seven more deadly sins

I dispute the originator of the graphic. These don't replace the other ones, but as the others are damaging to the soul, these are damaging to the society, to people around us (yes, even the ones who look like us and think as we do).

My experience is that people tend to see these in the folks on the other side (whether politically, religiously, financially, whatever). Make sure that before you point out the speck in somebody else's eye that you haven't got a girder stuck in your own. (Somebody important once said something like that.)

Original from Oddman.

and the front wheel

After my previous post about my troubles on the rear wheel, you might think I would have given it a rest before attempting the front, but I leave that kind of thing to sensible people. Instead, having made as many mistakes on the rear as I did, I figured I had learned enough to make a ready attempt at the front wheel.

Apparently I had; this one went together in a little under two hours, and I was also attending to something else at the time. This time, I remembered to pay attention to the dish as well as the lateral and radial true (and the whole business was much easier, as the hub is symmetric, with the same sized spokes on both sides).

Friend Dave C took me to task for doing the harder one first, but it's my way to do so; I'd rather get the toughest job done soonest, and then I feel like I can coast. He also indicated he would be skeptical until he saw pictures. I didn't take pictures of the parts or the process... but here are the black Vuelta Corsa Super-Lites that are coming off:

Here's the Yellow Maserati, with the new back wheel. Note the shiny, silver-colored hub and rim, and the tried-and-true 32-spoke-3-cross pattern:

The new front wheel, with the daring-but-sound 28-spoke-2-cross lacing:

... and the wicked Pedro's spoke wrench, turned up so you can see the jagged edges that brought my poor hands to such grief. It can handle three sizes of nipple; the careful eye will note the different colors of nail polish with which I marked the three sides (you can see the green and red; there's also blue. Aren't I slick?*):

*Well, no, I'm not. If I were that slick, I would have used a spoke wrench that didn't hurt so much.

building the rear wheel

I've written a couple posts (see this one on the book, and this on the parts) about building wheels for my bike; I've had a hankering to do it, and finally felt I had the knowledge. The parts came, and I spent about seven hours over the past two days building the rear wheel. I figured that one would be harder, because the spokes on the two sides are different, and because in addition to getting the rim straight (laterally true) and the hub central in the rim (radially true), the "dish" has to be correct: the rear hub has gears on the right side, so the distance from the center of the wheel to the flange where the spokes go is shorter on that side than the other, and you've got to get the rim centered correctly.

Did you catch that offhand thing about seven hours? That's a long time, and it took me that long because, except for ordering the wrong parts, I made about every mistake imaginable:

• In the book I used, the Professional Guide to Wheelbuilding, author Roger Musson is adamant about oiling the spokes and the rim where the nipples will go to ensure that parts tighten correctly. I took his advice to a fault, and used far too much oil.
• He also makes quite a deal about not tightening nipples too much, too early. The first time I assembled the wheel (yes, first time; there was a second), I left the nipples too loose, and some fell off. The easy ones to recover fell to the garage floor, among the sawdust, wire ends, and other detritus that collects there because I don't clean the garage nearly often enough. Others fell into the rim, in the channel between where the nipples attach and where the tube is supported. Those are hard to locate, and harder to remove; the best way is to disassemble the wheel (oh, dear...)
• So after building up the wheel the second time, I made sure it was laterally and radially true, but I waited far too long to check the dish. It was WAY off, about 1cm too far to the left. This meant I had to try to fix the dish by tightening the spokes on the drive side, which are both shorter and less angled so there's less leverage than on the left...
• ... and in so doing, I COMPLETELY messed up the lateral and radial true. It took hours with the spoke wrench to get it back to lateral and radial true, and ALSO with correct dish.
• I used my Pedro's spoke wrench. I've used it frequently for truing my own wheels and at the Bike Exchange, but building from scratch is a different story. The back side, that actually turns the nipples, has edges that are not sharp enough to cut skin, but are painful under repeated pressure nonetheless. After hours with that wrench, I know every wrong way to hold it, and I can probably feel the individual threads in fine satin today, my hands are that raw.

