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"...Is that bike upside down?"

5jul2002

This tall bike was made entirely from off-the-shelf (translation: trashpicked) components!

[was. I bought the u-bolt.]

(It's not very tall, it's true.)

(One or two parts were trashpicked by people other than me.)

Oddly, the current rev uses no innertube for structural support - except inside one(!) of the wheels.

[that didn't last]

(BTW, this is the bike the green one got its current (July '02) handlebars from. When I found this, it had handlebars, a crankset, and rear brakes, but no wheels or chain.)

So, I was going to go into work today, but I realized in time that the files I'd want were on a machine the sysadmin was banging on. So I set my .plan file on "I'll telecommute when /homes/nmrnew is back up" and took a sketchpad out to the back porch where there I've stashed some building blocks - five road bike frames, this little Ross bike minus wheels and chain, a tiny kid's bike, tiny trike, an exercycle, and assorted bits. (This bike has a pretty short head tube, so it wasn't just going to be a matter of giving it someone else's fork.)

(I had vague plans to put a bigger wheel on the exercycle, so it would touch the ground, and make it into some sort of mobile exercycle, maybe a rear-steer tricycle.)

So, perhaps the most straightforward way to make a tall bike is: turn the frame over, then switch the handlebars and front fork back. If you've got a freewheel, flip the crankset and flip the rear wheel so the chain runs on the right of the bike again (so pedaling forward does the right thing). Then, uh, do something creative to put the handlebars and seat at feasible heights with respect to the now-elevated crankset - possibly involving lots of conduit (or tube from donor bikes), and hose-clamp (or other hardware, or welding).

Is a tall bike a kind of chopper? This bike retains its original-equipment 12" fork - a little too matching-the-front-wheel to fit all I'd ever heard about what "chopper" meant. Dunno - the Subversive Choppers Urban Legion has High Altitude Reconaissance Vehicles. In fact, I did mean to put a longer fork on this frame (which I thought might make it possible for me to use just the bike's original tall unextended handlebars), but all of the forks on the cannibalizeable bikes were for longer head tubes - and I think extending a head tube is an advanced lesson. As it is, the front fork is tilted enough to satisfy malcontents - maybe a smaller wheel up front would make up for it. [Done.]

Oh, so the front wheel. The front fork is stiff and picky about what width wheel it wants, so I didn't manage to use the wheel from the cart that magically appeared on my porch one day (must have belonged to someone visiting the upstairs neighbors). The one in the summer 2002 rev is a 20" one that Arun was keeping around to make a cart or wheelbarrow or something at some point in the far future. It was very nice of him to donate it. It had a severely bent axle, but I harvested one off one of the cannibalizeables. It's not a great fit...

Ah, hm, now, the rear wheel. This bike's current rear wheel was the only 20"-or-smaller thing I could find with any gears without cannibalizing the local recumbent. In fact, it's the (16") wheel off the found exercycle. It's solid rubber, not inflated, without nice tread. And it's fixed-gear, i.e. no freewheel, i.e. if the bike's moving, the pedals are pumping. (This is completely new to me - I have to mount the thing with great difficulty against a post or wall - especially since the handlebars won't withstand any force in, hm, most directions.) The wheel doesn't really interact correctly with the brakes, which is to say, they're right where the rim of a 20" wheel would be. I might move the rear brakes to the front, or leave them where they are and wait to find a 20" geared wheel. [Since replaced with a 16" coaster-breakes wheel]

One odd, minor bonus of the fixed-gear wheel is I didn't have to flip the crankset - the fixed wheel has no preferred direction. I always can later if I find one with a freewheel [Did] - it's the sort of bottom bracket where it won't unscrew itself if you pedal in the unpreferred direction. I should do it anyway, though - as it is, I keep getting caught in the chainring grease that I expect to be on the other side.

Conveniently, the exercycle fixed-wheel and the Ross chainring take the same size of chain - uh, the Other Size, the big stuff - but that's okay - it turned out some of the backporch bikes (off-the-shelf components) had some of that, and in oddly good shape.

And, the frame. Yeah, it's this Ross Pyramid or Piranha or Pyro or Parasite or Paranoid or Pirouette or something.

The only thing I've come up with to stick in a head tube, I think, is a headset stem [or a stem extender]. At least the bottom part of one, with that expander bolt that widens and snugs up against the inside. I guess you can saw it off after that part and attach some joining-end-to-end hardware.

