Fixing Frank. MOAR HACKS.

My boss gave me an early start to the weekend, so I rode to the library to return a book on Tarantulas I had borrowed, and I sat in the shade and enjoyed the lunch I thought I was going to be eating at work.


What was I doing with a book about taratulas?  Oh, right. Meet dd. You knew I had a thing for spiders, right?


Anyhow, when I got home, I figured it was really time to dig into Frank's rack and get to the bottom of why it fell apart. I'd only barely put the rack back together when it happened. I was meeting some of my fellow nerds at a (very) nearby coffee shop. I knew that one of the assemblies holding the seat stay braces had come apart, and on the other side, the bolt holding the seat stay brace to the seat stay came out. I knew I was missing some hardware, forever lost in the middle of the road somewhere, perhaps many miles ago.

Here, you can see what the seat stay brace attachment is supposed to look like. Two pieces of u-channel aluminum sandwiching two roundish pieces of tube type material around the seat stay brace. It's missing from the other side because those pieces fell off when the rack fell.


I apparently missed one of the half-tube-like pieces when I scurried around the road looking for bits of hardware.


I looked around for anything that could be used to replace the missing piece, and finally settled on an outer plate from a piece of old chain.


It wouldn't quite fit, so I had to bend the plate a little. Pliers were getting me nowhere, so I tried the chain cutter. Success.


The finished bracket:




After finding a few more allen-head screws in my bucket of bike stuff and putting everything back together tightly, it seems to work great. Time will tell, I suppose.


The SuperFlash was just a little scuffed up. The mounting bracket is fine and the light itself still works and snaps securely into the bracket. Good news all the way around.

It's Bike Week!

Bike week 2007 was an enlightening experience for me. After 8 months of biking to the bus through winter and a bit of dabbling in longer distances, Bike Week was what really got me to take the plunge. Back then, the full commute route was 23 miles each way. That pretty much hooked me. So, fellow KC area folks, relish Bike Week and sign up for the car-free challenge. Get out and ride. I'll Be at some of the Overland Park events.

Kicking off Bike Week 2011!

Yesterday started Bike Week in Kansas City. Bike Week and I go back about 4 years. Bike Week 2007 was when I set myself to riding both ways to and from work as much as possible. I'd ridden the entire trip home from work a few times, but Bike Week was a turning point to my commutes. It was the week I realized I didn't need to rely on the bus; that I could get around under my own power. The switch had flipped on: "Any distance is biking distance."

There were many inspirations for me to start this journey, from picking up a bike in the first place, to trudging through the winter, to writing about it. Even though I now have a more modest distance to work, I hold Bike Week dear for getting me into longer distance commuting. There's been a lot of comeraderie around it as well. I genuinely love meeting other bicycle commuters. I love talking to inquisitive folks about it. I love showing people good routes and little-known shortcuts.

I didn't go anywhere yesterday, but today, I had to get some groceries.



Here are some other recent photos.




Up really late doing some data recovery for someone who installed Ubuntu over Windows without making sure everything was backed up.


Our two cats, tolerating one another.


I'll leave you with this slide show of all the photos I've taken during Bike Week the past 3 years.

Crazy week. Only Tuesday.

It's been a crazy week already, and it's barely Tuesday. In fact, I haven't even left home yet. That means Sunday and Monday have been real whoppers. Lots of riding.

I saw this on the side of the road yesterday after work. It's the eccentric bolt that allows a car's alignment to be adjusted by professional mechanics. The fact that it's not attached to a car means that someone's suspension is about to shuffle off this mortal coil. It'll probably take one of the car's wheels along for the ride. It will not end well.


Lots of riding in the dark these past few days, through the aromatic byways of Johnson County. Without being able to see much aside from what's illuminated directly ahead of my bike, I've noticed my sense of smell gives me some entertainment. The perfume of flower gardens, blooming trees and fresh-cut grass fills my nostrils.


The last two nights in a row, I've passed CenturyLink on my way home. I was pretty close to landing a job here, so I've had a lot of practice with what would have been my commute route. It would have been about a mile longer than my current route, with more hills.

Deluge!

When I got out today, it was still raining hard as ever -- in fact, probably harder than anything I've ridden in before. I rode to my sister-in-law's place to meet my wife. Once again, I was totally drenched, but the stuff in my waterproof backpack was dry as a bone. In fact, the water droplets I've noticed before (which I attributed to opening the bag in the rain) weren't present.

Here are some cameraphone pics of my nieces at Chatlain Park a few weeks ago. I just stumbled across them when clearing out my memory card. My sister in law and her daughters stayed with us for a couple of weeks in May while they transitioned to her new apartment (which I'm writing this from)

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Indian Creek Trail near 135th St.

Bike Week Saturday: It's a bike party at Chipotle!

I told my wife I'd bring back a Burrito Bowl from Chipotle for her, so I was figuring it would be an out-and-back ordeal, and that there might be a few other cyclists who would bother to show up. She told me I should leave early, because there might be a huge turn-out.

We were both right.

Coming south on Quivira, I saw a cyclist ahead of me a ways after cresting the I-35 viaduct into 20-25 MPH headwinds. As I pulled up to Chipotle well ahead of 2:00, I saw Jon, a guy I used to see on the bus with his custom-painted singlespeed. We chatted for a bit, and John (a differeny cyclist who I also know from the bus) showed up with his wife. If you look, you can kind of see the other two bikes around the corner of the patio fence.


So there were four of us, total. About what I had figured. A bit after 2:00, as we were all in line, I saw someone else roll up. Five cyclists! (HA! HA! HA!)

Upon leaving, however, my wife's suspicions became quite valid. Apparently, an entire group ride descended on us.


I'm glad the turn-out was so good for this event. Thanks again, Chipotle!

Bike Week Friday: Another Year Older

Today is my 31st Birthday, and it was a good day. My current employer always has an Employee Appreciation Day around the end of May. Their idea of appreciation: Feed us breakfast, recognize those who have been with the company for a long time, recognize those who have been heralded by their peers as outstanding people, have a little fun, then send everyone home before 10:00 AM. In a drawing, I won a $50 gift certificate out of the deal, good for things my company sells (Jewelry, so it basically got handed over to my wife).





I swung by the grocery store to pick up a few things I needed to make some of my famous "Dang Kay-suh-dill-uhs" for lunch.


Speaking of food, don't forget to ride your bike to Chipotle tomorrow. It's your last chance to log some miles for the Car Free Challenge. You'll get a free burrito out of the deal (KC Area only as far as I know), but you might want to plan a 30 mile ride afterward, to offset the thousand-calorie foil-football.

Bike Week Wednesday: OP City Hall, Rainy Errands

I went to Overland Park City Hall this morning for their Wednesday BTWW Breakfast, since it's not too far from home. I ran into lots of friends. Myself, Warren, and Mark cheese for the camera. Good lord, I'm fat. Still a lot less than I was when I started riding, but I can see this is going to be an ongoing battle.


Warren (with coffee) and Bucephalus, his trusty steed.


John Schnake showed up a few minutes later. He lives just a few blocks away.


Not sure whose Schwinn cruiser this is. I think one of the volunteers rode it to city hall.


Remember the tire with 8,500+ miles on it? Well, today, I couldn't put it off any longer.


That meant a few things. First off, it meant I got to rack up some "errand" miles with a trip to the bike store to buy a new tire. But, as predicted, it was raining cats and dogs all day long, and into the evening. More than 20 miles were ridden in a torrential downpour. Therefore, it also meant I got to put my waterproof backpack to the ultimate test, whether I liked it or not.


More than 90 minutes in the rain, and everything was perfectly dry and safe inside. And the backpack? Well, I rode more than 35 miles with it today. As far as backpacks go, it wasn't too bad. Waterproof panniers would have been appreciated, but the backpack was pretty cheap. Expect a full review on BikeCommuters.com later.

Paint

I woke up at 5-something this morning. That used to be part of my routine, but it's highly unusual these days. Eggs, an apple and a few slices of turkey bacon for breakfast. Filled the water bottle. Go through the old routine, kind of like waking up to do my old commute. I got out a few minutes after 6 and rode to the corner. I waited, eying the southern horizon at daybreak. A few minutes later, the familiar, conspicuous flashing pattern of a DiNotte headlight crested the viaduct, quickly distinguishing a distant bicycle from within a small swarm of silhouetted motor vehicles.

I rolled out, and a minute or so later, Chris pulled up alongside me on the very same bike he'd flogged when we hit the singletrack at Shawnee Mission Park last weekend. I still have a really soft spot in my heart for the Long Haul Trucker. Or at least the frame. Chris' Ultegra Hollowtech triple crank is a drool-worthy piece of flair as well. I'm not sure I'd ever get used to bar-ends. I'm in love with my brifters, thank you very much.

For those who don't know, Chris is returning to full-route bike commuting, at least some days. I told him that this route is his baby now, and let him blaze the trail. We headed out, mostly the old route I used to take every day, except we stayed on Quivira all the way to 67th. The last time I rode that way, I was en-route to the Cave Ride.

I didn't bother to check my pace at all, but I felt like I was slower than normal, and I know I was lagging behind a bit. I really need to get out and ride more, although part of it was that I was still feeling yesterday's surprise mile-fest as well.

I got to hang out with Lorin and JR over coffee, then rode around KCMO waiting until 9 to take care of some paper work, and then it was slow going homeward bound into a stiff and gusty headwind. All in all, another beautiful day for a ride.

Directly adjacent to where I took the picture above, I saw something else that made me chuckle just a little.


Random Tunage:
Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Green Day - Longview

Fools' errands

I had some errands to run today. I had an appointment with someone at the library. I showed up right as they opened and there were no other bikes on the rack. Just an old razor scooter that looks like it's been locked up and forgotten for the past 5 years. It turns out my appointment wouldn't likely be until after noon, so I snagged a bite to eat on the ride home.

I went back around noon, only to be told that I needed some paperwork from home. It'd have been nice if I'd been told this the first time. I went home. I couldn't find some of the paperwork I needed. So I rode to a government office to get that paperwork, which involved a half-hour wait, not too bad. Then, I finally got back to the library, confident I had everything I needed, at around 2:00 PM. And there were STILL 4 people ahead of me. So I renewed my library card, poked around a bit, and waited for my appointment. But hey, I got good news out of the deal. Still, it felt like I was being sent on a wild goose chase for a while.

Most of the bikes I was locked up with were of the toy-store variety. The "nicest" bike aside from my Trek 1200 was an e-Zip battery assisted bike. Still, all of them looked like they were well used for getting around town, including decent locks and a few equipped with headlights. On my way to the government office, I ran across an older gentleman who also seemed to be getting around town more than just out for a ride, as well as a recumbent rider. Who could blame anyone for riding on a beautiful day like this?!




Tomorrow, it sounds like my buddy Chris is going to start biking the whole way in to work (downtown) again, so I'll probably join him in the morning, with whomever else he decides to rally for the convoy. I have some paperwork to drop off downtown in the next few days, anyway. I mean, I could fax or snail-mail it, but why bother, when it'll be a great morning for a 30 or 40 mile ride?

Random Tunage:
Sixpence None The Richer - Breathe
Jimmy Eat World - The Middle

Skinny tire dreams

I often tell people that I don't dream. I mean, I sleep. And I can get by with surprisingly little sleep. Obviously, I reach REM. I just don't remember my dreams very often. And when I do, they quickly fall apart in my memory as I snap out of my groggy haze. Kind of like one of my favorite xkcd cartoons.

Anyhow, last night, I had a dream that I finally got back out on The Twelve, and for some reason, I remembered it. And I was fast. Like 45 MPH fast. So for today's errands which didn't involve much hauling at all, just getting around to a few places, I took The Twelve. I'm still slow, but the road bike certainly was a nice change of pace. It accelerates better. It has much tighter gear ratios, not to mention three times as many gears to choose from. It's more responsive, and I feel much more in touch with the road. It's more graceful. I've missed it.

Also, Bill interviewed me for Carfree American (even though I'm technically car-lite). You can see his post here.

Hauling

ALDI down the street sells these gigantic re-usable grocery sacks. They're almost too big to be useful, sometimes. I could probably fit two or three paper sacks of groceries in here.


