Blaise's Penny-farthing

Showed this to some friends after dinner and one said, "what is this called?" and I had to answer, "huh?" He clarified, "how do I find this online?" and I had to answer, "Oh, it's not. This is just on my computer."

So I posted it. And this one, too.

Sam's first tour

Documented my sweetheart's first experience traveling by bicycle on film.

Big Wheel (re)Build

New spokes for Blaise's 48-inch Kennedy wheel came in last Monday. Here's a little time-lapse from the iMac at the shop in the OP Barn. We relaced all the trailing spokes so there was actually a cross in the pattern, put spoke prep in every nipple, and trued and tensioned it up as best as we could. There was still a pretty bad hop in it because the spokes were made out of questionable steel and kept breaking at the threads at tension.

Rock & Roll

Spent the weekend tying things up and then tearing them apart with the Rock The Bike crew for the Willamette Valley Music fest. I'm trying to catch up on school now, so I'll refer y'all to coverage from We Bike Eugene and Rock The Bike. Also check out their respective flickr streams.

People powering bikes powering music powering people

metamorphotosis

Finished my first photo project for the term last week. There's bikes and stuff in it.

hell hath frozen over

Saw this on UV today:


I had always wondered what would happen if Wally World used their epic subsidization resources to make a somewhat practical commuter bike. From the picture, it appears to have a three-piece bottom bracket, track ends, and metal pedals. So what if it’s made in a sweatshop with cheap aluminum; at least it’s displacing the typical “QUADRUPLE SUSPENSION BAJILLION SPEED” dumpster-fillers.

I can’t wait to see one of the can-collectors that frequent my alley rolling on one of these so I can check it out. Heck, I might even venture into a big blue box and ask to try one there.

beedub

I finally developed and scanned the only roll of film I shot on the NY-LA ride. With a really fun piece on Eugene polo still on the back-burner, I figured I ought to post SOMETHING for the month of March. So:

Red, meat.

Diner in Georgia.

Roy leads the pack through town.

Tyler gets excited about camping.

Socks.

polo-rama

Pretty sloppy little HDR pano of the court last Friday. See it as a QTVR here.

B.A.D. is good!

2010 Eugene Bike/Pedestrian Summit

Visited a sort of "town hall meeting" for active transport advocacy in Eugene this weekend. A host of familiar local and non-local businesses and groups were present as well as some newer ones. There were also several large maps of the city posted up for community members to point out portions of the city which could be improved for bikers and walkers with better infrastructure.


(See this one big and read people's comments)
The most entertaining part of the event for me actually took place afterwards, when I had the opportunity to ride some of the unusual bikes built by the students of the alternative high school and apprenticeship programs at the Center for Appropriate Transport.


The apprenticeship program's chaise-lounge cargo bike. I can't decide whether it was more fun to ride or drive this one. I spent the better part of an hour doing both.


The alternative school's sidecar-equipped-BMX, which they called the "sidehack." The youngsters were really good at throwing it into epic powerslides.


By the way, I had a lot of fun at last Wednesday's Bike Appreciation Day, which I think really helped to promote awareness of the UO Bike Program's DIY shop and maintenance classes. Here, comrade and co-worker Jeff re-cables his brake during a lull in campus traffic. The next one's on Wednesday, Feb. 11, and we hope to have some shiny goodies to hand out.

Finally, I would like to ask you all to remember the importance of dressing up as a robot:
Because, sometimes, you just have to look silly, dammit.

2010 Tweed

Weather looks good, but I can't go. Previous ride reports here and photos here.

Spoker

A certain Schwinn equipped with a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed came in for repair one time too many this week. The hub was overdue for an overhaul, which I'd never done on an internally geared hub before, so I oped to lace up a simple coaster hub.



Lacing the wheel was easy. Measuring the no-name hub and rim took a bit of time. Cutting the spokes to length, filing them, and turning threads onto their heads took awhile. Discovering I'd measured the rim incorrectly and compensating by putting a twist in each pair of spokes took just a bit more time than I'd care to admit.

But now it's done, it's out there in the world, and I've learned to measure in at least three places to determine Effective Rim Diameter.