Back From Iraq and all I Got Was This Cargo Bike

New Brakes All Around

2011-04-19T13:19:00.000-07:00

As I said previously, I replaced the brakes on both bikes. The Bongo Bike got them because I got tired of dicking around bleeding hydraulic brakes and the Co-motion got them because the Tektro Oryx brakes suck. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get any useful modulation out of them.

I went back to the Shimano BR-5500. I suppose there are better cantis out there somewhere, but for the money (about $80 per bike) they work a treat. Good modulation too. Never again shall I stray from the path of righteousness.

And they're shiny.

Now, the Bongo Bike.
I'd read elsewhere (and previously discounted) the idea that a good set of mechanical disk brakes can be almost as good as hydraulics, but far less annoying. I tried to learn to bleed them and was actually successful a time or two. But after my most recent attempt involving two days of fruitlessness, I pulled the hydraulics off and put mechanicals on.

Which also necessitated replacing the levers too:

For the sake of clarity, those are Avid SL-7s. I'd tried Deores but didn't fancy them as much. Couldn't get the feel I wanted out of them.

I do recommend the organic brake pads. For some reason, they just feel better than the metal ones. Don't last as long but they feel better.

Long time away

2011-04-11T21:25:00.000-07:00

I'm back after a hiatus to not writing. Got lazy for a bit there.

Um, where to start.
Hydraulic brakes, I ditched 'em. The stopping power was awesome but I could never quite get the bleeding process down. After spending a couple of days knob dicking with them trying to get them bled, I said screw it and bought some mechanicals.

I sank the cash into some Avid BB-7s. Photos and review to come. I'm doing some work on the Bongo Bike tomorrow. Also she is a very dirty girl and needs to be washed.

Tires. I dropped down to 26x2 tires on the Bongo Bike. The backstory is I got three flats in two days. The last one happened on my way to work. Unfortunately, I had used my last spare 10 minutes before. So I got to walk a mile to the bike shop and because I was still 10 miles from work and didn't want to walk, I bought a new tire. They didn't have 26x2.15 so I went 26x2. They felt nice so I put one on the back too.

My Co-motion is being brought back for commuting duty. The Bongo Bike is great, but something a little different would be nice. After so many years, the Co-motion is now "The Other Woman." She is getting some new bling too. I'm switching to Rando bars, bar end shifters and dropping her back to a 9 speed.

Oh, and replacing the brakes. Right now she has Tektro Oryx brakes. Not the worst I've ever used but close. Going back to good, reliable Shimano BR-R550's. Any praise Shimano gets from me is definitely earned. The other thing they do very well is bar-end shifters. Going back to those too. Don't get me wrong, love the Campy, but I'm running a hybrid Campy/Shimano system and it isn't working super well for me. Soo's bike, which is pure Campy, shifts like a dream. Mine is a little bitchy. So I'm going back to bar end friction shifters where I don't have to worry about that.

Many more pictures to come.

Long Tails, Smart Cars and new stuff.

2011-02-22T01:37:00.000-08:00

I was at Metro Perc Cafe with Soo, Bree and Aaron (who is down from Seattle). Saw the Smart car in the parking lot. After we got done joking about loading the car up on the bikes, I wondered how the length of the two compares.

The answer: pretty damn close. Turn my wheel straight and it might be a couple of inches shorter.

And here is what I believe to be the biggest collection of long tails Washington County has seen.

Catching up on some old product reviews.

The light works swimmingly. Nice and bright. I can actually see stuff with it.

New business. I bought a GPS computer for my bike. I don't have any idea why other than the computer gives me something to play with on my bike.

Ok, that's not strictly true. Past a few miles from my neighborhood, my mental map is only calibrated in 5 mile increments. So if you ask me how far, say, work is, I'll tell you 10 or 15 miles (it's actually 12.5). And, I tend to estimate ride time in half hour increments so a rough guess would be about an hour and a half to work (average is around and hour and twenty three minutes). I didn't grow up on the west side of Portland so I wanted to improve my ability to pick routes and forecast with some degree of accuracy how long it would take me to get there.Since I'm actually expected to be places at certain times, that's a useful skill.

And it gives me something to play with when I'm riding.

Here it is:

Before I forget, I actually took that picture. About as often as not, I just get product photos from the website. Tonight I decided to get all fancy (because everyone else is in bed and I don't for another couple of hours). Ok, it's clearly not professional. A true pro wouldn't have had the shadows in there.

It's a nice little unit. You can customize the number of frames for each page and what information you want to show in each. The attaching hardware is simple (a plastic thing and a couple of bands) and it's nice not have to mess with wheel settings. I thought it was reading a little fast initially and in the back of my mind, I wanted to verify the wheel settings. Then I remembered there weren't any and I was just a little faster than I thought.

For the truly dedicated (or data obsessive), you can down load the data to a Garmin Website and come up with all manner of info such as this:

This is just one of the several screens. There is another one that shows elevation, speed and variations on a theme.

Here's one of the things I like about this. It shows elapsed time and moving time. Also shows overall average speed and moving average speed. I'm trying to work out different routes and this is useful for figuring out which one seems fastest vs. which one actually IS fastest.

And it gives me something to play with. I do like to play with numbers, look at maps and things like that.

By the way, the route shown in above was Aaron and I riding into Beaverton. I've had an idea for a tattoo in my head for a few years now and I finally got around to starting it. When we got there, I had to make an appointment for later in the day. This was good because on the ride home to get the car it occurred to me that riding a bike with a brand new tattoo on my leg might not be the best idea I ever had.

We had a few hours to kill so we rode around looking for a brewery that didn't exist. Aaron found it on his phone and came up with an address. From the address it seemed to me like it would have been in the middle of a residential zone. But, he was working off the best info he had and there might have been a little area I didn't know existed with a pub there. That's always a win.The address we had ended up being a house. Pretty sure they didn't want us knocking on the door and asking for beer.

I was a little frustrated with Aaron initially, but once the ride was over and I actually had a beer in my hand (we stopped at the store and got some), I decided it was an adventure. We had a great time riding around although I did threaten to stretch his rectum with his cell phone a few times. In his defense, he doesn't know the area and was doing his best to help us navigate. I wanted to explore the roads and find out if any were worth incorporating into my usual routes.

And that area west of Murray on the map? Hilly. There's a reason I don't normally go there. It's hilly. Pretty, but hilly.

And oh yeah, there is supposed to be a snow storm coming. Spiffy.

The thing about employment is it really fucks with your riding time

2011-02-15T02:43:00.000-08:00

So I started my job at (Insert "Name of Major Microchip Manufacturer That President Obama Will be Visiting This Friday" Here) last week.

Don't get me wrong, it's been a great company to work for thus far. Thanks to the GREAT Recession (does it rate up there with the GREAT Depression now?) the government has had to re-think their ideas on how long someone could be out of work. Yet, I managed to find a good job with a stable company (read: they have shit loads of cash) and the shift is good. Plus this particular company has decided anyone smart enough to work for them will get bored after a few years. So, they do things like give sabbaticals every seven years and the encourage people to try out lots of different jobs in the company. Seriously, I don't know anyone who's been there over 10 years who is still in the same job they started at. Not many are even in the same department.

But here's the thing. I've gotten out of the habit of being places at a specific time. Prior to last week, there were few occasions other than things like my class in Fort Huachuca where there wasn't a bit of slop in my schedule. If I had to be there at 4 pm and I showed up at 4:15, no one freaked out. However, it did often mean I got the shitty seat at the table.

Now, here I am. I have a job. I have spent 16 years in the military. I hate being late and late by definition for me is less than 15 minutes early. Further, some really decent folks helped me get this job and I don't want to reward their faith and confidence by being a shit bag. But mostly, I just hate being late.

One final fact. I live 12.5 miles from the campus. It takes about an hour and ten minutes to ride my bike to work. Yet, I've driven for 5 of the 6 days I've been there. Why? Can't get my shit together in the morning or afternoon or whenever I have to show up.

I went in today to pick up my computer (The Company has you go through a short class, mostly to ensure your laptop is set up properly. Saves whiny calls to IT support I think). After spending some quality time with my wife this morning, I got my shit together and glanced at my watch. I would have been there about 5 or 10 minutes late. So I drove.

The bitch was it didn't matter much. When I got there, the IT dude showed me to my computer and told me to start working through a packet. Once everyone was more or less done, he would go over a few more things with us.

Ok, it ended up being sort of a good thing. I was able to swing by REI and pick up my bike computer (to be reviewed later) and it was a bit of a stormy day. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

But, I start my regular shift Wednesday night and I will make damn sure I ride my bike.

Oh, one other piece of news. Someone else at The Big Chip Making Company has an Xtracycle. I saw it. That same day I saw another Xtracycle while I was riding home. Two long tails in Washington County in the same day and I didn't own either of them.

By the way, I'm avoiding using the name of my employer. They manage their public perception pretty closely and they have people whose job it is to surf the net and find references to them. I feel like I landed in a good place, but I'm not sure they would like to have my sense of humor publicly associated with them.

Pictures of people and a quick product review

2011-02-04T21:27:00.000-08:00

Most of my pictures are of bikes. Usually my Big Dummy. Part of it is I don't ride with others a lot and if I do, taking photos doesn't always occur to me. Or, it's dark and it's just not an option.

I've had a few good rides in the past couple of days. I braved the cold Tuesday to drop some paperwork off at my son's school district. Then I stopped off at the grocery store and picked up some food for the beef stew I was making later that night. Here is the first ever picture of me on this blog:

Now it may not be obvious, but it was cold and windy that day. But, I had the wind at my back for a good part of the ride so it was almost pleasant. However, the sun is in my face and I need to shave.

Soo, Andrew and I went out for breakfast this morning. Since Biscuits is perhaps 500 yards from our house, we rode bikes.

Drew got to ride Soo's Xtracycle. He and I had ridden down to the store the night before and pronounced the Xtracycle smashing.

Soo got to ride her Masi Mixte, which hasn't seen much use of late. She considers her Xtracycle a much more useful ride, although she does prefer the way the Masi fits her. We are now looking at switching her Free Radical over to the mixte. Some modifications are in order, but it'll be a good looking ride.

One more thing. It looks like we are taking up the whole road, and we pretty much are. But, this is the road we live on and it's a cul de sac. So no actual cars were blocked in the taking of this photo.

Now, the product review.

I had built a generator hub for Soo's Xtracycle last week and installed her headlight. You can see the light on in this photo. The light is a Busch and Mueller Lumotec Cyo RT. When Drew and I were riding to the store, the light on the Xtracycle was washing out the light from my headlight. That thing cranks out 60 lux. According to the Strategic Study of Household Energy and Greenhouse Issues, a typical living room is 50 lux. I can't really compare them to most of the headlights commonly found in the US because all of the data I could find rated the luminance of their units in lumens (1 lux=1 lumen/square meter). I'm not going to say this is the brightest light in the world, but it is definitely sufficient.

