A 242 km January bike ride

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On January 10 I rode my first brevet of 2015, “BRM110 Miura peninsula 200 km” by AJ NishiTokyo. The 204 km course started and finished in Machida while the middle portion followed the Kanagawa coastline around Miura peninsula. Total elevation gain was a little over 900 m, far less than the more typical 2000-3000m in other AJ NishiTokyo 200 km events. It was also far less windy on the Miura coast than on most of my winter rides there. There were about 70 participants and I rode with others for most of the route.

The previous evening I cycled to a cheap business hotel near the start (Toyoko Inn in Fuchinobe) and went to bed early. I got up at 04:00, left at 05:00 and attended the pre-ride briefing at 05:40.

With the clear night sky, temperatures were close to freezing when we set off at 06:00, almost an hour before sunrise. The dawn was pretty along the Tamagawa, but when the sun rose it was right in our faces, which must have made it challenging for cars and trucks passing us.

After 40 km we left the river and turned onto major Rt15. We reached PC1 (Point de Controle #1, in this case a convenience store) at km 43. Here are some bikes of fellow participants, ranging from a custom built Japanese Cherubim bike with Rohloff Speedhub to a mamachari (shopping bike). Most cyclists at Japanese brevets ride regular carbon or aluminium frame road bikes.

My next stop was at Yamashita koen in Yokohama. From there to near the Yokosuka naval base the road has many traffic lights so even though it’s mostly flat, you can’t maintain a fast pace. The real scenic peninsula starts south of Yokosuka. I love the views across Tokyo bay to Boso peninsula on the opposite side. You can see many boats, from container ships to oil tankers to LNG tankers, on their way to and from Tokyo, Kawasaki and Yokohama.

After 119 km I reached PC2 in Misaki, where I got my brevet card signed by a staff member (at PC1 and PC3 we needed to collect shopping receipts).

Heading north from there towards Zushi and and Kamakura on the west coast of the peninsula I was treated to one stunning Mt Fuji view after another. January is really the best time for them, because the air is so dry. At other times of the year the mountain is often obscured by clouds, even if you could see far enough.

Here are some guys preparing a bonfire for a shrine festival:

Near Chigasaki we turned away from the coast and soon reached PC3 near Samukawa (km 168). I was told I was #38, so around the middle of the field. With only 36 km to go to the finish and 1 1/2 hours ahead of cut-off time I felt really good. Furthermore, I still had over an hour of daylight. I had worked really hard for the first three hours, then dropped the pace a bit but overall made good time. So I enjoyed my first cup of coffee of the day, then headed on.

Another participant decided to follow me and my GPS to save himself navigating by his paper maps and notes. Once we got closer to the finish and he found himself in familiar territory he decided to drop off the back while I continued at my pace. I arrived at the finish at 18:06, 12 hour and 6 minutes from the start, which is my best 200 km time ever.

After handing in my brevet card and having my receipts checked I hung out with other finishers with food and drinks, chatting for a while. Then I headed on, riding another 30 km back to Setagaya/Tokyo in the dark. My winter gloves turned out too cold from the sweat, so I stopped at another convenience store to defrost my hands and pick up some cheap knit gloves for the ride home. Strava reported a total of 242 km for the day.

That makes January my 29th consecutive month with at least one Century ride (160+ km).

OTC:GAWK – Pump and Dump Spam

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Koyo, three toge and a curry

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With my nephew’s visit over and a sunny weekend forecast, I wanted to ride some distance again, which I finally did yesterday (196 km with 2234 m of climbing).

On Saturday night I set my alarm for 04:30, still undecided between 4-5 courses. Though I had planned to leave for wherever by 05:30, I didn’t actually head out until an hour later, having checked work email etc. (flexibility is one of the things I like about riding on my own). By the time I was ready to roll I had more or less settled on a clockwise Tsuru toge loop.

RideWithGPS:

I had done a similar ride before, but not during the autumn leaves season, and heading out via Wada toge instead of Musashiitsukaichi and the Route 33 tunnel from Hinohara that I took on Sunday.

It felt like the first winter ride of the season for me: Cold air, a constant need to keep warm, but clear skies and many Fuji views to make up for that:

Within about 10 minutes of leaving home, the temperature readout of the navi2coach GPS dropped to 8 C. I was wearing uniqlo long johns and underwear under my long sleeve TCC kit, plus my Bicycle Line “Eternity” winter jacket, winter gloves and my nylon rain pants as an extra layer to keep the legs warm. Somewhere on the Tamagawa I took off the winter jacket and rain pants and switched to the half gloves as the morning sun raised temperatures above 10 C.

