off facebook

 I'm done with Facebook. See this post.

I can't justify using the platform, just for the sake of the internet traffic. More info at the post.

mostly harmless road ride

Tom H invited a few of his Insane Bike Posse out for  road ride for today. In that there were no closed roads, and we avoided the one bridge that was out along the planned route, it was uneventful (except in that there were no closed roads, and we avoided the one bridge that was out along the planned route).

 

 The sole event for me was that, as I was packing up the bike and paraphernalia to drive to the route. I noticed that a bubble had developed in a weak spot on the sidewall of the front tire of the Yellow Maserati, my titanium bike. I had a replacement tire, but I keep it in the cold garage... so I hustled to get it changed so I could get to the start in time.

The sipes on the tire are directional, so there is a direction that the tire is supposed to be mounted, and I got it backward in my haste. I noticed as I was putting the bike in the car, and didn't have time to change it again before I had to leave for the ride start. Now, almost nobody except a serious road biker would know what I was talking about, and almost none of even that small subset of humanity would bother looking at my tire to notice... but it irked me at various times throughout the entire ride.

When I got back, before I even went in the house, I remounted the tire in the correct orientation.

---

At the start at Mercer East:

Tom's route was mostly one he'd done a year or so ago, down through Allentown and Polhemustown, then up to Roy's for a stop.

Roy's is open, but the toilets are not. Below, ruminating on the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Tom led us on a side trip to the Assunpink lake.

 

And from there we had an uneventful trip back to Mercer East. Ride page includes a few extra miles I did.

different bike jersey pattern

 Yeah, that's that cheap knit I got for mockups. If I ever do you a garment with a print on it, make sure I get the print right-side-up.

This is a different pattern with raglan sleeves. It sews up easier than the other pattern; I made this, from tracing the pattern, to cutting the cloth, to sewing up the mockup, in a few hours this morning, with time out for laundry and stupid mistakes.

You'd like this one better than the other; it's got a bit of extra room at the chest and a lot of extra room around the waist. I'll alter the pattern for myself to get rid of most of that. 

There's an option for a back pocket; the back piece is wide enough to split the pocket in three. (The pocket piece that comes with the pattern is extra-loose. The designer made this as an all-around athletic top, with adjustments to make a bike jersey; some of 'em work, and some of 'em don't. I'll make my own pocket piece pattern, when it comes to that.)

There's an option for a zipper, of course, which I'm going to leave out, of course. The designer suggested putting in an angled zipper along one of the front sleeve seams, and I may do that, someday, just because I've never seen it done.

The collar just doesn't work. There's a piece that's supposed to tuck inside and stay in place just from being tacked down at four points. It rolled up on me; I'll plan to use a narrow t-shirt collar instead. And it wants to be a bit longer; I've added an inch at the bottom for the next one.

I've got enough of that green and white from the last jersey to make one of these, so that will be next.

bike jersey, second attempt

 It's got about three hundred flaws. Others will be able to find maybe a dozen.

The fit is great, and this fabric is good; not too heavy, lots of stretch in every direction.

It's about 2" too long, which I can fix the next time I have the sewing machine together. 

Next one will be a different pattern I recently found. That one is a many-uses-athletic-top that can be made into a jersey; I'll have to adjust the pattern (like, the back pocket is WAY baggy; no, thank you). 

This one, though, is good enough to use.

(It was supposed to be IVORY instead of that blinding snow white, but I think they shipped what they had...)

pent-up demand & dfl

 My description for this ride included the following:

36-ish miles at a C+ pace, because I haven't been riding in this cold (and I took the bike out for a couple of short rides, and boy HOWDY, am I outta shape). Nobody dropped (especially me).

 I posted it on the Tuesday, and by Thursday afternoon it was full, with two waiting (one of whom was Laura OLPH, who decided to list her own ride). For every cancellation, there was another registrant.

At the ride start, I looked around...

...and realized everybody who had showed up for this ride was in better shape than I was. Evidently, there were a lot of faster riders who were coming out, because after our cold, snowy February, they were ready to ride, and would take whatever was offered.

I decided to let the fast folks sprint off the front right away, hoping they'd tire and we'd end up with some semblance of a group ride. I needn't have worried; they did have a group ride... but the few of us at the back weren't really part of it; we had, in essence, two rides: Dave H, Amol, and me at a C+ pace, and everybody else waiting for us at the turns.

Everything's still closed, so we stopped at the Montgomery Arboretum for a potty break.

(Above: Do you think you're tough? Amol is wearing shorts and one layer on top, on a day that didn't get above 40F,)

From there, we went up to Town Line and across the Blackwells Mills causeway. On Canal Road, I discovered I had a brake bind, but opening the brake offered only a little relief from my tiredness.

For the rest of the ride, I fell to the back; Dave H and Amol cajoled me along. I had to take a break about two miles from the end. After that, I death-marched back to the parking lot, in time to offer thanks to the participants, and then limped home.

