For the first time I rode up Mt Lofty; the total distance was about normal for my Sunday rides (70 km plus or minus) but of course it was a hill climb to which I am not accustomed. I think I acquitted myself fairly well. So it was Henley to Hutt St (puncture on the way), up the old freeway to Mt Lofty, along the ridge to Norton Summit, down Norton Summit Rd, to The Parade, through Norwood, back to Henley. A quick shower, then off to the Peace Festival for a gig with The 3 Dolls. All very good. Sore legs though. This was only my second hills ride in my life, and my first was only two weeks earlier. Let me tell you about that Sunday. I needed the car to drop my bike off for a service in the afternoon, so I drove F to work before 7, with the bike in the back, then drove to the cafe in Hutt St, where I met the lads for a coffee. We then rode our bikes to Glenelg, along the coast to Hallett Cove, inland to McLaren Vale where we stopped for a bite to eat. Then we rode to Willunga, where I dropped in on an old friend for a few minutes. Then we went back through the hills, via Kangarilla, Clarendon, Blackwood and Belair. We got back to Hutt St and went to a different cafe for a parting coffee. While there I bumped into some old friends and two of their kids having a late lunch. It was lovely to see them, because I hardly ever do. It was so late by now that by the time I'd dropped the bike off for its service I could pick F up from work. It was a great ride with several milestones for me. It was the first time I'd ridden in the hills. I rode the slowest I've ever ridden (6 kph uphill) and the fastest I'd ever ridden (68 kph downhill), and the longest distance I'd ever ridden (117 k) for the longest time (6 hrs). I think I hit my highest heart rate too; 168 bpm.
Strictly speaking, this is not an exclusively iAnything tip, but it is a good one. In his Tangled Up In White post, John Gruber of Daring Fireball writes about the "green" revisions to the most recent batch of Apple headphones that serendipitously make them slightly more tangle free. I had to purchase a new set of headphones in September when my original iPhone headphones went from functional to complete disintegration in a period of about 72 hours. When those things fail, they fail. I probably should have done my research and bought some uber-headphones for a couple hundred bucks, but instead I dropped into the AT&T store a block from the office and got a pair of the new Apple headphones (the ones that shipped with the iPhone 3G). I can attest to Gruber's estimation that they are more "rubbery" than "plasticky," but that's not really the point of this post.
The point of this post is whether your headphones are rubbery or plasticky should be irrelevant to the effectiveness of keeping them untangled, because you should be following the One True Way Of Headphone Wrapping. Wrapi-do in Japanese, I believe. Also affectionately known as The Devil Horn Method. All snark aside (momentarily at least), this little hack really has kept my buds tangle-free for years now.
Here's how it works: Pretend you're at a Def Leppard concert and make the devil horns with your left hand. (Don't pretend you don't know what I mean -- middle and ring fingers bent and held down by the thumb, index and pinky extended.) Tuck the buds underneath the middle and ring fingers to secure them and use your devil horns as posts around which to loop the cord. (Some people advocate a figure-eight wrap, but I find a simple loop works fine.) Leave a couple inches of cord at the end. Slide the loop off the devil horns, and wrap the remaining cord around the middle of the loops, creating a little bundle. Thread the plug end through the loop opposite the buds and give it a gentle pull to tighten the bundle. This little package now fits neatly in your pocket, is almost entirely tangle proof, and unravels with ease.
There's no video of true wrapi-do, but here are two that come close. This dude has the right idea, but he has clearly never attended a Def Leppard concert:
On the other hand (haha, get it?), this fellow has nearly perfected the devil horn methodology, although the flailing thumb concern me a bit.
The figure-eight wrap is acceptable, if a bit ostentatious, but he goes off track with that whack tuck move at the end, instead of threading the plug through the loop appropriately. That's just wrong. You'll never get to nationals with form like that, bub.
UPDATE: Daring Fireball linked here and also to a perfect example of wrapi-do. This is dead on:
