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.

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.

Another beautiful day!

I had a nice trip that started out a little bit on the misty/rainy side this morning, but the rain drops gave way to haze and fog just out of traffic's reach, maybe 50 feet above ground for the rest of the work-bound commute. I haven't used the bus at all this week, and it feels good.

Over lunch today, I had to head to the cave (round trip: 7.6 miles) to troubleshoot one of my personal servers that's residing there. I took my lunch with me and ate it there. Root beer, some left over pizza and a granola bar. Tasty. Despite my wretched diet, I'm losing a few pounds here and there once again.


This is the descent that wreaked havoc on the Un-Lenexa Midnight Cave Ride. There's no slippery mud on the slope, so it was a magnificent 85-foot drop into the limestone mines of days gone by. I still have no idea what the grade is, as my GPS doesn't work through 85 feet of rock and I suck at trigonometry. Not to mention that the 85 foot altitude change is just a guess from one of the folks in the leasing office.

The cool air outside near lunch time wasn't much warmer than the cave's internal temperature, so it actually felt warmer due to the increased humidity and lack of wind. The same humidity and lack of wind made this a genuine death slog on my way back to the office.


This was actually from the parking lot of the cave's upper entrance, as taken last Thursday.


The homeward ride was a little warmer than I'd have expected, but the winds are staying relatively calm -- not common for this time of year. I'm loving it, though. In the back alley across the street from my home, I saw these two delivery trucks deadlocked. I'm calling it "Mail Wars" - I wish I could have gotten my camera out quicker. This was taken after the UPS truck had backed up to allow the FedEx guy to pass through.


Random Tunage:
Say Anything - Baby Girl, I'm a Blur
Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko

Arthur Bryant's for lunch with the RoadTwippers

I went to lunch with some of Kansas City's Social Media Butterflies and the RoadTwip crew, who are in the midst of a two-week-long road trip of the eastern part of the US. They breezed into town dark and early this morning, crashed for a few hours of sleep, ate lunch and saw some sights around KC, then took off to Nebraska for the BIGOmaha conference.

Arthur Bryant's has some great BBQ. They have no bike parking.

Here Jonathan Dingman is beta-testing Qik, a web streaming application. It's not officially out for the iPhone yet. Here, he was uploading live video of Jolie O'Dell giving a terse update on their road trip so far. You can view that update here. You can also follow the RoadTwip via their blog, and check out a post that was made on ReadWriteWeb (which features my ugly, fat mug)

I didn't get many photos, as I left my camera in the office. Lame. After lunch, Jolie and Kurt Daradics (also on the road trip) wanted to interview me Guerrilla Web 2.0 style to talk about bicycle commuting and some other stuff. It was a good time!

I haven't aired my tires up in over a week. They were feeling squishy this afternoon. Tip: If you rely on your bike, always keep a pump or CO2 with you, even if you don't carry any other tools.

The Chain of Command

This morning, out of the blue, my chain started skipping. It felt like my rear derailleur was way out of adjustment, so I didn't think much of it. I was just riding to the bus stop at The Maul.

As I approached 95th street from Quivira, my left turn light lit up. Usually, I have to camp out at this intersection. This was A Good Thing, as I was running a bit behind schedule. I hammered it to make the light and the skipping got worse. Then I completely lost my power.

I figured the chain slid off the tall chainring, so I just coasted through the intersection which to my fortune was still green. I downshifted to the small ring, which usually brings the chain back into place, but it didn't. I looked down, and there was no chain (There was only Zuul)

I looked behind me and saw the bus approaching, too. Decision time:

1. Stop, walk back to where I dropped my chain, break out the chain tool and fix my bike then wait half an hour for the next bus?
2. Coast as far as I can (95th is a downhill to the Maul Parking Lot), walk the bike the last hundred yards or so, and catch the bus?

The chain has survived a winter of salt, grime, and abuse. I've kept it well lubricated, but you can only do so much. It's probably time for a replacement anyway.

As I write this, I'm on the Dreaded bus, heading home. The bus stops at a stansfer station for a good 15 minutes. This is why I can beat the bus home on my bicycle, when it's running properly.