My commute to work will be done at night until about April or May, so I decided it would be nice to have one on my bike. It was noticeably brighter than my current light, and that was enough for me. I couldn't find the same light as Soo's (although I didn't look very hard), but I found one that puts out just a little bit less light; the Lumotech Cyosensor Plus. It claims a measly 40 lux.

That 40 lux is plenty. And one of the things about the Busch and Mueller lights is you don't have the dark space between your wheel and the focus of your beam. That gives you a bit more time to identify a hazard in the road and possibly do something about it, if only prepare yourself for what you are about to run over.

I'll have a more complete review once I have some more time with this light.

Remote Lever for the Kickback

2011-01-27T23:28:00.000-08:00

One of my purposes for visiting Seattle, other than riding bikes, drinking beer and howling at the moon with Aaron, was building a wheel for Soo's Xtracycle. She took our son to a neighborhood restaurant recently and lamented the lack of light. I convinced her without much effort that she needs a generator hub like I have. It's gotta be nice when your main enabler is also the one who earns the money.

While I was building the wheel, Aaron made a command decision. My bike simply required a remote-lever system for the stand. The Kickback is kind of a bitch to operate when I have the Wide Loaders on or a bulky, heavy load on the bike. The remote lever is a design Val Kleitz came up with because Val is one of those clever, lazy guys.

If you look carefully at the photo of my bike from the previous post, there is now a third lever on the handle bars. Here are a few closeups (Next two photos courtesy of Aaron's Bicycle Repair)

The top photo shows the lever mounted to my handlebars. If you look closely, you'll notice it's facing in. I'd thought about flipping it around, but it works well this way.

The cable is routed under the bike and connects to the Kickback as seen in the bottom photo. The connection consists of a bolt like you'd use to attach a fender and a spoke bent around. The allen bolt near the top holds the spoke in place. This was about $30 in parts. Most of it was the lever.

Aaron shows more detail here. He also shows pictures of the Rolling Jackass.

I like my Kickback. It's a simple design and it does what it's supposed to do. But, if I'd known how well finances were going to work out, I would have sank the extra cash into the RJ and called it good. It is more expensive, but it's wider and stable as all hell. If you are considering both and cost isn't a huge issue, go with the Rollling Jackass.

I adjusted things a bit to suit and made a slight addition to the whole rig. I'd been trying to figure out a way to put some rubber on the feet of my Kickback to give the legs some more traction. Aaron thought that the rubber tips from a cane or a set of crutches might work.

So, I rode down to a local Albertson's (a supermarket for those of you who don't live on the West Coast) and picked up a pair for $3.

The legs of the Kickback are 7/8 inch (22.23 mm), which happens to be a common size of rubber feet for canes and crutches. I've only had it on for a few hours, but my initial testing says it makes deploying the Kickback with the remote lever much more positive. Also makes the contact area a little bigger so it shouldn't sink into things like wet grass quite as easily.

A couple of days in Seattle

2011-01-27T22:51:00.000-08:00

First off, making a guest appearance on the blog is Aaron's Big Dummy:

The picture really looks much cooler when it's larger, but I couldn't get the larger picture to fit. This was taken from the window of Pioneer Coffee on Alki Beach. Really, there isn't much better than having a nice ride with a friend, then sipping a ginormous cup of coffee and eating a cookie. Well, not really. It was good coffee and the cookie was smashing. We had all sorts of people asking us about the bikes (mine was parked a few feet away). One dude from Hawaii was waiting for his Big Dummy to arrive and was plying us for all sorts of things to buy for it.

I don't think he realized one of the people he was talking to owned a bike shop. We both recommended stands. I have the Xtracycle Kickback, Aaron has the Rolling Jackass made by his friend Val. The RJ is heavier and more expensive, but that thing is burly and way stable.

We did much riding around, drank us some beers. Ok, we drank many beers. It was Aaron and I after all. And, we did some Xtracyclocross in a park. No action pics (although I think Aaron has a few) but here's a nice nature shot of the Bongo Bike in the park:

Oh, and note the traffic triangle thing on the rear. That does double duty. It makes me more visible and serves as a mudflap. After last week's rains, I decided a mudflap was in order. This happens to be what Aaron uses, although I don't know whether he intended it to be a mudflap or not.

By the way. Xtracycles are ok for mountain biking, but they do have a few issues. Schwalbe Big Apple tires don't have the best traction on wet gravel or mud. You can't get the front end up to go over things very well, but they are stable as hell and if you can keep traction in the rear end, they climb ok.

It was a nice, relaxing trip. I'd seen Aaron briefly when I went up to get the Bongo Bike after I got back from Iraq, but not since. I hadn't really seen him much before since I moved back to Portland from Seattle. Even though we are both well into our forties now, it was like we were back in our teens bombing around Oregon City. All that was missing was Aaron carrying a boom box blasting "Don't You Want Me Baby."

Little about bikes, all about happiness

2011-01-20T09:05:00.000-08:00

So, some good fortune has come my way.

I knew I would be unemployed when I returned from Iraq and I knew the job search would be long and tough. I was putting a lot of work into finding a job, but not getting many interviews.

It was made tougher by the fact that I wasn't going to relocate. We own our house, we have some great neighbors and we have friends around the area. Basically, we are getting roots set down that we always wanted.

In addition, whatever shift I worked would have to fit into our family life. That meant being able to do things with the kids on the weekend and me generally being available for them. All in all, it was a tall order and meant I had to turn down a couple of jobs that I would have really liked.

In the meantime, I was also trying to put my life back together. My wife and I had agreed that things would undoubtedly be different when I got back, but there was no reason it couldn't be better.

I've been dealing with a variety of issues over the years. Mild depression has been a companion for much of my adult life as has been general sense of anger about things. This was exacerbated by the level of awareness one develops in a combat zone. Also, going from running a very dynamic and successful shop in Iraq to not having a job and trying to find a way to fit back in with a family dynamic that had changed over the year I was gone.

As a combat vet, one of the things I have available to me is health care through the VA system. I decided to avail myself of the opportunity. I got a checkup (glad to say my blood chemistry is near optimal) but I also got plugged into behavioral health.

They agreed that, while I didn't experience as much as other people, I was still dealing with post-deployment issues and still had the general sense of hypervigilance. So, they put me on medication.

I take a cautious view toward medication of any kind, so I grilled the doctor about the effects it would have on me, what I could expect from it, why she thought it would help and was there a plan to help me get off of it. I didn't want to be taking it for the rest of my life.

She explained that it would basically improve my general sense of well-being by selectively inhibiting the re-uptake of seratonin. That would help me spin down enough to give my brain a chance to re-wire itself from the configuration that had served me in theater but was now causing problems. If I didn't like it, we could find other ways of doing the same thing. However, she felt that since I had the all-important anchors of a stable family life and a supportive wife, I stood a good chance of success.

Fast forward a few months. The meds have helped. I'm now finding it much easier to relax and enjoy life. Most importantly, I can look around and say "Things are good now." I've seen the effects propagate throughout my life, even in little ways like being able to snuggle up with my daughter and watch TV, joke around with my boys and just enjoy a cup of coffee with my wife in the morning.

I was offered a job at Intel on Tuesday. The pay was exactly what we'd hoped for, it's in the area and the shift I'll be working fits well with our family life. I'll be working nights three or four days a week, but I'll also have part of every weekend, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off. Also, now my wife doesn't have to worry about scheduling classes because I'll just be waking up when the kids get home from school.

And one of the most amazing things is even though things are going well for us, I'm not waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Another bike blog I like

2011-01-17T11:09:00.000-08:00

Today's picture is my daughter at the park. This picture was actually taken this summer. She had insisted that I take her to the park on the Bongo Bike. I believe she is modeling what fashionable young ladies will be wearing for cycling in the future. In particular note the blue cycling gloves.

My daily readings have turned up another instance where someone thinks wearing "normal" clothes causes cyclists to be more courteous.

Over at Lovely Bicycle! the author (she goes by the name Velouria which sounds like a bicycle-related nom de plume to me) calls this "The Mary Poppins Effect." I can't quite go with that myself because I can't imagine anything about me invoking images of Mary Poppins. I'll need to give this some thought and see if I can't come up with a more gender-neutral name, a male equivalent or just learn to accept being compared to Mary Poppins.

I've added her blog to my list because her sensibility seems to reflect my own, although she seems to pull it all off with a bit more class than I do. Could be personality, or it could be a matter of Northwest vs. Northeast sensibilities.

Also, her post "Spouse Says Get a Bike" closely reflects my own experience helping Soo to enjoy cycling. From the other side, I'll offer this advice: Don't go cheap because they are just getting into it. Finding a bike that Soo really enjoyed and loved riding involved taking her to a shop in Seattle, getting a frame custom built and letting them work with her on getting the fit right. Also, I liked the people at the shop and knew they would treat my wife as an adult who needed advice but would still respect her opinions on how she wanted HER bike to be. In effect, they set the standard for what she looks for in bicycle shops.

Looking at her blog, it's also convinced me that I need to devote more effort to the photography on my blog. This isn't really about keeping up with the Jonses. A lot of the blogs I really like to read include stunning pictures of bicycles.

Raining

2011-01-15T18:21:00.000-08:00

After a week or so of cold (but sunny) weather, the rain has returned. For those of you unfamiliar with weather in the northwest portion of the continental US, here's a brief summary of how it works. Our weather is a constant competition between the lows in over the Pacific Ocean and continental highs. When a low comes in, it's 50-60 degrees and rainy. When the continental highs dominate, it's cold in the winter and hot in the summer.

In extreme cases, we get systems that shoot straight up from Hawaii, bringing warm, humid weather and shit tons of rain. We call these "Pineapple Expresses."

Right now we have a low sitting over us and storms stacked up out in the Pacific. It's rainy. Because I'm me, I went out and rode my bike in it.

This is what the bike looked like today. I went and got some groceries too. I made chili today and am making stew later this week. Plus, I've been playing in the beer aisles again.

Ok, some feedback on recent products are due.

First off, the rain jacket. It worked fine. About as well as you can ever expect a rain jacket to work. The rain stayed on it's side of the jacket, but I still got pretty damp from sweat. I sweat like a whore in church so this isn't entirely unexpected. I unzipped the jacket from the bottom (hence my preference for dual zips) which helped a bit. The iPod got a bit wet too. That's an easy fix though.

Gloves. Neither of the gloves I discussed a couple of weeks ago are extremely waterproof. They kept my hands dry for a while, but the rain overwhelmed it. What was important was they kept my hands warm. I can deal with being wet if I'm warm (hence my preference for wool).

The shifters. Worked exactly like I remembered good bar ends working. For some reason, I decided to switch them over to friction mode vice indexed.

