A Place To Start

First shot at a u-lock holster . . .



It's supposed to hold whatever lock I wanna drop in it . . .





You probably wonder why the slot is so long. Thinking is, if you shorten it up like this, so that the ends of the lock bar ride on the tubing, it can move back and forth in the slot . . .



. . . whereas if you make the slot long, the lock bar will seat like this and can't really go anywhere . . .



I brazed a wire loop onto the bottom of the stay and then wired one end of a mini-bungee to the loop, so that it can't come loose.



The other end of the bungee wraps around the lock and stay and hooks back into the same wire loop. For me, wrapping and hooking the bungee is an acceptable amount of hassle, if it results in a secure u-lock that doesn't rattle around.



Unfortunately, I think it's gonna be okay but not great. The bungee does a great job of keeping the lock tight to the stay, but not such a great job of putting enough downward force on it to keep it tightly seated in the slot.

Supposedly you learn way more from your failures than your successes, so I'm going with that. Not that it's a total failure, but it could and will be better. I'll say this though: When I started building racks I thought I was gonna totally nail every design the first time through and now I'm at the point where I seriously question if I know which end is up and I'm currently working with this rack that started out as a rush-job POS and which therefore I feel free to hack the piss out of. Turns out that it's teaching me a lot and the damn thing is actually starting to grow on me.

Too Strange To Title

This is non-bikey, but so weird that I can't not post about it. I know we kid around a lot, but this is no shit . . .

A coupla years ago, Patty got an heirloon lilac start at some event she went to. She potted it and has been tending to it ever since. Just yesterday, she was looking at it, admiring how well it was doing. It was probably 30 or 36" tall.

This afternoon, she was putting out some stuff we're donating to ARC for collection tomorrow and noticed this:



So sometime overnight or during today, someone walked up on our front porch, cut down our fledgling lilac bush, and then walked back down the steps with it, out the sidewalk and down the street. Or maybe there was a getaway car involved. If ever there was a situation that begged for a front porch webcam, this is it.

The cuts are very clean. Surgical even. Someone who takes great pride in their pruning shears. There are other lilac bushes in the immediate vicinity that were left untouched.

Part of me wants to be pissed, but I'm just too freakin' bewildered. I couldn't imagine this happening in a zillion years of imagining. And I have questions:

Should I call the cops and ask them to put out an APB for our missing branches?

Maybe I should cruise the pawn shops?

How long were they casing our joint, and if the crime was committed after dark, did they use night vision goggles to spot our valuables?

Should I call in to the Phyllis Stephens radio show this saturday and ask if she knows of any master gardners with criminal backgrounds?

This has to be an inside job. As in a neighborhood nutjob. I'm having a hard time imagining someone road-tripping from Northwood to cruise South Hill neighborhoods looking for sprigs to kipe. Although anything is possible at this point. But assuming I'm right, there's a possibility that we could run across the re-planted shoots during a stroll through the 'hood. If the perpetrator turns out to be an old lady, should I punch her out?

I don't ask much of you, or anything, really. But I could sure use some help putting a theory together on this one.

Lockstuff

Brandy the fishdog and I took our maiden voyage to Comstock and back tonight. There'a some fine tuning and practice to be done before we show off, but the basic problem is solved. Turns out the biggest part of the solution was just getting into my dog's head and figuring out what shit I was throwing at her that was just unreasonable. Dogs are so eager to please, but you have to give them parameters they can deal with. My biggest mistake by far was no slack in the line. We've also gone to shock cord (aka bungee cord) for the "line", which takes the edge off the transition between slack and taught.



I'm glad that's behind us, because I'm all fired up about u-lock holsters. I've been mulling solutions over the last few months about an elegant rack design to carry a u-lock, and I've been banging my head against the wall. My major criterion are that the lock doesn't rattle and that you can get it in and out easily. Sounds simple enough, but the designs I've seen don't make a lot of sense to me.

Yesteday, I stumbled across Kent Peterson's blog about the Trek Earl, and I saw the u-lock sitting there, and the light bulb lighted and tilted me off dead center.

But no matter how good you might be at visualizing shit (which I am particularly not), sometimes you just have to try and build it to find out what will or won't work. I did that tonight and found out what won't.



I have some different ideas for what will and that's pretty much what will be occupying any mental space that's not taken up with grown-up stuff over the next few days.

If At First You Don't Succeed.

It's far too early to give up on the idea of dragging my dog around with a fishing pole. I have too much invested. V2 is curing.



Same deal, different sleeve, different pole . . .