When I wanted to load up the map for @Half-Fast Mike’s excellent Akigawa route from Rt16 to Musashiitsukaichi on Google Maps, I was surprised to get a “No My Maps found” error. Google Maps 7.x.x came out a year and a half ago without the “My Maps” feature. You could keep using it by disabling automatic updates and sticking with 6.x.x, but Google recently announced they would drop support for it, which has now happened. Alas, I’ll finally have to find an alternative for following courses on Android on long rides.

The assistance wasn’t really needed, as I remembered enough from previous rides to get all the way to Musashiitsukaichi without making one wrong turn. I stopped at the new Familiymart one km before the 7-11, as somebody had recently mentioned it favourably. They have a cafe corner with chairs, with wall sockets for charging mobile gadgets. So I could enjoy my caffeine and second breakfast sitting down with a view of the blue sky outside from a place with room temperature 🙂

Somewhere around Hinohara I came across a Harley-Davidson enthusiasts’ get together. I took some pictures, was asked where I’m from and was offered to have my picture taken:

The climb up to the tunnel on Rt33 towards Uenohara was not as long or steep as I remembered it, perhaps because I wasn’t climbing in summer. This is where I passed the first of only two cyclists on the whole 196 km ride who were slower than me (the other one was on the climb from Okutama-ko to Kazahari-toge).

Route 18 to Kosuge village is only 23 km from the junction beyond the tunnel, but it was a very long 23 km, especially the last third. But it was also very pretty and old fashioned.

Old fire fighting pump:

After the repeated climbs and descents to Kosuge village, I knew I was at the half way point. Only one climb to go, even though it was the biggest one. I changed back into my winter jacket for the descent to Okutama. It was only 12 C now and mid-afternoon. I felt tired from the climbing, but it was hard to enjoy the descent to the lake with the chilly air. I was actually looking forward to the next climb to get warm again.

The roads between Hinohara and Okutama-ko are still a playground for weekend racers, by car and by motorbike.

As almost every weekend there was a police speed trap in the forest near Hinohara. On the climb from the lake I passed two police vans with more than half a dozen bikers standing around. On the descent past Tomin no Mori two police cars, then a fire truck and finally an ambulance came up the mountain. I passed two or three spots with flowers by the road side where someone must have died. I think the road gets closed at night to minimize accidents after dark (and related need for emergency vehicle trips).

The 16 km climb from the lake to the summit with over 600 m of elevation gain seemed easier then Rt18, not only because it’s fewer km, but also because it doesn’t go up and down, so you can always feel you’re working towards a known goal, elevation-wise.

I got to the top around sunset:

With only 6 C at the top and the sun gone, the descent towards Musashiitsukaichi was long and cold. I wore every piece of fabric I was carrying, but it still wasn’t enough. Finally I made it to the same Familymart where I had had breakfast and grabbed more food and coffee to warm up.

After some rest I decided to miss the scenic Akigawa backroute and simply followed boring Rt7 back towards the Tamagawa. Fortunately it wasn’t too busy that time of the day.

I got back to Setagaya a little before 22:00 and dropped into a local Nepalese restaurant for a curry and naan take-away. Needless to say, I slept really well that night 🙂

====

(*) Koyo = autumn leaves (viewing)
Toge = mountain summit

Disclaimers by spammers

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A spammer recently sent me the following disclaimer:

Our commercial information messages are sent according to the rules of the new e-mail legislation, Section 301, paragraph a) (2) (c) S Decree 1618, third title, approved by Congress 105th Base of International Regulations on the “SPAM” . An e-mail may not be considered “SPAM” when it includes a way to be removed. (Directive 2000/31 / EC of the European Parliament, Report A5-0270 / 2001 of the European Parliament).

Similar references to S.1618 and Directive 2000/31 can be found in the footer of so many spam emails that the popular SpamAssassin mail filter actually has some rules that recognize spam via mentions of these documents. While these disclaimers turn out to be useful for stopping spam, is there any truth to these claims?

First of all, email spam is defined as unsolicited bulk email. If it is sent to multiple recipients and the sender lacks permission from the recipients, it’s spam — no if’s and but’s. It’s got nothing to do with whether the sender can be prosecuted for sending the bulk email in a particular jurisdiction or not, which is what laws are concerned with.