I snapped these while walking to meet with an information security colleague of mine over lunch.

Blur

That's exactly what this week has been.

Tuesday, I went to the CCCKC Underground Lab to determine what the space needs.  Tuesday night and Wednesday, I worked in Google Sketchup to draw out a floor plan for what I see the space looking like to meet the group's needs. I like Sketchup. 

Last night, I went to the group meeting (Weekly, every Thursday) and presented my floor plan to them. If you're interested, I created a virtual walk-through with Sketchup Screen shots. This morning, Lorin said "It's basically a MAN-CAVE, right?"  Not quite.  A Hackerspace is simply a physical location where hackers, tinkerers, programmers, entrepreneurs and scientists can go to collaborate or work on their projects.  It's very similar to a bicycle co-op except with electronics, computers, robotics and security stuff.

To make things even better, the CCCKC Underground Lab is actually quite easy to access by bicycle, and it's pretty much right along my bicycle commute route. Dude, I mean it's in a freaking CAVE! How cool is that?!

Several members are also cyclists. We joked last night about installing a bike rack in the carpeted hallway outside our door, but in reality we'll probably just wheel our bikes into the meeting room when it's not being used for presentations.

Lunch yesterday. These heating instructions made me laugh.

Riding to Cosentino's (the new/only grocery store downtown) is a good 5x faster than walking there. I was out there and back in a flash. I think the Trek 820 next to my bike belongs to someone who works at Cosentino's. It's locked there every single day, but parked differently each time.

This morning: Felt like I got hit by a truck when I woke up, but enjoyed riding in short sleeves. Mid-40s this morning, and predicted by some to maybe get into the 70s this afternoon.  

Tonight: The first Friday meeting at The Maul with some of my friends.  Like I said, this week's been a blur. 

Random Tunage:

Katharine McPhee - Over It

K's Choice - Not an Addict

The most asinine quarter mile in Johnson County

Not to dog on Dave's Turf but seriously, what the hell are people thinking? Welcome to Edgewood Boulevard.


I am riding illegally in the oncoming lane in this photo. It's a separated boulevard, with barely one lane of width on each side of the island, but it's actually a pair of two-way roads separated by... an island? Meh. Whatever.

Retrospect.


Rust and snow.


Transition.


Knobbz.


Jimmy John's.


Highway Abstractness.


Random Tunage
Lisa Loeb - I Do
Garbage - Stupid Girl

It's not that I haven't had my share of adventures...

It's just that most of them aren't really the kind of stuff I think you would be interested in.

It's with great fervor, however, that I can say I've finally visited the new Cosentino's Market in Downtown KC. This is kind of a big deal, as over the past few years there's been a lot of gentrification downtown (urban planners call it revitalization. Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe) but NO GROCERY STORE. Bonus: they even have a few bike racks!


Not much happened on Friday. The weekend was full of mundane happenings. More target practice (shotguns this time) - I think I should probably try Clay Pigeons next time. Paper targets are kind of silly for shotguns. I'm not big on hunting, but I do like making things go boom.


Played MacGyver at church. I fixed the pedal of the bass drum by using only a paper hole punch as a pair of makeshift pliers. Hey, you make do with what you have on hand! I also played my Bass guitar while making an attempt to run the soundboard for the entire praise team. That's always interesting.


Oh, and we had more snow, but it melted. Side note: It's snowing again RIGHT NOW as I type this.


Some goofing off w/ tech stuff.


Anyhow, it's bed time, and I can't wait to see what the snow accumulation looks like in a few hours!

(Not So) Secret Mission?

Helmetless errands over lunch. Fritz says I've got the Bay Area bike commuter look down perfectly.


On my way home, I picked up a copy of the Windows 7 beta from a friend. I snapped this on the Quivira viaduct. Hooray for goofing off on the bike.


Geek side-note: Me willingly installing an Operating System from Redmond is Kind of a Big Deal. One of my friends shoe-horned it onto his Acer Aspire One (a subcompact/netbook) without any problems, so I figure it'll be less of a hog than Vista. Maybe I'll like it... but not enough to give up my MacBook.