I was kind of stymied at this point for a while, though I had stems to burn. I was visualizing needing three of them - part of one to attach in the head tube, then some hardware, then a second, upside-down, to attach to some tube/pipe/conduit, then a third to attach the top end of the conduit to some handlebars. But I've gotten away with two [Heh, now three]. The big L-shaped tube is vaguely sturdy, but nothing like ideal. Dunno what it was designed to be - part of some kind of shoe rack, I expect. The original top end was deflared too small - whaddayacall, narrowed - for inserting into some other component, but I took that part off with a pipe-cutter. The asymmetry in this extension piece is partly compensated for in the offset of the rams-horns, but the handlebar tape impeded a full fix - but I wasn't inclined to worry about it.

The base of the L can rotate a bit in its handlebar clamp, but if you remember not to rely on it for support [Made launch brutal], it's kind of nice - you can adjust them to the height you want during the ride - start a little vertical and bring it down towards your lap, more parallel to the seat tube. SCUL Fleet Admiral Skunk told the story of how the handlebars on retired tall bike USB SkyKing worked something like this - with different best positions for e.g. uphill and downhill riding.

The seat tube is a 23"ish piece of 1" conduit or something I had around, with a compression slot part-saber-sawed and part-hacksawed into one end, a seat post shoved in, and the slot tightened with one of those screw-down collar-things you use to hold freeweights on their bar. [It turns out this put a tremendous dent in both the seat tube and seat post.] The seat tube rests on the bar where the (rear, side-pull, off-duty) brakes attach, around the brakes' nut. Four of the old standby, hose clamps, secure it further - one at the pivot point, one below, a pair above. Unfortunately, the seat tube angle is serious such that the seat is about right over the rear hub - and that's with the seat tube already a little too short for comfort. It doesn't spontaneously wheelie when you ride it [did as soon as I switched to an inflateable rear wheel] - only when you try to take birds-eye-view photographs of yourself sitting on it. That's acceptable numbers.

I could hardly bring myself to test it. All pathetic attempts at mounting it moving failed. (If I could yank on the handlebars to pull myself up, it might have been at all feasible. [Indeed, that changed everything.]) To procrastinate further, I showed it off to the neighbor who was green bike's previous owner.

I put on my helmet, $3 thrift-store padded-hockey-pants, and $1 TS too-small wrist guards, sat on the thing against the driveway wall, and steeled myself. In particular, I had no idea (though I guess I could have figured it out) what the pedal-rpm-to-bike-speed ratio was going to be. Then I said "What the hell" and rode down the driveway and across the street. It was okay. Everything was loose. Still is, mostly [no longer - oct 2002 rev]. For a few reflective moments, I expounded regarding my disbelief - at the top of my lungs. I found a tree to mount against, and rode down my (quiet) street - downhill and then up a bit. I made friends with some folks down the road - they were especially amused to hear about the plans for the mobile exercycle. I came back up the street - a bit downhill, then up. I made friends with two more neighbors. Hacksaw turned up and was kind enough to take the fine photos that have a rider in them. (Note thick black hockey pants.)

To sum up: the ride is unspeakably bad. If none of the joints were loose, or if it weren't fixed-gear, it'd be... speakably bad. It's doable, with no traffic around and a post to start off against. I haven't tried it out in a parking lot or somewhere where I can try really turning. The start of a ride, the getting-up-to-speed part usually involves a lot of Pilot-Induced Oscillations, and perhaps that I've always survived those speaks faintly well of the steering. (OTOH, I'll admit I'm a little hard to push over in SCUL derby.) It's just that you can't at all wrench the handlebars to pull yourself out of it - it will happen as it must happen. [Much like riding BRC Summer - if you micromanage that bike, it'll just get bad.]


7jul2002

I walked this bike most of the way to SCUL Fort Summer, a few blocks - meant to try to ride it there, of course - didn't work so well. (For one thing, it's almost all uphill - tough even on green bike.) And then I didn't really have a chance to introduce it around. I certainly didn't ride it on the mission to Middlesex Fells - I rode CFT CircusPeanut. But - !! - I rode this bike MOST OF THE WAY BACK HOME!! (i.e. a few blocks minus one).

My feet were sore and it was starting to rain, which, for me, is more than enough excuse to attempt the improbable.

