Author Archives: Joe Wein

About Joe Wein

Software developer and anti-spam activist

GPS-logging my bike rides

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Five weeks ago I started logging my road bike rides, runs and mountain hikes using the GPS in my Google Nexus S Android phone. I use the iMapMyRide app which requires Android 2.1 and later (of course there’s also an iPhone version).

Start the app, a few taps on the screen and it starts recording. You can pause the recording any time, say if you stop for food or rest. When you’re done you can easily upload the complete route with GPS coordinates and timing to the MapMyRIDE.com website. Besides bike rides you can also use the app for hiking, running or walking.

As it records it displays basic map information, so it can be used for simple navigation too, but most of the time I relied on Google Maps for that.

Afterwards you can view the workout on your PC. It will show altitudes along the route, including total gain. It shows average speeds for each km of progress. It calculates how many kcals you used based on the route, your weight and your age.

A calendar view shows all days on which you exercised, with distances for each workout, weekly totals and monthly totals. This can be a powerful tool to keep up a certain level of exercise on a regular basis.

Battery usage

As with many mobile applications, battery life is of concern to users. So far my longest recorded hike was 5 1/2 hours and my longest bike ride was 4 1/2 hours. I have not run out of power yet, but I’ve had the battery low warning pop up on occasion.

There are a few things you can do to optimize power usage. I make sure to disable WiFi and Bluetooth to minimize power usage. If I am in areas without mobile data coverage, such as high on a mountain I switch the phone into “airplane mode”, which will still let it receive GPS data but it won’t download map data (which it can’t anyway without a nearby cell phone tower). Disabling these wireless connections prevents the phone from wasting energy on trying to reconnect.

It makes a big difference how much you use the LCD screen. If you often turn it on to consult the map for a new or unknown route that will eat battery life.

In order not to have to worry too much about that and to be able to record longer and further rides and hikes, I got myself a cheap external Li-ion battery on Amazon Japan, into which I can plug the USB cable of my Android phone for extra power. I paid JPY 2,380 (about $30) including shipping. Its capacity is listed as 5000 mAh and it has two USB output ports, plus one mini-USB input port for recharging. It comes with a USB cable for charging, a short spiral USB output cable and 10 adapters to connect it to different phone models (including the iPhone and iPod). Because of the standard USB ports you can use any existing USB cable that works with your phone. It’s like running your smartphone off power from your computer.

The device is about the weight and size of my phone. It came charged to about 60%. It should take a couple of hours to fully recharge it from empty.

If fully charged it should theoretically provide three complete charges for my mobile phone, which has a 1500 mAh battery inside, thereby quadrupling the length of rides I can record. Most likely, I will run out of energy long before my battery does 🙂

My longest distances with MapMyRIDE so far:

  • Bike ride: 71 km, 560 m elevation gain
  • Mountain hike: 14 km, 1020 m elevation gain
  • Run: 10 km in Tokyo

A few rough edges

While the iMapMyRIDE+ app feels fairly solid, it will need fixes for a few problems.

The major issue for me is that the app and the website don’t see eye to eye on time zones. For example, if I record a ride at 17:00 (5pm) to 18:00 (6pm) on a Sunday, the recorded workout title will include the correct time. However, if I view that workout on the computer’s web browser, it is shown on the calendar as having been recorded on the following day (Monday). If I check the details, the start and end times are listed as 8am (08:00) and 9am (09:00): Wrong day and off by 9 hours.

Probably not by coincidence my time zone (Japan Standard Time) is 9 hours ahead of UTC. It’s like the app sends up the start and end time in UTC but the website thinks the data is local time. Yet for determining the date it seems to add those 9 hours again, which takes it beyond midnight and Sunday gets turned into Monday.

I can manually correct every single workout from the website, which also fixes that date on the calendar, but then the app displays the wrong time, which I am prepared to simply ignore.

