Slack Signal

The three network… It’s a law onto itself at the moment. Since Christmas, it’s been having it’s problems.

2G Speeds at 4G prices

Having been moored above the lock close to Cropredy called Varneys’ for over a week and had plenty of time to experiment with the phone, boat location and settings of the SIMs on my phone. I can conclude that for the mast that provides for Three for this area, Three is selling a 4G connection, but providing 2G/3G speeds.

GenerationCellular technologyAverage data speed (download)
2GHSCSD15-20 kbps
2GGPRS30-50 kbps
2GEGPRS/EDGE130-200 kbps
3GUMTS384 kbps
3GHSPA3-5 Mbps
3GHSPA+5-8 Mbps
4GLTE15-20 Mbps
4GLTE-Advanced50-80 Mbps
4GLTE-Advanced Pro60-100 Mbps
5GNR150-200 Mbps
(https://commsbrief.com/mobile-data-speed-with-2g-3g-4g-and-5g-cellular-networks/)

— Average download data speed for GSM/UMTS mobile network evolution —

Here’s a picture taken from the Speedtest app on Googleplay.

Three download and upload speeds 3G not 4G.

A lot of the time, it was providing about 2-4Mbs, which is 2G. All the time it was doing this, it was showing the 4G symbol. As we can see from the table, 4G connection is upwards of 15, nothing like what I was getting.

Pretty dodgy.

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Easter in Cropredy

With salmonella. Picked the car up. Looks like someone has run into it. Greg, the owner of forge farm, where I moored th boat whilst I was away left a note on my car before I left. Aparently one of his workers has some information about it. I’ll be following that u when I don’t feel so ill.

It has a small dent on the offside rear wheel arch.

The boat

Is fine. A little more condensation on the windows, otherwise exactly the same as when I left it.

I spent a couple of nights at forge farm before moving down off onto the network.

Easter blues

Or so it seems on the canal network. It’s Saturday of the long weekend and they’re having to restrict the locks by the afternoon. This is due to lack of water. I had to move the boat down for the same reason, it was sideways and the water wouldn’t empty out of the bath and draws were falling open.

I’m not much of a fussy boater, but this is one of the things that really fucks me off. Probably one of the reasons I didn’t stick around on the Kennet and Avon. Having your whole world view rotated by 30°, used to piss me off. Now it’s something I can really do without.

Anyways, come 8am Saturday morning, the boat was sideways, even though I’d pushed it off a ledge further out into the channel the night before.

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Marrakech Medina

Was where I stayed this time in the return visit to Marrakech. So much nearer the nightlife and activity of the city.

The place I’ve got is ideal. It’s only a small hostel, but I was able to wheel my bike into my room!

It’s right in the Medina. All the shops and restaurants are close by. The hotel tanaga was the first one that popped up in booking. Really, I didn’t think too much about it. Having been to all the other cities, then coming back, it seemed like the natural thing to do, book somewhere near the Medina. If you don’t know anything, or you had a family or wanted a pool etc. Medina is quiter at night, there are no cars. It’s more authentic. It’s more the real Morocco.

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Rabat to Casablanca

Last day and fastest day. Averageover 22 kph with the wi!nd.

Someone once said,

go to Casablanca if you like warehouses

There’s some truth in that. It is a big, dirty city.

The coast between Rabat and Casablanca

Is basically like millionaires row for the first 40km or so. The crown prince has his property here, a large golf course and a port. No pictures of that sorry, it’s pretty well gaurded.

The coastal side is interpersed with golf courses and pool-centric apartment developments.

After a McDonald’s on the left, things revert to a normal Atlantic semi-coniferous coast line.

No hills. Flat coast. Simple riding.

Some of these guys out on the road under their parasol selling skate, Dorado, shrimps.

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Barrha to Rabat

The penultimate journey I’m going to do.

Barrha was an early start from the house of the birds. Onto the sand track, then once again, onto the highway.

Luckily, this highway was not such a major thoroughfare. It seemed to be mostly farm traffic, men on taps and donkeys delivering things to the many poly tunnel farms along the way.

Poly tunnel

Growing tunnels in Morocco
Tunnel vision

As far as the eye could see. Conditions, hot.

This morning I properly covered up with the old sunblock. Every 2 hours, I took another stop to re-apply. Fortunately, by this time in my journey most of the parts that could be burned had already received their fare share of sun. With that and the protection, no problems.

Growing tunnels - Morocco
Growing tunnels

Pushing too hard

When I got going in the morning, I was a little enthusiastic. To cover ground. I’d done 120km the previous day, my brain had forgotten, but my legs had not.

Before the first hour or so, I thought I would increase the place a little. This wasn’t a good idea. I could feel a cramp beginning to develop in my quads. As you may or may not know, once cramp sets in, it stays with you for the day. It’s a curse. You really want to avoid it, because if you can’t massage it away, you’re going to have to rest until it eases.

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