For the last couple years, my sister has hosted an Easter get together. Given my knee problems and how the clock is getting ever closer to when I'm supposed to hop on my bike and head for Florida, I decided to ride there to get a sense on how my knee would react.
Originally I was going solo, but at the last minute, Captain Bob decided he would join me. We decided to mostly ride our standard route. We did decide to avoid the bastard hill by swinging over to Route 206. From there we wound through Princeton until we got back on track.
About 3 miles from sis's, we were going through an intersection. I was about 20 feet behind the captain. As I watched helplessly, a gold Hyundai went about halfway past the captain and turned right.
The captain was down.
The woman did stop about 20 feet up the cross road. I asked the captain if he was alright, etc. He said he was OK and actually seemed to be. Turned out that he didn't have even the smallest patch of road rash. The most significant problem was a broken helmet.
The woman moved her car in to a parking lot. I fiddled with my Droid camera trying to figure out how it worked. I figured I should take pictures of what I could for record keeping. Most importantly, I wanted to get a pic of the rear of her car in case she bolted so I'd have the license number (turns out those fears were completely unfounded).
We moved our bicyles over to where she had parked. She was about to give out her info when the police came. The most amazing part was that any given time, there must have been at least 3 police/EMT vehicles there. Another would come and one would go. By the end there must have been 8-12 different vehicles show up.
The EMTs felt up the captain, took his blood pressure, etc. The captain refused treatment and they called off the ambulance.
I called my sister and related just a bit of information to get their imagination going. I basically said that we were delayed and I was trying to keep the captain out of jail.
Captain Bob declined filing a report so the last police officier left and we got on our way. His front fender was rubbing the tire so we performed a quick adjustment and then really got on our way.
About a mile down the road as we were discussing the accident, the captain ran in to a curb and went down again. This time, the blood was flowing all over the place. It was like the Monty Python Black Knight skit.
Somehow we dealt with accident 2. We had to adjust his fender again, but then we were on our way.
The rest of the trip was uneventful and we got to sis's without further incident.
But after a while, the captain was on the cell phone talking to Mrs. Captain. She isn't at sis's because Mrs. Captain is visiting her daughter for Easter. She has gotten back to Pennsylvania. Just to the I78 tollbooth. Her car has died.
Fortunately, AAA was on the way and that seemed to end well as the last I heard Mrs. Captain was back and home with her dead car. Captain called when he got home later that night. We'll have to see how he is after his doctor visit.
2010-04-04
2010-04-03
Click Me Off
So with new pedals, I went out for a ride and fortunately my head was strapped in to my helmet. If it wasn't, it surely would have exploded. The click was worse than ever!
[Rant On]
I asked for advice in a couple forums. I got a few useful ideas, but also a lot of the usual forum responses. Why do people respond when they don't actually read the entire post? I started off with that I had first posted last fall. I included that I had my bottom bracket replaced at the local bike shop, put on new pedals etc. So in addition to some useful suggestions, I get responses that included suggestions to check my pedals and bottom bracket. One got a little further reading my post because they knew about the new bottom bracket. But they asked whether I had done (assuming my incompetancy I guess) it myself or had my bike shop do it.
[Rant Off]
Anyway, I went back and tightened cranks. I tightened my chainring bolts although I was nervous about that as I think those threads are aluminum. Given that new pedals didn't do the trick, I put the old ones back on. Finally, I put new cleats on my shoes and went out for a ride.
Voila! No click.
Please pray for me that I've finally solved the problem. I don't care which thing did it. If it is finally gone, that's good enough for me.
2010-02-16
Fix a Flat
One of the subscribers to a bicycle touring list that I also subscribe to recently got a flat (he lives in Florida so it's not too cold to ride) and he decided to let his LBS fix it while he made a video of the process.
I thought the video was worth posting. Probably because it almost exactly matches my method.
My notes:
I wrote to Ken (the bicycle owner) and noted that the mechanic talked about positioning the tire label by the valve in order to know where to look next time a flat occurred.1 However, the mechanic never performed that search with the flat being fixed. Ken said that because of YouTube limits, he had to edit the video and that the mechanic had spent about five minutes examining the old tube / tire.