8jul2002

Todo list:

  • The helpful folks at MITERS were kind enough to lend me a 16" coaster-brakes/inflatey/freewheelin' rear wheel, yay! So that means _now I need to flip the bottom bracket stuff.

  • There _are brakes on the thing, for some value of "on," i.e. they're not at all installed or operational - the cable is wrapped around the, uh, top-tube-turned-down-tube, the lever is clipped-on somewhere out-of-the-way, and the brakes themselves never reached the last (small) rear wheel. There is a place to hook them on in front, so, yeah, I might move them there, or save them for a different bike. (Uhhh, the seat tube's hose clamps will have to be loosened to get at the nut.) Or leave them there in case the next rear wheel is a 20" one without coaster brakes.

  • Come up with a name for the band the bike. (Apparently "JumboShrimp" is taken. "LittleBigBike" fails to grab me. MilitaryIntelligence? OxyMormon? ProxyMoron? ...MoxieMoron?? - but I also like PoorWarpControl. (Get it??))

11-12jul2002

Todo list:

  • (New wheel is on, bottom bracket is flipped. Tire pressure good, chain tension adjusted, things generally tightened up - time to TEST DRIVE.

  • Substitute a bigger, bulkier bolt+nut for the one in the rear-brakes hole that the seat post to catch on - maybe something different that lets the post sit _rearward of the brake beam. [a u-bolt, oct 02]

  • The short kickstand doesn't seat well at all where it oughta go. Rig something or forget it.

  • Wrap some rubber sheeting inside joint of L and lower stem, so it doesn't slip so easily?

  • Acquire soonish:

    • spreader-type pliers(?)

    • big wrench (give Arun's back!) [got, oct 02]

  • and later:

    • lockring wrench, pin wrench

It might be feasible to real quick turn the green bike tall now that we have (a subset of) the technology. I mean, I took its bottom bracket apart as a practice exercise for this (more stuck) one. USB Devastation is what you get if you just put a long fork and a banana seat on something this size and shape (hilly top tubes) and that bike is tall enough that I have to dismount very sideways or else. So I think I'll do that some other bike, maybe a girl's bike.

10aug2002

Wuff! Test ride with the flimsy bolt. MM seemed especially in the mood to wheelie today - looked about normal, hose clamps maybe a little slack. Got about a half a block down my little street the wrong way before the bolt sheared right in two. Seat post swung down, I took a perfect breakfall to the left. Almost the same fall as when I fell off PedalStilt, just not as far. Same injuries, too. Bloody scrape to the ankle, bruise and chunkectomy to palm, and some little bits to calf and knee, or maybe those were later.

So, mouthy sportsfans thought I sounded way timid and cautious about riding this bike the first time. The thing was, the probability of an unscheduled dismount was almost 1.0. The only question was in what direction.

(So I had to ride green bike to the SCUL fort. Bringing it around from the back yard, I carefully avoided the new 1.5-2' deep drainage ditch. Then I spotted a package of 'pickage on the back porch and thought "Wait, what was in there?", took a step that way, and slammed into the trench. Same palm (cleaned and gloved, whew), same leg. (All that mission, I was waiting for the third accident, involving some third bike - I suppose I _did have a crucially brutal dismount from Devastation...) They were kind enough to give me an injury medal. Kind of embarrassing.)

24aug2002

ANYway. I never did get around to fixing MM. I just left it and green bike on the front porch with two frames and a weight bench and treadmill I t'picked this month (oh, also a duffel full of lacrosse(?) protective gear and a pair of cleats that will probably fit(!) (not really vegan, no, but me-able in my odd world). But its state of disrepair was lucky for me, because a couple of days ago, someone went to steal it, or borrow it for a joy ride or something, and they ended up leaving it a few tens of feet down the road because it was about completely unrideable... Anyway, I fixed the seat tube (sturdier bolt, a 1/4" eyebolt). And today I lashed on a support tube (half-inch conduit) to try and keep the, uhhh, stem a little less flexible. And now it lives on the _back porch, a whole 50% safer than the front porch. I'm not feeling real gung-ho about trying it out :-/ Just a little sleepy, I guess.

26aug2002

I reaffixed the seat tube, microscopically further back (thicker bolt), and the damned thing still likes to wheelie - ever since the new rear wheel (maybe it's a shade smaller - or inflated vs. solid, gives more?). Bending the seat tube more vertical would probably end in tears. Could do something with uhhh a pipe T fitting (at least 1", probably bigger, in whatever material washes up on the curb) held on with some metal strapping (or prototype with IT), set a couple of inches back from the old brake crossbar hole the seat tube sits on now.

