Older cubers discussions

[EvilGnome6]

Yes, it is Valladolid. I do the trip at least once every week and it takes little more than 1 hour, yes. It is not 10 €, though, but more like 46 € and upwards. The reason why I cannot go to a comp is not distance or money, though, it is more an issue about spending a whole weekend day off in Madrid on my own instead of with my family. That's why I tried to get my 12-year-old son into cubing

Bring your son to a competition. There's nothing like a room full of speedcubing 12-year-olds to inspire one to get into it.

 

[mafergut]

There's nothing about mine that I could possibly say wasn't smooth. No bumpiness, nor scratchiness, nor catching. [...]
One thing I do recall is that I had to take it apart and even up the tensions. [...]
Also, I may have glued the stalks, I can't remember (will check later). [...]

Well, mine is not scratchy at all and it NEVER catches but the bumpiness is there definitely. Maybe yours has so many solves on it that has been smoothed by them. I did disassemble it and lube the core (also a bit weight 3 on the edges and corner stocks) and evened out the tensions until it stopped popping. Maybe I should try and unscrew a quarter turn at a time on each center and see if it still does not pop but, at the beginning, after reassembling it, tensions were not even and I had some half-cube-out pops. Maybe I'll try gluing the corners as you suggest.

Bring your son to a competition. There's nothing like a room full of speedcubing 12-year-olds to inspire one to get into it.

Now you have a point there! I would have to convince him and my wife, though, that the expense is worth it. Now it's at least two train tickets (more like 3). Maybe I can add a night to the mix and look for something interesting to do the next day like a museum, theme park, etc. With that maybe I can bargain my way into a comp but, let's be honest, it would much cheaper to buy another 2 or 3 dayan 2x2s from different stores and see if one of them is better than mine.

 

[muchacho]

First time try to compete only in 3x3 so there is plenty of time you can be with them doing what they prefer to.

I bought another Dayan, and it was worst (I mean worst than the other out of the box), if it doesn't improve you could buy another, maybe you were unlucky after all.

 

[EvilGnome6]

Now you have a point there! I would have to convince him and my wife, though, that the expense is worth it. Now it's at least two train tickets (more like 3). Maybe I can add a night to the mix and look for something interesting to do the next day like a museum, theme park, etc. With that maybe I can bargain my way into a comp but, let's be honest, it would much cheaper to buy another 2 or 3 dayan 2x2s from different stores and see if one of them is better than mine.

I would much rather go to a competition than get a dozen new cubes. They're incredibly fun, challenging, stressful and inspiring. When my wife and I travel to competitions we usually make it a four day weekend and work in a bit of sight seeing or visit some family.

 

[MarcelP]

After no real cubing almost a month I did an Ao50.. Had this little surprise in there:

40. 11.40 F U2 D' F' U' L2 D2 L2 D' L2 B D2 F R U R' B2 R' L2 F' R D' R2 U' R2 (Can't reconstruct but was PLL skip)

 

[muchacho]

Nice one!

I've been a few days without timing myself... apparently my times remain more or less the same on average, but I'm getting some nice individual solves. New PB (16.328) and Ao5 (24.920).

29.206 R2 B2 D2 U R2 U' F2 U' B2 U2 R' F' D R L U R' L2 D' F
23.117 U' R2 U L2 U' F2 U' B2 F2 U' B2 R F2 D' B2 U2 B' L B2 U2
22.439 B2 U R2 D2 U B2 D' L2 D' F2 R2 F' D F' L' U' B' U' R2 B'
30.614 F2 L2 F2 D B2 U' F2 L2 U B2 U2 R' D B2 D' U' R' D2 U B' U'
16.328 D' B2 F2 D' L2 B2 D U R2 L2 F' R' U' B' R' B2 F' D2 U L U'

 

[mafergut]

I would much rather go to a competition than get a dozen new cubes. They're incredibly fun, challenging, stressful and inspiring. When my wife and I travel to competitions we usually make it a four day weekend and work in a bit of sight seeing or visit some family.

Yeah, I understand that, in fact the final comment about buying 2 or 3 dayan 2x2s was just a joke as all this thread about me going to a comp started with me wanting to compare my dayan 2x2 with others'. I will consider it but I'm too competetitive and too bad at the same time, which is a very bad combination. Maybe it would be a good idea to stick to events which I'm reasonably bad at so, no Mega, no 4x4 or bigger, no Pyra, SQ-1 or skewb... just 2x2 and 3x3... maybe OH and that's about it.

 

[JanW]

I've been a few days without timing myself... apparently my times remain more or less the same on average, but I'm getting some nice individual solves. New PB (16.328) and Ao5 (24.920).

Nice! Sub 25 Ao5 is already pretty decent! I don't expect to get there in a long time...

Finally first sub 4 blind success. 3:58.11 (1:17 memo). Could have been much better, but I shot one edge cycle in the wrong direction, realized after undoing setup moves and did the same cycle one more time to fix this. This probably cost me at least 20 seconds. I've had a few much better near successes. At best 03:21.39, off by one corner cycle. Accidentally put the letter F in my memo instead of G.