When I get involved in a project, I can't let it go; I woke up at 2:30 this morning thinking about that wheel, and couldn't get back to sleep, so I went and finished it (I'm off for Election Day today, so there's a nap in my near future). The wheel is done (although I haven't mounted a cog on it or put it on a bike yet). I have the parts for the front as well; let's see if I can resist assembling that long enough for my had to heal first. At least I know a number of things NOT to do...

bike exchange ride

Today was the ride I agreed to lead for the New Brunswick Bike Exchange (link to original ride post & link to bike exchange moribund site, someday I hope we get the permissions back to update it). I decided to reprise me "Purple Cow" rides from the summer, but after some discussion, it became clear that some of the managers didn't want an all-road ride, so we split it: we started at Six Mile Run near the corner of Blackwells Mills and Canal Roads in Franklin, rode the towpath down to 518, then took the Rocky-Hill-Kingston Road the rest of the way to the Main St Cafe.

Mary Martha, one of the Exchange managers, set the time for 11:30 am ("Don't any of y'all up here go to church?" asks this [I think] Virginian). I got antsy and left the house early, getting to the start before 11, which gave me a chance to ride a couple miles down the towpath and see that there wasn't mush "traffic" on it today (the weather was grey, and I'm SURE there were drops of rain as I was riding in, which may have helped to keep people away). As I got back, a few people were gathering at the canal house... and there was Mike B, so sure enough, they were for my ride!

Soon enough, there were a dozen and more... but no managers from the Exchange! I got a call that they would be a bit late, and they were, but not too much... and just as they were getting ready, a last rider showed up, so we were 17. John S, whom I know both from the Exchange and from the Princeton Freewheelers, was there, so I asked him to sweep, in his inescapable orange jacket.

On down the towpath. We passed a number of walkers and runners, and got passed by a gal on a bicycle, and I repeated my mantra: "I will not chase the rider ahead. I will not chase the rider ahead." It was good not to do so; there were a few up front with me, but we had a variety of skill levels among these riders, and soon got spread out over quite a distance, but we met up at each intersection, and nobody got far behind until we were on the last stretch in Kingston before the cafe. I went and got the straggler with John.

Seventeen is a big group at a stop. Some had a quick drink and were ready to go, and some had lunch. I was ready long before the entire group was... and when we were ready, more than half the group decided to go straight back up Route 27 to New Brunswick. So I was left with eight. (I've long tweaked Laura OLPH about people leaving her rides, but for her, it's never been very many. I'm sure she never lost more than half her riders, the way I did today!)

By this time the sun was out; we few went back the same way we came, this time fighting a headwind on Rocky Hill-Kingston Road, and a few more fellow-travelers on the towpath. By the time we were done, those riding with me had done about 19 miles, and I had 35 including my rides to and from home and some other miles I did.

This will probably be it as far as Exchange rides for this year, but in the spring, I'm thinking of continuing the rides, and doing them in conjunction with the Freewheelers as slow-paced, no-drop rides. The Excellent Wife (TEW) thinks it might be my cosmic responsibility to do so.

Pictures (lots, today!)

Above and following: Zach met us at the Griggstown Causeway.

Above and following: near the quarry.

In Kingston:

Below: at the cafe.

building bike wheels: parts are in

I wrote a few days ago about Musson's wheelbuilding book. As an example of how cool it is, here's an instruction video of him lacing a wheel:



I hacked a bit to post it here; he includes this video as part of his support to people who buy his book. The support pages also include plans for custom tools (some are in the book, but the plans on the site are expanded).

I got my parts from BikeHubStore, a shop in North Carolina (I think it's another of those "run from the guy's basement" shops; the owner, Brandon H, responded quickly to two of my emails, and he provides quick service and emails with links to shipping info when you order). Parts are in; I intend to do the build on Election Day, when I'm off. I'm especially happy with the parts because there are NO logos except for the stamped "SAP" on the Sapim spokes.

In the book, Musson writes:

The rim is flat and round to start with and by tightening the spokes the same amount it will remain flat and round with the hub central in the wheel, and if we get our spoke lengths correct the dish will be very close too. Then all that is required is a bit of fine-tuning to finish the wheel. And that's how we build them so quickly.

I don't know about quickly, but I'm sure I've got the theory of the build, if not the practice. I'll let youse know how it goes.

new fitness calculator that I don't believe

A New York Times post in their "Well" blog discusses, and links to, an new fitness calculator. This calculator, posted by the Norwegian University of Science & Technology at Trondheim, uses frequency, intensity, and duration of exercise, along with waist size (in cm) and resting pulse, to determine a "fitness age".