Also, might shove a piece of narrower conduit down the seat tube for a little extra sturdiness, though it's holding up fine so far.

?????2002

I took a relatively flimsy length of half-inch conduit and braced the stem extension with it. I had a couple of bits of rubber-dipped strapping loops to hook it on with, one down at one of the the front fork holes by the dropouts and one in a hole the goofy L thing came with that had to do with whatever its original purpose was. That left it a little loose and unflush at the top, so it's strapped on with much IT. There's a wooden block between the fork and this strut, carved with impatient indentations, and also strapped in with IT.

16sep2002

Looking at the first photos, the seat doesn't look any further forward than it does now. Maybe I used to sit crunched way forward from fear. Maybe the rear wheel got a few pounds flat? I put a smaller front wheel on - now both are 16". Minimally better. I can cannibalize or assemble a 20" rear wheel, if that doesn't do it.

And if I could get the seat tube to sit just an inch further back at the bottom (can't, BTW, with 20" rear wheel - no room), I think it would make a big difference. Maybe I could even use a carabiner, or an s-hook, or a threaded-rod-to-hook.

This thing is going to be rideable by Halloween or bust! [DONE!, 19oct2002]

02oct2002

So, the other day, I took a 1/4" U-bolt, and stuck one end through the rear-brakes hole (ends-up) and nutted it on. (You can't really thread a U-bolt through a bar like that, now, can you, so I ground out the threads a bit so it would just slide in.) Recall, the seat tube used to sit on a bolt through the brakes hole, and now it sits over the free, rearward end of the u-bolt. I dremeled a groove in the conduit for where it sits against the bottom of the U.

To get rid of residual L/R play in the seat tube, I cut kind of a bloated trapezoid from a block of 1/2"-thick wood to fit snugly between what used to be the seatstays and the brakes bar(?) and (less snugly against) the wheel and drilled a 1" hole at a slight angle for the conduit to go through (just bought a $1 garage-sale hole saw on my last trip to see the folks). The block of wood is strapped to the frame with four of those copper-pipe capital-omega-shaped straps, bent to U-shape and screwed on. (Okay, those weren't trashpicked, but they sure were scrounged - project was to put a wood tabletop instead of glass on one of these) A section of innertube lines the hole, where there was a little bit too much wiggle room. (In inserting that, the wood broke - weakened by some previous rev's drillings - but it's now glued and straps screwed across the break - it's mostly going to be taking side-to-side compressive stresses, anyway. If I'm motivated, I'll cut a new one.)

Not all the screws are in, but the results are clear - everything's sturdy in the directions it's being asked to be sturdy in - and the seat sits about three inches farther forward than it did before, yay! It's a little closer to the pedals than it was, but now there's lots of room to raise it once I'm no longer terrified by the idea.

Uh, pix some day - this is in the rear bar the brakes bolt onto, between the ...stays that used to be seatstays. It sits like this (front of bike = left): 

|     |
=     |
0     |
=     |
 \___/

where the 0 is that bar it goes through and ='s are nuts and the 1"-conduit seat post sits on the other half of the u-bolt and goes off up and to the right and I gave it a slot on the left to straddle the bottom left bit of the u. I had to grind off a chunk of the lower (semi-optional) nut, too... I haven't tried it yet. For one thing, I want a deeper groove, and it's getting late to do grinding outside or inside. I just have amazingly low activation energy towards frightening bicycles - especially after dark - when I could have a cup of tea instead, or sit here and dump core inelegantly.

03oct2002

I saw a scooter at Building 19 with an interesting headset. The head tube was mountain-bike length or shorter and the steer tube was more roady and went through and out the other side. The usual locknuts screwed onto it at that point and a stem clamped onto the rest. Maybe that was just the clamp-on-type stem - and I didn't recognize it because it was kind of hacked together, with lots of steer-tube thread showing.

They also had one of those tiny bikes for medium-sized people. The stem had the usual expander-bolt stuff and 135degree angle, but ended in a clamp for a vertical bar at the top, and then the handlebars were some sort of T or Y thing! That would totally work, as well.