I also have my Apple schwag bag, which is the same size as the more traditional re-usable grocery bags. Of course, both of these were made in a sweat-shop overseas out of highly processed petroleum, then sent here, likely on a huge cargo ship that burns a few gallons of diesel per engine rotation, but whatever. As you can see, the custom RNR Rack for the Urbana is designed to carry these style of bags. I generally throw panniers on for trips to the grocery, but I tried the bags today.


The unique top plate of the rack is easier to see in my first photo of the bike before unboxing (cropped):


So how does it work? First, you hold the bag so that the top of it is even with the rack, then you tuck the handle into the two top-facing holes on the opposite side.



Lastly, you reach your fingers into the holes on the side of the rack, and you push the handles under the screws that protrude downward, to hold the bag firmly into place.




I really should have taken both large bags, but wanted to show how you can use a more traditional sized bag as well.


I actually did groceries yesterday, but was in too much of a hurry to take photos. I staged it today for the pictures. I took the Urbana to Hen House, rushed home, dropped off groceries and took it out to the Tienda Casa Paloma Monday night ride. I haven't seen those guys in ages, and it was a fun trip. All told, I put about 25 miles on this bike yesterday. Today, I am feeling it.

While it's perfect for running errands and going to nearby places, the riding position doesn't lend itself well to longer distances, such as riding 4 miles each way to a 10-mile recreation ride. I think next time, I'll switch over to my road bike for the Monday night ride.

No trails for me

The trails are still too wet to ride on without leaving damaging ruts and erosion. I was looking forward to some off-roading. That's okay, I suppose. I had a very hilly 10-mile round trip to the park and back.


Also, I think this is the most I've ever put on a cargo rack. All told, it was about 50 pounds, or about 1/3 of its rated capacity! I had some refrigerated stuff in my backpack as well. The grocery store is only a mile and a half away via parking lots and lightly-trafficked residential streets, so I didn't have to ride too far. The bike was surprisingly stable, and as you can see, the kickstand even holds it upright when loaded in a top-heavy manner.

Okay, okay...

Hy-Vee, originally uploaded by KC-Bike.

It's an Urbana Bike. And I think they only have one model. The low step-thru design is gaining a lot of traction as a unisex design for utility bikes, and the rear drop-out kickstand is a nice touch. This bike is HEAVY, and the tires are absolutely huge! It reminds me of a Surly Pugsley, but not quite as extreme. Urbana is letting me play with it for a while. They included a factory-installed rack as well as some fenders with decent coverage. Many more details coming in future posts.

Drive-through Woes?

Every once in a while, I get some kind of attitude for trying to get through a drive-through on my bicycle. Some places have a policy against serving pedestrians (walk-up customers) and to this day I still can't figure out why that is.

It's been a while, but it's usually places that close their lobby yet keep their drive-through open late. Certain pharmacies, banks, and fast-food places included.

I ran across this gem on QDB, a database of humorous (and not always work-safe) Internet chat quotes and logs.

[+MooG] my friend and his mates made up a big cardboard car out of a fridge box once
[+MooG] and went through the drivethrough
[+MooG] they even had one being the "radio", beatboxing
[+Formalhaut] McDonalds don't serve us when we walk through but BK do. More business for them, even if it is drunkards
[+MooG] and they did mime actions for the window winding and everything
[+MooG] wish i'd filmed it

And all this time I just try making motorcycle sounds to break the ice.

It's official:

Well, more than one thing is official.

The first thing is that the Vittoria Randonneur tires on the Swobo Baxter test mule are awesome. I played in the snow a few days after I took delivery of it, but today was the first true test of a commute on bad roads that had been preliminarily cleared a bit.

Saturday, I took the Baxter out to play in an abandoned parking lot, where snow was a good foot deep on average, and 18" in some spots. I thought it'd be cool to get some snowy action photos, but the Baxter would not move. I'll see if I can find some pics in the mess that show how bad it was. The tire would just spin.

I've had The Goat out in 8" deep snow before, and it worked alright, but I'm betting the really knobby tires and 1.95" width had something to do with it. Still, I don't know how well it would've fared in stuff twice as deep. If the tires sink to the ground (likely when it's powdery snow), the wheel is more than half buried, and one's feet will barely clear the snow AT THE TOP of the pedal stroke. That's when you probably would be better off on those 4-inch Surly Endomorphs.

