Apropos of Nothing

But possibly related to my impending geezerhood, I went out today for a medium length bike ride. 25-30 miles. There is a spot where University Blvd passes under I-25 where the sidewalk consists of a narrow strip of concrete with 6 inch curbs on either side of it, and includes a 90 degree turn at every spot where it proposes to cross a street. The streets it crosses are the on and off ramps to/from the freeway and the short bit (4x4 square) has the sharp turn to access it. On the other side, this is repeated, in one spot with a 120 degree right turn to be started before tour bike has completely cleared the off ramp. Off the concrete is a dropoff into the weeds which will require you to pick up your bike and place it back on the pavement.

I suppose I will recover from the scuffed knee eventually.

I have done rides like this 2 or 3 times this year already and had no real problems from them but today my knees are taking the rest of me to the Hague to be charged with crimes against humanity

The Return Of Spring

It got all the way up to 70 degrees today, so I celebrated by riding a 28 mile loop on the local trails. The hobo jungle between Hampton and Dartmouth is still there. Some of the encampments are expanding into split-level dwellings with tasteful driftwood siding to set off the blue plastic tarps. Some of these folks are obviously unemployed architects.

The confluence of Sanderson Gulch and the Platte river is being upgraded to a flagstone lined mountain stream motif to about a block back from the river. If anyone ever visited there, they would certainly be impressed.

The rest of the gulch up to Heart Failure Hill is as usual.

Heart failure Hill is reached by going West on Jewell to Kipling which isn't a bad ride. Alternatively you can go North on the Kipling trail to Jewell, which will make the name seem quite apt. Note that going South on that stretch of Kipling Trail is quite exciting in that it's easy to reach 30 mph going down, narrow trail, limited visibility, and as you go under the tunnel, there's a narrow 90 degree right hander with a decrepit chain link fence on the outside to help break your plunge into a small creek about halfway down so the heart failure is possible both ways although accompanied by abrasions and contusions on the downhill side.

Civic improvements to the Bear Creek trail at Wadsworth include two telephone poles with perches on top big enough to sit 2 golden eagles in the prairie dog town there. Should be some great bird watching opportunities here this year.

Springtime In The Rockies - Fine Scottish Morning

The Pedals and Pints group* has scheduled a bike ride in my neighborhood, coinciding with the arrival of the latest cold front that has dropped feet of snow on the Sierras. At start time it's to be 52 deg and overcast while we have out warm-up beer at Blind Faith Brewery. We then take off riding the uphill part South along the Platte river to Living The Dream overlooking the Platte Valley. By 3 PM we have only a 15% chance of rain for the return trip which might end at Locavore or might end at Jackass Hill Brewery which at least is on my way home.

If I get home soaking wet and freezing and thus die of pneumonia, I'll post about it.

*Happily combining the pub crawl with the urban bicycle tour. A fun group.

Health Issues - 2c

Cuban sandwiches and beer are back on the menu, and I did 25 miles on the bike today. Slower than usual, and my legs were telling me that I'd been off the bike too long, but not a bad start. My guts are still not working normally, but by now they work well enough.

That club match I talked about in the previous update went reasonably smoothly, I finished 5 of 8 which was lower than I usually do, but better than I expected. Part of that also is attributable to my lack of a decent light for the low light stage that seems to almost always get tossed in. I may have that fixed. 588 lumens makes things mighty bright.

Pedals and Pints is a social group in the Meetup list that sets up bike rides from brew pub to brew pub. Most of the attendees are 30 somethings and most of them can ride much faster than me. It's still fun, and for me a 4 oz beer is plenty with 3 or 4 of them on a ride. There's a ride coming up on the 15th. 4 pubs, and only 5 total miles of riding. At this rate I could probably keep up walking.

Conestoga Project 5.0 - Final?

One can hope. My customer tried the bike and trailer out and pronounced it to be about 98% done. Seems the offset pedal cranks don't quite get her legs far enough off the motor. We found some extensions for the pedals at the local bike shop that moved them about 3/4" (20mm) further out but after trying them out we decided to get some just a bit over an inch (27mm) long.

One advantage to the extensions is that a 50mm extension on the right hand side would allow the use of the stock pedal crank and chain ring set which would be MUCH easier than trying to adapt something to the crank that came supplied with the kit.