04oct2002

Bah!, the replacement piece split, too, which I should have seen coming. Glued and screwed, good as new. Got some pix, and it's more or less ready to go. Only the ram's horns are coming off. They're only on there (to look cool and) to remind the rider not to expect the stem to survive hard yanks.

13oct2002

Oh, the other yum thing was I took MoxieMoron over (not to ride on the mission - it's still too fragile, IMHO) and Pikachu rode it around a little, even uphill, and really dug it - wanted to ride it on the mission (no way - it (the stem L) was bent when he got off, and he'd been pretty careful).

That rocked my world. He really dug the bike, partly because he's a supporter of all things Moxie. I'd started to resent(?) the thing, so that was a moving change-of-scenery for me.

At the last SCUL mission, the incomparable MegaSeth had a suggestion for the front end - instead of the unreliable L, forget the head tube and strap two tubes onto the front fork and have two stems attaching to the handlebar. (BTW, the headset of his homebrew recumbent was done kinda like that scooter's.)

I went halfway with that, leaving the L and installing one piece of 1" conduit up alongside it, making a sort of "4." [The bike is definitely no longer called PoorWarpControl.] Photos when it gets sunny again. This time it has mountain bars, much more relaxing, and some glitter-pink grips I found near a skunked kiddie bike. I made some tassels out of shredded innertube...

In fact, this was where I really fell off the IT wagon. Admittedly, there was already some filling in the gaps in the rear wooden brace and some holding the half-inch conduit's wedge on. (I wasn't going to mention it, but for a while, the 1/2" conduit was wrapped all the way up the L with it.) Anyway, it's for the best. I padded under some of the hose clamps with patches of it. I stuffed some in the grips, which were too loose to stay on but too horrid/unacceptable to glue. Ah, and the tassels. There's a pad of IT in the crossing of the 4, and the joint is lashed with it over that. This conduit is a little over 1" inside, and all my stems are 7/8"->1", so I wrapped them with some IT first. Works for me.

Oh, and the loop of IT I tied onto the top left stem to secure a u-lock on the handlebars turns out to be just the thing to keep the bike upright when I lock the top tube to a post, all of a foot off the ground - stretch the loop around the post and loop it around the handlebar.

So there's this hole in the L piece, that served some terrible purpose in its former life in a shoe rack or whatever, I'm sure. Anyway, it takes about a #10 screw, and I had a little attachment strap for the 1/2" conduit eyebolted on, there (dunno, for some reason, most of the long bolts in my parts bin are eyebolts). Now, there's a nasty brokey-pokey bottle cage. There was some extra unthreaded eyebolt shaft and the eye sticking out the left, so I threaded on a chunk of drilled 3/4" rubber cord (that I had around...) to clip the cyclometer. It was heartbreaking - I mounted the sensor as high as I could, but the cord was about a half-inch too short, and the best I could do was mount it (completely out of sight) on the uh stem just below it.

Ha! WooHOO! This is incontrovertible proof MoxieMoron is an honest-to-god, undeniable, real live Tall Bike, with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities appertaining thereunto!

Uh, back to the story. What else, a bottom corner of the bottle cage and the wire of the cyclometer are tacked on with thin laces of IT.

Uh, back from the story. A cyclometer, of all things?? Well, I finally got one (from Broadway Bicycle School) for my Trek, and the crucial electronics from Muddler's cyclometer had self-ejected during some deep space maneuvers and he was kind enough to pass on the fiddly bits. The thing has two tire/distance settings, so why not? I don't really have any other bikes I ride enough that their stats would be interesting.

Oh, hey, and today I found a use for that old Blackburn rear rack that I got on eBay and then realized it couldn't straddle a 26" wheel. It fits fine on here, though it won't support typical panniers (or any cargo but the most narrow and contained) because it only barely fits between the pedals. Its most crucial use is as a handle for picking up the rear of the bike when you want to spin the cranks to the preferred launch orientation. Also, the rack makes the bike look _finished, like shutters on a house (its "eyebrows," my folks say) or a luggage rack on a station wagon. Never _mind whether it makes it look more serious or less. [You have to remove it to adjust the chain tension - not great. I passed it on to Vicka - who's just like a bicyclist only smaller - but I seem to have acquired another one...]

