London Calling

    Last week I had the opportunity to head across the pond to London and work a bit, and play a bit. My brother and I met on Thursday, and here are our adventures:

   We rode on the London Underground, which was fun, fast, and only mildly confusing. What impressed me was how far underground we were, like 4 or 5 stories.

Scanning through the barrier

   We tried many a tasty lager, and even developed a taste for the cask beer, which was flat and warm.

'Ales and Pies'

   We saw some wacky bikes. This had no front derailleur, and had the big chainring on the inside, and the little one on the outside.

Pant leg destroyer 5000

   The town, while busy, was very bike friendly. There were lanes at the front of stop lights for bikes to gather, then they all took off in front of the cars.

Ready? GO!

   On Saturday, we went into this bike shop called Cloud 9 Cycles and rented some single speeds. They had a ton of cool stuff to see, including this giant ball of used tubes:

Est weight: 45 pounds.

    Paul and his trusty steed:

Eye catching red

   My mighty bike:

Complete with rack

   Paul's bike had some treat showing through the tire, but they assured us "there were 6mm of rubber left on the tire."

Blue is new?

   We rode from the bike shop all through town. At first it was a scary, but the cars were safe enough. We went to Big Ben, The Tower Bridge, and the 2012 Olympic park. It was a lot of fun, but easy to get lost since the streets are very confusing. 

Our ride

   And then a comfortable flight home!

Friday WTF: Illusion Edition

   Take your brain for a little trip here:

Witchcraft! 

Where is Adam?

   Hello faithful readers, I recently took a trip to London for work, spent some time in the town with my brother, and got back yesterday.

A nice warm lager

   London is sweet, our trip was complete with...

Big Ben

The London Eye

Buckingham Palace

The Tube

Outside bathrooms

   We were even able to rent some bikes, but that will be its own whole other post. Now that I'm back, Green Bird will resume the regularly scheduled programming. 

Baby Cage

   Our house has a great little space that Calvin has all his town and stuffed animals and things in. The problem is he can easily escape this area. Good thing I'm smarter than an 11 month old. Here is what his play space looks like:

Kitchen adjacent

   After some practice with cardboard:

Early stages

.. I went ahead and built the real deal out of wood. Here's the SketchUp model:

Frame and sheathing

   No project would be complete without a trip to The Home Depot for wood. It was great to have the guy there cut it because their saw made a bunch of equal and straight cuts.

Hard at work

   We have a nice soft rug in there the little wall had to go over the top of, so i notched out the wood. This kept the wall level, and kept it from sliding around. 

Notched part

   The thing is about 20" tall, so Calvin can stand up to it and see everything going on without escaping climb over. It also keeps the dog from coming in and licking the baby too much. 

From the inside

From the kitchen

First Race of the Season and Some Cool Tech

    A couple weeks ago I went to Littleton and raced in the Battle the Bear.  This was a different race than normal for me as it was an endurance race. Not a lot of technical stuff, but long! This one came in just under 32 miles (that's nearly 4000 road miles).

Laps

   The format was 3 ten mile loops, which was really cool. I liked knowing what was coming in the last lap. Other than that, it was a fairly flat and fast race. I took 26/38 in the 30-39 open. Acceptable for first race of the year.
   One of the cool thing about this race was the timing system - a chip integrated into your number plate. It was a little throw away piece that was embedded in a piece of foam on the back.

Front

Back

Chip pulled out

   So much better than a strap around your head tube! 

Friday WTF: Cyclocross Shoes?

   Came across this on eBay: Puma shoes made to look like bike shoes, right down to the velcro fastener, and faux cleat screw holes. 

Puma Cyclocross

   The listing: "Take a modern spin on the traditional weekend sneaker with the Cyclocross from Puma."

New Puma Mens Cyclocross White/Black fashion-sneakers US 13 NIB

   The thing that gets me is:

• CX racers use, you know, mountain bike shoes since you have to get off and run and the ratchet system is more secure
• CX racers use mountain bike cleats, like SPD or TIME, not a 3 bolt pattern road cleat

   Swing and a miss, Puma. 

Puma marketing dept hard at work

Rim and Brake Pad Wear

   Knowing when to replace your brake pads is an important thing. Safety aside, worn brake pads are a fast way to ruin a rim. This is what a worn set of brakes looks like:

New                             Worn

Worn pad vs new pad

   Most pads have a groove in them to show you when they are worn. When the groove is almost gone, the brake pad life is almost over. Rims also have a limited lifespan, and similar indicators. What prompted this investigation was this image on the popular website Imgur.com, someone was asking what the hole was for:

Imgur image

   This is a wear indicator hole, it is a shallow hole in the rim that lets you know when your rims are worn to a dangerous level.

              New            Worn        Indicator hole     

Worn rim  

   Some rims also have a wear groove, which is a shallow groove all around the braking surface that serves the same purpose.

Wear indication groove

   Why is rim wear an issue? When rims get worn, they get weak. They are more prone to collapse, and can even be crushed by the pressure applied through the brakes. It's all fun and games until catastrophic wheel failure happens! So check your pads and rims every now and then. Read more about rim wear here.