When I enter my height on the website and then view my details on the app, I am 2 cm shorter than I entered, perhaps as the result of my height having been converted from metric to imperial and back to metric with numeric truncation.

I wish the site would support 24 hour clocks, not just AM/PM. I also wish the site would let the metric size to be entered as cm, not just m and cm separately (probably a hangover from code written for feet and inches).

Note to the app developers out there: The world is much bigger than the US and most of it is metric.

UPDATE 2011-12-13:

I have used the Li-ion battery on two weekend bike rides now. One was 93 km, the other 101 km in length. In both cases I first used the phone normally until the remaining charge level was heading towards 20% (after maybe 4 hours), then I hooked it up to the 5000 mAh battery and continued the ride. The longer of the two rides was about 8 hours, including lunch and other breaks. At the end of the 101 km ride the phone battery was back up to 75% charged, while the external battery was down to 1 of 5 LEDs, i.e. close to empty.

I wasn’t as careful to conserve power with the external battery hooked up. My phone is configured to not go into sleep mode while hooked up to a USB cable, unless I manually push the power button. That’s because I also use it for Android application development, where it’s controlled from a PC via the cable. I should really turn that developer mode off on rides to have the screen blank after a minute as usual even when getting external power. Total capacity with the external battery probably at least 10 or 11 hours, more if I put the phone into “airplane mode”, which disables map updates and hence navigation.

My headlight currently consists of a twin white LED light using a pair of CR2032 batteries that I need to replace every now and then. It’s not very bright, especially where there are no street lights. Probably next year I’ll upgrade the front wheel using a Shimano DH-3N72 dynamo hub,

which can provide up to 3W of power while adding very little drag. A 6V AC to USB adapter will allow me to power USB devices like my phone and the headlights from this without ever having to buy disposable batteries or connecting anything to a mains charger.

UPDATE 2012-01-02:

I have had the front wheel of my Bike Friday rebuilt with a Shimano DH-3N80 dynamo hub. The old 105 hub is now a spare while the rim with tube and tyre were reused. Here is the bike in our entrance hall:

Closeup view of the hub with AC power contacts:

I purchased a USB power adapter made by Kuhn Elektronik GmbH in Germany. It weighs 40 g and measures 8 cm by 2.5 cm. It provides a standard USB-A socket which fits standard USB cables such as the one that came with my Google Nexus S:

USB power adapter with Google Nexus S:

UPDATE 2012-03-14:

At the end of January I started using Strava for tracking rides, in addition to MapMyRides (MMR). I stopped using the MMR app because there is no way in MMR to export GPX files with time stamps, so you can not track your speed or performance on any sites besides MMR. They lock in your data. Instead I either record with Strava on my Android 4 Nexus S or with Endomondo on my Android 1.6 Google Ion. That way I can generate GPX files that will upload to Strava, Endomondo, MapMyRide or just about any other site. The automatic competition feature of Strava is superb. MMR’s best features are its calendar view with weekly and monthly statistics and its mapping feature for planning rides. If those were merged with what Strava can do, it would be a terrific GPS cycling app and site.

Summit spam from Atlanta, Georgia

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Recently I got a couple of spams sent to non-existent email addresses at a domain that I host. These spams were very similar, even though they use a variety of domain names and diferent postal address.

Here are some of the domains:

  • hr-summit.net
  • cfo-summit.net
  • cmo-summit.net
  • cmosummits.org
  • cmo-summit.org
  • bizsummits.org
  • thetrainingsummit.net
  • thecorporatecounselsummit.org
  • theengineeringsummit.com
  • theproductdevsummit.org
  • thepublicrelationssummit.net

Here are spam samples:

From: “J.R. Williams” <jason@hr-summit.net>
To: “XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX” <YYYYY@YYYYYYYYYYYYY>
Subject: Geoffrey, interesting speaker
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 09:30:32 -0400

Hi Geoffrey, hope you are well. On Oct 12 at 12 pm ET I thought you would
enjoy dialing in to hear Welch’s VP of Human Resources speaking on
“Creative Ways of Developing Individuals in Smaller Organizations.” Just
go to our site to become part of our group (takes just a minute), thanks!

