A Cyclist’s Life in Tenerife (Canary Islands)

It appears that Tenerife North airport (TFN) will get a new control tower, more than 30 years after the world’s biggest air disaster took place there. While the existing control tower is only one of three to be fitted with sophisiticated surface or ground radar equipment in Spain, it’s the second oldest air traffic control tower in the country, apparantly dating back to 1965.

With an height of 41.3 metres the new tower will stand almost double the height of the current tower at TFN airport. Costing an estimated 7.3 million euros, construction is already underway. This is part of a 77 million euro plan to upgrade TFN airport before 2010. The planned completion date of the new control tower in Tenerife is at the end of 2008. The building proposal shown above is part of a project to upgrade the air traffic control tower, dating back to 2002. It certainly looks to be taking the same shape.

Tenerife aiport (TFN) is well known among aircraft enthusiasts as the site for the world’s biggest air disaster. This occurred on March 27, 1977. A total of 583 passengers & crew were killed; only 56 people aboard the Pan Am jet survived the tradgedy. [Read more →]

Tags: Island Life by Dr. Leslie Brown
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If you have a bicycle with disc brakes, you’ll soon find there are many possible choices for the rotor sizes. From a tiny 5″ all the way to a whopping 9″! The next time you need to replace a rotor, consider the following points.

Advantages of bigger disc rotors:

• Larger disc rotors obviously give much more power than smaller rotors.
• For the same braking effort, larger rotors will run cooler than smaller rotors, reducing the phenomenon known as brake fade.
• Larger rotors will last longer than smaller rotors, as there is more metal present in the brake track circumference.
• In my experience with steep descents here in Tenerife, where brake overheating is a real problem, larger rotors will also improve the wear life of the pads themselves (especially organic pads), as they don’t tend to overheat as much.

Disadvantages of bigger disc rotors:

• Each time you step up the size of the rotor, you add a considerable amount of rotational weight to your bike.
• Another down side of big rotors is that they tend to be a bit ‘grabby’ (meaning on-off-on-off braking performance)
• Contrary to what you might think, large disc brake rotors are more prone to warping than small rotors.
• The bigger disc rotors are therefore harder to keep centred & hence can become quite noisy even when pedaling along without applying the brakes. [Read more →]

  Tags: Ride the Volcano! by Dr. Leslie Brown
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