20oct2002

With some of the 1" conduit remaining after the headset piece, I changed the 23" seat tube to 30" (leaving 30", which I should consider getting ready as a spare (which just means cutting a groove in one end for the u-bolt) and taking along on missions - strapped to someone's fork or SkyLab's head tube?). Getting the seat post out of the old seat tube was an incredible pain. The weights stopper-ring screw had dented the tube way deep into the post. I broke a fine old screwdriver trying to pry the conduit loose, and ended up hacksawing it off, in the end. (The stuff is terribly strong, in some directions.) All this in the 11th hour before the SCUL ride.

As usual [true no more!], the main reason I even could bring myself to get on the thing was I was too lazy to walk. Also, there's a very short downhill piece on the half-mile from Fort Spencer to Fort Summer, with a useful lamppost at the top of it, so that was really going to be the only chance, I thought. Though I still had this huge resistance against getting on the bike myself, I was starting to think the bike was relatively rideable at this point, and I thought maybe Pikachu might want to play with it.

Well, the ride was smooth right away - usually that's only after the pilot-induced oscillations damp out. I slowed way down to wait for a light, because remounting at the bottom-of-the-hill intersection seemed infeasible, and it was seriously stable even at that low speed. I hollered to HeadCrash that I expected to peter out partway up the next hill, and I never did. This bike was actually easier to ride to the fort than green bike, which is geared high and has this dreadful antsy, twitchy steering. It may be that green bike has no Elvis in it.

I wouldn't have the hang of it for a few more miles, but it was already so much smoother than it had ever been before...

I got a high-five from Bushido as I rolled up :-)

I asked the Choppernomicroneroperator what the mission was, and she said get cannoli and I said North End?? and she said yes and we'd probably be back around 1am. A match made in heaven's waiting room - no vegan cannoli - point being, we were headed inbound instead of outbound, and during subway hours. I was relatively comfortable with "burning up on reentry" (not completing the mission and getting no points :-P ) if I could catch the T home when the bike snapped in half.

And just falling off it isn't so bad ("for a professional faller"). Though you wouldn't want to do that too many times in one night. And, as mission tailgunner Smasher pointed out, causing a chopper pileup in traffic on e.g. a bridge, would be positively negi.

I promised Smasher I'd be sure to get hurt worst in any difficulty and that in order not to take too many ships down with me I'd ride near the rear (i.e., hm, right in front of him). I borrowed some extra hose clamps and ultrabuff wire-ties in case of emergency, and was good to go, IMHO. Later he realized I was being extravagantly cautious and he kinda appreciated that, maybe.

I was certainly not backing down now. This bike was underway before I'd ever met SCUL - maybe before I'd realized they were in town, I'm starting to forget. I was significantly into getting my own wing on the Armada page and, for that matter, a Ship page for MoxieMoron by the end of the season. (Note - degree of difficulty (thrust/handling/overall rating) was eyeballed by resident expert Admiral Diva, what with FA Skunk playin' hooky that week an' all; the impressive Overall number reflects, among other curiosities, the relatively high chances of an unscheduled, breakdown-induced spacewalk, i.e. massive failure in the sketchy hardware. IMHO, I'd up handling a bit and down thrust.)

In any case, it was _about _time.

The ship christening would be at the launch lot - this typically involves some Schlitz on the head tube and a few choice words for those assembled plus posterity. Each builder in SCUL has a separate division/wing with a three-letter designation. I was thinking about something tricky that TLA ("Three-Letter Acronym," in my world) could stand for, until Sparky said "'True Love Always'??"

(There are a lot of 30-somethings in SCUL. Some of them remember middle school wayyy too well.)

So it was going to have to be either "Three-Letter Acronym" itself - so there'd be no confusion - or something entirely different. So I was casting about for some such thing, and "Unlikely Accretions of Sketch" struck me as solidly appropriate. (I only relearned the word "sketchy" a year or two ago, and find it oddly evocative.)

But I ended up going with "Three-Letter Acronym." 'cause it made Diva, the evening's Choppernomicroneroperator, laugh...

So, promotions, christening, launch. Commodore is the first of the ranks (with an actual skull on the rank dogtag decal, after chain and wrenches) where you get a little presentation and a hug. (That had been my only goal this season with respect to points.) Pikachu has a Moxie label for me for a wossit, head-plate. (And for disguising my water bottle so I had an excuse for dribbling TLA-MM with that instead of Schlitz.) (Pikachu has been a tremendous booster re MoxieMoron. It was nice that other folks who tried it last night also liked it, liked the handling, pretty well.)