Truly yours,
J.R. Williams
HR-Summit
hr-summit.net

This message is confidential and intended only for the original recipient.
If you have received this message in error, please delete it or mail us
back if you no longer wish to receive further email. If any follow-up is
needed I show your contact information as XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,
YYYYY@YYYYYYYYYYYYY ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ and you may also reach us
at 12OO Abernathy Road #1700, Atlanta Georgia 30328 or through the
contact information on our site.

Domain cfo-summit.net:

From: “Patrick Hansen” <patrick@cfo-summit.net>
To: “XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX” <YYYYY@YYYYYYYYYYYYY>
Subject: Karen, interesting speaker
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 09:43:43 -0400

Hi Karen, hope you are well. On Nov 3 at 12 pm ET I thought you would
enjoy dialing in to hear Banner Health’s CFO speaking on “The Financial
Implications of the New Era of Healthcare.” Just go to our site to become
part of our group (takes just a minute), thanks!

Truly yours,
Patrick Hansen
CFO Summits
cfo-summit.net

This message is confidential and intended only for the original recipient.
If you have received this message in error, please delete it or mail us
back if you no longer wish to receive further email. If any follow-up is
needed I show your contact information as XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,
YYYYY@YYYYYYYYYYYYY ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ and you may also reach us at
201 17th St, Ste 1200, Atlanta GA 30363 or through the contact
information on our site.

Domain thehrsummits.org:

From: “J.R. Williams” <jason@thehrsummits.org>
To: “XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX” <YYYYY@YYYYYYYYYYYYY>
Subject: Jack, interesting speaker
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:25:12 -0500

Hi Jack, hope you are well. On Dec 7th at 12 pm ET I thought you would
enjoy dialing in to hear Four Seasons Hotel’s Director of Human Resources,
speaking on “Finding the Right People for the Right Job.” Just go to our
site to become part of our group (takes just a minute), thanks!

Yours Truly,
J.R. Williams
HRSummit
thehrsummits.org

This message is confidential and intended only for the original recipient.
If you have received this message in error, please delete it or mail us
back if you no longer wish to receive further email. If any follow-up is
needed I show your contact information as XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,
YYYYY@YYYYYYYYYYYYY ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ and you may also reach us
at 201 17th St, Ste 1200, Atlanta GA 30363 or through the contact
information on our site.

Domain cmosummits.org:

From: “Matthew T. Keener” <matthew@cmosummits.org>
To: “XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX” <YYYYY@YYYYYYYYYYYYY>
Subject: Leo, interesting speaker
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:55:06 -0500

Hi Leo, hope you are well. On Dec 5th at 12 pm ET I thought you would
enjoy dialing in to hear Aramark’s Associate Vice President of Marketing,
speaking on “Global Marketing.” Just go to our site to become part of our
group (takes just a minute), thanks!

Truly,
Matthew T. Keener
CMO-Summit
cmosummits.org

This message is confidential and intended only for the original recipient.
If you have received this message in error, please delete it or mail us
back if you no longer wish to receive further email. If any follow-up is
needed I show your contact information as XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,
YYYYY@YYYYYYYYYYYYY ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ and you may also reach us
at 1200 Abernathy Rd, Atlanta Georgia 30328 or through the contact
information on our site.

