I’ve lost my chance for the 2012 Park Tool Award

 All Categories, Bicycling  2 Responses »
Mar 102012
 

In fact I will be lucky if Park Tool does not send out a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to reclaim all the won­der­ful tools I own of theirs.

On Jan­u­ary 11th I put a new chain and gear clus­ter on the Ram­bouil­let. 856 miles lat­er I final­ly took the time to fig­ure out the annoy­ing tick­ing, click­ing sound I was expe­ri­enc­ing most of the time. I thought it might have been a poor match between chain and cogs. But no! It was a dis­en­gaged brain at the time of instal­la­tion. I’d thread­ed the chain out­side the met­al exten­sion between the two derailleur pul­leys such that every ped­al stroke was grind­ing it away. The image shows what’s left after 856 miles of grind­ing. Click­ing on the image will show bet­ter details of my mis­take. In the right, 2005, image the red arrow points out the chain mis­aligned over the then undam­aged exten­sion. You can also note in the right image how I was able to catch my mis­take in less than 856 miles 🙂

 Posted by at 3:15 pm

A beautiful 230 miles on the moto: Hwys 101, 150, 33, 166, 101, Foxen Canyon, 154 —> Home

 All Categories, Food, Motorcycle Riding  1 Response »
Mar 092012
 

A glo­ri­ous warm morn­ing prompt­ed me to get on the Suzu­ki and start off on the Carp, Ojai, Cuya­ma, San­ta Maria, Los Olivos, San­ta Bar­bara loop. Near­ing Ojai I stopped to check the iPhone’s brows­er for “Ojai Val­ley Taxi­dermy” then plugged the result into the gps and rode on over. Own­er Chuck Tes­ta, upper left above, came out for a nice vis­it. If you don’t yet know about his viral YouTube stuff click here to see my favorite of many vari­a­tions (it’s had 730,000 viewings).

After my vis­it with Chuck it was an 80 degree spin up beau­ti­ful High­way 33 pass­ing the orchards of the San­ta Bar­bara Pis­ta­chio Com­pa­ny which are just bare­ly with­in San­ta Bar­bara Coun­ty on the far north­east cor­ner. A few more miles on High­way 33 then a left turn west onto High­way 166 where I was ready for lunch. Alas my lunch goal was the “Ran­cho Nipo­mo” restau­rant rec­om­mend­ed by friend Car­ol Carter, cur­rent­ly 65 miles on down the road. So I motored on, final­ly arrived, and ordered the deli­cious house spe­cial­ty; a pulled pork sand­wich with the cole slaw right in there with the 18 ingre­di­ent sauced pork, YUM.

Sati­at­ed and hap­py I remount­ed the Suzu­ki, for­tu­nate­ly still there since I’d left the key in the igni­tion in my hur­ry to quell my hunger. The weath­er and traf­fic con­tin­ued ide­al as I head­ed south on 101 to Bet­ter­avia, Fox­en Canyon Road, and High­way 150, on over the pass and home. Arriv­ing home I care­ful­ly pulled the Suzu­ki up onto its cen­ter stand and lubed the chain while it idled in first gear. A com­plete day. Click on the four shot mon­tage above for some more images of the day pre­sent­ed in groups of four. Click on the left or right side of the four­somes to move to more shots.

 Posted by at 4:35 pm

A WINDY, Beautiful 25 miles

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Mar 062012
 

I had a won­der­ful lunch bike ride to Sum­mer­land. It was VERY windy out. Grate­ful­ly it was blow­ing my hun­gry self straight to Stack­y’s for a Fies­ta Wrap. After­ward, now well fed, the return ride was a chal­lenge at sev­er­al points; notably by the Bilt­more where sev­er­al hardy types were amaz­ing­ly able to kitesurf, along the beach bike­way and out onto the wharf. Post wharf up and along Shore­line, over the fun foot bridge onto El Camino De La Luz. There I stopped to take these two images of inter­est­ing yet very dif­fer­ent hous­es. I capped off my ride at Ian’s Tires where the new­ly reshod Vol­vo await­ed me.

 Posted by at 3:00 pm

My favorite brake pads, now on the Rambouillet

 All Categories, Bicycling  1 Response »
Mar 062012
 

I have loved these dual com­pound brake pads for decades so when I noticed the orig­i­nal pads on the Ram look­ing thin I imme­di­ate­ly thought of find­ing some of these. Lo and Behold yes­ter­day morn­ing when I walked from the Whole Foods park­ing lot over to Bob’s Bicy­cles they were right there on the wall, lucky me.

Click on the pack­age to see the instal­la­tion on the Ram. It was very easy/breezy. Just take out the lit­tle screw that holds in the pad (by screw­ing into the lit­tle notch you see in the blown up images), slide out the worn pad, slide in the new pad, and replace the lit­tle screw. Read­just the cable and all is well and ready for some enhanced stop­ping, very enhanced in the rain.

 Posted by at 10:30 am

Thar She Blows!

 All Categories, Bicycling  1 Response »
Mar 022012
 

   A won­der­ful day today.
   Phyl­lis and I went to the doc­tors this morn­ing and had our usu­al fun time in the process.
   Arriv­ing home I jumped on the Ram and rode out to the Kahu­na Grill in the Camino Real Mar­ket­place for lunch.
   Feel­ing refreshed I mean­dered down to Coal Oil Point to check on the whale count. Wow, six already past for the day with two more cur­rent­ly sight­ed, far to the south. As I could not yet see them I start­ed rid­ing down the bluffs for a bet­ter view when my sis­ter called. We had a great 15/20 minute chat that end­ed with the whales, now three, right off the point. I was very excit­ed to see num­ber 7, 8, and 9 rolling by and spout­ing, what a treat.
   I then rode over for a won­der­ful chat with Cyn­thia, she in her office and me stand­ing out­side, before head­ing on home.