What's even more different this time, though, is that I saved the warranty card. Here's to hoping I don't havta go all ballistic when the claims process turns contentious . . .



I tried to do some online research on fishing rod strength, but I quickly fell asleep. All I know is that the last rod was very obviously a cheap turd and I knew there had to be a better rod out there and I went to a big box outdoor hunting-fishing-type store and looked at the massive rack of rods and applied my keen eye and superior analytical skills and then I picked out one that was on sale for 50% off.

But I will say this. I have zero interest in hunting or fishing which is not to say that either are bad things, just not my things. And it's quite an experience walking into a store that is built around catering to a group of highly emotional nerds when you have abosolutely no emotional attachment to that particular group of nerds. I saw some rods that cost $400. At a big box discount store. That means there must be guys out there building custom ones for two grand. For a damn fishing pole. Holy living hell.

And it was like looking in the mirror, because the non-bikey fisherman who walks into the equivalent big-box bike store (which doesn't yet exist because we're niche compared to the big-time business of fishing, but let's just say REI for purposes of discussion) and sees a $1500 road bike and says WTF, for a damn bike? And then extrapolates that there must be specialty guys out there building $15K bikes, which is true, and leaves with his head spinning.

We would both say that things have gotten a little out of hand in terms of the marketing tail wagging the consumer dog.

Holy krap, I've gotten carried away, what am I doing. Please disregard. I've got my eye on a coupla carbon fiber bottle cages to help lighten up the karate monkey. Those are pretty much the last thing I need, though, so after that, I'd like to talk to you about how crazy the whole bike business has become.

Fighting The Good Fight

It's colder than balls in our house and it's all I can do to keep myself from lunging at the red "up" arrow. Patty and I have vowed to not apply any heat until Oct 1st, at the very minimum. But she's gone to bed and I'm trying to decide if the sound of the furnace coming on would wake her up.



If this global warming thing keeps up, I'm gonna havta buy myself a down parka.

HEY! WHOA! Don't lash out at me like that. It was just a damn joke.

Emotional Support

All day long you get to listen to your boss and your mortgage company and your wife and everyone else tell you what to do, and of course you especially value what your wife has to say, but at the very, very end of the day, you might get to spend a little time in your shop that is totally yours and which allows you the luxury of listening to your inner voice and making some inconsequential decisions. And if that's too foreign and scary, perhaps you might decide to listen to the voice of one of your imaginary shop friends, who has the option of either validating your state of mind and providing you with courage, or contradicting you and ceasing to be your go-to imaginary friend.

I've been thinking that I should probably build another set of tubing clamp blocks.

Man's Best Friend?

Maybe, but not this man's, on this particular day.

"I'm so sweet. Love me . . ."



If you buy the act, you are a fool. Major con artist. Her passive-agressive true colors . . .




Our relationship has experienced some stress over the last couple of days. We've both crossed the line. Maybe she would say that I pushed and she merely pushed back. Whatever. The emotion has subsided and we're both at the stage of wanting to deal with it and move on. Forgiveness and healing are in order.

DogBike Upgrade: Goin' Fishin'

Brandy and I like to play in upper Manito Park, at the south end that borders 25th. It's close and convenient and there are no arterials to cross on the way there, so when we go to and from, I ride and she just runs off-leash. Trouble is, the soil drainage is pretty bad there and during the wetter, cooler months, it gets pretty swampy. When that happens, we like to head over to Comstock, where we have another fave runway. Problem with that, though, is that we have to cross two arterials to get there. I can't let her off-leash for fear that she'll get squashed and we're sure as hell not walking 'cause well, that's just not how we roll. So we take the truck, which sucks. We tried to solve this problem once before, but it didn't work out in the long run. What we really wanna do is take our dOGbiKe, and I've had a marble of an idea rolling around in my head for several months. I finally got around to doing something with it.

Here are the parts for the project. Yep, that's a fishing pole alright . . .



I needed to braze to the frame, so I took the torch and burned the paint off . . .



After cleaning it up, I cut a short piece of 1/2" OD x ~3/8" ID tubing, fixed it in place and brazed it on . . .



No way in hell I was gonna take the whole bike apart so that I could soak the frame to dissolve the flux, so I decided to take a very wet towel and wrap the brazed area and let it soak overnight . . .



Worked like a charm. In the morning I was able to easily brush the flux off with a wire brush . . .



Here's the end result . . .



My beloved Lifetime Member for Life decal got a little hot. I decided it's very accidentally artistic. Check out the "roots" on the 'l' and 'i' "trees". If you don't see it, you just haven't had enough to drink. Far out. Further proof that scars rule . . .