Domains bizsummits.org / thetrainingsummit.net:

Reply-To: ryan@bizsummits.org
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:35:37 +0000
Subject: John, follow up
From: Ryan English <trainingsummits1@gmail.com>

Hi John,

You recently expressed an interest regarding joining our Training Summit and on behalf of our Administration and Membership; it is my pleasure to extend an invitation to participate in upcoming events and to join our organization. The Training Summit is an invitation only group that is comprised of innovative leaders and visionaries in the Training and Learning & Development field. We discuss best practices and find ways to help one another. Here are some details on upcoming meetings along with the featured speaker that month:

12/01/11 Rob Patterson, CiTi, Senior Vice President, Learning Technology and Architecture-Topic: Utilizing Share points to support a learning organization

We meet once a month via teleconference. In between these monthly calls we have an online forum where our more than 200 members network and collaborate. The membership dues are $1,250 per year, there is a 30 day evaluation period, if you do not feel like the group is advantageous to you or a fit; you can request a full refund. A list of topics and upcoming speakers can be found at www.thetrainingsummit.net. Please contact me ASAP for registration as it is filling up quickly, as well as to confirm networking information. Thank you very much for your time and consideration, if you have any further questions please do not hesitate to call me at (330)-769-7628. I look forward to working with you, have a great day!

Regards,

Ryan English
Training Summit
Direct: 330-769-7628

This message is confidential and intended only for the original recipient. If you have received this message in error, please delete it or mail us back if you no longer wish to receive further email. You may also reach us at 1200 Abernathy Rd, Atlanta Georgia 30328 or through the contact information on our site.

Here are some more spam samples published on other websites, as I’m not the only one being spammed:

This company seems to have been at it for a couple of years already. They will probably keep going as long as some companies fall for their unsolicited emails and sign up.

Radiation maps for Eastern Japan

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The Japanese government has released updated radiation maps for Eastern Japan from its helicopter survey. The maps now cover prefectures as far west as Gifu and as far north as Iwate and Akita. Previously there was map data only for Tokohoku (excluding Aomori) and the Kanto area. The PDF can be downloaded here.

The previous set of maps documented caesium contamination and background radiation levels in Fukushima, Tochigi, Miyagi, Ibaraki, Chiba, Saitama, Tokyo and Kanagawa. The latest set adds maps for Iwate, Shizuoka, Nagano, Yamanashi, Gifu and Toyama. Akita, Yamagata and Niigata have also been surveyed and are shown on the overview map.

The most heavily contaminated areas are in the eastern half of Fukushima prefecture, within about 80 km of the wrecked nuclear power stations. The southern part of Miyagi to the north and the northern part of Ibaraki to the south also took a hit.

A major radioactive plume moved south-west from Fukushima, polluting the northern half of Tochigi and the northern and western part of Gunma. A separate plume reached the southern part of Ibaraki, the north-west of Chiba and the eastern part of Tokyo.

There is also some caesium in the mountainous far west of Tokyo and Saitama that extended from Tochigi, but most of Saitama, Tokyo and Kanagawa seem relatively OK, as are Shizuoka, Yamanashi, Nagano, Gifu, Tokyama, Niigata, Yamagata and Akita. There is some fallout in a strip from southern Iwate to northern Miyagi, while central Miyagi and the rest of Iwate look clean. There is no published data for Aomori and Hokkaido yet, but based on the distance and the absence of significant pollution in Akita and adjacent parts of Iwate they will probably be fine.

The maps only give the overall picture, as there may be local hotspots in areas that are relatively clean overall, based on rainfall and wind patterns as well as soil and vegetation that can retain more or less fallout.

Update 2011-12-06:
The ministry has also published radiation maps for Aichi, Aomori, Ishikawa and Fukui prefecture.

Shimano PD-T780 SPD pedals and SH-MT42NV shoes

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On Sunday I rode to Y’s Road in Shinjuku to buy clipless pedals and bike shoes. I did not want pure racing gear, but shoes I could also walk around in when I go shopping, as I usually take the bike for that. On my first touring bike in high school I used straps, but clipless pedals are supposed to be more efficient. With either you can maintain a higher cadence (pedalling speed), which optimizes power output compared to pedalling harder at slower pedal RPMs.

I chose PD-T780 SPD pedals and a pair of SH-MT42NV which are mountain bike shoes with recessed cleats. These pedals are part of Shimano’s Deore XT range and are meant for trekking. Because of that they have both a cleat side and a flat side, so you can also ride them with ordinary shoes, plus they’re equipped with reflectors. I like being as visible as possible in traffic, especially at night.