 Posted by at 3:00 pm

555 miles for the month and a cautionary warning

 All Categories, Bicycling, Food  1 Response »
Feb 282012
 

As I was wind­ing up my last ride for Feb­ru­ary I decid­ed to stop at D’An­gelo’s Bak­ery for a loaf of sour­dough to take with and added a yum­my cin­na­mon swirly giz­mo for imme­di­ate con­sump­tion in cel­e­bra­tion of 555 miles for the month, my high­est month­ly total since my heart attack in Sep­tem­ber of 2006.

Return­ing out­side I was get­ting the iPhone/camera out of the Car­randice bag when the very friend­ly woman who had just sold me my items came out to sug­gest I lock my bike on my next vis­it as just last week some­one had done a very sim­i­lar trans­ac­tion to mine dur­ing which his bike was stolen!

While I was my usu­al quite care­ful self in check­ing on the Ram while inside it still had its vul­ner­a­ble moments so next time the cable.

 Posted by at 10:25 am

Phyllis’ 101st Birthday Luncheon

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Dec 292011
 

Four shots of Phyl­lis on her birthday

I was includ­ed in a won­der­ful 101st birth­day lunch for Phyl­lis at Vista del Monte. At our table of four were she, Car­ol, Ali­cia, and myself. We had a nice vis­it dur­ing lunch then Ali­cia and Car­ol dis­trib­uted slices of Ali­ci­a’s won­der­ful birth­day cake to all the folks in the din­ing room. Every­one was very grate­ful. As folks left the din­ing area many dropped by to wish Phyl­lis a hap­py birth­day and for a brief chat, very nice.

Fol­low­ing lunch we four returned to Phyl­lis’ apart­ment where she joy­ful­ly opened her cards and unwrapped her gifts, very fun.

There are more images of the fun par­ty. Click on the image above to view a slideshow.

 Posted by at 12:00 pm

Easy Readin’ on the ‘Pad — Version 2

 All Categories, Reading  1 Response »
Dec 282011
 

The bear and I fin­ished (and loved) “The Mar­riage Plot” then took the time to rig up this ver­sion two of our iPad holder.

One change is the stream­lin­ing of the pvc struc­ture. It seems less over­whelm­ing when lay­ing under than the ver­sion one design (click here to see ver­sion one).

By far the best mod­i­fi­ca­tion is to the RAM iPad mount itself. The piv­ot point is now in the cen­ter of the iPad. You can see this clear­ly in the low­er left shot above. The iPad mount as designed is to be used in either por­trait or land­scape so two mount points are pro­vid­ed, one for each ori­en­ta­tion. Using two small pieces of alu­minum angle I was able to move the mount­ing point to the cen­ter. This accom­mo­dates a quick and easy rota­tion with­out addi­tion­al adjust­ments up/down or right/left, very cool.

Click­ing on the bear or myself in the above mon­tage presents a larg­er view us.

 Posted by at 8:00 pm

Easy Readin’ on the ‘Pad

 All Categories, Reading  2 Responses »
Dec 102011
 

The bear and I are cur­rent­ly read­ing “The Mar­riage Plot” on the iPad hav­ing each fin­ished “1Q84″ last week. One under­stand­able com­plaint from the aging bear now that he’s need­ing read­ing glass­es is how to hold the iPad far enough from his eyes with his arms being so short.

So to help him and also to allow my not hav­ing to hold up the iPad through long read­ing or Net­flix ses­sions I put togeth­er ver­sion 01 of the iPad hold­er shown. It uses some PVC along with some parts (all the black ones) from RAM mounts. The iPad quick­ly snaps into and out of the hold­er and the six inch arm con­nect­ing the ‘Pad to the PVC brack­et has a one inch ball on each end. This allows the iPad to be rotat­ed land­scape to por­trait, raised or low­ered in height, and angled for direct view­ing by the using mammal.

This V‑01 is a lit­tle prim­i­tive but was con­struct­ed pri­mar­i­ly for proof of con­cept so a sim­pler and small­er V‑02 will hope­ful­ly be announced by the end of the year. For now V‑01 is work­ing great and we are both very much enjoy­ing it.

Click on the above mon­tage for a larg­er image of same.

 Posted by at 12:00 pm

Eric flys out for his third Santa Barbara Marathon

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Nov 122011
 

Eric flew in from Den­ver on Thurs­day after­noon for anoth­er won­der­ful vis­it and to par­tic­i­pate in his third San­ta Bar­bara Inter­na­tion­al Marathon.

High­lights of the week­end were vis­its with Phyl­lis, Car­ol’s Born­stein and Pre­ston, Ralph, Tom and neigh­bor Jill. Sat­ur­day morn­ing Tom and I did our usu­al sup­port­ing, root­ing, stalk­ing, and pro­vid­ing flu­id to Eric. Unfor­tu­nate­ly he was not feel­ing well so wise­ly end­ed his run at mile 21 where the cheer­ing Phyl­lis, Car­ol, and Vir­ginia await­ed. To see more of the race day click HERE or on the mon­tage above.

 Posted by at 10:15 am
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