Don't know where those sizes came from, but that's the sizes they come in. Of note is that the longer ones were out of stock while the short ones were available. This should be a clue as to which ones actually work.

Here's the assembled combo:

Cruizin' along. We're thinking that it might be easiest to simply throw a pup tent over the trailer when it's parked than to add the structure to support a fixed cover.

Test snooze. GSXR the dog is checking to see if there's room for her as well.

Conestoga Project 2

While the motor kit did not come with any installation instructions, It seems there are a bunch of videos on line that explain the process fairly well. I don't think that all the 50cc motor kits are made by the same company, but I would venture to guess that there's a lot of over-the-shoulder-looking going on in China.

When they can't spy on us and steal our technology, they spy on each other, hence these kits look a awful lot alike. What they don't mention in their ads is that the kits seem to be oriented towards mounting on a one-speed heavy duty bike. What we used to call a paper boy bike. Assembling one to a mountain bike could present some new challenges, but at this point it looks like the big items are accounted for.

Going over the assembly videos, I've accounted for about half the fasteners that came in the plastic bag. The rest must be spares to be used when the first set vibrates loose and falls off. Note in the picture 2 posts down that there are 2 large sprockets, one plain and one with a pedal crank attached. I think the pedal crank with sprocket is intended to go on the right side of a one-speed bike to deliver a lower starting ratio to compensate for the extra weight. The larger one gets attached to the rear hub on the left and is driven by the motor. The hole is sized to fit a coaster brake hub. I'm guessing I'll have to make an adapter to go between the derailleur hub on the mountain bike and the drive sprocket to get it to center up.

The pedal crank with the sprocket goes on the right and has 5 holes in it that don't quite match a derailleur set of chain rings. Some modification may be in order here.

Projects - Keeping Busy

My oldest daughter, by some other parents, has decided she likes camping, and would like to do this from her bicycle. Fine, there are several hundred like-minded souls wandering around the Denver area on bicycles, camping wherever they find themselves when the sun goes down, but let's take it a bit further. She found some pictures of camping trailers moved by pedal power on the net, and wants to go that way.

OK then how about a trailer about 6 feet long to tow behind a bicycle with a waterproof "lid" of some sort.

 Here's a basic frame in need of some sort of flooring and a top. Maybe just ribs and a tarp like a Conestoga wagon. Or maybe something more artsy like a Corrugated plastic set of walls more like a little Airstream. The frame is 1x1x1/8 aluminum tube, bolted together, with wheels and hitch hardware from a Schwinn kiddie carrier trailer. We are trying to source some 10mm Coroplast to use for flooring but so far this is proving elusive. And expensive.

Here we are carrying my regular bike. It pulls easily so far although with flooring, covering, and a set of camping gear it might not be so easy. Never fear, there's a solution:

This rig goes for as little as $168. I saw one on the road the other day and I have to admit I was impressed. The old boy riding it got across 6 lanes and up to around 20mph in short enough order and with so little noise I could barely hear the motor running. Sharp looking rig too.

At the rate I'm going, I should have some finish pics ready to go by around the end of this month. Don't hold me to that.

Spring!

Spring having put in a one day appearance today, I took the bicycle out for a ride. 28 miles later I can report that the strength training I've done over the winter is paying off as I didn't get winded on the uphills and managed to keep a decent pace for the entire trip.

A bicycle group I sometimes frequent, Pedals and Pints, is having a Cinco de Mayo ride this weekend. Looks to be ridiculously easy at this point although the addition of a couple of beers along the way will slow the ride down a bit. Some of my less athletically inclined friends hear that they will be expected to actually pedal some 12 miles and immediately wimp out. Their loss. Pedals and Pints is a very sociable group.

A typical ride with P&P runs 10-20 miles, starts at a brew pub and visits 2 others on a round trip. My idea of a nice ride is 30 miles and using that as a round trip, there are over 60 brew pubs within that range of my house.

The only way to go.

Exercise

That which doesn't kill me... yeah, yeah. The approach matters. Last weekend was supposed to be 2 bike rides, one of 22 miles and one of 7 which all together would visit 4 craft breweries. This is like finding those health boost boxes in a Doom game. 29 total miles, 4 beers and half an hour rest at each stop.

Didn't happen. Instead we got 8 inches of snow which makes for dicey bicycling, even with snow tires.