Sub 3:30 is my next goal, should hopefully not take too long. And I should also start making that word list for letterpairs. Memo time has dropped over 40 seconds in the last few day. I doubt it can drop very much further unless I get more systematic.

 

[Jason Green]

Nice one!

I've been a few days without timing myself... apparently my times remain more or less the same on average, but I'm getting some nice individual solves. New PB (16.328) and Ao5 (24.920).

29.206R2 B2 D2 U R2 U' F2 U' B2 U2 R' F' D R L U R' L2 D' F
23.117U' R2 U L2 U' F2 U' B2 F2 U' B2 R F2 D' B2 U2 B' L B2 U2
22.439B2 U R2 D2 U B2 D' L2 D' F2 R2 F' D F' L' U' B' U' R2 B'
30.614F2 L2 F2 D B2 U' F2 L2 U B2 U2 R' D B2 D' U' R' D2 U B' U'
16.328D' B2 F2 D' L2 B2 D U R2 L2 F' R' U' B' R' B2 F' D2 U L U'

Wow nice job! You went way under me, I don't know that I'll catch that 16 anytime soon. I've only had 4 sub 20 so far, hopefully I'll start getting enough that I lose count.

 

[muchacho]

I have only 3 sub 20 now, and the other 2 are 19.xx, I was just very lucky

 

[Jason Green]

Cool. Two 18s and two 19s for me. Maybe I'll try your scramble, I don't think it'll help though.

 

[muchacho]

I've tried it a few minutes ago and I can't remember what I did, maybe it was a mis-scramble, in that case it wouldn't help you even if you used Roux.

 

[moralsh]

Mafergut, there might be a one day comp in January in or near Alcalá de Henares, it might be easier to get away from your family duties for a single day.

If that's not an option either, just find a Venue there and I'll help you organize a one day comp in Valladolid.

I did a 1:19.xx 3BLD and two 4BLD DNFs off by 2 centers on my way to Cuba last week, not much more cubing than that in the whole week since. Routine will come in a week's time or so.

 

[newtonbase]

3BLD 3:12. I think this equalled my PB but edges and corners both had 2 cycles and there was parity so not the easiest solve. This, IIRC, is my 1st timed solve since my failure at the UKs so I'm quite pleased. The advanced M2 practice is paying off and memo is improving.

 

[mark49152]

3BLD 3:12. I think this equalled my PB but edges and corners both had 2 cycles and there was parity so not the easiest solve. This, IIRC, is my 1st timed solve since my failure at the UKs so I'm quite pleased. The advanced M2 practice is paying off and memo is improving.

Awesome! It takes a lot of practice but it feels great when it pays off.

Couple of smashed single PBs today: 3BLD 1:36.99 (8 edge targets, 2 flips, 6 corner targets). My first timed session since UKC too. And 5x5 single 2:10, in ao12 of 2:32. That soft cut is looking more and more reachable . I've now wiped 23 secs off my ao12 PB in just 3 weeks.

 

[Selkie]

Well life has been so busy I have not had much cubing time in the last couple of months but with some time to kill during the week on a train trip for business I decided to do some solves to pass the time. Delighted to get a pb of 8.48 though it was a very lucky solve. Been unable to reconstruct but it was about a 5 move x-cross and what I think was a wide antisune LL (PLL and AUF skip)

Well motivated by this back at an AO100 a day again. Still time to get these old hands to sub 15 global

 

[h2f]

Awsome single.

 

[Selkie]

Awsome single.

Thank you. To be fair I have recently felt that I had reached my ceiling of ability. Even though I would religiously practice I did not feel I could improve much.

However whilst I have always been short sighted and needed glasses for distance in recent years by close up sight has not been as good. Having eventually got reading glasses in the last month the cube just seems so much clearer, I seem to be able to hold onto look ahead much better and just finished my A0100 for today at an average of 16.30 which is on a par with two months ago and that is without practice.

Hopefully with concentrated practice I can see some good improvement over the next coupe of months. Hmm, improvement can come from the most unexpected places

 

[Jason Green]

Well life has been so busy I have not had much cubing time in the last couple of months but with some time to kill during the week on a train trip for business I decided to do some solves to pass the time. Delighted to get a pb of 8.48 though it was a very lucky solve. Been unable to reconstruct but it was about a 5 move x-cross and what I think was a wide antisune LL (PLL and AUF skip)

Well motivated by this back at an AO100 a day again. Still time to get these old hands to sub 15 global

Very cool! I still can't imagine a sub 10 at this point but maybe someday!

 

[mafergut]

Very cool! I still can't imagine a sub 10 at this point but maybe someday!

It's been two weeks already that I can't even think of consistently getting sub-20 solves any more, so I don't expect to get a sub-10 any time soon. I have been practising slow untimed solves for like 3-4 days to improve lookahead and when I did my 1st timed solves in days for the Race to sub-20 weekly challenge I got almost all 21s