Laptop manifesto

Power inlets should always be behind the laptop. If they are on the side you will wrap the power cord around your leg and as you get up fling the laptop across the room repeatedly, until the hard drive crashes in a very final way. Blogging shall resume after a fashion. While rectified in the current model, I want an apology from whoever put the inlet on the left side of the 2009 Dell Mini 10.

Jobst was right

If you are not into the Tarik Saleh Bike Club, then maybe:




Done by the pfister 10 years ago in response to some sort of snit on the long dead hardcore bicycle science email list. I think I egged him on. Creative Commons licensed and ready for printing and plastering at your convenience.

See originals singly and four up

It just is!

Thanks Coco's variety!


Update!
Now available thanks to Kent Peterson:
www.cafepress.com/bikethere.
All profits are cheerfully ceded to the kent bicycle adventure fund...

Skateboarding and Ukuleles

I used to skate for transportation and to work a fair bit when I lived in Oakland and Berkeley. It was easy to do multi-modal commuting with a skateboard and the riding down hill after work was fun. I have no skills to speak of other than I rarely fall off the board unaided by cars. After that last incident I have not skated, but maybe I should skate to work this year. My commute is not too bad for that. I can take some shortcuts on foot through the woods to cut out the crappy bits. It would be a bit easier on a longboard, but I think I can hack it pretty well on my regular board with the fat wheels. I did more than a few 5 mile plus long hauls on it in the past.

Anyhow, check out these guys longboarding through peru and bolivia. All sorts of silly. I would do it on a bike, but I really enjoyed this. I also am pleased that they brought a uke along.

Via the cleanest line

Speaking of Ukes. Here is some holiday ukulele singing with Aida and my Nephew. We are singing some rube waddell.





Finally, check out this:


Wooo! Thems are skills. Great shooting and editing to go along with this. I sent Brett Novak a few bucks to keep good stuff like this coming. Check out the rest of the his excellent stuff on vimeo and on his website

Via super relax

Excellent Customer Service, Schwalbe North America

I had a problem with a pair of 20" Schwalbe Marathon Winter Studded tires that I have had on my Raleigh twenty for a couple of years.



ALL the center studs on the rear tire had pushed through to the inside of the tire and were causing flats. A couple on the front were starting to do the same.


You can see all the center studs now flush with the tire.



I had about 500 miles on them after three winters, at $70 plus bucks a tire, I thought this was a little short for them to wear out, especially in such a weird way. I emailed Schwalbe with the photos, they thought that I should submit a warranty claim, so I did a quick online form. They promptly emailed me that they considered the rear tire a warranty item and would be sending a replacement immediately.

Two days later I got a package with not one, but two new tires:


And a bonus christmas guardian angel ornament.


Pretty cool. That was some excellent prompt customer service. Thanks Schwalbe.

Now I have to overhaul the murderously grungy raleigh twenty and get it rolling again with fresh studded rubber.

You realize normal people

don't dress like that, said my dad.





I say, thats just the system talking, trying to keep me down, maaaaaaaaan.

A dissenting opinion

A couple of years ago, I found a carbon fiber arrow in the middle of a road near my house. I wrote about it here. Someone recently found that post and decided to post a well reasoned dissenting opinion, which I published, but I decided to post in its entirety here. Read on:

Yes, hunters are morons for losing an arrow (possibly dropped from a quiver) while in the woods to provide food for their family utilizing an ancient and honorable BOW. MEANWHILE... you're not an idiot for bringing your stinking humanity into the woods, eroding roads with your knobby tires, scaring animals with your presence? I'm certain YOU have never lost ANYTHING in the woods. YOU ARE AN ECO DESTROYER - bringing your STINK into the woods. Oh, and, BTW, bicycles are for children - get a job, you stinking, dirty hippy! Peace out, fag.


Alas, the author was anonymous. A shame, I would like to send them a thank you note for justifying my blogging career.

2010 Year End Motion Update!

Welp, that was ought ten, time for the annual year end motion update.

Totals of 2010: 2671 miles biking and 51 miles running.

In short, it was my lowest mileage totals in recorded history. I am betting you would have to go back to 1994 to get lower bike numbers (but I probably ran more that year than I biked this year) and 1997 or so to get worse run numbers when I pulled my hip and did not run all year, but the bike that year was probably well over this year.


I drove to work about 7 times this year, mostly so I could drive up the ski hill and do some xc skiing at lunch. I think I drove two other times due to being in a hurry. Based on rough estimates I have driven to work 17 times since May 2006, which I am pretty proud of.

On a per bike basis the tally is:
624 on the Kelly Single Speed Mountain bike
570 on the Kogswell PR
412 on the Surly Big Dummy
330 on the Schwinn Breeze
281 on the Fixie Bike Friday
154 on the Kelly Road bike
145 on the Kelly Fixie
94 on the Raleigh Twenty
29 on the Picnica
29 on the Schwinn Traveler
3 on the Schwinn Typhoon

1082 miles were on single speeds or fixies, 40% of total milage, this percentage pretty steady for the last three years, but is much less than the 66% I did in 2007, the arrival of the PR and the big dummy are likely to blame. Notably I have had some repeated mechanical issues that completely took a bunch of bikes out of service for the year and prevented others from even making an appearance. The single speed cross bike and hunter 24" bmxer need some serious work and I am determined to get them rolling. The returned from the dead typhoon needs some serious work too. I also have my new 29'er single speed that I have not finished building. Wrenching time has been minimal. I did major overhauls of the single speed mountain bike and the road bike the night before races, and finally got off my ass and got the big dummy rolling after it was waylaid for most of the spring and summer with grotty chainitus and myriad braking problems. The Raleigh twenty tried to kill me mid year and I still am on the fence on building it back up or selling it. I did get a new set of 20" studded tires for it. So maybe I will get it rolling again this winter.