The Excellent Wife (TEW) put in my numbers, and, according to this calculator, I have a "fitness age" of 35.

This is utter twaddle. I'm 58. If it had come up 48, or even 45, I might have bought it.

Hrmph.

Go try it out and see what you get.

tom h cocoluxe ride

Tom H had a great idea. Most of our rides have a rest stop in the middle, and some of the rest stops are great places, with stuff you might want to bring home... like this place:

So Tom had the idea that if we started a ride near there, it would end near there... and that would mean it would be easier to bring stuff home without stuffing the merchandise into jersey pockets, and worrying about crushing it or sweating into it.

It was such a good idea that when he did it a few weeks ago, a few riders clamored for him to do it again, and nothing would do except to repeat the ride today. So he did.

Eleven of us showed up (it was a glorious day, and how many more of them can we expect?). I'm not going to try all the names; there were some who were new to me, some were people Tom knew, and a number of The Usual Suspects, as you'll see in the pictures below (one of which was supposed to be a complete group shot, but I don't think I got Laura OLPH into it). We did this route. It was hilly, I remember asking Tom at least a dozen times, "That was the last hill, right?", and he invariably  assured me that it was. (I'm sure the elevation is under-reported: Al L had over 3000', and Tom said he got about 3600', but the speeds and times are good.)

It was even a prettier ride than last weekend. I would have thought the wind and rain yesterday would have knocked much of the color out of the trees, but we did not find it so. The area is lovely; it's too bad it's at such a distance, or I'm sure more riders would have come. (I live north of Princeton, and this was one of the few rides I do where my drive to the start was significantly shorter than most of the others.)

We need to revisit this idea of starting and ending at a destination like this. The Excellent Wife (TEW) is quite taken by the chocolate truffles I brought home for her.

Pictures:

 

Above, just to keep the them going, a picture of Laura taking a picture of a pumpkin.

It got warmer than we thought. The next couple of pictures are of wardrobe adjustments. I left out the most risqué ones.

Every now and then, I let 'em catch up to me. Hrmph.

omnes, omnes, above.

How many Freewheelers does it take to change a tire? When it's one of Al L's sew-ups, the rest of us watch and learn.

mad horse

Not every quote on the web is appropriately attributed (as has been pointed out to me), so when I found this neat quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin, I decided to see if I could verify it was his. It was; it was part of the Poor Richard's Almanack collection. (Before he was "Benjamin Franklin, statesman, scientist, wealthy businessman", he was a nearly-starved printer's devil in his brother's shop; he eked out his means by making up, and... uh... well, stealing, a number of aphorisms that he published in his brother's paper. When the brother found out the Ben himself was writing [or plagiarizing] them, they had such a set-to that Ben took off for Philadelphia, where he found some success.)

Now, the full text of Poor Richard's Almanack is available online, so I went and read it. It's good. The text is an autoscan, and there are some scanning errors, but I don't think they are so much that it makes the reading impossible.

The quote that got me started is no. 31, "A man in a passion rides a mad horse." I don't know where I got it. But I've decided if I ever start a bicycle business, it's going to be called Mad Horse.

ride with new brunswick bike exchange

I'm leading a ride with the New Brunswick Bike Exchange on Sunday, November 3. We're starting at 11:30 am, we'll take the canal towpath from Blackwells Mills to Rocky Hill, then we'll take the road to the Main St Cafe in Kingston, where there can be lunch or excellent bake-y stuff (coffee's not bad, either). Afterwards, we'll reverse the route. (Those who know me, know I can get lost in a bathroom; this is a real Plain Jim route.)

As with my summer rides, manageable length (about 17 miles), and we'll go at the pace of the slowest riders. No attitudes, lots of stops, nobody dropped. Only two lectures: the obligatory safety speech, and my rant about why you gotta use a mirror. Part of the ride IS on the towpath; I wouldn't want to take my road bike, but folks who know better than I say it shouldn't be a problem (some short parts of the path are rough, though).

Here's a Google Maps link to the canal house near the start. The actual start is in the parking lot at that little bit of dead-end below the canal house; it's marked "Six Mile Run (trail parking)".

Weather looks good (if cool) as I write this. Hope to see you there!

wheel building (for idiots?)

I wish the "... for Idiots" series of books had a different title. They're not for idiots; they're for reasonably smart people who aren't specialists in that field.