I hate to sound like this, but friction shift is an inherently different way of thinking about things. Let me explain.
When you use indexed shifting, you move things the appropriate amount of clicks. Once that is done, your participation in the shifting process is over. However, with friction shifting, you move the lever to where you think you want it and knob dick with it a bit to get things feeling nice and smooth. In military terms, indexed shifters are fire and forget whereas friction shifters are more precision weapons.

I was thinking about this in much more metaphorical terms today, about how the indexed shifter is really a symptom of how modern society trusts engineering to get things right rather than developing the skills to do it themselves. Then I decided that was a stupid train of thought and let my thoughts get lost in Social Distortion on my iPod.

About you all

2011-01-13T18:50:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't know, blogger.com has this tab where I can look at my stats to find out all manner of things about you, my gentle readers. Though I would share some facts about you (collectively).

To start with, I've had 354 hits on this site since I started it. Far more than I thought.

The vast majority (319) of you are from the US. Canada (7), Slovenia (7) and Russia (4) and Singapore (4) round out the top 5.

Browsers.

Firefox is by far the most prominent (227), followed by IE (62), Chrome (34), Safari (16), Opera (9), Teleca (3) and Java (1). I have never heard of Teleca and Java seems a bit mysterious too.

Operating systems.
As one would imagine, Windows is the most common (319) followed by Mac (18), Unix (9), Linux(3) LG and Palm (2 each). The Linux hits might be me. I use a dual boot system.

Referring sites. Most common is Facebook (20) and Google (20), followed by Team Estrogen Forums (11), Google Canada (6), Google France (2), Anastasia Travel, pingywebedition.somee.com and remroom.ru. I honestly have no idea what the hell the remroom site in Russia is. I went there, but it's all in Russian and while I can read Cyrillic (a throwback from my days in the Navy reading the names of Soviet ships through binoculars), I can't actually understand Russian.If you know this site, please e-mail me and tell me what it is.

Now, search terms.

The two most common are "ATOC BT-63" and "Sean Herring Big Dummy Bicycle." I appear a couple of times in the search results on Google for the ATOC. I continue to recommend this rack for Long Tail use.

The one that intrigues me the most is "Sean Herring Iraq Purple Heart." I have been in Iraq but I don't have a Purple Heart. In fact I'm pretty proud of the fact that I don't have one; they hurt.

I have a few referrals from photos. The most common one is a photo of the Brooks Saddle on my Co-motion, followed by by bike on the roof rack and one with my black box full of gear from Iraq.

So, that's a little about you.

My thoughts on the helmet debate

2011-01-07T13:38:00.000-08:00

Normally, this is a discussion I avoid. It's a minor thing really but it can lead to so much hyperbole, bad feelings and general nuttiness.

I haven't exactly lived my life in a safe manner. I've been in dangerous places and in dangerous situations both with and without protective gear. Over time, I've come to view personal safety as a layered process.

The first and most important layer is understanding. That means knowing your abilities and knowing your weaknesses. It also means developing the ability to assess hazards and assign it a level of risk.

Next comes action. You take action to mitigate hazards. These are things you do to reduce your exposure to risk. For me it includes things like always being aware of what's going on around me, riding in a predictable manner so cars have some idea of what I'm going to do and not making any assumptions about them until I have a good idea what their intentions are. It's easier than it sounds really.

Also, I'm pretty strict about obeying things like stop signs. Part of this is PR. I don't care what that person in the car thinks about cyclists in general, I care of what they think about me. If they see me obeying the traffic laws, it may just get me the "well, most cyclists are douchebags, but this guy seems ok..." and I'm over half way there.

Finally comes the protective gear. This is last on purpose because this is really your last line of defense.

I like to be visible. Since the lights on my bike are powered by my front hub, they are on all of the time. I have a blinky on my helmet and I have lots of high visibility stuff. A couple of reflective vests and high visibility t-shirts from my days in the construction industry. Also my jacket is pretty bright. I even have a high visibility beanie, complete with reflective strips that I wear from time to time.

And of course, my helmet. There are situations where I always wear it, such as riding in large groups, or if I don't have a good feeling for the driving habits of those around me. If I don't perceive the risk is particularly high, then I'm probably not wearing a helmet.

Let me dwell on this for a second. I live in a relatively safe neighborhood. In a chicken and egg sort of relationship, traffic is pretty calm in my neighborhood and there are often kids playing in the street. People are generally moving slowly, predictably and are looking out for hazards. I don't wear a helmet very often if I'm just running down to the store or out to Mcmenamin's for a pint.

But, I almost always wore my helmet in Sierra Vista because I just didn't feel as safe on the roads. As I've said before, Arizonans drive like hell on the freeway but are pretty cautious people in town. Sierra Vista more so than places like Tucson. But the infrastructure I've become accustomed to just isn't there. Fry Boulevard (one of the main drags through Sierra Vista) doesn't have bike lanes so I don't have that bit of separation from traffic. I don't mind riding in traffic, but it does seem to make the locals there a bit uncomfortable.

Also, I believe the more people can identify with you, the more likely they are to avoid hurting you. This didn't become really obvious until I basically quit riding around in cycling kit.

Everyone has their image of the uber-squid riding in the latest Pro Team kit setting land speed records on the multi-use path and generally making a nuisance of themselves. I've never ridding with pro cyclists, but I know most recreational cyclists aren't like that. But the stereotype is there.

The other side of the coin is the hipster riding a fixie in tight pants and Chuck Taylors with a tall boy of PBR in the cage also ignoring other traffic and generally making a nuisance of themself.

Most of my riding is done in street clothes. I might push the edge a bit and wear knickers (or pedal pushers or whatever phrase my European audience uses in reference to trousers that stop just below the knee). I've had dump truck drivers wave at me when I'm wearing one of my high vis t-shirts. Plus, I'm riding an upright bike, not going very fast and obeying the traffic laws. In short, I'm sort of what a lot of motorists envision they would be like if they were riding a bike at that moment.

What's the point of all this? I believe helmets have their place. If I think I need it, I'll wear it willingly. If I don't think I need it, I won't wear it. But over 27 years of cycling, I've also developed a mindset and skills that are just as important for keeping me alive and unharmed in traffic. Maybe more so because I've never actually been in a bicycling accident where a helmet would have changed the outcome at all.

But I can't and won't tell someone else what risks they should or shouldn't take. I know people whose threshold for risk is so low they won't ride to the end of the driveway or around a parking lot without a helmet. I also know people whose threshold is so high they never wear one. I won't mock either extreme as fools because it's not my place to do so.

Shower's Pass Touring Jacket

2011-01-06T22:15:00.000-08:00

Yes, there is a two-fer today.
Those of you that have read my previous blog know that for the past few years, my rain gear of choice has been a poncho I bought on the cheap at Aaron's. It'd been sitting on their rack for a while and I was the only person that had ever shown any interest in it, so I got it for like $30.

I'm not hating on the poncho. It's kept me dry in many a rain storm and god knows how many times I've stood in the wind and rain happily drinking a beer warm and dry. It's good for when I'm wearing my small back back because it keeps that dry too. For warm, rainy days, it's just the thing.

But it does have it's limitations. It sucks on windy days because then, it's basically a sail. Also, they don't contribute much to keeping one warm. And they don't have pockets.

I actually own three cycling jackets. They all have their relative merits, but I require certain things from a cycling jacket:

1) It must be bright. I ride down some dark roads at night and it makes me feel better.
2) It must have pit zips AND two-way zips on the front. I sweat a lot and I like having ventilation when I want it.
3) I like pockets. It'd be nice to have one up near the top (or inside) for my iPod and one or two for things like wallet, keys, etc. Rear pockets are a bit of a pain in the ass for me. Anything in there has to come out when I get to where I'm going. If that somewhere is a Public House, there's a chance they'll get left there.

So, without further ado, I present my new jacket:

Not the greatest pic in the world, but it gives you the general idea. It's not obvious from the pictures but it also has pockets on the side. They're on the black part just behind the reflective piping. And the right hand pocket also has a little sub-pocket that you can put things into like your cell phone.

Reading the Shower's Pass description, it also has a loop on the back for a light. I found the loop and tried a blinky on it. It didn't seem to want to stay put.

All in all, it meets all of the above criteria. And it has this thing:

That thing is a little port to pass headphone wires through from the top pocket. This small detail may have been what finally sold me on the jacket. I mean Shower's Pass makes good stuff and all. I have a pair of their rain pants and my only complaint is they are a little snugger than I prefer in the thighs. But this is genius.

I'm not gonna lie. I listen to my iPod all the time when I'm riding. I know there is some safety nazi out there insisting that I will surely get killed because I can't hear that car coming up from behind me.

Look you, I don't listen to my music THAT loud. I can hear more on a bicycle with headphones on than anyone in a car or riding a motorcycle. I don't listen to them when I'm riding around other people, although I don't ride with other people much. And I have a mirror on my helmet so I can see what's coming up behind me. Now go back to your knitting.

I don't have a full review yet, just initial impressions because I've only worn it for about 45 minutes of riding and none of that in the rain.

It fits a bit big. That's actually a good thing. I often wear layers of wool sweaters when I'm riding. Some of those are thinner, some are thicker. But I don't have to worry about the jacket being too tight. Also, that looseness means I can get some ventilation in there. My days in Iraq showed how much more comfortable this can make you. Pants and long sleeves in 120 degree weather aren't that bad if you wear your clothes a bit baggy.

It's a bit brighter yellow than this picture suggests. It's bright. With lots of reflecty stuff.

The pockets are good sized. I could easily put my wallet, phone and keys in my pockets. My iPod Classic fit in the upper pocket. My headphones took a bit of work to get through the port because Bose puts this thing on their cords that is about the same width as the port. Don't know what that thing does. But I was able to get it through.

So, my first impression is this is a good jacket. We'll see how I feel about it after a few good rains.

New Shifters

2011-01-06T21:34:00.000-08:00

I finally swapped out my shifters. The old ones (Alivios, I think) and I just weren't getting along well. The right shifter didn't always want to grab when I wanted to downshift. That's a problem. There are times when I'm downshifting that I want that lower gear. Now.

When I used to ride my bike to class in Arizona, my preferred route started rising, albeit gently, right after I turned on the road to base and continued to rise until I was almost where I was going. It wasn't a serious climb. There weren't any in Sierra Vista. And when I could find the proper gear, it wasn't a huge issue. But when I'm trying to shift and the shifter isn't working, it's a bit of a trial.

One of my biggest complaints about how Shimano does shifting for the front derailleur is there isn't much trim. You shift your chain on to whatever chain ring you want and hope you set it correctly so it doesn't scrape against the derailleur in extreme combinations. That is one of the reasons I prefer Campy to Shimano.

While I was going over finances with my wife a couple of weeks ago, I realized that we had been doing a decent job of living within our means and not dipping too deeply into savings. My trip to Arizona covered Christmas and my wife just found out she got a Pell Grant for school. So, I felt better about spending some money to upgrade my shifters.