So it's also official: This is the most snow I've ever seen come down without a melt cycle here in Kansas City, and I've lived here for 22 years and change now. The winter of '91-92 is the closest thing in memory, but I think this winter trumps even that one from nearly two decades past.

Lastly, it's official: It's freakin' COLD. 6*F this morning, but it dropped to -1 yesterday morning. I've ridden a short distance at -4F once, and the whole commute at 0F last winter. They're predicting -6 ambient later this week, and at least one local forecaster thinks that it could get into the double-digits below zero.

Therefore, this winter with its cold and snow reminds me of the good old days: growing up in rural Nebraska where 20-inch blizzards were not unheard-of and there were two snow plows for every 1,000 residents.

The morning commute
As I'd stated, the 28mm Vittoria Randonneur tires held up great this morning. On them, I encountered glare ice beneath packed snow, powder, slush, chemical-melted grime and all things in between. The ice required me to be seated in order to progress forward (it was also on an uphill) but the Randos held tough, much to my surprise. This winter does have me pondering the use of commercially available studded tires for my Mountain bike, but that will have to wait for a bit. Two fellow year-rounders I know of have made the jump to studs. I'm betting after FIVE crashes this winter, another friend of mine might be ready to do the same. Me? I'm doing alright with what I have, but this winter is one where I can see a real benefit to studded tires, unlike years past where it was mostly slush, and a really good melt-off happened every 2-3 days.

Christmas
The brunt of the snow happened almost two weeks ago, Christmas eve into Christmas day. We were to pick up my grandmother in Overland Park, then drive to Stilwell on Christmas morning for breakfast and Christmas festivities. The roads were horrible. 119th Street had barely been cleared, my grandmother's parking lot was untouched, with an average snow depth of 18-24" everywhere, thanks to the wind and the layout of the buildings. It was one of the first times I've ever had a genuine need for full-on 4x4 mode in our Explorer. My brother-in-law's RWD-only Explorer had all kinds of problems. I ended up delivering Christmas presents to them through the un-plowed streets of Olathe, KS.

Here are some of the simple things I did for Christmas this year.

In 1993 or so, I kind of home-schooled for a year. I say kind-of, because I had most of the facts and skills expected of kids older than me, so the reality is, I took a year off from school due to some medical things. I didn't do much traditional course work. I studied under my grandfather, who taught my vocational skills in hopes, I think, that I'd take over his business for him when I came of age. Unfortunately, he passed away before I could do that. That year, however, one of the things we worked on together was this ArcherKit thermometer thing that he'd packratted away in 1977, two whole years before I was even born. Some 16 years later, we worked on it, and got it almost fully functional, but then it got put away before we got to adjusting it and putting the finishing touches on. I found it recently, and finished this project that Grandpa and I had started 13 years ago, and gave it to my mother. Not only is it a RadioShack classic from a completely different era of do-it-yourselfers, but it's of immense sentimental value. I had no qualms leaving the $17.95 price tag sticker intact.







When I was learning to play bass guitar (okay, I'm probably still learning), Dad gave me his practice amplifier. He doesn't really have a practice amp anymore, and I thought I'd build one for him. This one is small enough to fit in a gig bag, and can run off a 9V battery or a power cord that I included. I soldered the circuit inside together myself, modifying some plans I saw online. It's all built into an old satellite speaker for a home theater system. It's not terribly loud, but it's a great little practice amp with a nice tone to it. I also added a headphone jack, which is nice for when you want to clearly hear what you're playing on an electric guitar without disturbing anyone else. Most of the parts for this were salvaged from piles of stuff I had laying around at home. Many of the components were removed from old, broken gadgets and soldered into place.








The device I tried to build for my sister didn't go too well, so I ended up buying a kit that you solder together yourself at the last minute. I decided that instead of soldering it together quickly (I could have pulled it off in about 3 minutes), that I'd give it to my sister in its original packaging, and teach her how to solder. She did great, and now she knows how to solder things.


I also got some cool stuff for Christmas as well, but none of it compares to the real meaning of Christmas, not to mention the gift of seeing my family smile.