I found clipping in and out with SPD fairly straightforward, but there are some caveats. I’ve heard the warning that when you start using clipless pedals, you will crash at least once until you get the hang of it. It happens when you forget to unclip at least one shoe before coming to a complete stop. So far I’ve done 46 km without falling over, but I’ve been careful and started off with the loosest setting for the locking mechanism. If I find myself in a situation where I may have come to a stop (for example approaching a red traffic light or turning into a street where I might have stop to for traffic or if there are a lot of pedestrians about) I twist one foot to unclip but stay on the pedal so I can easily reconnect once it’s safe to do so, but also support myself if I suddenly need to stop. The other foot can always stay locked in.

If you’re more of a racing type of person, Shimano’s SPD-SL system may be a better choice, but for me SPD works just fine.

How (not) to decontaminate Japan

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An article in Japan Times (2011-11-09, “Scrub homes, denude trees to wash cesium fears away”) provided advice on how to decontaminate areas affected by nuclear fallout, such as in Fukushima, Tochigi and northern Chiba prefecture. Most of the advice is sound, but some is downright alarming:

As for trees, it’s best to remove all their leaves because of the likelyhood they contain large amounts of cesium, Higaki [of University of Tokyo] said.
(…)
What should you do with the soil and leaves?
(…)
Leaves and weeds can be disposed of as burnable garbage, a Fukushima official said.

So let me get this right: you should collect all those leaves because they contain so much radioactive cesium (cesium 134 has a half life of 2 years and cesium 137 of 29 years). And then, when you have all that cesium in plastic garbage bags, you have it sent to the local garbage incinerator, so the carefully collected cesium gets spread over the whole neighbourhood again via the incinerator smokestack. That makes no sense at all.

Minoura iH-100-S phone holder for Nexus S

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In my blog post about my bike ride up Mt Fuji Subaru line I mentioned the Minoura iH-100-S phone holder that I use with my Google Nexus S Android smartphone, which I use for Google Maps and the iMapMyRide application to track my cycling routes.

In the local bike shop I was was considering either the Minoura or the Topeak Phone Drybag, which is designed specifically for the iPhone, but also is big enough to hold the Nexus S. It offers rain protection, while with the Minoura iH-100-S the phone is exposed.

I didn’t go for the Topeak because it looked too iPhone-specific: The transparent cover extends to the home button in the bottom centre, but my Nexus S has four buttons side by side (Back, Menu, Search, Home), which would have been obscured.

My solution for rain is simple: If it looks rainy, I’ll wrap the phone in cellophane (for kitchen use, the local leading brand in Japan is Saran Wrap), which does the job. I also keep a small transparent plastic in my backpack, for emergencies.

The Minoura works well and grips the phone firmly if used properly. Make sure the phone firmly touches all three support points: the clamps on the left and right and the corner hook. I have yet to lose it, but the fact that the two clamps at the left and right snap apart if the release lever is pulled did make me a bit nervous. I always visualized this happening unintentionally, say if the release mechanism wears out or becomes brittle with UV exposure and breaks one day.

My peace of mind solution for that is a small rubber band which I keep attached to the holder. I twist it around once to give it more tension and then wrap it around the two clamps, which keep it away from the touchscreen, but it provides enough friction and tension that even when I pull the release lever there’s no way the phone would fly away.

Auto Unlock application

Another issue with using the phone for navigation was the Android screen lock. When the screen blanks due to inactivity, I need to push the power button to turn the screen back on, which is fine, but then I also need to slide a dot across the screen to unlock the desktop. If find that too distracting, because I prefer to keep my eyes on the road as much as possible. I found an application in the Android market called “Auto Unlock”, which does away with the need for the sliding move – most of the time. The trial version can be used for 5 days for free. The paid version is $1.29.