So here's the new set up. First, technical details:
The shifters are Shimano Ultegra thumb shifters. I actually bought a Barcon kit but this was the only part I really wanted.
They are attached to Paul Thumbies, 22.2mm diameter version.

I had to replace the cables and the housings on the rear derailleur because they were too short. This required a tandem derailleur cable (3100 mm) and 7 feet of cable housing. Honestly, if I could have found a 2600mm derailleur cable, that would have been perfect.

I also changed the front cable because the old one was a bit nappy and I couldn't get it fed through the housing. Nothing fancy there.

One point here. I tried soldering the ends of the cables after I had everything set. As it turns out, derailleur cables don't conduct heat really well and when the solder melts, it works its way between the strands of the cable and forces them apart. I'm going to play with this idea because it has merit. If I can find a way to dip just the end couple of millimeters in, that would be ideal.

Position. I played around with position a bit and this is what I liked. First I tried putting the shifter proximal to the hand grip. I almost made it to the end of my street before I decided I hated it. Fortunately, I'd brought an allen wrench so the shift and brakes levers switched places. Then I just had to rotate them until I found a position I liked.

How do they shift? Brilliantly. Smashing. It's been about 10 years since I'd used these sort of shifters and I'd forgotten how clean and simple they are. I'm running the rear shifter indexed for the moment, although I'm sure I'll switch to friction at some point. Then back, just because I can.

The only thing I could possibly give to my old trigger shifters was convenience. I had them set so I could actuate the levers with my thumb and forefinger without moving my hand. It was nice when it worked. The way my shifters are set now, I actually have to move my hand to shift sometimes. Gasp. The horror. I think it took me all of 10 minutes to get used to the new hand motion. More of a muscular memory thing really.

I've never seen a review of the Thumbies, so I'll say a few words about them here. They're simple.

The square indentation on the bottom of the silver ring fits into a raised area on the Thumbies. You can rotate the shifter position around it's axis in 90 degree increments and that's it. You have to use the screws that come with the Thumbies because the ones that come with the shifters are too short. The barrel adjuster has a good feel to it. That's about it.

Not sure why they cost $60 a pair. Maybe because they are the only thing out there that will do the job they do.

All total, the project cost me about $130. That included the shifters, Thumbies, cables and housing. Installation took about an hour, including adjustments. It'll probably take a little time to get the position dialed in because only longer rides will reveal little annoyances that will get under my skin.

Christmas shopping

2010-12-29T22:00:00.000-08:00

Before I get started, I've added Josie Dew's blog to the list. I've never actually met Josie, nor corresponded with her in any way. But, I've read a lot of her books and apart from her occasional self-righteousness at being a cyclist, I like her writing. I can forgive the feelings of superiority. I started cycling in the mid-80's when the only people that wrote about cycling much were hippies who wrote about touring and cars being the spawn of Satan.

Now, to the matter at hand.

I agreed to make Christmas dinner this year. It just seemed like a good idea. Give Soo Christmas off. Plus, I wouldn't end up doing dishes.

Naturally, this involved a good bit of shopping. We didn't have a lot of room in the fridge due to a surfeit of leftovers. Also, I'd been in the Beaverton Fred Meyer's Beer aisle without supervision again. So, I didn't actually do the shopping until a couple of days before Christmas.

A bit of description about the general area I live in is in order. First, we have one of the bigger malls in the area a few miles up the road. Also, we have one of the most chronically clogged freeways in the area not too far away. We also have Highway 99W. That road is a crowded at the best of times. Add in a bunch of holiday shoppers going hither and yon and it becomes a virtual madhouse of heinous fuckery most foul.

Plus, I had to go places where there would be lots of people. You know, Costco and a couple of grocery stores and the weather wasn't great.

All in all, it screamed for the Big Dummy. No way in hell I was going to mess around driving in all that.

Here is a partial list of what I had to buy:
1 7-pound rib roast
1 Pumpkin pie
1 bottle of wine
Milk
Bread
Bacon
1 pound of asparagus
Black-eyed peas
Oranges
Dinner Rolls
Various spices
1 bottle of Oregon Brandy
corn bread mix
1 vegetable platter
1 bread platter
a couple of blocks of cheese that just looked too good to pass up and some crackers to go with it

I had to stop at Costco, two grocery stores and a liquor store to amass all of this. Yes, it all fit on the bike. I did put the Wide Loaders back on after an 8-week hiatus. I just envisioned problems hauling the pie, so I strapped a collapsible crate on to the wide loader and put the roast, pie and platters in there. The rest went to where I had room.

I got the same question at every store but the liquor store. "How are you going to carry all this on a bike?" I explained that my bike was built for just such things and it would be no problem. Also, traffic and parking were nuts so it seemed the easiest option. People generally agreed with me and acknowledged that I was probably the most cheerful person they had dealt with all day.

The people at the liquor store had no comment. I guess they figured whatever I was up to, it was my business.

On to other business.

I picked up a couple of new pairs of gloves at REI last week. I have a rough relationship with cycling gloves. I prefer full finger gloves regardless of the season (don't know why). I don't like a lot of padding. My left hand in particular gets cold fairly easy because of damage it received when it was burned thirty years ago. But I don't like my hands being too warm. When I do find a pair I like, I wear them until I can't stand the smell anymore regardless of how often I wash them. My last pair had become particularly foul, so it was time to replace them.

I bought two pair of gloves. The first are the Giro Blazes:

These aren't supposed to be particularly warm, but I find they do well. Also, they have an admirable degree of water resistance. I haven't put them through my usual test of putting them on and sticking my hands in water to see how they'll hold up. But they seem to do ok in the rain.

All in all, good for riding in and comfortable as all hell.

The second pair are, I think the Pearl Izumi 2010/2011 Cyclone Softshell Elites. This was the closest picture I could find. Mine are high visibility green. The white patches on the photo are reflective on my gloves.

These are made for colder temperatures and are also very comfortable. I've worn mine a couple of times in the rain and didn't notice any dampness other than sweat.

Neither gloves have much by way of padding in the palms, which is how I like them. Also, both pair have some sort of rubbery stuff on the finger tips to give you grip. The Giro finger tips don't work well with the dial on my iPod, but that's my only criticism.

Both pair cost me about $40 at REI. Good buy and highly recommended.

Back from the Desert (but not the bad one)

2010-12-13T21:12:00.000-08:00

So, I am now back in Oregon after 6 weeks of school in Sierra Vista, AZ. Fittingly, I came home in the middle of a Pineapple Express. God I love Oregon.

Better yet, I came back to not 1 but 2 job interviews. If one of these actually pans out, I'll post the results.

Don't get me wrong. Sierra Vista is an ok place as far as small towns in the middle of the desert go. The drivers down there seemed a bit freaked out by me riding my bike all over the place.

I learned a couple of important lessons about Arizona drivers. They drive like Ricky Bobby. On the freeway, it's the "Wake up in the morning and pisses excellence" version. In town, it's the "delivering pizza on a bicycle and living with his mom" Ricky Bobby.

In my last post, I'd mentioned that I intended to actually prepare my bike for the 24-hour trip on top of my car. Conceptually, I gave into the dislike of things flapping loose that the military has spent over 16 years developing in me. If it flapped, it was removed or taped down. I also removed the headlight and secured the wires. There was no damage en route this time.

Also, I'm happy to say that my fix for the rear brakes seems to have worked. They don't need to be bled after this trip. Neither Aaron nor I understands why this works.

Pix of the new Freeloader

2010-11-30T08:55:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned yesterday, the FreeLoaders sustained enough damage that I felt it best to replace them. My wife actually made the decision, I just didn't fight it.

Here is the BD with the new FreeLoaders:

And the inside: They kept the very useful inside pockets. This is where I keep my pump, spare tubes, tools, lock, etc:

The mesh zip pocket is gone. That one was occasionally useful. One of my favorite uses for it was as a place to stash a soda. It would actually hold a Super Big Gulp. Now I'll need to find another way.

Ok, the connections. My wife is generally much better at doing her due diligence than I am so she spent much time trying to determine whether it needed the retrofit kit or the standard hardware kit. Here's what the attachment points look like:

Front attachment point

Rear Attachment Point

My understanding is that around 2007-ish, Xtracycle reworked the connection points on the FreeLoaders. Rather than wrapping the nylon strap around the frame, it connects directly to the frame. The FreeRadicals are set up to accept this, but we weren't sure whether my particular Big Dummy was. I think my wife bought the Retro Fit Kit, but Xtracycle shipped the standard hardware kit. That's my understanding. I was aware of this driving back from Portland this last weekend and spent many happy hours of thought trying to figure out how I would work up a hack to make it work.

Once I got back to Sierra Vista, I set about installing the new FreeLoaders. That was when I discovered I had the correct hardware set after all. In short, if you have a Big Dummy and are considering going to the new FreeLoaders, check your frame to see if it looks like mine. If you have the bosses, get the standard set.

Hauling Xtracycles a long way

2010-11-29T14:24:00.000-08:00

I've actually been down here in AZ for a while now. Almost a month to be precise. Been meaning to post the results of hauling the Big Dummy down, but kept blowing it off.

Here's how it went:

First off, the weather. It rained from Portland to somewhere in Central California. I can't give specifics on where because the Central Valley is one big blur. If you've ever driven the length of the Central Valley, you realize it has three high points. Redding where you start it, Sacramento which is the only major city in the valley and the Grapevine where it ends.

The trip was about 23 hours of driving, generally at around 70 mph. Apart from that, it was also a bit windy at times.

The rack: Performed flawlessly. That may not seem like a tall order for a rack, it just has to do what it was designed to do. But, I left that bit open when I reviewed the rack a while back. Now it's confirmed. I got the hang of the velcro strap that holds the back wheel on. Brilliant piece of engineering that.

The bike didn't fare so well. Damage assessment as follows:

Water in the headlight
Air in the rear brakeline
Wire for the tail light tore out

And the Freeloaders sustained considerable damage. Apart from the fabric generally thinning out due to 23 hours of flapping in 70 mph winds, the rear straps got wrapped around the strings that tighten up the mesh in back. The strap on the left hand side tore almost completely out and the string ripped through the mesh.

The headlight was the easiest thing to fix. I popped the cover off, dried out as much water as I could and let it sit for a couple of days so things would dry out completely.

This leads to Lesson 1: Take the headlight off before a long road trip if it's raining.

The tail light posed a bit of a challenge. Since I didn't wire it, I didn't know how to re-wire it. Diagrams on the manufacturers web page were useless. See, the problem is there are three possible places to connect one wire.

I didn't want to blow the tail light so I spent some time thinking about how to solve the problem. Then it hit me. I have good pictures of my bike. Sure enough, I found one that gave enough detail that I could figure out where to re-attach the wire. Also replaced it with stronger wire.

