a midway bikelog

I’ve been following the Great Divide Race for the last couple of years, and it’s a fascinating event. Originally mapped out by Adventure Cycling as a touring route along the continental divide, it has evolved into a race over the last few years, this year attracting 25 starters. It’s a massive undertaking: 2500 miles of entirely self-supported cycling as a RACE. Mike Curiak set the current record in 2004, finishing in just over 16 days, averaging 156 miles per day. That’s hard riding. Just showing up is difficult, and finishing at all is amazing.

I want to do it. Someday. Yes, it’s totally crazy, but i’m fascinated.

Two great sources for ongoing updates:
http://www.greatdividerace.blogspot.com/
http://mtbcast.com/wordpress/

When i first got the Redwood, i’d been riding a lot of old Raleighs and other ’70s bikes with short top tubes, so the Redwood felt a little too long. So, not long after i bought it i switched the 12 cm stem for a 10. Now that i’ve had more time on other properly fitting bikes (in particular the Surly, which was set up to fit like the Redwood), i needed to stretch out again. In the meanwhile though, that stem had found duty on the Lotus, which has an incredibly short top tube, so the long stem helped. I dreaded spending a night swapping stems between the two, mainly for all the fiddly bar wrapping to do. I like doing the work, but i’ve just been too tired to tackle it.

Last night i went straight out to the garage once the kids were asleep and got ‘er done. The bit fit is much better (and the Lotus is still fine too), and i was inspired enough to even do a nice little diamond weave on the bars:

It’s the same overall pattern i have on the Crosscheck, but brown and black here instead of white and black. It looks good, shades of argyle or something. I might even have to shellac it, though i still like the feel of plain cloth.

Here’s the full shot:

all set for the next adventure :-)

It’s been a rough past week and a half or so, but thankfully i have some solid weekend plans to look forward to. Report and photos to follow.

35 miles per gallon for cars, SUVs and pickup trucks by 2020

Senate passes energy bill, boosting mileage standards – CNN.com

I don’t particularly agree with the ethanol side of the bill, but the improved gas mileage is nothing to sneeze at, since it applies to the worse offenders (SUVs and trucks). I hope that the ethanol requirements lead to some momentum toward better sources than field corn, which is energy-hungry to produce and incredibly hard on the land.

The bill’s provisions require half of the new cars be capable of running on 85 percent ethanol or biodiesel fuels by 2015. It’ll be interesting to see if this precipitates a major shift by manufacturers toward diesel engines running biodiesel as a quicker & easier way to conform to the standards. A majority of European cars use diesel engines, and increasingly efficient engines, thanks to ever-stronger standards there. I know of a German family who just sold their ~6 year-old VW van because the emissions fee for it was increasing 8x for next year. It seems natural that VW and others will take the lead on this in the US market. Despite the big push for ethanol, diesel engines already have the edge on efficiency the only real knock is the particulate emissions. With this sort of incentive though, the soot emissions problem with diesels is sure to get some quick attention.

Inspired by a fantastic 1/2-day class i took this spring, i’ve been wanting to make stuff out of metal for a while now. I finally picked up a cheap MAPP gas torch and some (overpriced, mild) steel stock from the local home warehouse and started re-learning how to braze steel.

I took metal shop back in high school, but i haven’t actually brazed anything in the 20 years since then. It came back surprisingly quickly (re-plumbing the basement with copper was good practice), though i won’t claim that my work is in any way clean. I will claim that the joints are sufficient to hold a full water bottle, because it has done so. Whee! Anyway, here’s the first little project:

Maybe i’ll take more detail pictures tomorrow, this is the best my pencam could do in the midnight garage light, and i couldn’t find the regular digicam.

It’s all built of 3/16″ steel rod, brass brazed joints. The design just evolved as i played around, trying to get a smooth round bend and working out how to mount it to the bars. The original plan called for strangely bent tubing to more firmly anchor it to the stem, but the tubes bent badly (no bender yet), and it would have been massive overkill… not like this isn’t. The two horizontal bars for the mount were originally going to be a flat steel strip, but i just couldn’t get it hot enough along with the rod to braze well, too much mass to heat efficiently, and no flux. It was interesting to see how much longer it took for the last couple of joints than for the first joints, as the heatsink mass of it increased.

The mounts are 1″ copper plumbing pipe straps, and they work quite well. The holes may stretch, in which case i’ll use the hose clamps i was going to use at first. It’s pretty rigid now, though i haven’t really tested it well yet. Weight is 150 grams, not including the mounting hardware.

It’s designed mostly for my Raleigh Sports, which has no other way to carry a bottle, and i thought this would be a nicer solution than strapping on a regular modern cage to the frame. It was inspired by the old French bar-mount bottle cages, though i designed it on my own, no attempt to copy anything.

Now to do a little 3-speed touring!