I actually position the label opposite the valve. Presumably you can position the label anywhere as long as it is consistent so that you can use the label and valve to locate where the cause of the flat came through the tire.
Another member of the list noted that if the offending bit of metal or glass or whatever is not lodged in the tire but is loose inside, it will continually roll to the bottom as you examine the tire so you ought pay particular attention to that. I've added that to my procedure.
I pump up the tire maybe a 1/3 to 1/2 way and examine the bead seating as in the video. I also knead the tire as you can see. I also might bounce the tire on the ground in a couple places. After that, I deflate the tire again in order to relax the inner tube. My theory is that if there were kinks or creases, the now relaxed inner tube allows them to straighten out.
1 When the next flat occurs, you pull off the tire and find the flat in the inner tube. Once you find the puncture, you know to look at the tire the same number of degrees away from the label as the puncture was from the valve.
I thought the video was worth posting. Probably because it almost exactly matches my method.
My notes:
I wrote to Ken (the bicycle owner) and noted that the mechanic talked about positioning the tire label by the valve in order to know where to look next time a flat occurred.1 However, the mechanic never performed that search with the flat being fixed. Ken said that because of YouTube limits, he had to edit the video and that the mechanic had spent about five minutes examining the old tube / tire.
I actually position the label opposite the valve. Presumably you can position the label anywhere as long as it is consistent so that you can use the label and valve to locate where the cause of the flat came through the tire.
Another member of the list noted that if the offending bit of metal or glass or whatever is not lodged in the tire but is loose inside, it will continually roll to the bottom as you examine the tire so you ought pay particular attention to that. I've added that to my procedure.
I pump up the tire maybe a 1/3 to 1/2 way and examine the bead seating as in the video. I also knead the tire as you can see. I also might bounce the tire on the ground in a couple places. After that, I deflate the tire again in order to relax the inner tube. My theory is that if there were kinks or creases, the now relaxed inner tube allows them to straighten out.
1 When the next flat occurs, you pull off the tire and find the flat in the inner tube. Once you find the puncture, you know to look at the tire the same number of degrees away from the label as the puncture was from the valve.
2010-02-10
Guns for Lead Based Toys
"China's military stepped up pressure on the United States on Monday by calling for a government sell-off of U.S. debt securities in retaliation for recent arms sales to Taiwan."
- Washington Times 2010-02-10
When will we wise up? Will it take a real economic strike by China crippling our economy before we tighten our belts and stop the insane spending. Federal, state, and our own consumer addictive self destructive behavior has to stop.
- Washington Times 2010-02-10
When will we wise up? Will it take a real economic strike by China crippling our economy before we tighten our belts and stop the insane spending. Federal, state, and our own consumer addictive self destructive behavior has to stop.
2010-02-01
Sanctions
The news today reported that China is threatening sanctions against the US because of arms sales to Taiwan.
How could they?
As many have been predicting for some years now, our debt will come back to bite us in the butt. China has been buying up our debt for years now. And now like the poor broke neighborhood gambler up to his eyeballs in debt to the loan sharks, we could be truly screwed.
If we are to prevent our proverbial legs from being broken, we need to STOP THE SPENDING. I never thought this was going to work. But the feds took a shot. It ain't working. The projection is now that every penny of personal income tax will be needed to cover the interest on the debt.
What's next?
Default?
Hyperinflation? That worked out well in Germany now didn't it.
STOP THE INSANITY!
How could they?
As many have been predicting for some years now, our debt will come back to bite us in the butt. China has been buying up our debt for years now. And now like the poor broke neighborhood gambler up to his eyeballs in debt to the loan sharks, we could be truly screwed.
If we are to prevent our proverbial legs from being broken, we need to STOP THE SPENDING. I never thought this was going to work. But the feds took a shot. It ain't working. The projection is now that every penny of personal income tax will be needed to cover the interest on the debt.
What's next?
Default?
Hyperinflation? That worked out well in Germany now didn't it.
STOP THE INSANITY!