The results with Auto Unlock were a bit uneven. The application needs to be manually restarted after the phone is powered down, a minor problem. When it’s active, sometimes I still needed the slide, other times I didn’t. I’m not sure what made the difference. It’s very helpful as long as it works.

UPDATE (2011-10-15:

After the trial edition of “Auto Unlock” expired I switched to another app called “No Lock”. I am happy to say that No Lock works more reliably, though it has one minor drawback: unlike Auto Unlock it does not use the proximity sensor to still require an unlock swipe if it’s in your pocket. If you accidentally push the power button while the mobile is in your pocket, that may unlock it already. “Pocket-dialling” of calls is a possibility. For my use with the bicycle holder that is not a problem and it’s easy to switch between “No Lock” and “Lock” mode in the app.

Cycling on Mount Fuji Subaru line

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I love Mount Fuji since my first trip to Japan in 1990. I have enjoyed numerous views of it from near and far and several times drove up to the fifth station (go-gome, also named “fifth step”) of the Kawaguchiko hiking trail. This is as high as you can go by car before walking to the top.

All Fuji hiking trails are numbered from first to tenth station. The first station is the starting point where pilgrims on foot used to start their journey in the old days. The tenth station is the crater rim, where a Shinto shrine is located.

The Kawaguchiko fifth station at over 2300 metre is the second highest station accessible by car or bus. It lies just above the tree line. The hiking trail from there winds up the exposed volcanic cone above the station.

Fuji Subaru line

Access to the fifth station is by a toll road (2000 yen = about US$27 by car, 200 yen = US$2.70 by bicycle), called the “Fuji Subaru line”. I’m not sure, but I always assumed its name was connected to Fuji Heavy Industries (富士重工業株式会社), the makers of Subaru cars. Officially the road is named after the Japanese name of the Pleiades star constellation (a.k.a. the “Seven Sisters”), but those are also the stars you see in the Subaru car logo, as it is also named after the constellation. The road was built in 1964, so maybe nobody really knows these days. I was passed by 2 or 3 Subaru Impreza WRX on the way up, so regardless of its origin perhaps the name does attract Subaru drivers 😉

Despite running up the highest mountain in Japan, the Subaru line is not quite the highest Japanese road accessible by car, but it doesn’t miss that record by much.

As a staging post for hikers, the fifth station offers car parks, toilets, souvenir shops, a shrine and shops that sell anything a hiker might need who would hit the trail to the peak at 3776 metres. The station offers great views of the “five lakes”, the Southern Alps and many other mountains in the distance, that make it well worth a visit even if you’re not going to climb to the peak. Often you will find yourself above the clouds, like in an airplane. On the other hand, the higher regions of Fuji may be shrouded in clouds even when elsewhere the sky is clear. This makes clear views of Fuji and from Fuji even more precious.

During the peak season in early to mid August, private cars are banned from the road because of insufficient parking space up there. Only buses and taxis can use the road then. In the summer you sometimes have to wait in line for parking. Only when enough cars come down the mountain can you advance further up. Earlier or later in the year the upper sections of the road may sometimes be closed due to snow, but in principle the road is open all year round, with daily opening hours varying by the season.

Going by bike

During my earlier visits I had seen quite a few cyclists on that road. Invariably they were on light-weight road bikes, wearing bike shorts and bike jerseys and they would not have looked out of place in the Tour de France. Somehow, if you get a road bike in Japan, there seems to be an unwritten rule that you must wear the whole kit to look like a pro… Anyway, I felt the greatest respect for these cyclists because I knew how long and steep the road was, even in my car that did all the hard work for me. It’s about 29 km from Fujiyoshida down at the base to the end of the road up there.

In August 2011 I finally fullfilled a long held dream and climbed Mount Fuji. I made it to the top and back down again. Three weeks ago I got my Bike Friday Pocket Rocket, a road bike that folds. Earlier this year my son Shintaro had suggested we should try the Mount Fuji Hill Climb, a bike race every year in June that starts at Mount Fuji Hokuroku Park near the Subaru line toll gate and finishes at the fifth stage. It’s 24 km in total, with a 5% average, 7.8% maximum incline.

