I built a wheel for a friend who had this old Fuji Special Road Racer leaning in the corner of his garage. I admired it out loud and he gave it to me. He has plenty of other bikes anyway and wanted the space more than a dusty, broken bike.

The rear rim was cracked. I figured I would salvage the crankset, because it's a 110mm bolt circle with holes for a third chain ring. I also fancied the Nitto I-beam style stem. I had plans to sell the frame on Craig's List after stripping the good stuff.


After looking at it for a while, I realized it might be worth saving as an entire bike instead of cannibalizing it.




I happened to have a spare 27" rear wheel . I installed the wheel, replaced the rear derailleur, and tuned lots of items. I didn't remove a single item for my own use. Each time I worked on it, I began to like it more and more. The checker board Fuji sticker caught my eye every time I walked in the garage.


The rusty finish became beautiful to me. The faded yellow is not available on any bikes today. It reminds me of the '65 Mustang my dad brought home when I was a little guy. All the neighbor guys gathered around to see the Mustang. It was a similar light yellow color. He was the coolest dad in the neighborhood that day and I was his proud son.

Too bad this bike way too big for me. Even if I pushed the seat down all the way, it would be too tall. Somebody else needs it. I rode it and it feels really light -- in a way that none of my bikes matches. If it were my size, I'd love to keep it for regular rides. Maybe there's a 56cm Special Road Racer out there for me somewhere.

Found Items

I found this on Stinson Blvd. in Minneapolis yesterday. It's a 12mm. I don't use those very often, but free tools are good tools. Yeah.

More Followup on Camping

• I did not find a grilled-cheese sandwich making device. I'll keep looking.
  
• I found delicious coffee.
• I bought a foam pad for my light-weight son. Thermarests are for people who weigh more than a handful of leaves. I have one and it made camping fun. BF (Before Thermarest) I hated camping, because I always felt like a bag of crap the morning after.
• It was primal, because I feared someone would get hurt by a home-made spear. Instead, while being chased by a home-made spear, one kid fell and landed on a stump. The edge of the tree stump chopped into his leg right above the knee. I saw white stuff inside the gash and fat on the edges. He received 5 internal stitches and 12 external stitches in the Mora Hospital ER. He was back by 2 a.m. Saturday night and enjoyed standing on the shore and watching the canoeing and riding in the shuttle car on Sunday.

Camping was a Success

As usual, the camping trip was great. The boys ran around in the woods like wild animals. They caught tadpoles and crawdads. They were as dirty as pigs. They sharpened sticks and I half expected it to turn into Lord of the Flies, but they didn't have any enemies to fight. It was primal.

Each year before going on this trip, I feel indifferent to canoeing. When I get in the boat and start down the St. Croix river, my indifference melts away and I realize I enjoy canoeing very much. I have thoughts of getting a canoe and how to transport it.

When I get home, I see my bicycles and realize canoeing would take away time for riding.


My son is the guy in the front of this canoe with the paddle (not the red head). My son thought canoeing was boring until he got to steer. I let him paddle in back and he did a great job.

Camping and Canoeing

I'm going camping this weekend. It's our third Father-Son Camping and Canoe Trip. I brought out all the camping gear and I need to go grocery shopping. I'd like to buy another sleeping pad -- one for my son. I'm tired of hauling the air mattress and pump around.

I'd also like a set of those things that hold a sandwich in place for grilling over the fire. A grilled cheese sandwich sounds really nice. This would also allow a little bit of toast heaven while camping.

By the way, this is car camping.

The most important part of camping is making sure the coffee fixin's are ready. I tested my little camp stove by making this morning's coffee on it outside in the back yard. I use an Italian espresso pot over the open flame. It tastes different, but it's very good in a raw, untamed way. I also need to buy ground coffee fresh from a local coffee place.

So I need to go to a camping supply place, a coffee shop, and the grocery store.

Funny Beer

Thanks to the person who gave me this beer. It tasted really nice with tonight's fake-meat tacos. I wanted another, but one is enough.

Bike Lanes Part 2

I finally got around to looking for information on bike lanes. The first link in the first google search I conducted pulled up ample pile of bike lane information. The linked information tells me this subject has been dragged through the mud many times. So I'm not sure I can add anything useful.

If you have time, read the linked page and let me know what you think. It's an impressive pile of bike lane related information, isn't it.

Perhaps if I look at it from the local perspective, it will be useful information.

