Category: Bike

One for me, and one for my Hobbitt

Warning! Spoilers for 24 follow.

What a day! Finally got some product out the door at work, though I don’t know how it’s going to be received. Read the boy his story. Turned in some library books (Is it just me, or is a good local public library the absolute greatest? Thank you, Groton Public Library. Flexible hours rock.) Caught the last half hour of work night at the church. Dragged the trash and recycling to the curb.

And finally climbed back on the stationary trainer to watch 24. It’s been a couple of weeks since I haven’t screwed up the VCR (if anyone wants to send me the parts to hack together a MythTV, I’d be happy to blog it), so I’m like 4 hours behind. Thankfully, the world is still about to end, and Keifer Sutherland still looks like he wants to kill someone. The President’s wife was still alive, so I’m guessing that the President called off the assassination of the Russian Premier. The terrorists were still mad, but I’m guessing they would have double-crossed the pres if he’d let them whack the Russians. ‘Else they would have had to rename the show “12”.

Big body count in tonight’s episode – Edgar, the chunky hacker bites it in a poison gas attack on CTU. Then the hobbit bites it. Which is kind of bad; I’d come to identify with his character – chunky public servant, handsom as all get-out, sharp as a tack. Sucks in a lungful of gas after saving the rest of the folks at CTU. There are worse ways to go.

45 minutes later, I climbed off the trainer. Thought briefly about doing Pilates, but then bed started calling.

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So, why are you here

And not over reading Fat Cyclist’s Tour Day France predictions?

He picks Ullrich overall (I think). From his description of Alexander Vinokourov:

  (E)very cycling fan — regardless of how strongly they idolize any other cyclist — must stand at the ready to cheer for Vinokourov as he makes one of his crazy, wrong-headed attacks. Most of them make no sense and go nowhere, and that’s why I love him. Here’s how I imagine Vinokourov decides whether to attack at a given moment: “Hey, there’s a guy about 100 feet ahead of me. I wonder if I could catch him. Well, my legs feel pretty good. GO!”

So, seriously. Go. Don’t forget to click on an ad link while you’re there to add to the Fat Cyclist Sweepstakes.
And, Fat Cyclist? Man, if you can’t make a phat living writing as well as you do, there’s no justice in the world. Hope the move goes well. Here’s wishing you miles and miles of singletrack and no punctures.

Really Interesting Tandem

I really liked this tandem, which puts the stroker (is that the right word?) up in front, and has the controls in the back seat. From Velorution, where I’m sure I’d spend tons of cash if I lived in London.

From the review:

The most distinctive feature of the Ronald Tandem is the fact that person steering the tandem sits on the back seat and the ‘passenger’ is in the front seat. … Although I have not tested it I assume that when one substitutes the front seat with a carrier box, one would have a very manoeuvrable and convenient shopping bicycle.

UPDATE (From Fixedgear)

Terminology: On a conventional tandem the person who sits in front and steers/shifts/brakes is called the captain the the rear seat is occupied by the stoker. This bike has the captain i the rear and the stoker up front. So does the Bilenky Viewpoint, where the stoker is in front and recumbent and the captain is in the rear and upright. Oh yeah, if you have a triple (three seat bike) the person who occupies the middle seat is called the midshipman. Seriously.

24 – High Noon

First question – it’s 11 PM and I’m not asleep. Why? Have I learned nothing?

Got in 40 minutes on the trainer. Didn’t get on the bike ’till about minute 15. Cranked up the resistance one notch during each commercial break, did the highest (of 3) for two segments, and did the last segment in neutral. The trainer’s great to have for just mindless spinning, which is what I wanted to do tonight after hitting it relatively hard on Saturday and Sunday. But, I kind of wish I’d gone for the one with greater resistance and a handlebar mounted control. Suppose I can upgrade when I wear this one out.

I also think I’d likely be better off running gears instead of the singlespeed on the trainer – big ring, small cog on the highest resistance would be something. But, I like to think I’m saving wear and tear…

Oh, and it turns out that I’m likely the last one to whom you should come for bike mechanical advice. Sunday afternoon, as I pulled out of the drive, I noticed the bike was making a rubbing noise. Did a quick check, wasn’t the brake pads, so I went on wondering if the couple of semi-wet rides I’ve had were enough to fry the sealed bearings in the wheels. I’d convinced myself they were, and continued muscling along, listening to the scraping.

When I got home and was putting the bike away, I noticed the rear wheel wasn’t turning particularly well. Crap, I started to think, wondering if I’d ruined the entire wheelset. (in hindsight, there’s no way – if Ray doesn’t go through about a dozen hubs a month, no way did two rides in winter rain ruin mine).

Closer inspection revealed that I’m a bleepin’ idiot. There’s a reason that singlespeed types use bolts to hold the axles to the frames, and it’s not that, like deraileurs, shifters and three syllable words, quick releases are too complicated to use. No, when you’re dealing with a rider <sarcasm>as massively powerful as I am </sarcasm>, the skewer will sometimes shift, as it did in this case. The drive side moved a fraction of an inch closer to the pedals, causing the non-drive side tire to spend the entire ride rubbing gently on the inside of the nondrive chainstay.

D’oh.

The tire looks fine – it’s a specialized armadillo, with a ton of rubber and a thick kevlar belt. The frame looks fine – nothing 50 cents of Rust-O-Leum won’t fix. It’s just my pride that’s wounded.

On the upside, it was another week of avoiding springing for brake pads…

One last plug, since it’s still before Thursday – if you’re not watching “My Name is Earl”, you shouldn’t be watching television. Seriously. The show’s that good. Better even than “Desperate Housewives”, and I’m sayin’ that after seeing the episode complete with hot-model-wrestling-creepy-hot-nun-fu. Last week’s Earl episode kept me in stitches, even though my wife kind of panned it. Best lines?

(on entering like a real office building)”It’s like when Ted from Bill and Ted put on the magic sunglasses and went into the future…”

“I know some guys who run a counterfitting operation – they’ll give me $10,000 in twenties for (the big giant color copier)”

Go set the Tivo/VCR now. I’ll wait.