Any recipient is entitled to use email blocking on computers that they control, regardless of what laws exist to prosecute spammers. The rights of senders stop when email hits your property, your servers and desktops. If you don’t like those unsolicited emails, you shouldn’t be made to pay to store or forward them.

Secondly, the above legal claims are completely bogus. Senate bill S.1618 was drafted in the late 1990’s (so much for “new e-mail legislation”) but was never passed into law. As for the above EU document (“Directive on electronic commerce”), it neither explicitly mentions e-mail nor spam in any way.

When spammers include disclaimers like the above in their emails, they’re either clueless or they lie. But then that’s not exactly news, is it? 🙂

Confederation MineraIs (CNRMF) – Pump and Dump Stock Spam

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Yet another stock is being promoted by spammers, who are hoping that unsuspecting investors take the plunge. Never buy stocks advertised via spam. The only person who makes money in such “investments” is the spammer who is selling at a profit while you’re buying at a future loss.

You’ve been patient for a while now and finally it’s time.

Confederation MineraIs (CNRMF) is on the verge of exploding.

Thats because they have hundreds ofmillions of precious metals on their property and they are weeks away from beginning to dig it out and selling it up the distribution chain.

It is trading at such a bargain right now that CNRMF is a no-brainer.

Snap up as many shares of it as you can today before it goes up too high.

Everyone is certain that we will see it hit past 40cents before month’s end.

See also:

1-718-709-7573 Phishing Scam

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Going through some spam traps, I found I received a fake IRS e-mail today that was a phishing scam. It included a fake W-8BEN form as a PDF to fill in and to fax to a number listed on the form.

When I googled the fax number (1-718-709-7573), I was amazed to see that the same scam had already been written about on other websites six months earlier. I rang the number from a Skype account and heard the unmistakable sounds of a fax machine.

Presumably this means that the phone number still hadn’t been shut down after half a year.

Somebody is making it too easy for criminals.

xpatjobsde.com money mule scam

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If you have recently received an email like the following:

Wir begrüssen Sie und möchten ihnen die Zusammenarbeit mit unserem Team anzubieten und erzählen über unsere Arbeitsbedingungen.
Erstens sollen Sie keine Beitrage einrichten um bei uns zu arbeiten.

Das ist eine gute Gelegenheit für die Rentner, Frauen im Schwangerschaftsurlaub,
oder für diejenigen, die von den Stressen, der Hektik und der Konkurrenz loskommen möchten,
oder für diejenigen, die eine Möglichkeit suchen, Teilzeit zu arbeiten und zusätzliches Geld zu verdienen.
Sie können ihre Arbeitszeit von 2 bis 8 Uhr variieren.

Ihr Gehalt beträgt 3000 Euro und Bonus.( Es hängt von den Arbeitsstunden ab)

Wir arbeiten von Montag bis Freitag von 09.00 Uhr bis 18.00 Uhr.
Für weitere Information schreiben Sie bitte uns per E-MAil:Markus@xpatjobsde.com.

Do not reply to such emails. This is a German version of a money mule recruiting scam run by phishing gangs. Other related domains are careerbuildereu.com, jobseurop.com, lavoroit.com, gogreecejob.com, usacareersorg.com and usajobsnow.com, which target people in various countries in Europe and the US.

People who respond will be recruited to receive payments in their bank accounts, withdraw the money and to forward the cash to recipients abroad. The wire transfers to their accounts will be made from bank accounts owned by people who have fallen victims to phishing scams. When they notice that money has gone missing they will alert their bank, which will usually reverse the (unauthorized) transfer. At that point the recruited individuals will be out of pocket, as they will end up owing money to their own bank. The ultimate victims of phishing gangs tend not to be the owners of hacked accounts who often get their money back, but the people tricked into forwarding the stolen funds, as they are the last person in the chain who can easily be held responsible.

Never accept job offers arriving via spam. Never accept job offers that involve any forwarding of payments!

Domain scam: domainnotices8320.com / 1-716-650-4793

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Today I received an e-mail that first looked like a request to confirm domain registration ownership details (“Please ensure that your contact information is correct or make the necessary changes above”), but on closer inspection turned out to be a scam:

Attention: Important Notice , DOMAIN SERVICE NOTICE
Domain Name: JOEWEIN.NET

Complete and return by fax to:
1-716-650-4793

ATT: JOE WEIN
ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT
JOEWEIN.DE LLC
[my email address here]
[my postal address here]
WWW.JOEWEIN.NET
Please ensure that your contact information is correct or make the necessary changes above

Requested Reply
SEPTEMBER 15,2014

PART I: REVIEW SOLICITATION

Attn: JOE WEIN
As a courtesy to domain name holders, we are sending you this notification for your business Domain name search engine registration. This letter is to inform you that it’s time to send in your registration and save.

