Dec 31, 2016
The last shopping trip of a fairly awful year.
—orc Sat Dec 31 17:21:52 2016
Dec 30, 2016
Dust Mite looks at a gift card
—orc Fri Dec 30 22:47:31 2016
Dec 28, 2016
Two fork “kits” from framebuildersupply (I’ve also got two pairs of slotted dropouts – I’d do through-axle because why not? except that I don’t have any through-axle dynohubs – and the various bits and bobs needed to attach rack mounts and either canti or dia-compe brake bosses). One of them (the sloping crown) is going on the 3-speed project bike frame (which is waiting for me to make up a frame jig before I glue on the rear triangle; freehand assembling the front triangle was not quite a complete success in the symmetry department – I need to aggressively face the DS of the BB, then put a spacer ring on the NDS to get the crankset centered) and the other is going onto the replacement frame for my xtracycle (which will mean that the only part of the original Trek 1000 xtracycle will be the aluminum hoops that the xtracycle bags are attached to.)
—orc Wed Dec 28 14:11:13 2016
Dec 27, 2016
The Portland Spirit approaches the Sellwood Bridge
—orc Tue Dec 27 12:15:44 2016
Dec 25, 2016
No more GG-1s on the ex-PRR electrified district (and, for that matter, I don’t think there are any locomotive-framed electrics left in operation in the western hemisphere unless the two ALL (ex-Sorocabana) Loba (1-C+C-1) are still operating around Sao Paulo) and no more electric freight at all.
—orc Sun Dec 25 22:18:49 2016
Dec 24, 2016
Getting the tree decorated at the very last minute (the fascists and their imaginary “war on christmas” makes the holiday much less appealing, but not unappealing enough to not get a tree.)
—orc Sat Dec 24 21:08:37 2016
Dec 23, 2016
Dust Mite does some seasonal cosplay
—orc Fri Dec 23 16:54:11 2016
A little (9x8.5x7) semi-traditional rando bag that I just finished as practice for the next porteur/rando bag I’m going to build for the kit bike. Green to match the (rainy) season, and it’s going to be mated to the apple green rando rack I’ve got lying around.
—orc Fri Dec 23 01:38:02 2016
Dec 19, 2016
I’m going to have to pull it, soak & clean it, then paint it, but until that day comes there are more snow days to worry about so it’s going to be put through some road testing first.
—orc Mon Dec 19 21:49:02 2016
Dec 18, 2016
The replacement fork for the mountainhack, waiting for me to cut the steertube to length and stick a few coats of fluorescent pink paint onto it.
—orc Sun Dec 18 22:16:13 2016
Dec 17, 2016
If I’m going to put studded tires on the mountainhack, it would be a shame to miss out on the snow.
—orc Sat Dec 17 17:16:31 2016
Dec 16, 2016
Dust Mite helps me build a fork
—orc Fri Dec 16 23:27:02 2016
The mountainhack’s fork, fitted with a wheel and a properly aligned stem. When I was hit by that car it did a pretty good job of reraking half of the fork, don’t you think?
—orc Fri Dec 16 10:17:47 2016
Dec 15, 2016
It’s been snowing in Portland, and since everything is covered with ice I decided that this is a good time to reassemble the mountainhack and outfit it with a pair of Nokian A10 studded tires that I bought several years ago and never actually used, what with not riding for a year and then getting hit by a car just before last year’s round of snow.
The mountainhack is less mangled than the third-party bikeshop (River City Bicycles) said; the rear triangle is a little askew, but not terribly so (the top of the rear wheel is tilted a tiny bit towards the NDS, which makes the NDS clearance for the A10 less than I’d want, but which can be fixed by manually lining up the wheel and clamping it tightly in place (a better solution would be to file the DS dropout to even the axle)) and the only thing that is bent to the point where I’d want to replace it is the fork, where the NDS leg was bent to the tune of 10mm of rake (fixable, maybe, but I’d be better off just brazing up a new fork which I’ll do when I take off and reposition the front derailer braze-on boss.)
The reassembled version (the A10s are mounted on a couple of el-cheapo Weinmann Zac19 rims laced to noname hubs – it was cheaper to buy the preassembled wheels than it would have been to lace a set up myself) is more or less what it was before I was hit by a car, even though I’ve yet to put a rack onto the thing. And the A10s are nice and clingy on icy roads and sidewalks, so my plan of having a machine I can ride when everything is covered with a layer of ice and/or snow seems to have been a success.
—orc Thu Dec 15 23:56:59 2016
Dec 11, 2016
A GS-4 is a somewhat more powerful engine than the kit bike is.
—orc Sun Dec 11 16:17:17 2016
Dec 09, 2016
Illuminated Dust Mite.
—orc Fri Dec 9 22:06:43 2016
Dec 08, 2016
It snowed (+rained, +freezing rained) today, but that didn’t stop me from riding down to Brooklyn Pharmacy to pick up a couple of prescriptions (slowly riding down; there was a fairly stiff north wind all day, and in the ~30 minutes I was out it cooled the ground down enough so that a layer of ice was starting to develop under the snow on my return trip.)
—orc Thu Dec 8 18:12:37 2016
Dec 04, 2016
I needed to go downtown today to pick up a power supply adapter, so I detoured along the Springwater Trail so I could see the 4449 (and the rest of the Holiday Express).
—orc Sun Dec 4 18:03:22 2016
Dec 02, 2016
Dust Mite helps me piece together another porteur/rando bag
—orc Fri Dec 2 23:42:30 2016
Dec 01, 2016
A couple of days of the evergreen “From International Company” semi-customized spam
—orc Thu Dec 1 13:52:46 2016
—30—
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