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Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater Wed, 30 Apr 2008I just discovered this:
$40 at Amazon. Are you kidding? Already ordered. Posted at 16:16 permanent link category: /misc Thu, 24 Apr 2008I broke a spoke on my commuter bike's rear wheel last week, and went down to the local shop to get a new spoke. Success. Wheel re-tweaked to run as straight as possible, given the dented rim. However, this is the third spoke in the wheel to break, and they've all broken adjacent to each other on the hub. I'm not sure what this means -- maybe the wheel-lacing machine was having a bad day or something. But with nearly 2700 miles on it, that wheel's probably due for a serious refresh. Dented rim, cheap spokes, cheap, unrebuildable hub. So, I grabbed my obscene fan of "commuter bucks" (I get $30 a month through a county incentive program for commuting by bike, which $30 is given out in cashier's checks redeemable at, among other places, REI), and headed down to the REI store north of downtown. They have a large bicycle section, and a call had confirmed that they'd either have my parts, or would be able to order them. I picked up a 36-spoke hub of the Shimano persuasion, a surprisingly cheap rim, and a set of stealthy black spokes. Of course, I got home and started putting things together, only to find that my surprisingly cheap rim was a 32-spoke rim. D'oh! Back to REI, where I traded the rim for one with the right number of spoke-holes. The new rim required different sized spokes, so I traded the spokes in too, only... they didn't have the right size. Their spoke collection didn't go that short, unless I wanted to compromise on color or type. I didn't (wanted to match the front wheel's color, and wanted to stick with the more-durable double-butted spokes), so I just returned the first set of spokes. I figured that I could find the right spokes locally, ideally by calling back my "favorite" local shop. So, standing just outside the REI door, I selected their number from my cellphone's saved numbers, and gave them a call. "Hey," quoth I, "I was wondering if you have black, double-butted spokes in stock." The answer was quick, and surprisingly forceful. "No." "Oh," sayeth I, "then can you order them for me?" "No!" It was like I was asking the person on the other end of the connection to quickly break a finger or two, rather than passing them $45 worth of business. Surprised, I asked why, and was given a vague explanation about having to order "all the sizes." I hung up the phone (well, folded up the phone, whatever) feeling like I'd offended them. I tried another, larger shop, but no luck there either. The first shop had recommended another place I'd never been, but I didn't have their number. The next time I got near a computer, I looked up their details, and gave them a call. Indeed, they did have my spokes in stock, for the same price as REI. Fine, I'd be there that afternoon. I arrived at 5 (two hours before closing), mentioned that I had spoken to someone about spokes earlier, and prepared to get my spokes and go. Amazingly, it was nearly 6 pm before I finally left the shop, between all the casual asides, distractions, confusion over what exactly I wanted, how big was that rim again? and so on. As if to put a bow on the whole experience, the man behind the counter said, "Now, we're a cash-and-carry organization...." Of course, essentially all the businesses I normally deal with take debit cards, and I'm no longer in the habit of carrying around much cash. I certainly didn't have the $52 to pay for a set of spokes and rim tape. Fortunately, he agreed to "make a special case for you," and take my check. The first shop I called, which I've dealt with extensively, always seems to be peopled with surly people who strike me as being unhappy that I'm bothering them. Certainly not friendly in a way you might expect after having been a customer for over 8 years. The shop where I found my spokes is also a workshop co-op, and had that sort of benevolent, cluttered junk-everywhere feel of a hippie commune dedicated to human-powered transport. The guy who seemed to be in charge could easily answer to the description "biking curmudgeon." I didn't go in expecting an efficient German machinist shop's level of professionalism, but I was surprised by the place. The sudden announcement that my fake plastic money wasn't welcome just kind of finished the whole thing off. It all made me think, "Is everyone who runs a bike shop a complete freak?" The answer, of course, is probably "Yes." Posted at 12:29 permanent link category: /bicycle Fri, 18 Apr 2008
More pictures... of the crazy!
Ok, really. This picture was taken a few moments ago. Look at the date. Really. What?