After two rides of 48 and 55 km on weekends on my new bike I thought I might give Mount Fuji a try, but was more concerned about getting down again than making it up there: If I got too exhausted, I could always turn around at any point, but if the long descent turned out to be too hard on the bike’s brakes, wouldn’t I be in trouble?

I did some research online and after some valuable advice from members of the Tokyo Cycling Club forum, I decided to give it a try because 5% is still quite manageable. Shintaro was keen to join me. The weather forecast for Saturday was excellent: Clear skies, sunny, with 19C at the bottom, but I knew it was going to be much colder at the top, especially on the way down again, when my leg muscles weren’t going to supply much heat.

After breakfast we packed our two bikes into the back of the Prius and drove to Fuji. With Saturday traffic the 100 km from Setagaya/Tokyo to Fujiyoshida interchange took us 3 hours, so we only got there around noon. After setting up the bikes in the car park of the Mount Fuji visitor center we did some food shopping and ate lunch outside a convenience store near the interchange and the Fuji-Q Highland amusement park. The visitor centre was not too busy this time of the year, but there is also a large car park nearby for the summer season (1000 yen per day), for park and ride with buses. From Fujiyoshida IC it’s about 4 km uphill to the toll gate.

I tracked our ride using the free iMapMyRide application. It runs on my Google Nexus S Android phone, mounted on the handle bar using a Minoura iH-100-S smartphone holder. I used about half the battery charge for the roughly 4 1/2 hour climb, with the phone set to airplane mode because there wasn’t going to be any cellphone reception anyway. When we got back to the car, I reenabled the network and uploaded the data to the TrackMyRide.com website, which does a good job of mapping rides and displaying information such as average speeds for each kilometer of the trip, kcals burnt, altitude profile and gain, etc. My only minor problem with the app and website is that it doesn’t deal properly with time zones, so some rides show up one day off in the calendar and the start and end times are not from your local time zone.

My climbing speed was moderate but steady, mostly between 8 and 11 km/h and I was mostly in the 2nd or 3rd lowest gear. I drank about 1.5 litres of water and stopped several times for some carbohydrates.

On the way up I did a radiation check with my Ecotest Terra-P MKS-05 geiger counter at the edge of the forest surrounding the road and the number was no higher than back in Tokyo where we lived.

Pictures from the ride

Here we were taking a break on the way up at the first stage rest area.

Here we’re just over half way to the top, already enjoying splendid views.

Autumn colours everywhere:

Looks like a thistle:

We’re 80% there: about 6 km and 300 metres of altitude to go.

I loved these views.

Yeah! We made it! 🙂

After 29 km and almost 1500 altitude metres, we’re at the fifth stage.

Entrance to the small shrine between souvenir shops.

The new moon rising over Mount Fuji. Time to head down again before it gets completely dark!

Descending from Mount Fuji

We changed into our warmest clothes and set off for the one hour descent. I mostly coasted at 35-40 km/h, applying the brakes only before curves. I wish I had warmer gloves and a stronger headlight (or even better, more daylight), but we made it down OK.

At 18:00 the visitor centre car park with our car inside was already closed with a chain, but fortunately it wasn’t padlocked. We packed the bikes back into the car, went for some sushi and then headed back to Tokyo.

It was a great experience. Thinking about the Mount Fuji Hill Climb in June, I loved doing Subaru line at my own pace, with time to take pictures. If you do the race, maybe you also want to come back some other time to simply enjoy the great views on this majestic mountain, without 5000 other cyclists around you…

My Terra-P dosimeter (MKS-05) by Ecotest

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Yesterday my geiger counter arrived here in Japan. It is a Terra-P dosimeter made by Ecotest, a company based in L’viv/Ukraine, about 300 km west of Chernobyl.