I tried to fix the Freeloaders, but in the end, there was nothing for them. The strap would have been relatively easy to fix with a needle and thread, but the significantly weakened fabric bugged me a bit. In the end, I replaced it with the 2010 Freeloaders. More on those in another post.

Lesson 2: Take the Freeloaders off.

The brake thing is a bit of a mystery to me. I'm not sure if the altitude is creating issues or the wiggling around. When I took the bike to Grant's Pass this summer, I had to bleed the brakes again. That time it was in the back of my wife's van so it wasn't exposed to the wind that it was on this trip.

The altitude answer doesn't really make sense. I'm going from high pressure (my house is a couple of hundred feet above sea level) to lower pressure. Assuming things were equalized at sea level, the fluid should be escaping but I've never found any traces of brake fluid on the bike.

That leaves the vibration issue. When Aaron built the bike, he had to add a coupling in the brake line because he couldn't find one long enough. The connection appears sound. I'm going to try and wrap the coupling with thin rubber and cover it with tape. That may resolve the problem.

Roof Rack for the Big Dummy

2010-10-09T18:23:00.000-07:00

Usual disclaimer: I actually bought this rack. Any positive reviews are because I like the rack, not because I'm beholden to ATOC for anything.

I mentioned previously that I had found a possible roof rack for my Big Dummy.

This is no trivial affair to me. Normally, if I need to take the BD somewhere, I ride it. But it occasionally happens That I need to take it places farther than I care to ride. Like Seattle, or Arizona.

I'd played around with different ideas. Build my own or hack my current racks to fit it. I figured a little time with a drill, some bolts and a welder and I'd be good.

There are a couple of problems with that. First, I'm not that great of a welder and I don't know whether the only MIG welder I have access to can handle aluminum. Second, it's one of those things that if it goes wrong, it's gonna go wrong in a big, painful, expensive way.

I stumbled across the ATOC BT-63 on the web last week. E-mailed ATOC and made arrangements to pick it up at the Oregon Handmade Bike Show today. I rode down there today, paid Charlie my money, drank a beer (because it was there) and came home.

The assembly process was no big deal. It basically uses the same sort of mounting hardware as the original rack. In all respects, it functions the same as any other rack of this sort.

Getting it up there was about as easy as hefting 50 or so pounds of bike up can be. Charlie Buchalter, the Rocket Scientist who designed the thing and started the company, told me that Big Dummies wouldn't work with their tandem toppers because the wheel base isn't long enough.

The only complaint I have thus far is not unique to this rack. If you look carefully in the top photo, I had to remove the bolts on my fender eyelets to get it in. Other than that, it feels about as stable as a bike in any other roof rack is going to feel.

Note that I didn't actually drive my car with the wide loaders on. The instructions state that this may create weird wind loads and damage the rack or the bike.

I'd been thinking about this when I was riding home. The angle that the bike sits at may create a downward aerodynamic force on the bike and keep the thing more stable. But, I don't think the airflow would be laminar at that point so it seems likely there would be buffeting due to eddies. In short, I have no way of actually predicting what the wind would do to the Wide Loaders so I don't intend to have them on there when I'm actually driving.

The photo at the right shows the BT-63 (left) and the original Yakima Rack. I think it's a Copper Head, can't remember.

Two things to notice here. First off, the BT-63 uses a box section to create a more rigid rack. One of the problems Charlie said I might have using two shorter racks to make one long one is cantilevering due to the weight. I'm not an engineer, but I do know that a cantilever is a beam that is only supported at one end. So, I'm guessing cantilevering is when the beam wangs up and down due to a heavy load.

The second thing to notice is the difference in the wheel wells. The Yakima (right) has a deeper wheel well which works a treat for my road bike (and is the reason it's still there). Keeps it nice and stable. But, my road bike never has tires larger than 700x37c. The wheel well is too narrow for the 26x2.15s on the Big Dummy. I tried. I measured. Just wasn't looking good. The wider tires rest right in the wider wheel wells on the BT-63.

The rack uses a monster piece of velcro to attach the rear wheel. That may seem a bit cheesy, but one of velcro's interesting properties is it has some mad resistance to shear forces. I'm actually more worried about losing the velcro than the velcro coming loose. Also, I've had issues with the ratchet mechanism on my Yakima racks. Not a big fan.

Since I don't have any road miles on this, particularly freeway miles (because if I'm using it, I'm probably driving on the freeway). So, I can't yet say how well it performs on the road. It felt stable when I put it up there (because otherwise, I wouldn't have left it there). The basic design of this rack is a proven design so I'm not anticipating problems.

Latest Haul

2010-10-04T16:35:00.000-07:00

We are re-working our front yard. Grass went away and now we are going with trees, ground cover and stuff. Soo's been working hard on this for months and it's gonna look badass when we are done.

One of the things we're putting in is walkways. We decided it would be cool to have borders along the walkways. So, today I went out and did a few errands on the bike and picked up five boxes of border material:

This stuff is heavier than it looks.

I had a lot of people giving me odd looks at Lowe's. Not "dude, you have a penis growing out of your forehead" weird looks. Just "what is that man doing?" Weird looks.

On the way home, a commuter ended up behind me in traffic. Nothing about the cat's appearance stood out in my mind. Decent touring/cross bike with one pannier, normal street clothes, day-glo jacket and helmet. Pretty standard stuff around here (at least as far as bike commuters go).

But, that man would not pass me for anything. I do not go fast carrying this much weight. As usual, the ass end was a little whippy, but nothing I couldn't deal with. He stayed behind me at the lights. Followed along at the same pace as I was. I'm sure he was just being careful. Or I creeped him out riding along with a bunch of stuff strapped to my bike and no helmet.

I'm picking up a new rack for my car this weekend. The whole story is I'm going to Ft. Huachuca, AZ for six weeks of school later this month. Last time I was there, I didn't take a bike with me and lamented it frequently. This time, I decided the Big Dummy is going with me. I'd considered the Co-motion (and may still take it, don't know yet). But, for day to day stuff like going to class, picking up groceries from the commissary, etc. the Big Dummy is better suited to that sort of duty.

But.

The Big Dummy doesn't fit on my roof rack. I might have been able to get it into my car, but that's not a given. Then I stumbled across the ATOC racks. Specifically, the BT-63. Long enough wheelbase that the Big Dummy will fit (confirmed by Charlie Buchalter). I shot them an e-mail asking about it. They shot back saying it'd fit just dandy and that the wheelbase of my bike was just a tad too short for me to take advantage of their pivoting design anyway.

After a quick conversation with Charlie about the rack, I'm picking it up this weekend at the Oregon Handmade Bike show. I jokingly told Soo that I promise I wouldn't have any fun. She said if I was paying to get in anyway, I should probably have some.

Once I have the thing on my car and have some miles in it, I'll include photos and a review.

My First True Love

2010-09-19T19:35:00.000-07:00

Here she is, ready for service again.

Readers of my previous blog will recognize this as Kira, my long-suffering Co-Motion Americano.

For those who have not seen her before, she was custom built for me by the good folks at Co-Motion in the fall of 2001. Original parts were from my now long-dead Trek 520. The only parts that remain on the bike from her original incarnation are the saddle, seat post and the binder bolt. Everything else has been changed at least once, in some cases two or three times.

I had a simple concept when I created her in her current form. Every part on her must either a) Last for a very long time or b) I can completely tear it down and service it myself.

The current build:

Wheels: Front and rear hubs are Phil Wood built on Velocity Dyad rims. The front is a 36 spoke laced in a cross-3. The rear wheel is a 40 spoke laced cross 4. I like my wheels strong.

Tires. Right now I have 700x28C Vittoria Radonneurs on there. This is hands down my favorite brand of tire. I'm not sophisticated enough to gush about how well they handle because I've never noticed much difference from one tire to the next. Someone in a bike shop once said the Continentals were superior because they are made from natural rubber and are more supple. I tried them out and I can't say as I noticed the difference.

What does matter is they are durable tires with good puncture-resistance. I have had flats on Randos, but I've also had a flat on the Schwalbe Big Apples on my Big Dummy. What's important is I haven't had many flats on them. I have logged a couple of thousand miles on a set without a flat. They are as reasonably priced as bike tires ever get.

As far as the size goes, I'm all over the place. I've run every size from 700x28 up to 700x37. Just depends on my mood. I like 700x35 for touring. 700x32 is a good all-purpose tire. 700x28s just feel fast.

Saddle. This bike has only ever known one saddle. I bought this B-17 Champion Special around 2000-ish. The story is I had done a tour on a gel saddle and hated it. I shared a campsite with a guy who said "Brooks B-17. There is no substitute." This was around the time when Brooks was briefly out of business so finding one was a bit of a challenge. I think I got this one from Wall Bike. I tried a B-66 and didn't like it. That saddle is now seeing service on my wife's touring bike. She loves it. It's no coincidence that my Big Dummy also has a Brooks B-17 Champion Special on it. The only difference between the B-17 and the Champion Special are the rivets. My answer is it's a Brooks; it's supposed to have big, copper rivets.

The drive train is mostly Campy. Shifters and rear derailleur are Veloce, front derailleur and crank are Centaur.

The astute reader will say "but Sean, Phil Wood hubs aren't compatible with Campy cassettes." And you would be right. However, Campy 10-speed shifters are mostly compatible with Shimano 10-speed cassettes. Add a JTek Shift Mate and you are in business. The shifting isn't quite as crisp as my wife's Campy-pure touring bike, but it's good.

Why Campy? Because Campy rocks. I love having all the trim in the front derailleur. Even with a hack in place, the Campy/Shimano mix shifts better than a pure Shimano system (and I've run up to Ultegra). The hoods are more comfortable and as a friend of mine once put it, Shimano wears out, Campy breaks in.

I went with Centaur on the cranks for the simple reason that I wanted a 50/40/30 up front and at the time, I couldn't find a 50/40/30 Veloce. With the 12-27 in the rear, it gives me a workable range. Probably wouldn't want to do a loaded tour over the mountains with this, but it works well for daily use and light touring.

Bottom bracket is a Phil Wood. I think I installed it around 2005 or 2006 when I replaced most of the Shimano stuff with Campy. The old bottom bracket was feeling chunky after a few years. No issues at all with the Phil Wood.

Brakes: Tektro Oryx cantilevers. Originally, I ran Shimano BR-R550s. Those brakes are awesome. The adjustment being "close enough" was fine on those brakes. When I went to put new cantis on my wife's bike (her old ones sucked), I couldn't find a set so I bought the Oryx. She didn't want them because she couldn't find many good reviews on them and didn't want the same problems she had with her old brakes. So, I gave her my Shimanos and put the Tektros on my bike. They aren't quite as good. Specifically, the adjustment on those has to be just so.

Pedals: Speedplay Frogs. I love these pedals.
Handlebars are 48cm Nitto Noodles. I'd like these handlebars if they were a bit deeper, but they feel good otherwise.