This weekend I tried a makeup ride. By way of prep I had Mexican breakfast of 2 eggs, Chorizo, potatoes, and green chili topping. Your heart starts slowing down just reading the menu at El Tejado. 5 cups of coffee counteracts this. Leaving my house, 16 miles up to Great Divide Barrel Bar, 2 beers, and back. Worked out pretty good. I only needed 45 minutes of unconsciousness when I got home to resume normal functions.

Great Divide had only just opened when I got there so no crowds. The Roadie Grapefruit Radler really hit the spot, thirst quenching, refreshing, vitamin C and 4% ABV which is about all I want. The Velvet Yeti Nitro Stout is a nice main course as well at 6% ABV and very smooth.

Another Fine Project

Bites the dust.

Quite some time back D'wife bought a treadmill. Rather nice one too, 1.25 HP and speed up to 8 mph. Bottom line, it hardly ever got used so I gave it to her sister with the suggestion that it be used for walking her rambunctious Boxers.

I put it on her back porch pending a space being made available indoors but 10 years later it was still on the back porch.

Meantime a friend is looking to get into the electric bicycle biz and I got thinking maybe we could use the motor from the treadmill in a prototype so I dragged the treadmill over to John's shop where I could have a look at the innards.

The innards looked about like you would expect with 10 years accumulation of dirt and leaves but the thing almost ran when I plugged it in. Fixed 3 broken wires and cleaned out a pound or so of dirt and voila! working treadmill.

Checked the label on the motor: 1.25 HP, 90VDC! That voltage is a bit high for something expected to run on batteries and although not impossible, it looks like the treadmill will remain a treadmill for a while longer.

Going up to Boulder tomorrow to discuss the finer points of Design For Production as they relate to electric recumbents so maybe there is a project to get me through the winter..

Bike To Work

Having the day off I decided to try the route. With the ride to work having the big uphill pull it took 1-1/2 hours. Turning around and coming back took 2 hours although in all fairness if this were a bike to work day, I'd have 9 hours of desk rest in between the trips.

So I can do it, and faster than the RTD says the light rail can (1 hr, 40 min) although by now I'm pretty sure RTD's number is wrong. Whatever. I'll stick with the motorcycle in the summer and the car when I have to in the winter (30 minutes each way).

FWIW the trip involves dropping down to the river, then climbing up the other side. Home to work, that's 239 ft down followed by 597 ft up with each leg being about 9 miles long. Or as Jeff the Cyclist says, such a trifling ride as not to be worth putting on the spandex for.

Relaxing Bike Ride

Cruise up the Platte River Trail and notice that the river has fallen several feet revealing no less that 4 vehicles parked near mid-stream. A Jeep, a Celica, a pickup, and a Chrysler mini-van in the space of no more than a mile or so.

Been an interesting year this year.

Bike Rides

I like bike rides, I get to see more scenery than walking. Today I saw someone's car mostly submerged in the Platte River. This is unusual as normally you could probably drive a Camry across that river without getting the carpet wet.

A bit further up I found a large chunk of the Sanderson Gulch trail pretty much missing. Must have been entertaining to watch from a safe distance.

I'm now over 200 miles for the summer.

Bicycling

Went out yesterday for a bike ride along the myriad waterways only to discover that part of the Dry Creek trail was blocked off by the Englewood police who were investigating a dead body. No real info yet and aside from the decedent, probably none to come either. The death is described as "suspicious" which would be appropriate for anyone who drowned in Dry Creek.

The location was about 1/2 mile downstream from where I had my own near death experience a few years ago.

The Future Of Transportation - Bicycles

Coming up next month is the nth annual Front Range Bike Week including Bike To Work day. This year it's June 27th.

The last time I was able to bicycle to work, the fun ended when some squirrel on a mountain bike t-boned me at a blind corner on the trail. Since then I have never been employed near enough to home that a bicycle seemed like a viable form of transport.

Sometime back in the early 90's though when the idea was first floated, I was working in a building at the top of a 12% grade about a mile long. The flyer that appeared in the company info kiosk showed a yuppie-like fellow with his briefcase bungeed on the back of his 10-speed, pedaling his little heart out presumably delivering the PJ-4 forms to the 8AM meeting. What was noticeable was that nowhere on the flyer did the word "bicycle" appear, just the graphic.