I bought the device on eBay from a supplier in Australia for US$399 including shipping. It arrived within 9 days and seems to work well. Although the buttons on my Terra-P are labelled in Cyrillic (either Russian or Ukrainian) and so is the manual, English manuals for it are easy to find online, so that’s not really a problem.

The Terra-P is a consumer grade dosimeter, so it’s not quite as versatile or as precise as professional devices costing $1000 or more, but it covers the basics very well. Its power source are two AAA-batteries, accessible via a lid at the back of the unit, which are easy to replace. It measures gamma rays and is suitable for checking for caesium contamination.

The user interface consists of an LCD, two buttons and speaker. One push of the right hand button (“режим” = mode) switches the dosimeter on and puts it into the measuring mode. The display switches to a microsievert per hour (µSv/h) readout. For the first 70 seconds the resulting number blinks, as it averages the dose over that period and the number gradually becomes more meaningful. After the initial sampling period, the number displayed will always be the average of the last 70 seconds, so you can move it from location to location and will get a decent result provided you wait for about a minute.

After several minutes the device enters power save mode, in which it continues counting radioactive decays, but the LCD is off and less power is used. To turn it off completely when it’s active, push the mode button once more and then push and hold it for four seconds, until the LCD blanks.

The Terra-P also has a user-settable alarm threshold (default: 0.30 µSv/h) and a clock mode. The built-in speaker usually makes one click for every gamma photon detected and sounds an alarm if the radiation exceeds the alarm threshold.

Checking my home after unpacking the device, I found the radiation level was a little higher than the 0.055 µSv/h reported for Tokyo by the local government, but still somewhat lower than the 0.10 µSv/h in my home town in Germany. On the other hand, I was relieved to see the wooden deck outside our living room was no more radioactive than inside the house. As expected, the gutters at the edge of the road, where rain water drains into the sewers, was more radioactive, with about 0.20 µSv/h, which is still far from alarming.

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Radiation map of Japan

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The Japanese government has published online map data about radiation levels in Eastern Japan. You can zoom in and out, scroll around and select data from:

  • Background radiation in microsievert per hour
  • Contamination by caesium 134 and 137 combined (Cs-134+Cs-137) in becquerel per square metre
  • Contamination by caesium 134 (Cs-134) in becquerel per square metre
  • Contamination by caesium 137 (Cs-137) in becquerel per square metre

The data was collected via helicopter flights carrying instruments that detect gamma radiation of different energy spectrums, allowing a breakdown by isotopes causing it.

There are the following data sets:

  • April 29
  • May 26
  • July 2
  • Miyagi prefecture, July 2
  • Tochigi prefecture, July 16
  • Ibaraki prefecture, August 2
  • Chiba and Saitama prefecture, September 12
  • Tokyo and Kanagawa prefecture, September 18

Click on this link:

either the online maps or download PDF files of the maps and click on “同意する” (“I do agree”, the left button) to get access.

The government is planning to extend the radiation survey to the whole of Japan, not just within about 250 km of the wrecked reactors as is currently the case.

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Good bye, Dennis Ritchie!

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Back in the early 1980s I learnt programming in C by reading “Kernighan and Ritchie”, as everyone around me called this book then: “The C programming language” by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.

It is no exaggeration to say that C and its derivatives are to computers what hydrogen is to the universe.

Dennis Ritchie, who passed away today at the age of 70, was a co-creator of both the C programming language and of the Unix operating system, after which open source Linux is modelled today. Mac OS X and iOS are direct descendants of Unix (NetBSD), while Android, which runs on millions of smart phones, is based on Linux. Virtually every operating system that matters these days (including all versions of Microsoft Windows) is written in C or C++ or another C-derived language.

Dennis Ritchie may not have become as much of a household name as Steve Jobs, but the software he created probably brought about much more fundamental changes than anything Steve Jobs did, and in fact most of what Jobs created would have been unthinkable without either C or Unix.

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