I just put this rack on today. It's a Tubus Cargo. I bought a Tubus Tara front rack when I originally bought the bike. I still have it, but I don't run a front rack very often. My previous rear rack was a Jandd Expedition. It was a good rack. However, it came to ruin one night when I gave my friend a ride from Ballard to University Place on it. He said he weighed 155 pounds. The weight limit for the Expedition is supposed to be around 50 pounds so I nearly tripled the capacity and all it did was bend a little. Honestly, the only reason I went with the Tubus is I like the simple design.

The fenders are steel Gilles Berthoud. I used to have to replace fenders every two to three years. These are about four years old and other than a dent, still look good. The mudflaps are Gilles Berthoud leather. Kinda silly to put leather mudflaps on but I like the look.

So. Why all the effort into bringing her back to life today? Most of my daily work is done on my Big Dummy. I love my Big Dummy. If I need to haul a bunch of stuff, or just pop down to the store for groceries, it's just the thing. For many years, my Americano served in this role. She has Seen Things. If she were a soldier, she would have many campaign medals and a Combat Action Badge or two. Probably a Bronze Star with V device too. But now she can delegate the grunt work to the Saucy Young Tart who still has more guts than common sense.

Aboslutely Nothing to Do with Cycling

2010-09-10T19:22:00.000-07:00

I have some odd fascinations. One of my weird hobbies is anachronistic things.

For example, I can tie a bow-tie (basically the same knot as tying your shoes), use a slide rule and, to some extent, an abacus. I can sharpen and shave with a straight razor. I prefer analog clocks.

A few weeks ago, for reasons unknown to me, my off-again, on again fascination with fountain pens cropped up again. Completely out of nowhere. The only thing I can think of is I was doing a job interview with a dude that used a disposable fountain pen and I became fixated with it. It happens.

I held off for a while, then discovered the Paradise Pen Co.

Gobs of pens. Pens that cost more than I could imagine paying for a pen. But, I was stuck between two:

And

The top one is called the "Studio Palladium Finish" and the bottom one is the "AL-Star" (probably from the aluminum body).

The Studio is a medium point and the AL is a fine point. Wasn't sure which I'd like better. Still not sure. They both have their advantages.

My Doings

2010-09-10T18:56:00.000-07:00

Got my the last of my gear back from Iraq a while ago. It came in a duffle bag and a black box. The duffle fit into my Civic pretty well. The Black Box was more difficult. There was only one answer:

Strap it on the Big Dummy.

I think it weighed about 70 or 80 pounds. That much weight sitting up that high made the back end wiggly as all hell, but it I got used to it after the first couple of miles. The secret was to ride very smoothly.

I should also mention that my black box doubled as my desk/table when I was in Iraq.

After unloading it at home, I repacked my duffle and my ruck (which had been sitting my bedroom since I got home), loaded them back up and took them back. There was probably an easier way to do this, but that's not my approach to life.

Ok. Next segment.

Product of Which I Approve:

I'm a bit of a princess when it comes to my seat position. It could be because I ride a Brooks saddle, generally without padded shorts. Whatever the case, I like my saddle positioned just so.

Most seat posts aren't conducive to getting your position just so. Up and down is no problem. Back and forth is also no problem. Tilt is the problem. Until today, I never found a seat post that allowed me to set the saddle tilt just the way I want it without spewing a long stream of maledictions.

May I present the Race Face Deus XC:

Here's how the thing works. The top bolt in the picture clamps down the rails. I like it because it's on the side where you can easily get to it. With the stoker bars on my BD, that's a non-trivial issue.

Loosening the bottom bolt allows the collar it's attached to to slide up and down, thus setting the saddle tilt very precisely and independent of all other adjustments. I'll let you know how this thing holds up to my abuse. The Lawyer Pamphlet in it says if you use it for anything other than XC racing, the warranty is void. It specifies all manner of non-XC things such as downhill, trials, Urban, etc.

My guess is me riding around town will be much gentler on it than XC or any of the above.

Back to riding

2010-07-05T17:55:00.000-07:00

So, the CAO case is pretty much wrapped up (for now). That is always worthwhile, but it does take a bit out of you.

Back to the bike.

I'm happy to report that I had my second sighting of another Big Dummy in the wild. Also, a woman on an Xtracycle passed me riding up 99W. Both in the same day.

Soo and I went to Grants Pass for a wedding this weekend and we decided to take the bikes figuring we had a bit of time to ride around, look at things and generally have a much better time.

I am happy to confirm that we did, in fact, have a smashing time. Friday night we rode to dinner, then did a few errands. The next morning, we hopped on the bikes and rode around just looking at the town. By the way, Grants Pass is a great place for riding bikes.

We hit the farmer's market and bought some cherries. There were several times where Soo had to wait while I discussed the virtues of the Big Dummy with people passing by. Then we went and found a place to have some lunch and finally headed back to the Hotel. Sorry, no pics.

The trip was a success. I do think having the bikes available made it more fun because we had a chance to go out and do something fun, just the two of us.

Fixing my rear brake ended up being a bit of an adventure. I'd never bled hydraulic brakes before. My first several tries came to naught, but I did learn that one should never pump the brakes when the pads aren't in. My brake levers are Hayes HFX Mags (or something like that) and the calipers are Hayes Nines.

For the benefit of anyone who stumbled across this looking for directions on how to bleed the Hayes HFX-9 or the Mags here is how I did it:

Comment: The instructions from Hayes are pretty good. Uncharacteristically, the guide on the Park website is no more illuminating.

Since I didn't take pictures when I was doing this and I don't want to take everything apart again, this will make more sense if you are looking at your bike and the bleed kit while you read this.

Remember to take the brake pads out and push the pistons back. This process can get a bit messy.

1. The port on the calipers is on the underside. It's a small Phillips screw. Take that out and set it aside. Make sure the black rubber washer comes out with it.

2. Put the clear plastic adapter on the hose and put the end of the adapter into the port. I ran the other end of the hose into a plastic bottle that I'd zip tied to my handle bars.

3. The caliper bleed port is under that little plastic cover. Pull the cover off. There is no adapter for this end; the hose just goes on.

The caliper end poses some challenges. First off, the hose doesn't stay on very well. Definitely a two-handed operation. Secondly, it's tough to get the air out of the hose, put it on and unscrew the bleed screw. So, here's how I did it.

4. Wrap a bunch of rags around the caliper. Then loosen the bleed screw a quarter turn.

5. Turn the bottle upside down and force fluid down into the hose. As best you can, keep the bottle squeezed a bit while you quickly slip the end of the hose over the bleed port.

6. Release the bottle. This should draw fluid from the caliper up into the hose. Also, it'll force air up into the bottle so you aren't injecting air into your brakes.

7. At this point, most guides say squeeze the bottle for a count of 5, then release. Keep doing this until no more air bubbles come out of the caliper. That's pretty much how it works. Squeeze, release, repeat. Eventually, no more air bubbles will come out.

8. Once you have all the air out of the caliper, squeeze the bottle gently until air bubbles start coming out of the hose connected to the brake lever port. I counsel patience and diligence at this point. What ended up working was the same squeeze-release process that I did earlier. In earlier attempts, I quit as soon as I saw fluid coming out. I was about ready to quit this time (and probably end up being unsuccessful again) when I saw a bunch of air coming out of the hose. I had probably forced a little bit of air in connecting the hose, but not that much. So this time, I kept going with the squeeze-release (and using longer squeezes) until no more air came out.

9. Once you've convinced yourself there is no more air in the system, squeeze the bottle enough that there is fluid in the hose coming out of the brake lever, remove the hose at the caliper and tighten the bleed screw down. Then remove the hose connected to the brakes lever and replace the screw.

I think that sequence makes sense. When you release the bottle, fluid in the hose at the brake lever will get sucked back in. This way, it's sucking fluid, not air.

10. At this point, I cleaned up all the spilled fluid with some rubbing alcohol and a rag, replaced the brake pads and put the spacer tool between the brake pads. Then I pumped the brake lever a few times.

This lesson was learned the hard way; the calipers on the Nines are self adjusting, which means the piston keeps going out until it hits something. If there's nothing there, the piston keeps going out until it falls out. Now there is nothing keeping the hydraulic fluid in.

In a way, I'm glad that happened because I decided to take the calipers apart and see if that made it easier to put the piston back (it did). It also gave me a chance to see how the damnned things worked.

Not riding bikes for a good cause.

2010-06-21T14:50:00.000-07:00

I got a call from a buddy at Brigade last week asking me to take a Casualty Assistance Officer case they had. Without getting into too many details, a kid on active duty (he's 13 months older than Drew) died and my job would be to help his mother wade through all the paperwork etc. to ensure the soldier receives a dignified burial and the family receives all the benefits they are entitled to.

It's a full time job. Active duty soldiers are released from all other duties until the mission is complete. I'm on active duty orders until this is complete (then, who knows what?).

With all the phone calls, visits, paperwork, etc. that I'm required to do, I haven't ridden my bike in over a week now. My hope is the Co-motion is explaining to the BD that sometimes this happens.

Rides and thoughts

2010-06-11T12:32:00.000-07:00

No big cargo hauls this week (yet, it's only Friday). But a couple of good rides thus far.

I went out for a ride Monday. My original intent was to go investigate the bike path running parallel to US 26 over the West Hills. (Note: One of the the two confirmed readers of my current ouvre, one has not, to the best of my knowledge, been to Portland. My advice to her is look at Portland on Google Maps. US 26 runs East to West through Portland. If you switch to terrain view, it becomes obvious that it's not flat.)

Anyway, I was on the Big Dummy. Agreeably, a 50+ pound bike is not the ideal hill climbing machine. But that's the one I was riding.

I found the bike path with only minor problems although at some point, I said to myself "you have cycling maps of Portland. Why do you forsake them and rely instead on the Google Maps utility on your cell phone?" No good answer for that. But I lived.

On the return trip, I had intended to explore some ways from downtown toward the hospital then take Terwilliger out toward Multnomah Village. But, I took a wrong turn and ended up climbing many hills like this:

I suffered but had fun and survived. The great thing about riding up the West Hills is the kick ass descents on the other side.

Tuesday Soo and I decided to go investigate a couple of wineries near our house. We don't really consider ourselves wine snobs, we just like wine. Soo rode her touring bike. I rode the BD for, among other reasons, it makes Soo and I a pretty even match. Also, if you are going to wineries, you might want to buy wine. If you are going to buy wine, you need a way to carry it.

The first one was Cooper Mountain Vineyards. Ugh, more hills. I was still feeling the previous day, but Soo's preferred pace is casual enough that it didn't hurt much. In the end it was all for naught because Cooper Mountain didn't open for another 90 minutes after we got there.

So, we headed out to Oak Knoll. Found some good wines, including some very tasty blackberry and raspberry wines. The we headed to Ponzi a few miles from our house. Snapped this photo of Soo:

Bought more good wine at Ponzi. The guy working the tasting room insisted on beholding the BD, complete with boxes of wines on both sides.

