Friday, August 8, 2008

Fail.

I give up.  I can't make it to and from work without bending the shit out of the wheel.  I'm done trying.
Mileage: ???

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Contraption!


So I've had a big problem with bending rear wheels on my bicycle.  So last night, I had an epiphany.  With a little help from Kev, I rigged up a way to true the wheel that is pretty damn accurate.  I got my wheel down to 0.01 inches of variance.  Total cost so far was about $40.  I'll post the actual dollar amount once I finish version 2, which we'll get to in a minute.
Flaws in version 1 were pretty minimal.  First and foremost is that the blasted thing is too accurate.  The needle on the dial moves way too much for my liking, so I keep refining and refining until it is so close to perfect.  Then I remember that a tenth of an inch is a full rotation on the dial, so that little swing it has is nothing by comparison.  The other flaw is more of a design flaw, in that there isn't really a way to tell if the hoop is off-center of the hub.  The idea I have to further the design is to attach an L shaped piece of aluminum (wrapped in duck tape so it won't mar up the frame), that will hopefully let me mark out a uniform place on the chain-stays to mount the clamp.  Once I have this uniform mark, I should be able to tell how far off to one side or the other the wheel is.
While this rig sounds somewhat inaccurate, I think it will serve its purpose.  Save me money and trips to the bike shop.  I may even invest in a cheap front fork and make it into a work-bench type solution, but we'll see on that one.
Mileage:  0

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Water!

So some people didn't believe that I found actual running water on my rides. Here I prove them wrong!
On a side note, I had a really long ride today. 25 miles total. And the strange part was that I felt pretty good after the long ride. Tired, but not exhausted like when I started the 18 mile rides. I was impressed.
Mileage: 25

Monday, August 4, 2008

Hot

I know that most people think of scorching heat when they think of Arizona, but Flagstaff is a little different. This weekend the high temperatures was in the mid-80's, but it always manages to feel much hotter in the sun. Between the extreme heat of hauling my big self up hills and the hot black-top, it felt like nearly 140 degrees on the bicycle.
I also was reminded of how badly I despise tap-water. I normally filter my drinking water through a faucet-based filter, and then through a pitcher-based filter. In preparing for my ride, I realized that I had not refilled the pitcher all the way, and I had to top off my camelback with tap water. About half way through my ride, I hit that water and nearly blew chunks on the side of the road. Stomach churning nastiness in the Flagstaff water system. This may be just me, though, as several of my friends think it is the best water they've ever tasted. Freaks.
Mileage: 18

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Life!


Had a pretty good ride today, found actual running water and actual life!
I also got my second car up and running, it is one kick-ass Jiggady. After over a year of sitting, it cranked right up! Had to replace the battery, but that was my fault. There was a paper-towel stuck in the rear hatch keeping the dome light on.
Mileage: 19