What am I talking about… Everyone is already on google. I guess if you are not on google, you do not exist. But I digress.

I might be on Google Maps Street view. Right about there…

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I was following along my usual route back home when I saw this car with a contraption on it. It looked something like this… I have heard rumors of Google street view cars being sighted in Singapore over the past few months but this was my first encounter. Unfortunately, It was pretty much late in the evening and am not sure if google will upload evening images to the street view (maybe some king of Time of day effect, a la Google earth feature might find its way into the repository).

Streetview car

I am amazed by the amount of preparatory work that goes on to bring information to the consuming masses. With each forward step, we seem to generally forget that there are giant leaps and bounds of advancement that enable the move forward. Reminders like this makes on stop and think for a moment.

It is really cool and we have to thank people’s effort to bring information to us consuming masses. And it would be even cooler to be part of the information matrix in the street view. Maybe I should extend my influence over a good friend of mine who works in Google to get myself published

As regular readers (all 3 or 4 of you) may know, I have put a lot of thought, research and effort into choosing and buying my bikes. I started with a Trek XO-1 which is a very good bike and is a great compromise between speed, stability and utility. I think it has served me very well and is probably responsible for inspiring me to start commuting. The bike is very practical and with added racks and fenders is a near perfect commuter. It is zippy and light and I have had good times doing some long and regular short rides.

But over time, I was seduced by the idea of having a robust touring bike option and got my LHT. Now, LHT has its own set of problems, it is heavy as hell and very sluggish. But it is an extremely stable bike and very comfortable for very long days on the saddle. Though the XO-1 and LHT are vastly different bikes (Cross vs Touring geometry, thin vs fat tires, Alu vs steel, light vs heavy, aggressive vs relaxed, STI’s vs bar ends, Cantilever brakes vs V-Brakes, Road cranks vs mountain cranks etc…), I find that for my kind of utility (daily commutes and occasional weekend tours) they are very similar with the LHT winning by a narrow margin due to the relaxed geometry. It is of course possible to customize the XO-1 to behave more like a racer or a tourer as I need but I do not see much of a need for it in the time being.

So after a lot of thinking, I decided that I should say good bye for one of my bikes and I have figured I could replace the XO-1 with something more utilitarian like a folding bike. It is difficult for me to decide to sell the bike but if you took a look at my living room (with 4 bikes occupying most of the usable space) you would agree that it is wise to get the bike to another person who would make good use of it instead of me wasting the usable life of a fine bike.

I don’t mind shipping overseas as long as the buyer is willing to pay for shipping and I can ship after I receive the money. But I think it is too strict a policy and I believe people should be able to check the bike out and test ride before buying it. So I expect any enquiry to be local.

I put some ads in local forums and I repeat it here just in case…

For Sale: Cyclocross bike, 58cm Trek XO-1, 2006: Stock model with specs as seen here: http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/2006/archive/xo1 

The Bike is tall (58mm). it fits me very well (I am 185cm). 

http://nat.pedscapades.com/photos/2008/06/02/haulin/ 
http://nat.pedscapades.com/blog/2008/06/02/haulin/ 

Additions: 
 1. Added SPD-SL pedals (Ultegra or 105, I am not sure) 
2. Flipped the stem to a shorter one (original was 100+mm, I suppose the new one is 80mm). I can throw in the old stem if you might need. 
3. Changed the stock Break shoes to the XTR cartridges. 
4. Has a wired Speedo (Trek). I will leave it there. 
5. Added Fenders. 
6. Rear rack (Trek). The racks are not expedition quality but are probably the most solid ones made by trek. I have been using it to haul stuff from work and a couple of times to Ikea. I can definitely take load. 
7. I will provide the stock saddles. The picture shows Brooks B17. If you really need the B17, that will be additional cost. 
8. Couple of bottle cages. 
9. Rear lights. 
UPDATE:
10. Wheelset upgraded from Bontrager Select to Bontrager Race lite. Mildly used wheels but is really nice condition.