All in all, it was a delightful day. Time spent on your bike isn't taken off your life. Time spent pedalling casually around the country side with your beautiful wife and sampling tasty wine is added to your time in Heaven.

Now, to completely shift gears.

Heidi Swift writes bicycle columns for the Oregonian. Never met her, don't know her. She probably doesn't know me either so the ignorance is mutual. I got into reading an article today about how people riding electric bikes are mocked by the "cycling community" for being traitors, cheaters, etc. Somehow or other, I came across one of Heidi's columns and followed the link to her blog Grit and Glimmer.

In one of her entries, I found this quote:
"All of these shiny toys and fast boys and masturbatory wattage discussions?
This is not what cycling is about. This is not what sport is about.

Don’t get me wrong. I love pro cyclists.

They’re lean and hungry and superhuman. They propel to feats of greatness and inspire us with the sheer impossibility of their performances. They’re made of muscles and lungs and talent and suffering. They’re heroic, for sure.

But at the end of the day? It’s not the pros who inspire me the most.

It’s regular people climbing on bikes when no one thinks they can or should.

It’s the woman who made it to the top and then collapsed, but it’s also the woman at the stop sign with her hand in the air, waiting for a high-five that her friend is too tired to give. It’s patience in doses as she coaches through the hardest moments – the willingness to standby and hold another human being up, encourage a friend to greater things, motivate others to do things they may have never considered possible."

I was envious about her phrase "masturbatory wattage discussions" by the way.

Cycling is people riding their bikes. I tried to work up something cool about how, as a group cyclists should quit hating on each other because there is enough cycling for all of us. But I'm not feeling that profound today.

Some thoughts on hazards

2010-06-05T20:24:00.000-07:00

I managed to get a ride in today by convincing my son that if we were going anywhere today, we were taking the Big Dummy. We went down to the park for a while. Then he decided he wanted to go to the bookstore.

Chris is a talker and today he seemed to be in a mood. So, I decided to take some side roads and made more use of the bike paths than is my wont. Maybe it's just this part of town, but people in cars give me a wide berth when I'm riding the BD and more so when I have passengers. Actually, they give me quite a bit of berth anyway because of the Wide Loaders.

Now, there are other bloggers who have pondered why people think having a child on the back of a bike is dangerous. Based on what I've seen, it may be a little less dangerous. However, I'm sure people have excoriated me (but not to my face) for dragging my children around on the bike.

This leads me to my rant of the day. Safety.

Given that my brother and sister were killed in a car accident that the driver (my mother) could have done nothing to prevent, I don't see where bikes are less safe than cars. Sure, you aren't surrounded by a ton or so of metal that may or may not protect you when shit goes wrong. But you also don't have a tank of gasoline ready to explode if shit goes wrong in just the right way.

Further, I don't feel the need to protect my children from every single hazard in life. Quoting P.J. O'Rourke, "Pain is Nature's way of saying you're stupid." Sometimes people need a little pain or they need to get the shit scared out of them. That's part of growing up. Educating people on hazards is wise and good, although I think the bar for what constitutes a hazard is lower than it should be. But trying to remove every single hazard is generally impossible and ultimately a no-win situation.

Maybe it's my attitude on life, but I always assume it's better to recognize and mitigate the risks myself rather than going to already over-worked government officials and demanding they make the boogie man go away. I've never been in an accident with a car or because of one (while riding a bike anyway). Some of it is probably luck. But, I've been riding long enough that such luck as I may have should have run out at least once.

For the good of the order, here are a few tricks I've picked up:

1. There is a zone around you where the actions of others can and will affect your life. If you want to stay alive and intact, you will know what each person in that zone is doing at any given time. In the military, we call this "maintaining situational awareness." From what I can tell, many people, cyclists and motorists, have the situational awareness of a cucumber.

I can't tell you exactly how large this zone is because it depends on a number of factors including your reflexes and bike handling skills. However, I can tell you that it's probably wise to pay the most attention to the front and sides because if something bad is going to happen, that's probably the direction it'll come from. Bad shit comes from behind too, but chances are there isn't much you can do about that.

I do feel it's useful to have an idea of what is going on behind me, but I'm not obsessive about it. Mostly, it's just so when I'm going to change lanes or something to ensure I don't move into on-coming traffic.

Part of maintaining situational awareness is realizing that some areas just require more attention and care than others. Unfortunately, the cycling community has become fond of going to already over-worked government officials and demanding that they make the boogey man go away any time they feel a bit scared of an intersection or a section of road that doesn't have enough of a shoulder to suit their tastes.

2. Never believe a motor vehicle's turn signals. If there is a car in a position where it can turn in front of you, watch the front wheels of the car. It will always be the first thing to move and it might give you the time to take evasive action. This has saved my butt a couple of times.

3. As you are riding down a line of parked cars (for example, cars parked on the street), check the driver's side to see if there is anyone in the car. Rear view and side mirrors are good for this. If you see someone in the car, get out of the door zone.

4. Don't ride like a douchebag.

5. If there are cars stacking up behind you because you need to take the lane or someone is just creeped out by the idea of passing you, find a place to pull over and let them pass. In most people's eyes, this reduces how much of a pain in the ass you are and therefore reduces the chance of them acting like tools. There are always tools out there, but they are generally a minority.

As far as visibility goes, I'm not really sure. I won't ride at night without a headlight and a tail light. That's just inviting trouble. But I'm not sure if having multiple blinkies, banks of headlights or every inch of your body covered in reflective gear helps. Let me put it this way. People in cars run into cyclists wearing bright colors in broad daylight. How is running a 1-watt blinking headlight in the daytime going to help?

I have another theory that I'm sort of developing right now. The more people in cars can identify with you, the better off you are. Other than knickers, I generally ride in normal street clothes. I'm starting to wonder if the motorists just see me as a regular guy (if a bit weird), so they give me a little more courtesy than they would someone riding a racing bike in full kit. Also, my BD is quite a novelty out here and seems to grab attention so that probably helps.

Stuff that works

2010-06-02T17:10:00.000-07:00

First off, big haul for the week:

This haul was actually last week, but I just got around to downloading the photos from my camera.

Anyway, it's a couple of boxes of old books. Normally I don't like getting rid of books, but they were taking up space in my garage and I hadn't read any of them in years. So, they went to Goodwill. Not sure what this load weighed, but it wasn't light.

Both boxes stood out about eight inches from the wide loaders so I had to be a bit more careful than usual. Fortunately, it didn't start raining like hell until shortly after I'd dropped them off. The guys at the Goodwill store were fascinated by the bike and I'd probably would have been there all day, but I had other errands to run and I was trying to get home before the rain started.

And rain it did. A nice thunderstorm. See that yellow stuff there? That was my rain gear. The way the weather has been of late, I don't leave home without it. It started raining just as I walked out of Home Depot, so I futzed around getting my stuff packed and getting my rain gear on. By the time I was ready to roll, the rain had slowed down considerably.

Ok, speaking of rain.
I'd been considering getting a handlebar bag for the Big Dummy. It may seem like overkill, but there are things I carry around like my cellphone, keys, wallet, etc. that I want accessible and I'd prefer they not get wet.

I found this Ortlieb handlebar bag at River City a couple of weeks ago. It was a bit of an impulse buy but it seemed justifiable at the time.

True to Ortlieb form, it is, in fact, waterproof. I've proven that riding in a couple of serious gully washers with my cell phone, wallet, keys, etc. in there. They stayed dry. Also, it's big enough that my Kindle will fit in there for those times I feel the need to ride my bike somewhere and read.

The mounting system on it is interesting:

It's a pretty standard looking mount on the front. But it uses a long-ish wire with a allen head screw on the end to tighten it down. You can see the head of the bolt on the upper left hand side of the mount. It has a mechanism to lock the handlebar bag to the mount. That didn't really affect my decision any because I don't leave my handlebar bag on my bike because my stuff is in there. I may have lost the key already.

I won't lie, I wasn't sure about using wire to mount the bag at first. The wire thing seemed a bit dicey to me but I was willing to give it a crack because the clamping area of my handlebars is tapered and I couldn't get the rigid mounts for my Arkel bag set properly.

The bag does rattle around in the mount a bit, but that's not an issue for me. If it were, I could probably find a way to put some rubber in there to keep it still.

In terms of bike equipment wins, this one is a big win. Simple and it does what it's supposed to do.

Now, for my next one.

My normal choice in rain gear is a poncho. If it's really rainy or windy, I'll throw on some rain pants. The Keens I cycle in are pretty good at keeping water out from the sides. But I have had problems with rain and spray soaking my socks and water making its way in from the top. That makes the waterproof shoes pretty pointless.

These aren't anything fancy, just a pair of Black Diamond gaiters. I think they cost me in the $30 range about 10 years ago. I have seen purpose-built trail running gaiters made out of things like neoprene for about the same cost. The neoprene ones probably breathe better and for trail runners, that and irritating the calves can be a definite issue. These go up high enough that I can keep the top loose to for ventilation and to reduce rubbing. Also, I can wear them over my rain pants if I happen to be wearing them.

They are easy to get on and off. They keep my socks dry and hence, my feet stay warm. The only thing I have that vaguely resembles criticism is they look a tad dorky, particularly when I'm wearing knickers (which I do often). But that's me. Everyone else probably thinks I look like a right dork regardless of whether I wear them or not.

Bouncy Big Dummy

2010-05-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

Being presently unemployed, I have plenty of times to read bike blogs. I also get sucked into This Is Why You're Fat from time to time, but that's a result of my particular combination of ADD/OCD.

Anyway, I digress. Again.

There is quite a bit of talk going on over at www.bikehugger.com about cargo bikes. I think the point the author is trying to make is that there is no single cargo bike suitable for all purposes. One point that comes up is the flex in the frame of the Big Dummy.

I have noted the flex of which they speak. It's only evident when I'm carrying more than about 50 pounds or so on the bike. It's a bit disconcerting but I can handle it. I may have the requisite bike handling skill that DL Byron mentions in his posts on this thread. Also, I find the flexiness causes me to pedal more smoothly than I would otherwise.

The interesting part of that thread is the question comes up about whether the Long Tails are The Thing that will make people give up their cars.

Like any counter-cultural movement (for lack of a better term), cycling has degrees of seriousness. At the extreme end are the Car Free people, the vegans of cyclists. These are the people that will make you feel like a tool no matter how much progress you've made. They are the ones that went all the way. Then there are those who don't ride much at all, but keep a car around because sometimes they are useful. Next step down is the people who ride their bikes, but also spend some time behind the wheel for whatever reason. I'm probably in that category.

So the question you may be asking yourself is how does all this fit together?

There is no such thing as The Perfect Bike. As people work bikes into their identity, there is a tendency to either demand absolute perfection from their machines or insist that their particular bike is the Perfect Bike for all purposes. Extending the relationship analogy a bit more, I think happiness requires that you find a machine whose virtues appeal to you enough that you can over look minor faults.