On the per month mileage:
102 Jan
94 Feb
169 Mar
313 Apr
376 May
338 Jun
105 Jul
188 Aug
276 Sep
223 Oct
200 Nov
287 Dec

Last winter was a really tough one for commuting. I did bare minimum subsistence commuting through march. July was wiped out by travel, I have no idea why august was so bad. I was in NZ for late October and early November, but recovered somewhat in November as winter did not arrive. December also benefited from warm weather until the last week and a trip to California over christmas where I put in a mess of miles attempting the Rapha 500 thingy.

Commuting and errand mileage were consistently high this year. I have a couple of spread out places where I work and I get lots of between mileage during the week, but I don;t think I did a ride of more than 40 miles this year. Which is the big difference between the last couple years and my high mileage years. I used to put in lots of commuting and then ride long on the weekends fairly often. I really don't do that anymore.


I cross country skied 21 times in 2010, I managed to wax my (and elena's) skis 27 times though, accounting for bringing multiple pairs of skiis to races and putting them all in storage and other wax changes for weather. Silly sport it is.

I swam four times, all in the ocean, three times in italy and once in Rhode Island.

I like racing and raced a bunch this year again:
XC ski:
Chama Chile Challenge 10k classic
Leadville Loppet 22k skate
Alley Loop Crested Butte 44k skate
Alpina Stampede half of the planned 44k skate
Pajarito Pinhead 10k skate

Snowshoe:
Santa Fe Snowshoe Classic 5k
Chama Chile Challenge 5k

Mountain bike:
Tierra Torture Short Track
Tierra Torture XC
pajarito Punishment XC
Top of the World mountain bike race, XC
Road Apple Rally XC
Single Speed World Championship New Zealand

Running:
Ruby K Yum Run 10k trail race

I also did a xc ski training race and a time trial training race. So that is 16 total races which is about the same as last year. I was pretty fast mid xc ski season and toward the end of the mountain bike season, but I need to train more to actually be really fast. I like racing anyway though, so I probably will race similarly next year, I was thinking about doing Leadville 100 in 2011, but realistically I don't think I will enjoy that race with current riding habits, I will stick to short races I can race well (or fake) on my current training habits. I did no cross races again, I can't really get motivated to drive to albuquerque (~2hours each way) for a one hour race. They did have some closer races this year, but they conflicted with some trail races here in town, in any case I had the flu that weekend and did not do anything. I hope to return to cross racing this year. I did pick up a trio of race sponsors this year, they helped make racing possible and fun and have allowed me to get an impressive array of parts for my in progress Kelly 29er. Soon my pretties, soon it will be unveiled. So big thanks to those who made Team Tarik racing possible: Mellow Velo bike shop in Santa Fe, Paul Components, and Kelly Bike.



I traveled a bunch. I made it to New Zealand for Single Speed worlds and to Italy and Russia without riding. I rode my travel bike in Santa Barbara twice, San Francisco, Boston and NJ. I also made it to Rhode Island, Chicago and Salt Lake without the bike. I did a fair bit of riding in Colorado, with meetings in Keystone and Vail I did some really fun mountain biking and then I hit some spectacular singletrack in leadville on the way there. I again skied extensively in Colorado mostly for racing.

Lets see, what else do I talk about? the weight was doing pretty well right up until the day after single speed worlds in New Zealand. I think I left the US at 195 and returned at over 205 pounds. What happened? I drove around in a campervan for a week and a half, did not ride my bike, at well, had fun, and drank beer as there was not much to do in the campgrounds after Aida went to sleep. So I ended the year at 203 lbs, which is high for me, but not too bad. I really want to get back down to 187.5 again. So that is the goal. I think with some riding plus one run a week and maybe slightly less travel, I can do it. I say that every year though. But lower weight will tie into happier running and better strength. Speaking of which:

I will also try to really attack the core strength. I was doing pretty well recently until this year. I did virtually no strength stuff this year, and with Aida being a squirmy thirty pound big girl, I have repeatedly tweaked my back picking her up. I need to get back on some sort of core program. Core! Maybe kettlebells?

So again the goals are:
more gooder, less badder, more thinner, less fatter

Specifically 3650 miles ridden and still trying to get a massive 150 miles run, I think these are reasonable goals, but I have not come near to them since 2006 or so. I will get them one of these years.

Year Bike Run
2003 2880 128
2004 3667 252
2005 3000 250
2006 4000 100
2007 2883 165
2008 2817 108
2009 2964 76
2010 2671 51
(2005 and 2006 are estimates based on partial year reporting)



With that, I conclude my 2010 update, thanks for reading,
May 2011 be filled with whatever you want it to be filled with.