Ride page.

trail ride, road ride

 After umpteen posts about sewing, politics, getting the vaccine, and who knows what all, I think it's about time I did a ride report again.

Of course, with the snowy/icy/gelid February we've just survived, it's not like I had any rides to post about. I have a four-mile loop in the neighborhood I can just about finish before the frostbite sets in some days... but you don't give a hang about those, do you?

I posted a listing for Sunday March 7, and it was full before most of The Usual Suspects even saw it. So Laura OLPH did me one better: she listed a trail ride for March 6, AND a road ride for March 7. I was the last to register for her trail ride.

Well, it was supposed to be a trail ride. We decided it might be too muddy in places to stick to the planned route on the Lawrence-Hopewell trail, and decided to stick to the road when we suspected the mud might be bad.

We hadn't counted on the fact that all the show and ice might not be gone.

After I took that picture, I tried to ride across that section, and almost went over. 

It got worse. I walked along that part, and several of us walked along this part:

After that, we stuck to the road. Some of us were on mountain bikes, and some on gravel bikes. We got split up, and got back to the start at the Brearly House by different routes.

Even with all that, though, it was great to get out on the bike again, and to see these folks face-to-face (I'd seen some through the computer, but your pixelated face is different from seeing you in the flesh). I'm pleasantly tired, and the bike stuff is in the laundry... 

...and I'm leading a ride tomorrow with a few of my Sunday regulars, and some I barely know. I'm looking forward to it.

Ride page.

finished apron

 Remember that apron I liked?

I got some brick-colored cotton duck (heavy tent fabric) and finished one.

Back (taking pictures of the back is a feat; I use a hand mirror to see the image on the camera screen):

I like it. I might do another one. (You can't see the pockets in these low-quality pics, but I did hand pockets again, instead of the one chest pocket the pattern calls for. Someday, I'm going to go back to sewing a pattern just as drafted... but not yet.)

Sewing that duck is like working sheet metal. I got another piece to make shop aprons for myself and my brother-in-law, and after pre-washing and drying it, I can't iron it enough to get it flat and smooth. So these aprons are going to have a bit of texture.

Such are the vagaries of art.

starting the vest

 My phone falls out of the pockets of most of my shorts.

This is irritating. 

One of the times the phone fell, the volume button assembly fell out, rendering it unusable. While there are other ways to adjust the volume, on this phone, the volume button is necessary to take a screenshot. I had to replace the phone.

This gets expensive.

I have a vest that has a pocket that will hold the phone, but the vest is wool. 

That gets hot (see the note on shorts in the first sentence, and use your imagination).

One of the coolest fabrics, reputedly, is linen. Summer suits have been made from linen for decades, maybe centuries.

So I've got this idea of making a linen vest for myself, with a pocket to hold the phone.

I looked online for vest patterns, but most of them are either for fleece vests (with too much coverage) or for vests as part of a suit, and I didn't want the pants and jacket patterns (and I didn't like the styles, anyway). What I wanted was a version of the wool vest I have, but in linen.

I did some learning about how to make a pattern from existing clothing, and drew one up. Part of a first draft:

I made up a draft from that pattern in muslin (maybe the cheapest cotton fabric, and so commonly used for this kind of test garment that the test garments themselves are called "muslins"). It didn't close across the stomach, but I used the muslin to practice the pocket insert:

After adjusting the pattern, I made another muslin to test; the one fits:

Below, the pattern pieces:

At top are the front lining pieces: one in the outer fabric, and one in the fabric that the back will be made from (common in men's vests; I'll use light cotton on the back). At bottom left, the back piece (half; it's cut on a fold and unfolds to be the full piece); at right, the front (cut two opposites).

More developments as they arise.

apron adjustment

The pattern looks like this:

... and it looks like a nifty design with those swoopy curves in the back. But instead of that single rectangular pocket in the middle don't you think hand pockets would be better?

I did. and it turned out that the scrap from those swoopy underarm cuts made some decent pocket shapes. They'll want to be patch pockets instead of inset, "bag-type" pockets, and you can't put too much in 'em because it will affect the drape, but let's give it a try.

I made up a muslin, this time out of real muslin, which is lightweight and cheap, and I used the rectangle pocket marking as a guide for the patch pockets. It looked more or less like this:

Detail of the pockets:

(The shape reminds me of headless chickens.)

This one isn't useful for anything; the muslin is too thin. But I'm going to look for chambray, if I can find a heavy enough weight, or cotton duck canvas, if I can find one light enough. (The original is in linen, which looks great, but do you want to care for it?) I'm planning to make it as a birthday present for my sister; she never looks at this blog, so it will be a surprise.

The linen, though, has given me an idea for an unlined, summer-weight vest. After all, a guy's gotta have a pocket to keep his phone in, right? And I've got a lightweight wool vest I can use as a model...