I traversed the full length of four of the five lanes, and Simon told me later that the one I skipped (towards Bidden Grange) is likely to be impassable due to mud, so I got lucky. The scenery was fantastic – next time, I shall definitely take a camera – and it was a total rush afterwards to be back on tarmac, tyres scrubbed of mud, hurtling homewards at 70mph, totally knackered, for a well-earned shower, beer and baguette.
Just wait ’til I get my full license; then I’ll get a real off-roader. 😎
Well, the install is nearly finished. Tomorrow, I hope to publish some pictures of the SunSafe, and give a review of some ideas I am putting together, regarding Sun’s security offerings.
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