Sunday, September 30, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
This Week Is Last Week's Next Week
The shop is open this week in the afternoons, usually 1-5. Come buy and see me. I'll be putting the double-decker bike rack back up in the front of the store, the same rack that was there two years ago. It's been at a shop down in SLC. I'm glad to have it back. I'm still trying to get ready for cyclocross season: removing old tubular glue, applying fresh glue and tubbies, and building a tubeless wheelset. The first race is Saturday. The shop will be open on Saturday just as soon as I get back from the race, probably around 2.
Speaking of building wheels, here is my post from March 23, 2007 with baiku included:
Building a bicycle wheel is truly therapeutic. It starts with only a hub, a rim, and a big handful of spokes and nipples. The finished product is a work of art. It's also a form of healing, wholeness, strength, and fullness. Round, symmetrical, and rhythmic, it comes full circle. Right two and in, right two and in, left five, over under and in, left five, over under and in. Groups of 4, repeat the pattern, eight more groups of four to go, three-cross, 36 hole, and your done. The circle is complete. Strength in numbers. A hoop under tension.
Weaving spokes, hub, rim
Symmetry, form, and function
An endless circle
Speaking of building wheels, here is my post from March 23, 2007 with baiku included:
Building a bicycle wheel is truly therapeutic. It starts with only a hub, a rim, and a big handful of spokes and nipples. The finished product is a work of art. It's also a form of healing, wholeness, strength, and fullness. Round, symmetrical, and rhythmic, it comes full circle. Right two and in, right two and in, left five, over under and in, left five, over under and in. Groups of 4, repeat the pattern, eight more groups of four to go, three-cross, 36 hole, and your done. The circle is complete. Strength in numbers. A hoop under tension.
Weaving spokes, hub, rim
Symmetry, form, and function
An endless circle
Friday, September 21, 2012
I am back in Utah, back into the swing of things. The shop is open in the afternoons this week.
I'm trying to get ready for cyclocross season but there have been a few hurdles. It was too smoky to train much up in Montana, and now I've picked up a sinus infection. I went to the fairgrounds yesterday to do some race-pace laps and my handlebar broke. Five years of heavy use will do that to aluminum. Like I've always said, steel is usually a better choice than aluminum for bicycle frames and parts when it come to fatigue strength. Aluminum will always fail. Here is the Wikipedia explanation:
Ferrous alloys and titanium alloys[2] have a distinct limit, an amplitude below which there appears to be no number of cycles that will cause failure. Other structural metals such as aluminium and copper, do not have a distinct limit and will eventually fail even from small stress amplitudes.
I'm trying to get ready for cyclocross season but there have been a few hurdles. It was too smoky to train much up in Montana, and now I've picked up a sinus infection. I went to the fairgrounds yesterday to do some race-pace laps and my handlebar broke. Five years of heavy use will do that to aluminum. Like I've always said, steel is usually a better choice than aluminum for bicycle frames and parts when it come to fatigue strength. Aluminum will always fail. Here is the Wikipedia explanation:
Ferrous alloys and titanium alloys[2] have a distinct limit, an amplitude below which there appears to be no number of cycles that will cause failure. Other structural metals such as aluminium and copper, do not have a distinct limit and will eventually fail even from small stress amplitudes.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Still In Montana
I will be here for two more days, hanging out with lions and bears. A bear, blind in one eye, can still find the apples. I know for sure this bear was eating apples, because I stepped in it. I think it is eating plenty of other things too, fat and happy, getting ready for a good long nap. It is definitely not getting ready for cyclocross season, trying to loose weight. Yes, it is cold up here; there was frost on the ground yesterday.
The air up here is bad. There is a big fire on the mountain just outside of Hamilton. Here is an air quality graph, because I'm a scientist. I love graphs.
The air up here is bad. There is a big fire on the mountain just outside of Hamilton. Here is an air quality graph, because I'm a scientist. I love graphs.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Dry Lab
I am back up in the Bitterroot Valley for at least a week. Robert Hamlin Bicycles will be closed until Friday, or, perhaps Saturday. I have quite a bit of field-work to do: vegetation plots at all of the wildlife crossing structures, changing batteries, and copying pictures. Each structure gets 60 plots, all on a 25 meter grid. You have to get to each plot, even if there is a sheer slope, black bear, jungle, or billabong in the way. Today it was a billabong, a deep-dark-slimy-beaver-infested-gooey side channel of the Bitterroot River. I knew it was deep so I took off my shirt and left it on the bank with my phone, keys, hat, wallet, and glasses. I had to swim sidestroke with one hand holding my field notebook and pen in the air to keep them dry. I put in the remaining 15 plots on a cottonwood island, and then swam back across. You can't dry lab the data if you are cold and wet. No, I never saw the bear, but he was there about 9 hours before I was.
The dry and brave biologist goes to get the data.
The dry and brave biologist goes to get the data.
Soggy bottom boy.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Saturday, September 1, 2012
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