Next project: a rear rack – will require buying some good chro-mo tubes and some decent flux. The pre-fluxed brazing rods are pretty lousy.

(via watt)

I’m not usually one for tons of guitar pedals, but i think i might have to see Melt Banana when they’re in town next week. They’re from Japan, and Agata plays some seriously awesome guitar.

via KM

Stephan Orsak returned to Minneapolis from a trip to California last fall, he retrieved his folding bike, set it up and proceeded to ride his bike home. While winding his way along the exit road, he was harassed by airport police, and in a rapidly escalating scene was immediately and repeatedly threatened with mace and a taser. There were no signs prohibiting bicycles from the roadway, and he was riding according to all traffic laws.

Mr. Orsak has a full accounting of it on his blog, and it’s a pretty convincing case. This is only one side of the case, but it’s indisputable that there was no existing prohibition on him riding his cycle there. There’s also no excuse for the aggressive and abusive behavior of the airport police officer. The whole situation could have been resolved by simply escorting Mr. Orsak to a safe route and informing him if the MAC road policy prohibited bicycle use (though it doesn’t). Commentors in his weblog have suggested that he would have been fine if he had simply submitted completely to the airport police. It doesn’t seem that this would have made much difference, as the office in question apparently wasn’t in a mood for disobedience rational discussion.

A cynical person might argue that by requiring only motorized traffic, the airport commission is ensuring that every single passenger or visitor to the airport is contributing to the pot through parking fees or taxes. But i’m not a cynical person, right?

Another argument is security, and that motorized traffic can be controlled more easily than can pedestrian or bicycle traffic. It’s a bullshit argument. The security measures that keep travel on the airplane inconvenient safe are separate from any security for the parking area. Allowing bicycle access doesn’t mean they have to let people ride right up to the ticket counter or anything. Bicycle traffic would be just as secure if the airport provided a safe bike passage and parking. The area is so bike-hostile right now that any bike lane would instantly become the only way bicycles go to and from the terminal, and that’s just as controlled and secure as car traffic. And with the mess that auto traffic can be there, why not provide another alternative?

My feeling is that the truth is more like nobody at the MAC considers bicycles a reasonable way to access the airport. Nobody does it, goes the argument, so why accommodate them? Well, other international airports have this access, and arguably airports with much bigger security concerns than our little landing strip. It’s another part of a culture that excludes bicycles by assumption, then by enforcement when someone questions the assumption. Again, this is only one side of the case, but it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.

My dad has this wonderful habit of occasionally mailing us packages of weird stuff. It’s a by-product of our family being somewhat scattered and unable to visit very often. Previous packages have contained dog puppets that sing christmas carols one note at a time when you close their mouth (hard to figure that one out), monkey slingshots that screech when they crash into something, and now, canned cheese.

It was developed at Washington State University in the 1940s as a cheese recipe that didn’t give off gas as it aged, making it suitable for canning and long-term storage. It will keep indefinitely when refrigerated, and they claim that customers have aged it another 30 years at home. That’s a long time to keep something in the ‘fridge.

The cheese it hard and a bit crumbly, and tastes like a nice well-aged cheddar. There’s nothing particularly weird about it other than it’s hard to slice and that it comes in a can. There is 30 oz of cheese in every can, so it was a good excuse to get out the food saver and vacuum pack 3/4 of it.

Thanks for the cheese dad! It goes nicely with a Summit Grand pilsner or two :-)

A little break from bike writing, still biking a lot. But it strikes me that too often little posts like this only get written after someone is gone, when they should be recognized more while alive. So, continuing on the last post, a short look at my favorite bass player.

Mike Watt is a punk rock national treasure, and a hella nice guy. I saw fIREHOSE play pretty much every time they came through town from about 1988-1993 or so, and he was a huge influence on me as a bass player. I doubt there’s anyone with his experience and influence on the music scene who is as humble and generous as Watt. Hanging out in the Entry before the opening bands, Watt would be wandering around just like the rest of us, happy to say hi and shake your hand.

I heard the Minutemen some while i was in high school, but california punk rock wasn’t exactly prevalent in mid-1980s Rockford, IL (though i still have my vinyl copy of Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables). It was in college that i discovered fIREHOSE, and it was shortly after buying my first bass, and just old enough to see the good shows in clubs.

Here’s an old fIREHOSE video, perhaps the best ever use of drag racing footage in a music video. This song cannot be played loudly enough.

Since fIREHOSE, Watt has stayed busy with a couple of solo albums and plenty of interesting side projects. He’s still going strong, after a near-death illness and 30 years of playing and touring. It’s fun to read his online diary and listen to his radio show and hear how excited he is to be playing in the Stooges. Yes, Watt is playing bass for Iggy and the Stooges. Oh man. Watt’s turning 50 this year, and he’s touring with his high school musical heroes. Please please, let them play in the Twin Cities.

more:
The Watt from Pedro show
We jam econo