Project: planter box holders

 We recently got these planter boxes for out deck railing, they need a special mounting bracket to hold them.  I wanted to take a shot at making them before buying some.

1/8" x 3/4" x 36" aluminum stock

The bending method

One thing to be careful of is bending the aluminum too fast or you risk breaking it! Which is what happened to me:

Snap! Right in the kisser!

The final product! Because the aluminum is so soft, it  tends to sag under the weight of the dirt in the planter. If I were to do it again I'd try to make them out of a more stout material or brace it somehow. But in any case, for $10.

WTF of the Day

My question is, how do you have that many headset spacers? And why don't you have the capacity to cut down your steer tube?

Nut Destroyer 5000

Intense 29er single speed?

I was at the Where Conference in San Francisco peddling SketchUp and met another speaker was also ready to talk about something besides software. He showed me a pic of his bike: a custom Intense 29er single speed. 

Intense ify 29er (naming liberties taken)

From the pic all I can tell is that it has a Fox fork, an eccentric BB and the rear wheel is very tucked into the seatpost. Intense has, as far as I'd ever known, been making 20" and 24" BMX race bikes as well as downhill bikes. After some more research, I found that Intense is making a few mountain bikes, and even planning on coming out with a full carbon race machine. Great things coming from Intense!

How Not to Use Fiberglass

I was riding the bus when I saw this repair job on a roof box in another lane. The guy had cracked his box, I guess, and tried to repair it with fiberglass cloth:

No MacGuyver

The thing is, I couldn't see any resin. It looks like he just used the fiberglass cloth and then either epoxy or some other yellow foam to secure it down. Most of it was flapping in the wind. I guess it would work as a patch, but without the resin it wouldn't be strong at all. For reference, fiberglass is:

Cloth      +     Resin      +    Hardener

Destroying a Chimney

I was in GJ last week visiting the fam, and had a chance to help my dad take down a chimney on a house he's working on. 

Take that, bricks

What is crazy is the construction method the original builders used. Here's a simple drawing of a section of the house:

Building code? What building code!

Apparently, they were either trying to save bricks, or idiots, because they just stacked the bricks right on the roof deck. They did this in two places, and the roof was visibly deflecting under the weight. After this, My dad wrapped the chimney in styrofoam and chicken wire and stucco'd the whole thing. Much less likely to come crashing through the roof and making a general mess of the living room.

Bamboo Bike of the Day

Saw this resin wonder outside Bolder Indoor Cycling a few Fridays ago. This thing was nearly all carbon!

Boo Bikes

Coincidentally, they had a booth the next day at the Boulder Roubaix, and the guy was trucking around on this bike at the start. They also had one of their mountain bikes, which looked similar in design.

Carbon one piece stem, handlebars and brake levers

Gates belt drive and Spinergy Rev X wheels

TRP Brakes

All in all, this bike was outfitted to the hilt with sweet parts. This one has some customization on it from what comes factory, all of which you can check out here.

Musical Wheel sets and Mavic Ksyrium Review

Got a new set of wheels, so it was time for a bunch of rearranging. New Mavic Kryriums went on the Six, the Aksium wheels from the Six went onto the 'cross bike, and the tubular cross wheels are going to Community Cycles!

Before

After

The Ksyriums ride really well - stiff and responsive. They have flat bladed spokes that are more affected by the wind, which takes some getting used to. The only real problem are strong gusts. The stiffness I mentioned made a more noticeable diference on the descents. When coming down Flagstaff, they flexed less than my Aksiums and were much more confidence inspiring.  So far I'm really happy with them!