Status of Me

I am explaining, just in case someone is curious, why I haven't blogged lately.

I've been pretty busy with work and don't have as much free time as I need to fit in blogging. This will change pretty soon and I'll be back at the freetime keyboard.

I've been trying to take photos of my daughter's cockatiel for a couple months now. I've probably taken 50 photos of him. They are never very good. He is almost always in motion. He is not interested in posing. His gray color mushes into his normal backgrounds.

Out of all those photos, this is the best. I think I'll try to put him in front of something colorful that will help his shape stand out. In this photo, I blurred the background which helped him show up better. His name is Milo and he's a nice little bird. He spends lots of time out of his cage, sitting on someone's shoulder.

A Bicycling Curiosity

I received this saddle a couple of years ago in a mass purchase of saddles. The logo says, "Rido" and has no other markings, not even the country of origin.

I never rode it (why would I?) and had no plans to until recently. An author of an article in Velovision magazine said he found it a very comfortable saddle that he used on his everyday bike. I'd never seen the saddle anywhere else, so I was interested by his recommendation.

One important thing mentioned by the article's author is that unlike many other new-fangled saddle designs, this one has a nose and the nose is important for steering your bike.

I pulled the saddle out of the parts box and washed it off. I noticed the yellow part is hard plastic and the blue portion is flexible rubber. I may give it a try if I find a suitable bike. The bike would need to provide an upright position and be colorful. Perhaps a clown bike would do.

I'll let you know what I think about it after I ride it. Until then, please don't order large quantities of them, OK?

4-Speed Again

This is the third time I've converted this bike to an internal gear (Sturmey Archer 4-speed). Maybe I've gotten it right this time.

I've had two problems using internal gear hubs with this bike in the past. The hub slips in the drop outs as if I hadn't tightened the axle nuts enough. This happens no matter how tight I make them.

The second problem is this bike has short horizontal drop outs. I haven't measured them, but they are just short enough to make it difficult to get the chain tension correct with certain cog/chain ring combinations. It seems that the ones I've tried are all difficult ones.

I've tried a few cures, but they didn't work. I mentioned this to Bikesmith and he sold me these beautifully made Sturmey Archer anti-rotation washers shown in the photo below. Previously, I'd only used stamped washers with a single "tooth." The new ones provide more surface area for the hub to bite into the drop outs. The new ones looked like they'd work, but they made the second problem worse by shortening the effective length of the drop outs. I tried this anyway and couldn't get the chain tight enough to stop the chain from jumping off the cog. So I put a rear derailleur back on the bike a month or so ago.




Compare my drop outs shown below with the array of drop outs shown on Sheldon's website (scroll down to the entry for drop outs). If my bike had long drop outs, setting chain tension would be easy.

A few days ago, I decided to try the anti-rotation washers again and add the chain tensioner mentioned in the last post. I installed it all today and gave it a ride. It seems to work. I've learned, however, that it'll take more time on the road to determine if it slips. Last year, I had it working until I installed clipless pedals in the spring. Then it started slipping again. I have hope for this setup though.



It's snowing and there are lots of ice ruts hidden under the snow. This prevented me from really putting the pressure on the pedals. It's time for skiing anyway.

Back from Vacation & New Bike Project

I returned from vacation. My family and I traveled to see my dad and brother. I had secret dreams of getting out on a bike, any old bike would do, but it didn't work out.

I'll share a few photos out of the hundreds I took. The digital camera gives me more freedom to experiment with photos and one or two of them turned out nicely.

Back home, I tried to ride my winter commuter and found the new chain rusted into an orange mess. I tried to loosen up the stiff links with oil and by gently bending it sideways. I didn't see much improvement. The bike is unrideable. I've had this problem before, but never to this extent.

I have a solution, a permanent one. Tomorrow I'll install the 4-speed hub again. Some of you may remember I had chain tension problems with that setup. This time, I'll use a chain tensioner.
The newest version of the Surly Singleator impresses me. I owned one of the originals, before it was called Surly, and it was less refined. The old one worked, but it required fiddling. The new features on this one look like they'll address the old ones shortcomings.

The work will begin tomorrow, because I want my bike ready for the HC New Year's Day ride. If it's like last year's, it'll be memorable. It was on that day that we got to see more of Jim than we expected.

Vacation

I'm going on vacation today for a week.

It's with great pleasure I leave you with this YouTube video I found on BoingBoing. Have a little patience -- the fun starts about 25 seconds into the video. I'll never be able to dance again.

Dec. 13 Hiawatha Cyclery Ride

About ten riders turned out for today's HC ride. Most of us complained of being overdressed as the temperature had risen to 20 degrees F and kept climbing throughout the ride. By the end of the ride the snow was mush and didn't provide the oatmeal quality it had earlier in the morning. Oatmeal sounds funny, but it makes handling difficult. It never lasts very long though, because it can only exist in a certain temperature range. When the temps warm up, the oatmeal turns to pudding and when the temps go down, it turns to angry ice.

The sun came out and I think the ride was one of the best ever. I can't tell you why, but that's how I felt.




After the ride, I attended our neighborhood holiday party and ate my weight in egg dishes.

Old Blog Posts are Worth Reading

I was looking through my old blog posts for a certain photo. Which photo is not important to this purpose of this post. The important point I want to make is that it's fun to read the old posts and the comments. I laughed and laughed.

The posts in which I describe bike projects are useful too. They helped me understand the progression of bike changes.

It's nice to reread the posts and remember things I'd forgotten. Over the past few months, I've questioned the value of a blog. After looking over the old posts, I have the answer: my blog is valuable to me.

Maybe all of you already found that answer, but if you haven't, I recommend you take a look at your old posts.

The Photo?
I took the photo on yesterday's ride to work. This is the Minneapolis skyline from the top of a hill north of downtown Minneapolis. I think that someday I'll capture the photo in a way that pleases me. But I haven't done it yet. I took this with a pocket camera steadied on my Frost River saddlebag. Yes, a better camera and a tripod would help. I set the shutter speed to about 1/4 of a second. I tried lots of other shutter speeds and froze my nipples off in the process.

Shopping Season Music

I went shopping the other day for xmas gifts. I heard lots of xmas songs while wandering around the stores. Lots of them are old songs with a beat track added, like Bing Crosby's version of White Christmas with a fake drum beat added. I don't like it. These songs become really stale after being over played, but adding hip-hop beats doesn't make them better.

I tried to find an audio clip that I could put in my blog, but I had no luck in the 30 seconds I spent searching.

For a good example of the bad music I'm referring to, go to this link and listen to any song on the list -- wait, first put a bucket in front of you to catch the puke you're gonna spew.