Failure to complete your Domain name search engine registration by the expiration date may result in cancellation of this offer making it difficult for your customers to locate you on the web.

Privatization allows the consumer a choice when registering. Search engine subscription includes domain name search engine submission. You are under no obligation to pay the amounts stated below unless you accept this offer. Do not discard, this notice is not an invoice it is a courtesy reminder to register your domain name search engine listing so your customers can locate you on the web.

This Notice for: WWW.JOEWEIN.NET will expire on SEPTEMBER 15,2014 Act today!

Select Term:

[ ] 1 year 09/15/2014 – 09/15/2015 $75.00
[ ] 2 year 09/15/2014 – 09/15/2016 $119.00
[ ] 5 year 09/15/2014 – 09/15/2019 $199.00
[ ] 10 year -Most Recommended- 09/15/2014 – 09/15/2024 $295.00
[ ] Lifetime (NEW!) Limited time offer – Best value! Lifetime $499.00

Today’s Date: _____________________ Signature: _____________________

Payment by Credit Card
Select the term above, then return by fax: 1-716-650-4793

JOEWEIN.NET

——————————————————————————————-

By accepting this offer, you agree not to hold DS liable for any part. Note that THIS IS NOT A BILL. This is a solicitation. You are under no obligation to pay the amounts stated unless you accept this offer. The information in this letter contains confidential and/or legally privileged information from the notification processing department of the DS 3501 Jack Northrop Ave. Suite #F9238 Hawthorne, CA 90250 USA, This information is intended only for the use of the individual(s) named above. There is no pre-existing relationship between DS and the domain mentioned above. This notice is not in any part associated with a continuation of services for domain registration. Search engine submission is an optional service that you can use as a part of your website optimization and alone may not increase the traffic to your site. If you do not wish to receive further updates from DS reply with Remove to unsubscribe. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that disclosure, copying, distribution or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents for this letter is strictly prohibited.

The disclaimer in the final paragraph reveals that this solicitation has nothing to do with my existing domain registration. It’s an offer for an obscenely overpriced “search engine registration” service, which is basically useless. If there is as much as a single existing link to your website from any other website known to Google or other significant search engines, then you don’t need this. Even if you only just created your website, a link from any other site already known to search engines will do — no need to fork out $295 for that. Once search engines find your site from any other site they’ll spider it and index it.

If you receive any such offer, delete it. It’s a rip-off and you don’t need it.

RNBI / Rainbow International Corp – Pump and Dump Spam

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Stay away from any from any stocks advertised in spam. The only people making money are the spammers who manipulate suck stock prices.

Example:

BREAKING NEWS

Every once in a while there is a nice opportunity that knocks on the door. The general market is so saturated with overvalued companies at the moment that amazing opportunities are becoming an extremely rare thing these days. One of my analyst friends gave me a call last week and told me that RNBI is about to soar like never before. This is a company that was worth 30 cents a share at the beginning of the summer. Now we can buy RNBI for just 3cents. You heard right, 3 cents. This is the best move of the summer for sure especially since he told me we ll see RNBI hit 10 cents+ this week.

Stay well away from this stock, unless you want to lose money!

Upgrading to 14.04.1 LTS or If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix it

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I should have left my Ubuntu 12.04 LTS well alone. Yes, it is over 2 years old, but it worked rock solid and I’ve been good about installing updates on it.

I don’t know what devil rode me last Friday, but when the system informed me that an upgrade to 14.04.1 LTS was available, I went ahead and gave it a try. I should have known better.

When the upgrade finished many hours later, POP access to the dovecot server was no longer working and rsync using modules was broken (rsync daemon not running). I had accepted all the defaults to keep existing configuration files during the upgrade. It turned out that dovecot needed some changes for namespace inbox:

namespace inbox {
...
inbox=yes
}

The rsync daemon needed to be manually enabled again via

sudo vi /etc/default/rsync

RSYNC_ENABLE=true

Hopefully I won’t stumble across more problems that will need fixing, but the experience was a reminder not to needlessly mess with a working system.