Security Flaw in the U.S. Census Website

I recently received a census form to fill out from the U.S. Census Bureau. It looked like a perfect phishing scam using snail mail instead of the typical route of email.

Being slightly skeptical, I checked out the U. S. Census Bureau website. I clicked on the "Embargoed Releases" link in the right column. It asked me for a user Id and password. Of course, I don't have one. I clicked the Cancel button and it displayed an error page. The error page tells me what kind of operating system and webserver they're using and it shows me the versions of those items. This makes it pretty easy for hackers to try and break into their site. It's information that shouldn't be displayed to the public.

Big deal, right? It's just another poorly secured website. But I think it's a really big deal. They tell me I'm required to fill out the census form by law. But I can't trust them to protect my information if they can't even get the basics of a website right.

Somewhere in Iowa along I-80

Warning: No bicycle content!

I visited family this past weekend in Hastings, NE. On the way back to Minneapolis, I shot lots of photos along I-80 in Iowa. A couple of them were memorable, for me at least.



The horizon is not blocked by trees and buildings out there. And a reminder that not all gas stations make it.


Hey, get off the road!


Maybe we need one of these in the cities.


I like Buster Bars.

What good are painted bike lanes?

I took my old route to work today. It's the route with scenic beauty, low amounts of traffic, and it's a couple of kilometers farther than my current route. After riding it for a few blocks, I remembered my experiences riding bike lanes in downtown Minneapolis a few years ago. And I remembered how much I think bike lanes suck.

I have lots of reasons why I think so and I'll probably list them sometime, but for now I want to talk about my knee jerk reaction to bike lanes. My opinion is based on experience, but is it based on reasoning? That's what I want to work on here -- arriving at a conclusion based on reasoning.

For now, I withdraw my opinion that bike lanes suck and I'll spend some time researching them. I'll post my findings here and ask for your opinions. I expect this to take more than one or two blog posts. I also expect you to leave your opinions in the comments. Let me know when I'm full of crap, please.

Then I'll decide. I realize this is probably not a totally fair way to approach the question, since I can't truly put aside my opinion. However, I'll try to be a fair and impartial judge. The research will do me good. I'll probably become more familiar with the problems of trying to accommodate bikes and cars. I also want to know where the LAB (League of American Bicyclists) stands on this issue.

If you have any useful links to information about bike lanes, please leave them in the comments.

A Wild Flower

I can't identify this flower, but I like it.

Do I Need a Counselor for my Kid?

Here's my son's latest big board drawing.





















He's 10. I was pretty fascinated with shooting and all that when I was his age too. I suppose lots of guys are.



My daughter's big board drawing is a contrast.


These come from a 4'x5' white board we have in our house. Our kids and their friends love to draw on it. It seems to be more popular than the TV or video games for now.

My daughter had an interesting thought yesterday. She said it would be fun if we all looked like how we draw ourselves. This led to the invention of an entire world where we get to draw ourselves again on each of our birthdays. Toddlers look like scribbles and some people are incomplete. I wish I had recorded it all.

Three-Speed Tour Photos

I uploaded lots of photos from the 2007 Lake Pepin Three-Speed Tour. Take a look, please.

Excuses

I finally got a good chance to take a photo of this astroturf-covered Toyota Previa minivan and I only had the CreepyCam. The lighting was brilliant. A rain storm had just passed through the area and a spotlight of sun came through a break in the clouds to illuminate this van. I hopped onto the sidewalk and rode to the perfect spot to take a photo.

My CreepyCam photo is very disappointing, but here it is anyway. Someday, I'll capture this beauty with a better camera and show it again.

3-Speed Tour

I took about 150 photos during the 3-speed tour last weekend, most on the first day. It was a very nice ride.

I think I enjoyed exploring the dirt roads around Lake Pepin the most.


And I liked seeing all the interesting bikes.

I camped at the Wabasha city park camp grounds.
I had ear plugs so the RV generators and snoring people didn't keep me awake. I packed a thin sleeping bag that wasn't warm enough and was kept awake by my shivering body. I sabotage my camping trips with poor equipment choices. I vow to do better next time.

I'll upload more photos. I need more time to review them first.

Rhododendron Time

Here are a few more rhododendron shots.

The whole bush

A pink one

A red one

A Week of Bikes in Photos

Monday
Broken axle
Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

An Old Mushroom Photo

Last fall, I took some photos with the CreepyCam while on an off-road ride. I found this photo still on the CreepyCam the other day. I didn't like the quality of it back when I shot the photo, but now I love it.