In the meantime, I cut the fishing pole in half. I can make you a killer deal on the short end . . .



On the right is a piece of 3/8" OD tubing with a piece of the same 1/2" x 3/8" tubing brazed on as a sleeve. I took the end of the fishing pole and roughed it up with some shop cloth so the JB weld will stick to it . . .



Then it got glued together, with a screw running through as a dowel pin. I'll cut the ends off later . . .



So I ended up with this . . .



And hooked it up to my spazzed-out bike like this . . .



Are you starting to get the picture?



Sorry to say, my dog is too. We took a walk, not even a ride, around the driveway and she is pretty well freaked. I think I overheard her talking to her agent tonight about what it might take to get traded. She's still under contract, but that's what lawyers are for. Crazy bastard of a master. Enough is enough.

A Place For Everything. Hopefully.

As far as kitchenware goes, Patty and I don't do much in the way of matched sets of eating-stuff. The silverware drawer is the best example . . . probably 40 forks and there are a couple that match, but you'd havta do some serious digging to make it happen. It's certain that no two coffee mugs match. I think we like it that way, or maybe that's my excuse for being such a cheap bastard. But it's strangely satisfying to plow through the mismatched inventory of bowls/spoons/knives/or whatever to find your very fave or maybe the one that soothes your mind on a particular day.

So yep, that's a long intro to another coffee cup post. Not the first, and no clue as to whether it will or won't be the last.

Anyway.

I bought this mug at a yard sale. I thought it was insanely cool and would just make such a splash in our cupboard . . .







Come to find out, it creeps me way the hell out. I open the cupboard some mornings and look at the damn thing and I have to choke back the erps, let alone have any desire for the taste of joe. I totally cannot explain it. I think maybe it's just simply that Disney and Haight-Ashbury can't coexist in my morning ritual.

Except that part of me still loves that mug.

So I've been cleaning up my shop and getting ready for rack-building season. And tonight it struck me that maybe instead of reacting and impulsively destroying what haunts me, I could maybe breathe deep and figure out how to put it to good use in the shop. I don't want my lips on it ever again, but maybe this will work out and if not, you can damn well expect another post offering this sinister piece of ceramic to the next unwitting victim.

CDANF Season Finale

As you probably know, I've gotten all enamored with riding in the C'dA National Forest this summer. Over the weekend, I had the chance to go back in one last time with John, Alex and Andre. Don't let the pictures fool you . . . these guys know exactly where they're going and what they're doing. Seriously purposeful dudes.







Okay, that didn't go so well. So let me just start over by saying that car camping rules. I mean, carrying everything on your bike that you might possibly need to make you happy is all romantic, but also totally nonsensical. To be even mildly happy in a damp and cold forest, you should be taking at least this much shit and probably more . . .



So that you can live like this . . .



Still don't get it? Look. This is one whole station for making breakfast burritos . . .



And this is another station for simultaneously making huckleberry pancakes. FRESH huckleberries, dude. Try doing that on your damn bike . . .



A third station is all about coffee . . .



I think you see what I mean. And is it just me, or do I have the biggest tent? By far? I think maybe the peasants owe me some taxes or something.





So anyway, on to the actual ride. I was gonna do this map showing all the roads I did this summer in the CDANF, and it would have been majorly epic, but it turned out to be a giant PITA, and as much as I love you guys, you're just not worth it. Just being honest. So trust me, I was all over that forest like a wet blanket.

But anyway, Friday, we did kind of the standard kill-yourself-in-the-forest-tour and it was great, and we did (kill ourselves). 50,000 vertical feet, honest. The highlight for me was road 261, which was all crazy climb-ey and scenic. John, Alex, Alex, Andre, John,(repectively) . . .









Saturday turned out to be all about crashing around in the brush. It's the logical next step in our CDANF evolution. Well-travelled roads where they can easily find your body are apparently boring, so we hurled ourselves into the abyss. Andre, rockin' the roadlessness . . .



You probably think this is bad camera work, but you are once again wrong. It's how things really look when you are short on oxygen . . .



The smile on John's face reminds me pretty much exactly of Jack Nicholson in "The Shining". The woods can mess with your head, obviously . . .



Pure glam shot, but it really is this good . . .



Oh. GPS shows a bridge across this creek. Must be the invisible kind . . .



Anyway, all kidding aside, if you wanna know why I dig it there so much, this picture says it better than I ever could. Variety is surely the spice of life, including elevation.