I was casting about for a pole, but the launch lot was bone-dry. Ships were taking off, (so I floundered a moment, then) tried something I've been doing lately on the mountain bike, which is to start scootering along with right foot on left pedal, then hoist your rear up on the seat, then switch feet around. It was just the ticket. (I would think that would work pretty well even on a bike with a somewhat higher top tube.) Later, in traffic, I got the hang of a pitch-vs.-roll dismount involving sliding down parallel to and in between the head tube and seat tube, which apparently is pretty amusing to watch. "Here, diagonally! Very sneaky, Sis!"

"VSS" = "Very sneaky, Sis" would be a good wing name. IMHO, so would "ZED" or "XOR" or "TCB."

It was cool to see how other folks taking test-flights got on and off. Some did the swing-a-leg-over-the-back mount. No one succeeded at starting from straddling then rising up between between the headset and seat - there's not much room, there. Pikachu started by scootering with right foot on top tube, which I think I might like.

Skunk was playin' hooky, so MM's was the trip-odometer. ("Choppernomicronometer"? "Choppernomichronometer"?) We went 10.45 miles (or something) and I was very, very proud. I was simply elated the length of the trip and beyond. One blazing highlight was bumping into Skunk on our way back to the fort - when I buzzed the car for a high-five, I was all like "Skunk, look what I'm riding!!"

Todo list:

  • Install some mirrors (and lights) so I can read the cyclometer (at night)?

  • Work out how to carry cargo on the back (the front half of the rack is pretty close to getting clipped by the pedals, so no normal panniers - I lost a set of hex wrenches from a bag that was getting banged about by the pedals (I'd taken the dangerous lumpy things out of my pockets for dogfight derby)).

  • Build a little rear wheel on a internal-shifting hub?? Hmm. It'd be hard to mount external brakes for a 16" wheel, though, and the 20" wheel would require a big seat-tube redesign. (More likely, stick a fork in this one, and tallify one of the 26" Raleighs. Hmm, where's the seat tube going to go if the rear triangle is full of wheel? (Build a 24" wheel? Nah, then we're back to no-brakes, up to no-good. How well do those bottom brackets invert? Hey, the u-lock-hobbled Schwinn has a 1-piece crank.) OK, back to the drawing board for the seat tube attachin' - maybe something involving a fork and/or a banana seat.)

These are getting pretty fancy, i.e. not brutally crucial revisions. A good sign.

22oct2002

I rode Mox in to work, yesterday - which ended up meaning I rode to MIT and back (overslept, went to FMRI class, went to the farmers' market and other errands and napped in the student center, went to aikido, had post-aikido party/disctoss). Most of the aikido folks did some donuts on it.

During the errands, who pulls up at the intersection but occasional-SCUL-pilot Blink (in transport UglyTruckling), builder of the only other tall bike I'd ever ridden (I've somehow never gotten around to riding the active SCUL HARVS). He was loudly positive, across the intersection, and that was very nice.

I got a number of odd-but-supportive noises from civilians, too. This belongs on another page, but there's a lot to be said about getting civilian attention. It's playing in public - subversive! - howling at the mooon. And I like the subset of people it appeals to, the demographics of the folks who wave and cheer, who can take a joke (and run with it, take a joke and give as good as they get, take a joke to water and make it drink - and then there are the folks who can take a joke or leave it). Give and go! An odd combination of selfish and generous, and somewhere between making a connection and passing in the night - only faster.

"What are you riding for?" we typically get asked, on SCUL rides.

  • "'Cause it's fun!"
  • "Saturday night ride!"
  • or, simply, "It's Saturday night!"

The rear wheel needs truing in a big way. That wheel is.. false.

BTW, MoxieMoron's rear rack is just right for carrying a bag of Kontos massala naan. Or, rather, bags of Kontos massala naan are just right for being carried on MoxieMoron's rear rack.

24oct2002

Bumped into Blink again. "Where's the little one?"

2003

Stole MM's cyclometer mount for the Trek =(

Rode MM in Cambridge bike rally thing.

Started building the next size up.

14jul2003

The SCUL mission was scheduled to be lightweight, so I figured I'd ride this. (I hadn't ridden it this season - mostly because of VWBeetle. But I got to SCUL early enough to snag BRC Summer, and Bushido rode MoxieMoron! Speaking of which, I accidentally told Nameless he could ride VWBeetle next week, but I guess that's okay.