This week, I've ridden four different bikes to work (not at the same time). I rode the Maruishi and broke it on Monday. I rode the 3-speed on Tuesday with its new drop bars. I rode the Lemond road bike on Wednesday. That was my fastest commute so far this year. Today, I rode the Davidson 650B conversion. I think my kids would ask me which is my favorite bike. I don't know. I like them all, but I had the most fun going faster than I'm used to on the Lemond.

A Trip to Target

At Target the other night, I noticed an overwhelming number of brands and models we have to select from (or from which to select, for you no-prepositions-at-the-end-of-sentences folks) in almost every product category.

My family and I were shopping for items to fill an Iraqi relief package. The package included shampoo, towels, soap, toothbrushes, etc. While in the shampoo aisle, I turned around and counted 20 types of hair dryers on display. There were more models under the shelf.



That's a lot of hair drying capability.

At the end of the aisle, I gagged at the smell of hunderds of types of perfume.


In every aisle, I saw the same thing -- way more choices than I could handle.

I've noticed it before, but I always quickly pushed it out of my head.

I'm not even sure if I have a point to this, but it seems worth noting.

For the package, we weren't buying the same stuff we usually buy. This gave me a chance to look around more. When I shop for myself, I don't think about items, I just look for my brand. For example, when I buy my shampoo, I look for Head and Shoulders, then pick the store-brand version next to it.

This experience caused me to see the vast selection of products in a different way.

More Rhododendrons

Are these the last rhododendron photos you'll see on my blog?

This is the 3-Speed Blog

Sometimes I forget the name of this blog.

Last night, on the way home, I felt a lumpy sensation in my rear wheel when I used the brakes. I figured I'd worn the brake pads down to metal. When I got home, I checked out the brake pads and found they were still adequate. Then I noticed a strange pattern on the rim. It had a crack in it along the braking surface. The sidewall was worn out. I've never done that before. I built these wheels in 1993 or so and commuted on them most of the time since.

I decided to pull the freewheel off to install it on a backup wheel. As I removed the freewheel, part of the axle assembly feel into my hand. The axle was broken. The backup wheel is spaced incorrectly (it's 135mm and I need 125 or so). Crap.

Time to order parts: rim, axle, new fork for mountain bike (this is unrelated, I know), etc.

"Which bike should I ride to work tomorrow," I thought. How about a 3-speed? So there it is.



It's ready for the Lake Pepin Three-Speed Tour this weekend. I installed drop bars to allow me to use my handlebar bag. The bag will contain my big camera. I rebuilt the wheels with alloy rims to improve braking. It's unusual in that it has 27" tires (630 bsd) instead of the usual 26" (650A or 590 bsd). Oh, I almost forgot, it has a bell on the stem. Ringggggggggggggg.

March of the Rhododendron: Day 3

Flowers on day 3

Rhododendron Day 2

A couple buds were opening this morning. Here's one of them.


While trying to find the spelling of rhododendron, I found the American Rhododendron Society.

For those of you who are wondering what the heck this has to do with bicycles, just wait. I'll tie it in somehow, soon, but not today.

I suppose my interest in these plants has grown over the 12 years we've owned the house. The rhododendrons were already here, planted by the green-thumb lady who lived here before us. I didn't pay any attention to them at first, but each winter, they stayed green and kept their leaves. Up to that point, the only plants I'd seen that kept their leaves were pine trees and other evergreens. People who came to the house during winter noticed them also.

Their leaves get a little brown during the harsh winter months, but they have always come back to total green by mid-summer. I'm impressed by them.

Rhododendrons

We have two rhododendron bushes in front of our house. Disclaimer: I'm not a gardener, just a fancier of the two bushes in front of our house. If you aren't familiar with this plant, they come in two types: deciduous and evergreen. Apparently, we have the evergreen type. It's nice to have some greenery during the winter that isn't piney.

The buds have just appeared on ours and I'll take a progression of photos as they bloom. The flowers are big and beautiful.

New Idea for Blogging

I've been thinking about this for a long time and now I'm ready to introduce my new idea. I'm going to become the Copycat Blogger.

Whenever I see a good post and I think, "Hey, I could have done that," or "I have a similar idea," I'm going to do it. Yes, it's theft.

When I post a copycat blog entry, I'll provide a link to the original that you can just ignore, because my entry will be so much better. Or you can judge my entry next to the original and tell me what a loser I am. You pick.

Here goes my first installment. Mr. Longburn has a post about his shoes. Here's my photo of shoes just like his.