Here's another book for people who aren't specialists. I've been thinking of building my own bike wheels for years. I read Jobst Brandt's book, and Gerd Schraner's, and I just couldn't get my brains around the process.

A friend (who shall remain nameless) sent me a bootleg copy of Roger Musson's Professional Guide to Wheelbuilding ebook (pdf). It was just what I needed: no discussion of theory; just the steps to building wheels, including tools, probable mistakes, recommendations on parts and tools, and so on. It was good enough that I bought a copy (which means I get access to the upgrades, and, theoretically, responses to my emailed questions, but two emails have gone so-far unanswered). Edit: I got a thoughtful & sensible answer to one of my questions.

I've got rims on order (they should be delivered today). Musson suggests measuring the rims for confirmation before ordering the other parts (and gives a procedure for doing so). I'll do that, and then order the other parts (I'm getting 'em from Bike Hub Store in North Carolina). Musson's got a spoke length calculator on his site, too.

I expect there will be updates here as the process unfolds.

(After yesterday's post, I had to put up something else! I still feel like a dummy, but I hate having that as the last thing on this blog...)

feeling dumb

Back in the days when I worked at the insurance company, we said that taking on a big risk for a small premium was like bending over to pick up a dime and putting your butt through a plate-glass window.

By being careless, by thinking I was smarter than I am, I've gotten two people upset whom I didn't want to upset.

I can hear the sound of the crashing glass. I'm feeling exceptionally dumb and graceless today.

windy, supposed-to-be-a-recovery-ride with winter larry

I knew yesterday that I was planning to do a ride today, and I figured it would be Winter Larry's (he only leads between September and April), but I wasn't sure if I would add extra miles or how hard I would push, especiall after having been out last night with The Excellent Wife (TEW) to see The White Snake at the McCarter Theater at Princeton U (she liked it better than I), and subsequently later to bed than the 9pm that is my habit. But I was up, coffee-ed, and dressed early, so I decided to add my eight miles from Dr. Cliff's office, where I park after my morning bagel.

Cold this morning, though not as cold as yesterday. I had three layers, a heavy hat and gloves (I carried a lighter hat), but the lighter tights and socks. They were good choices; I was cold to start, but not overheated by the time we got back. (I'll ride down to low-30° temps; I don't want ice on the roads under those over-inflated, skinny tires.) You'll see in the pictures below that those who were dressed for the coldest part of the day had to peel and carry. I hate the bulging pockets, or the jacket tied around my waist, so I'd rather be a bit cold at the start and a bit hot at the end.

Ron S, Steve T, Jackie F, and Andrew-of-the-recumbent were already gathering at the Cranbury start when I got there, and shortly a new guy, Ray, with a nifty steel bike with downtube shifters, 1" threaded headset, and lugs (I had to go drool over it at the rest stop). There was discussion about whether Laura OLPH would put in an appearance; I would have bet against it after hearing her yesterday... but at about 8:56, she pulled into the lot. So we were eight.

Winter Larry was cagey about the route, but it turned out to be this one. There were a few places where we had to decide whether to push into the wind or not; I think at the first decision point, we opted for the easy way and went to New Egypt, but on the way home I asked for (and got) the route into the wind, and we took turns pulling (there were a couple of pulling stars in this crew!). Well, the few of us who had been on Laura's ride yesterday, and the others who had ridden yesterday, were thinking it was going to be a recovery ride... but with the wind and our energy, it didn't work out that way.

On the way back, we split into a fast crew and a slower one, and we slowpokes stopped to see a couple of horses in blankets, one with most excellent polka dots; you'll see n the pictures below. Because I like to make sure everybody makes it home (as I'd like someone to make sure I did), I stayed with the slower folks and swept on the way back.

And then back from Cranbury to Plainsboro, where I'd left the car. This time I opted for the straight route into the wind. I thought it would be worse than it was, but I maintained my average speed on the way back. Still, now that the bike clothes (with the rest of the laundry) are going into the dryer (those that go into the dryer; some air-dry), I wouldn't be surprised if there was a nap in the offing.

Pics:

Above and following: wardrobe adjustment, responding to the weather and the effort.

I don't know if it's clear in the picture above, but Laura is at the fence taking a picture of the excellently-blanketed horses, and Jackie F is putting away her phone after (I'm sure) doing the same.Here are the horses in question:

A slightly better shot of the photographers. I'm back to my thing of taking pictures of people taking pictures.