Positives 
 1. I use the bike primarily for commuting and did a couple of runs to Desaru. 
2. The bike is versatile and hits the sweet spot as a commuting rig. Built in braze-ons lets me add fenders and racks (I believe all bikes should have fenders). 
3. The bike is pretty light in weight and rides much faster than my Surly. 
4. I am still running the stock tires (never had a puncture yet) 
5. The stock gear ratio is perfect for commuting, however it would have been good if I had a Granny gear. Guess my legs are not strong to climb steep hills  
6. Minor paint scrapes here and there but the frame is Aluminum alloy and there is no bother of corrosion. 
7. I changed the brake-shoe to the XTR cartridge and it works pretty well. The brakes are cantilevers as you can see from the specs and though I personally prefer V-Brakes, the stopping power is adequate. 
8. I find the geometry comfortable – Not too aggressive as racers nor too relaxed as Tourers. That’s why I think it fits a sweet spot for a commuter. 
9. Acceleration is good and the bike climbs well (even with load). Actually, the bike balances nicely even with load on only one side (I usually carry work clothes on one rear pannier fit to the right side of the bike) 
UPDATE:
10. Wheelset changed to a slightly used Bontrager Race Lite. Very ice race wheels, I should say.

Negatives: 
 1. I prefer V-brakes, but have stuck with the Stock Avid Shorty-4′s. They are decent brakes. 
2. The bike is designed for CycloCross. It is a racer at heart but with a taller BB and slightly relaxed geometry. I ride a Long-haul Trucker and seem to prefer the more relaxed setup better (hence the sale). On the flip side, the LHT is like a tractor, stable but utterly sluggish  
3. The rear wheel is mildly out of true (couple of mm) – The story goes thus: 
- Was riding along sims Ave one late evening, the traffic pushed me to the left end of the road and I was forced to stop for a couple of moments. I did not realize I was on top of a drain-grille. The narrowish tires managed to sneak between the grilles and the bike almost fell over with the tires still stuck. I managed to restore the wheel but the wheel got a little out of true.  Rear wheel has since been Upgraded to Race lite’s. More bling for your buck.

I would prefer if anyone interested sends me a mail to “nat AT pedscapades DOT com”. I live in Hougang and we can arrange viewing and test rides. However, I would request that you be interested in purchase before we sync up (saves time for all).

One of the really cool technologies that I have come across recently is photosynth and deepzoom from Microsoft. The core idea behind the technology is to allow people to access large amount of visual information seamlessly. The obvious use case that we use regularly ( I use it almost daily) is maps. There are obviously a lot of uses I can think of for sharing photographic images. Panoramas come to mind. Panoramic images, and extreme Wide angle images are difficult to view because we are constrained by the monitor size. I have not seen good viewers where one can seamlessly see overview and jump in to see details in specific places. The ability to do that is cool.

One of the strengths of the seadragon technology is that they are able to remain resolution independent. Watch this TED lecture to get a lot better understanding of what the technology is capable of. Microsoft has been releasing a series of tools to help people use the technology and the latest tool is the deepzoom composer. To experience some of the cool presentations, one needs to have silverlight (A naive way to explain it is to call it a Adobe Flash competitor) but Microsoft has been very thoughtful to include an AJAX client to view deepzoom compositions.

There are times when we see something that makes us sit up and watch in awe. I felt that when I watched the presentation on Photosynth and I got goose bumps again when I was able to shoot a bunch of images and create the image below in less than 15 minutes. Awesome. Enjoy!

I would suggest you click on the Full Screen icon and Zoom and pan across the image. I have embedded a few high resolution zooms (which are easy to see due to the different exposure settings. Look into them and you will be pleasantly surprised.

I will make things a bit more interesting – Can you find the following images?

If you do, tell me in the comments the approximate location

If you are reading via a rss reader, please visit the site for the deep-zoom content.