Archive for the ‘bike’ Category

Go buy a brick

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

I thought the bike park was just somebody’s fantasy, unlikely to ever be built because the city would have no money to spare. Well, maybe it’ll happen after all. Looks like BMA is stepping up to organize planning and more importantly, fundraising.

So surf on over to http://bma-mtb.org/valmontbikepark/index.php and buy a brick.

Le Tour most resembles…

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

… pro wrestling.

It’s all fake, but I still can’t help watching. (I have SuperDave to thank for that observation.)

Mostly, I just wanted the opportunity to embed this video. Get out your French phrasebook!

Hall Ranch blowout

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

The bead came off the rim, the tube swelled out the side and wrapped around the axle, but I didn’t get the cameraphone out before it exploded…

1st trip back (not so baby steps)

Monday, April 28th, 2008

Way back when; seems like the dawn of time now; I was told by a famous and skilled surgeon that it would be 6 months after the surgery before I could start to work on getting back to my previous fitness level. He was about right. 6 months, and my first bike trip out to Moab with the team. I took my place at the back of the peloton.

A couple bad crashes, and cleaned a couple things I’ve never managed before. I’ve had better trips, but I’ve also had worse. My knee held up pretty well; I joined the body armor crew, though just knee pads. I was mighty grateful at least once.

We checked out the shiny new Free Lunch trail in GJ on the way out. I didn’t hit the big stuff, but had a little fun anyway:
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Presta inflator on the cheap

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

One of the best things I got from my brother when he moved out of his huge house into a small apartment was his compressor. It’s amazing how useful air is.

So most bike tires these days have presta valves, which are not nearly so easy to deal with as schraeder valves like those on cars. There are adapters that sort of convert presta to schraeder, but they’re kind of a cumbersome, and I wanted something more convenient. Surfing around, I found a tool that does it commercially available for $50.

But since I already have a blower tool, and I’m terminally cheap, I decided to try build one for less.

Voila:
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And just screwing around a little, I turned it into an Instructable.

Baby steps

Monday, February 11th, 2008

My knee has been feeling pretty good in the last week, aligning this weekend with warm temps and very little wind, so I put flats on it and took the hardtail out for a spin. I gotta say that after years with clipless, the flats just killed me. Or maybe that was the surgery.

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Eventually I got to a section of trail still in meltdown; PPDM (postponed due to mud).

29ers are passé

Friday, November 30th, 2007