Welding and long rides

2010-05-13T16:07:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted to learn to weld. Don't know why, it's just something I want to learn.

My buddy Rich and some combination of his father and brothers own a small car customizing shop in North Portland. Way the hell in North Portland. But, he offered to teach me to weld and mentioned there was copious beer to be had.

That was all the incentive I needed.

Now, the day before I had ridden my bike from the house, up to the Metro facility on Swan Island, picked up two compost bins and rode home. Rich's shop is farther than that. But, I didn't want to drive (there being beer involved and all) and more importantly, I just wanted to ride my bike. So, I ate a big breakfast, drank a bunch of water and got on my way.

It was a pleasant ride. About 25 miles one way. The only real glitch I ran into was riding up the road to the St. John's Bridge. I'd decided to take the sidewalk because I wasn't going to be going very fast and there is no bike lane. No reason to be pissing off cars if I can avoid it.

Here was the glitch. They have power poles on the left side and a railing on the right. Generally, my wide loaders fit between the two fine. However, there were a couple of places where I had to work a little to make it through. But being a cyclist means finding ways to work through unusual problem. Not going to lobby the transportation department to fix this on my behalf.

Got there fine and we commenced to welding. Had a good time. Turns out I'm not a bad welder even though I'd never done it before. Took me a couple of times to get my circles right so my beads didn't look like complete ass.

I really expected to die on the way home. Well, not die but I didn't expect it to be an altogether pleasant experience. But, I managed ok. I was, in fact, tired as hell when I got home, but I was alive.

another good haul

2010-05-11T19:42:00.000-07:00

Not sure if this qualifies me for double green points, but Soo decided to revamp our compost bins in the back yard. Turns out that Metro sells the Earth Machine Compost bins for $39 each. Soo decided we needed two. However, they only sell them at the facility on Swan Island. Swan Island is about 18 miles from my house.

But, I have all day and nothing to do. So, I hopped on the BD and rode down there. They had one of them set up in the office so initially I only bought one until I could figure out how to tie it on.

The dude at the front desk didn't think it was particularly weird when I mentioned something about wanting to put it on my bike. I think I asked how they came (in pieces conveniently enough) because of how I was getting it home. He did look at me a bit funny when I mentioned that I was riding all the way back to Tigard.

One important lesson. Make sure you have multiple bungee cords of the same size. I had two of different sizes. Fortunately, I also had two three-foot lengths of cord that worked well.

This is what it ended up looking like from the rear. The load looks a bit lopsided because it is. I stopped a couple of times and adjusted it. Fortunately, the whole load was about the same width as the wide loaders so I didn't have any weird issues with running into shit because my load was wider than I expected.

Came home via the Eastbank Esplanade. Had some dude on a road bike who seemed mightily impressed that I was carrying compost bins on my bike. Also had lots of people in cars pointing and checking my bike out.

The load did feel a bit unstable. Not sure if it was flexing in the rear of the frame or the fact that I didn't feel the need to tie it down super tight. But, it held ok. The reflective tape on the rear did suffer some damage, but I knew it wouldn't hold together forever.

Made it home ok. According to Google Map Pedometer, the ride was about 37 miles. I feel ok. Legs are a bit tired, but I'm good.

A day in the sun

2010-05-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

I've been getting lots of trips in with the BD. Need to find a name for my bike.

Today was a daughter/dad sort of day. Park, sushi (girl loves sushi), some ice cream, then back to the park.

Now, for Bree, this means she gets to ride around on the back of the bike. She sings, talks to herself and while she doesn't actually back seat drive, she does give me her thoughts on whether I am taking the right way or not. One of the things I've been doing is looking for new routes that avoid Scholls Ferry Road. As far as busy roads go, Scholls Ferry isn't bad. Nice wide bike lane and mercifully, most of the stuff we want is on the east side of the road. So, on the way there I can generally avoid left turns onto Scholls.

Normally, I'm not one of those people who require pristine, dedicated bike lanes. Normally I don't care. However, with a kid on the back, the issue becomes a bit more important. Kids wiggle around, it's just what they do. Two kids wiggle around more. The Big Dummy is forgiving, but some of that still gets transmitted to the steering.

Last night I loaded both kids on the back (weight of kids; about 100 pounds. Total vehicle weight about 350 pounds) and we went to pizza. I decided to explore the suburbs south of Scholls Ferry to see if there was a way I could stay on secondary steets. It worked, but I think I managed to take the hilliest way possible home. Seriously, I think I burned off all the calories I ate just getting home. My low speed bike handling skills are pretty good, but it still requires a certain amount of speed to maintain steerage way with that load on a bike that is almost 7 feet long. I found myself crawling up a hill in a very small gear wondering if this would get any easier before the kids got old enough that they didn't want to ride on the back of the bike anymore.

But, they love it. They actually taunt the other kids in the neighborhood saying things like "This is an Xtracycle. Don't you wish you were riding one of these?"

Weather

2010-05-03T10:00:00.001-07:00

Weather for the next two days:

Today: Showers likely. Cloudy, with a temperature falling to around 52 by 5pm. West wind around 17 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.

Tonight: Showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 41. West wind between 7 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.

Tuesday: Showers likely, with thunderstorms also possible after 11am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 51. Southwest wind between 6 and 13 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.

Tuesday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 11pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 39. West wind around 6 mph.

Badass.

Can your bike do this?

2010-05-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

Can your road bike do this?

One of the great things about owning a cargo bike is not having to worry about how much stuff you buy at the store. I went to Fred Meyer last night to pick up some groceries and a saw. I found those just fine and added a set of speakers for my iPod. Soo had been bringing up how useful owning a mitre box would be so I got one of those too.

I was loading my stuff onto the bike when a couple walked by. The man asked "And what is that thing called?"
"That is called a Big Dummy."
"Looks like it can haul a lot of stuff."
"That's its purpose in life." I started rattling off lists of things I had carried to impress upon him the sheer utility of the bike. They commenced to discussing the finer points of the bike with one another when another cyclist came up and introduced himself.
The cyclist was a guy named K'Tesh. He's a moderator on the BikePortland.org. The meeting was fortuitous because I had wanted to speak with him. K'Tesh and I share a common employment status and he had mentioned on the forums that he wanted to plan a 9-5 bicycle ride to flout his lack of employment. Sounds like a good time to me. We exchanged info and chatted for a while.

Now, one of my favorite things is riding at night. Last night was a great night for a ride. Cool, but pleasant. Since I'm still a bit new to the West Side, I decided it would be a fine night to explore a bit and get to know the area. I think it took be about an hour to get home. Don't know how many miles it was, but it was a great ride.

I did learn something new last night. When I said there were three McMenamin's withing 5 miles of my house, I was wrong. There are at least four, possibly five. Unfortunately, I haven't been to any of them since I've been back. Must remedy that.

Back In The World

2010-04-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

This is the return of the blogger formerly known as Seattle Cyclist. I stopped that blog for a lot of reasons. Work stuff. Ran low on things to talk about and I don't live in Seattle anymore. Don't live anywhere near it.

So. Up to date.

As mentioned above, we moved. Bought a house in Tigard (Oregon) in August 2008. Nice little place in on a cul-de-sac in the 'burbs. Our place isn't exactly suburban hell; we can actually ride bikes to any number of places. There are five or so grocery stores within about 5 easily rideable miles. Also, three Mcmenamin's and a handful of public houses I've yet to sample.

In April 2009, I got mobilized for Iraq. Spent three weeks in Camp Roberts, California. Not much to say about that other than the weather was agreeable. Then two months in Fort Stewart, GA. The weather there wasn't so agreeable. Hot with high humidity. Sometimes I smelled like cheese at the end of the day.

I left Fort Stewart on or about 2 July. It was 97 degrees and just damn humid. When we landed at Kuwait City International Airport (KCIA for short) some 20 hours later, it was about 110 degrees at 8 a.m. But, the humidity was only 4%. Tolerable. There were days when it hit well over 120 degrees. The humidity was so low that your sweat didn't start accumulating on your skin until after you went inside. The picture left was taken at about 4 in the morning. I think it was about 85 degrees. I do remember it being comfortable. Those tents will look familiar to anyone who has been to Camp Buehring.

After a brief sojurn at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, I headed up to Al Asad Airbase in Anbar Province. Al Asad is a former Iraqi Airbase. We use it now but I'm sure they'll want it back at some point.

The picture to the right shows a good dust storm that happened a month or so before I left. The color of the air is pretty realistic. I hasten to add that days like this were the exception rather than the rule.

I'm not going to spend much time (actually none) dwelling on whether we belong in Iraq. The simple fact is we are there. That decision was lawfully made and (at least at the time) tacitly approved of by some majority of the American people.

I did have a bike in Iraq, but I never actually took a picture of it. It was a cheap fixie I bought and shipped over there. Al Asad is a pretty flat place unless you feel the need to go up to the air field so the fixie served its purpose. I should have spent the time to rebuild the wheels before I went. Broke a spoke and was never able to find a 700C spoke to replace it. I did improvise a repair with a piece of nylon string and a 26" spoke, but I never completely trusted it.

One of the things I did while I was there was finally realize my dream of the past several years and put together my own cargo bike. Those of you that have read my Seattle Cyclist posts know I spent some months borrowing one from various people around Seattle.

My old buddy Aaron from Aaron's Bicycle Repair made me a deal on a Big Dummy Frame. Then we started adding parts to it.

I know, bike pics should always be taken from the drive side.

The Magic Carpet is actually Soo's. When her seat post is at the proper height, there isn't enough exposed to put the stoker bars on. So, my bike has become the kid hauler.

I went a little crazy with a few things. The Brooks B-17 was obligatory. The B-17 on my Co-motion has been going strong for 10 years now through much hard use (but also much TLC). By the way, I still have the Co-motion but her status has been elevated. She is no longer my everyday knock around bike. She has done her time in the trenches, now she gets to live the pampered life. For now.

The front hub is a Schmidt SON dynohub powering a Inoled Inolight 10+ LED headlight and a Busch & Müller 4D Lite Plus taillight. I did this partly because I could and partly because after having used Aaron's Xtracycle with a dynamo hub, I realized the value to always having nice bright lights and not having to worry about batteries.

The drivetrain is a 22-32-44 in front and an 12-34 (or something like that) eight speed cassette in back. I was grateful for the 22-34 this evening hauling my kids up the hill on the way to dinner.

This is a different type of riding than I've done in the past. My riding style could charitably be called "stately" now. That is just a metaphor for "this is all the faster I'm going and I don't give a shit." There really isn't any reason for me to be in a hurry right now. I don't have a job but we do have plenty of money saved up. I suppose that'll change eventually so I'm enjoying it while I can. I don't have to drill for three months. So really, if I need to get somewhere, I have all the time in the world.