More from yesterday

I didn't get anything this morning. I woke up early, couldn't get back to sleep, and I'm kind of in a fog today. Took the bus to work.

Last night, I sat down with the bracketed photos I took of the moon over the mall, and threw together an HDR of it. I'm not sure I like it any more than I like yesterday's long exposure with the streetlight blurs I threw in at the last 2 seconds of the exposure)



I hung out with Eric over lunch. On my way back, I saw this guy:


I keep forgetting his name, which bothers me. It's something simple, like Jeff or something. Occasionally I'll pass him (or he'll pass me) on Southwest Boulevard. Despite the trailer, he can really haul some ass. If I recall correctly, he's one of the people who helps put on Bike 4 The Brain.

The glare on my homeward commute has been getting worse and worse. For a good chunk of my usual route on Southwest Blvd, the sun is right in front of the road and it's low enough that I know it's got to be blinding drivers. I've been a little more on edge this week. I may have to start leaving work later (after the sun sets) or optionally, start riding the bus home. It breaks my heart, too. These evenings have been perfect: mild with only a light breeze. I was scorching along last night, and averaged 200 trillion Angstroms per hour on my way home. There's a way to make yourself sound fast.

To boldly park where no man has parked before...

Well, okay, I'm sure someone's parked in these places, but when there aren't any bike racks, you improvise!

Case and point: Power & Light District. I went and snagged some lunch with Clem. Yes, there's a ring and post a block away. I was feeling lazy. Besides, it gave me an excuse to do a cyclocross rolling dismount and run up the stairs with my bike over my shoulder while people in general thought "what the heck?!"



Things are changing for the better (and quite quickly, I may add) in KCMO. Next month, we'll get a real grocery store downtown. This is huge, and I personally think will do more for urban revitalization than any amount of upscale madness. From a sustainability and urban planning perspective, this means people living in the urban core will have one less reason to rely on their car or take a bus trip. Basic necessities will be easily accessible without the trip to Westport or North KC.

Then, I got this exciting Let's Go KC e-mail from Laurie Chipman (recently featured as KC's best outdoor activist by Pitch):

Some good things have been happening in our fair city. Hazard mitigation is going on every day. If you don't know what hazard mitigation is, it is new grates that don't eat your tires. The BikeKC plan is getting done at last! I even saw a new grate in my own neighborhood and several around town!

The other cool thing I found out about is a bike parking rack at our beloved midtown Costco at Linwood and Gillham. I was talking with the check out guy there and he said they had just put one in. Some of their regular customers had been asking for one. I was trying to stuff the suggestion box myself but I was glad to hear that other people were way ahead of me.

I also heard that there is bike parking at the midtown Home Depot but I have not seen it.

Just want you to know that requests are being heard so keep asking!

Really, KC is showing some serious effort to make good on their promise to become a bicycle friendly community. Let's just hope that the successors to KC's mayoral throne don't mess it up.

Bicycle racks at a hospital. Conflict of interest or not? After all, the medical industry is making a killing (pun intended?) on the obesity epidemic in America. Olathe Medical Center seems to be embracing this epidemic wholeheartedly. Try as I might, I saw no bike racks here. Shawnee Mission Medical Center and Overland Park Regional both have racks, for what it's worth. Hey, I got to park 10 feet closer than the Volunteer Of The Year. Warren calls this phenomenon "Rock Star Parking" and I'm definitely re-using that phrase as often as I can.


While on the topic of words worth stealing, Bike Snob NYC recently introduced me to the word "clustercoitus" which is also going to find a place in my vocabulary.

Lens flares as I was getting ready for the ride home.


God Bless America. And Long Exposures.


The ride home was quiet and uneventful. I had a good route picked out which involved a little bit of riding through construction. The CatEye HL-500II c'Dude hooked me up with is nice but quite anemic (too narrow of a focus) when you're in no-man's land in pitch darkness. Other than that, it was a great evening for a ride.