Being unable to resist the temptation, I upgraded the flyer, and replaced some of the ones in the kiosk:

A big improvement. You accomplish everything advertised, and you don't die of a heart attack on the way in. I'm working on getting our H.R. department to recognize my 1100cc Honda Sabre as a "bike" for purposes of brownie points with the health care provider.

Of course if the ride was downhill both ways, I might be more easily convinced to use the peddler. Click the link. It's quite a ride.

Bike Ride

The pedaled type this time, which I do thinking the exercise is good for me. I took my mountain bike out yesterday and was reminded why I don't really like to ride it, and how long it's been since any grease has been applied to the bearings. Got back beat up and sore.

Took the recumbent out today, discovered a new trail loop, and reminded myself how much the mountain bike had beaten me up the day before. The new trail had a spot undergoing construction. You can't see the construction from the first barricade, or even the second, and this sort of thing has led the group I used to ride with to go around the barricades to see if the "Trail Closed" warning is for real or just because the city requires it. Hence our motto: It's not just a ride, it's an adventure!

After carrying the bike over 3 barricades, down into the creek bed where there was a narrow path on the boulders being installed, carrying up the side of the dug out embankment, and over 3 more barricades, I'd have to advise anyone riding the Willow Creek trail to take the detour. Great scenery, though.

Exercise

It's a whole lot more fun if you don't need it.

The Future of Transportation

This is perhaps less likely to be seen anytime soon as it is an exercise in modern chic done by students at an industrial stylists school in Austria:
At the site you'll also see how well this desin will fit in to the relatively uncrowded streets of Calcutta, where it easily shares the road with an elephant. In Austria, presumably, doors would be added for winter use, although I'm not sure how much I want to ride across Vienna in the winter time, even with some studly fellow in lederhosen pumping away in the back seat.

If you want to know where this came from, here's a picture I took in Viet-Nam:
Not as stylish as the carbon-fiber wonder from Austria, but what it lacks in looks, it more than makes up for in excitement. Note the brass foot rail, which doubles as the front bumper. Note the passenger, who doubles as the airbag in an accident. Better yet, ignore all that and take a ride. In the Saigon traffic, where Newtonian Law (My vehicle has more mass than your vehicle, therefore I have the right of way) is supreme, this thing was better than any e-ticket ride Disney has to offer.

I would love to lay my hands on one of these.

The Future of Transportation

In this iteration, someone, presumably from France, has figured out how to get a (mostly) enclosed motor scooter to run on railroad tracks. From Moonbattery:

Generally there is a 5 miles free space between two trains on a regular railway track. This free space and time can be utilized by these commuter cars to get people going on to their destinations. Essentially just hop into Paracité and drive up to the station and skip the train and wait for your turn; use the tracks till your destination and then drive off in it for the remainder of the journey.

There is 5 miles between regular freight trains because that's about what they need to get stopped. If there were 15 of these things on the tracks between two coal trains, guess which one would run out of gas? Now imagine what one of those spiffy black and orange BNSF

locomotives would look like with 15 of these things on the leading edge like big fiberglass bugs on the cowcatcher.

In some parts of the country, some folks have modified bicycles to run on (hopefully) abandoned railroad tracks, which gives you a nice tour of scenic back country un-bothered by traffic, except at grade crossings. The bikes run on bare rims, and have a third outrigger wheel, similar to the gizmo shown above to keep them aligned on the tracks. The railroads may no longer use the tracks, but they take a very dim view of this usage.

Solution Finds Problem

It's nice to be able to talk about something besides the idiots in Washington for a change.

A friend of mine whom I hadn't seen in a while dropped by and told me that he has a job on the municipal limousine service known as Access-a-Ride. This involves picking up and dropping off people confined to wheelchairs and walkers.

It appears that some of the well-retired folks who have limited mobility have discovered that if you can walk a little, a Segway is an improvement over a powered chair for getting around. The problem this creates is that the mini-buses the city uses for the handicapped are not equipped to tie down a Segway on board, as they can with a wheelchair.

A study has been done, and guidelines are about to be issued on how to do this. Myself, I favor a minimalist approach: Simply add a belt or two to a vertical post, have the Segway riders back up to the post, and fasten the belt around both the rider and the machine, much in the manner of preparing a heritic for burning at the stake. Saves adding a seat, and takes up less space. Voila, problem solved.