Posted at 19:06 permanent link category: /misc Thu, 17 Apr 2008There's a huge tall bush next to my driveway, which produces stunningly beautiful flowers. They last for a few days, then turn brown and gross looking, which lasts for more than a month. I managed to grab a few pictures this morning, before the month-long stink sets in:
Posted at 13:13 permanent link category: /misc Wed, 16 Apr 2008I picked up a fire extinguisher yesterday, to have at the race pits -- we neglected to have one at the first race, which was a terrible idea, and we're fortunate it didn't come up. I don't think it normally does, but we looked along the line, and no one had an extinguisher in the vintage section. Yow. Anyway, curious today what the ratings meant on my extinguisher, I started Googling around, and came up with the following tidbits:
On this last note, I am reminded of an anecdote I read somewhere: A Navy ship was in port for repairs, and against all safety practices, a welder was working above an open hatch, with someone down below him. He was doing electrical welding, which uses argon as a shield gas. Argon is heavier than air, and displaces oxygen nicely, producing excellent, rust-free welds. The sailor down below was happily doing whatever he was doing, but suddenly noticed it was getting harder to breathe. Argon is also either difficult or impossible to smell or otherwise detect (I'm not sure). He climbed up out of the hatch, in something of a panic, either not knowing or not understanding the implications that someone had been welding above him. The welder took one look at this sailor, and immediately understood what was going on. He dropped his equipment, picked the man up bodily and rushed him to the side of the ship. There, he stood the drowning man with his back to the water, stepped on his toes, and pushed. The sailor flopped over backwards, the water swaying sickeningly over his head, his knees hooked over the ship's railing. However, his lungs suddenly worked again: the argon had drained out. It was so heavy that he couldn't breathe it out, but put his lungs upside-down, and it trickled out like water. The welder pulled him back up, and apologized profusely. Retelling the story here, it comes out sounding wrong on several counts, but I always found it to be an interesting illustration of the obscure dangers presented by working with things like argon or halon. I'm not sure I'd have the presence of mind to stand on my head if I were caught in a data center when the halon was released to put out a (real or imagined) fire. It's pretty easy to see why halon-protected areas tend to have big warning signs and require training, though. Back on fire extinguishers, an important safety tip I have picked up over the years: give your dry powder extinguishers a shake every month or so. The powder settles to the bottom, and if you leave it long enough, it's trying to shoot out a stream of caked baking soda, which naturally does almost nothing to a fire. Just grab it, turn it upside down, tap the bottom a few times, and shake it around a little. This gets the powder loosened up, and will make it much more effective at actually putting out the fire. In 2003, I participated in a quite enjoyable fire extinguisher training session, with resulting impressive pictures. Posted at 15:48 permanent link category: /misc Mon, 14 Apr 2008I put these pictures up last week, and then promptly forgot to link them: You'll note the red shipping grease (which has the consistency of dried gum when cold), and the well-bent hold-down screw. The other hold-down screw broke off entirely, and I ended up having to back out the broken stub with a pair of pliers. At least I didn't need the screw extractors... I've almost finished my most blingful demonstration of my burgeoning lathe skills. I'll post photos when I'm done. Posted at 17:32 permanent link category: /misc Brandon Bones of Studio 819 Photography was on hand at my first race, and managed to capture a few of me dorkishly overshadowing my tiny bike, like a gorilla riding a tricycle. Take a look. Pretty cool. The real question is, do I want to blow cash on a picture of My First Race? Posted at 14:07 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sun, 06 Apr 2008For the last few years, I've been vaguely craving both the mini lathe and mini mill sold at Harbor Freight. These are great tools for fabricating all varieties of parts, usually out of metal. Every couple of months, the craving would sharpen, but it was always tempered by the terrible knowledge if I actually plunked down my coins on the barrel head, that expenditure would be a mere gateway: $400-500 for the device itself is just the start. In the case of the mill, you immediately need $50-200 worth of clamping devices, at least one cutter at $10-20 each for cheap/small ones, and innumerable add-ons and accessories at $10-100 each. The lathe isn't much better: you can get by with materials to work plus a handful of $1 each tool blanks. I already have a bench grinder, which is the only other tool you just gotta have, but things really take off when you start thinking about all the bits and bobs that would just make it so much easier to work with. Somehow, in late March, I managed to blind myself to these financial objections, and ordered one (1) 7x12 mini lathe. It arrived on April Fools day, a day I carefully prepared the garage and worked from home (actually managing to work a full day around several multi-hour sessions in the garage -- it was a long day). I leapt out the door within seconds of the big brown delivery truck crunching to a stop on the gravel in front of my house. I'd hung up a sign instructing UPS to put the box in front of the garage, but I was out and talking with the driver before he had a chance to even see it. We gently set down the crate in the garage. Within half an hour, I had the machine up on the bench, gently brushing off the heavily-applied red packing grease. It would have been much quicker, but I first had to discover that one end of the lathe was attached to the crate by a much-abused bolt -- it was bent to a 30 degree angle, and looked particularly comical as I caused the crate to orbit the lathe very slightly with the unscrewing motion. Fortunately, the lathe I ended up selecting was a relatively screamin' deal. It turns out that there's one factory in China pumping these things out, and they sell them to about 10 different US retailers, including Harbor Freight. The main difference is what color the lathe is painted. However, in the case of the Cummins lathe I ordered, it's also in what comes with the lathe itself. Cummins throws in a goodly assortment of accessories, and charges $70 less than Harbor Freight. Shipping (the only option unless I wanted to wait for one of their "Truck Sales" to come to town like some kind of handyman's circus) was $70. That brought the total up to HF's list price, but at HF I'd also have to pay tax, which wasn't the case with Cummins. In all, a good selection, since I'd have to spend another $100+ to get all the accessories they included. By the end of that day, I'd done my first very tenative cuts, turning down the radius of a piece of 1/4" rod just to see if I could. By late this week, I'd turned a piece of that rod into a new shift linkage rod to replace the abused and bent up thing that was still almost working on the race bike. The key trick there was that the linkage rod requires a left-hand thread on one end. I don't have the requisite tool for that, and to purchase one would cost about $25. I might use it two or three times. So instead I blew $500 on a lathe! Of course, the lathe has already proven its worth. I was able to do the left-hand thread after a couple false starts on test pieces. I was able to make up a new spacer for the shift lever which will eliminate one of my key complaints with the "special bolt" Honda sold me, which was shaped such that it couldn't be tightened down. I now have a shiny aluminum spacer which will allow the bolt to be tightened, so I don't have to worry so much about the shifter falling off the bike at an inconvenient time. Say, while trying to upshift in a tight pack of racers. I've got several other jobs in mind, and I have a feeling that this lathe will become a trusty companion as I progress in life. You never know when you're going to want something cylindrical. Posted at 10:10 permanent link category: /misc Thu, 03 Apr 2008I've got my race day write-up posted now. Check it out. Posted at 11:41 permanent link category: /motorcycle Wed, 02 Apr 2008I've got photos posted here, and WMRRA has results posted here. Enjoy! Full race writeup coming soon. Posted at 15:56 permanent link category: /motorcycle Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net. |
