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.

Happy New Year

May your year be filled with really freaking cold riding on ice and sketchy attempts at no hand riding portraits. Or whatever you want it to be. Your choice.

Happy New Years.

Festive 500 final reports

The final two days as such:

December 29
Returned to New Mexico in the wee hours, slept, woke up to light snow getting heavy. Split a couple of barrowloads of wood, hopped on the stud shod Big Dummy to get tacos

Headed out again a few hours later in worsening conditions to go to the bank and get groceries.
Mileage: 10.17 miles


December 30
Snowing heavily in the morning. Shoveled almost a foot or snow off the driveway. Watched the snow fall and caulked the tub. Decided to bail on the ride to the golf course and xc ski plan and just headed out for a neighborhood cruise on the big dummy. It was probably 25 and blowing. The roads were either packed snow or ice or unplowed. The studded tires did no wrong on the ice and packed snow. The trails and park were under too much snow to ride so I stuck to the road. It was a good cold little ride.

Mileage: 6.3 miles


So these two days added 16.47 miles of studded tire big dummy riding to the previous 92.03 on the fixie friday for a massive 108.5 miles, aka 174.6 km. Not even halfway there to the 500km goal, but I did some good rides, lots of errands and rode everyday. I call it a win. Surf on over to the rapha blog to see how everyone else did.

Festive 500 reports

OK, here are the first few days of the Rapha Festive 500 attempt.

December 23rd
Got up early, got to the airport, chased the baby through the infinite halls of Pheonix airport,

got to Santa Barbara (see I cheat!) unpacked the fixie friday,

headed to the markets to get some beers and sundries:

Fiddled with the non-working cyclocomputer for a while and then gave up and rode back to a bike shop to get a new bike computer.
Mileage: 5 miles (low estimate for fairness sake...)

December 24th:
Rode to the butterfly grove in goleta, some muddy riding/running to find the family, tried to keep the wee ones from getting the butterflies,
headed to lunch, ate a burrito, rode back on the foot hill route, up to mountain and down.

Ran a bunch of errands. It were a good day.
Stem QR wireless computer mount hack with super pro bidon

Mileage, 35.66 miles.



December 25th,
Christmas with the family. Rode from the hotel to my brothers house. Tried to sneak in a ride while Aida napped. She did not nap, my ride was enshortened. Probably saved me from a very wet ride.
Mileage: 5.65 miles



December 26th,
Rode out with my bro toward mountain, he turned back after five miles, I headed for parts unknown. Great ride, found the bike butt mailbox, did a loop and lots of climbing.


Mileage 20.28


December 27th.
Got out for a good afternoon ride. Completed the mountain to sanysidro loop, back through montecito and downtown. Absolutely beautiful day. Lots of wet on the roads.

Mileage 24.92


December 28th
Rode from the hotel to my brothers house. Put helmet on for ride, but baby would not nap, so I put helmet away and walked to get coffee and treats with the young lady.
Got back, packed up the bike and headed to the airport to return home.
Mileage 0.52 miles, but I did ride.


So the total for the warmish part of the festive 500 was 92.03 miles, aka 148.11 km. So still a bit short of the planned 500 but probably one of my best weeks in december since I have lived in NM, tune in tomorrow evening for how the final two days went...

Winter style riding

Ah, winter, she is here.

A good day starting with snow encrusted riding, ending in really snow encrusted riding.


Got in a 14 miles of wintry goodness culminating in riding home with four inches on the trails sliding around on the big dummy.

In that vein, I announce my attempt to achieve epicness this holiday season.

I am a sucker for a good logo so I am in it to try it and fall far short. Go me.
Follow along with my meagre milage with the festive 500 tag.

They killed Kenny

Usually I would be blogging winter stuff right now, but it is so dry and (relatively) warm, I actually had to water some trees. We have no snow to speak of in Los Alamos thus far, so here is some sad old news...

My favorite tree planting, posthumously anointed Kenny, is an aspen I planted in the front yard. It went yellow this year and was growing slowly, yet steadily, into a tree, potentially offering shade in the hot summer afternoons. Alas the morning we left for New Zealand, I found it smashed asunder:



Neighbors saw sparring mule deer in the front the afternoon before. You bastards. You killed Kenny. I have since cut the remains down and added it to the kindling pile, hoping that some aspen suckers come up from the root.

I think I took this photo a mere handful of hours before the deer got the tree.

Moscaline Advertising and Review Policy

Boring post, but I need to actually write this down as I keep getting emails from people asking these questions. I added this link and my contact info on the sidebar if you have questions.

Review Policy:
Most of the reviews on this blog are based on things I bought with my own money. Things that are provided to me for review are noted as such in the review. You can send me things and I will happily review them. In this case you pay for shipping to me and return shipping if you want said thing back. I will review many things, but not everything, so please contact me before you send me anything to see if it is a good fit. To see what I have previously reviewed see here. I will not review anything that I have not tried. I occasionally will solicit items for review, but not often. I will not post a review that you or your marketing department wrote. Not even if you pay me. I will show you my review after I post it, you can make comments/clarification/responses to the review if you wish and I may include edited versions as updates to the review.

Some frequently asked questions (really these were all asked more than once):
Q. Can I write a review for you and then you post it in your blog?
A. No.
Q. What if I pay you 10 dollars for you to post the review?
A. No.
Q. Can you write a review of this new (thing)? here is the website: blahblop.com
A. No. I will not write reviews of things I have not tried.
Q. You want to link trade?
A. Probably not if you are a business, I bet your website has nothing to do with mine. Ask me about my advertising rates, see below:

Advertising policy:
Moscaline will accept select advertising that meets our internal standards of what we like to see. Please contact me for rates and sizes. My readership is small yet fierce, my rates are higher than you think, so please be serious before you contact me.

Sponsorship policy:
I have sponsors for racing. If you feel that you want to be part of the moscaline experience or Team Tarik Racing, please contact me. Race sponsors will get advertising space on the blog in most cases. Team Tarik Racing is currently a one man team that competes in many types of endurance racing, ranging from all types of bike racing, running, cross country skiing, snowshoeing and probably some other things that I have not tried yet. I occasionally win things, but if your sponsorship value is gathered solely in podium placing, look elsewhere.

Contact info is on the blog sidebar. All policies are mutable at my whim, but should be updated here. I reserve the right to change any policy at any time.

Thanks for your interest.

Again with the bicycle jumping

Just in case you have not seen this yet.



Like I said last I linked to his videos, I hope that Danny MacAskill sleeps in piles of money. My only criticism is that I think the same music should be used last video again. That is the Ass killingist music there is. Otherwise? Just watch. Over and over again. until you think you can do what he does. Next thing? This happens:


Logical extension of trying the front flip and/or nosewheely thing on the big dummy.

See MacAskill winning over the world with the right theme song.
See MacAskill sleeping in piles of money along with no hitters on LSD and suchlike.

The demonstration compost heap...

A few years ago we had a sorry square of earth next to the house that nothing grew in and the cats were using it as a toilet. Elena's grandfather was a professional gardener and gave her a huge number of gathered seeds that were unlabled and old. I added some new compost to the square and all the seeds and a drip irrigation hose. Thus was born the demonstration garden. Lots grew, little was identified with the exception of the radishes, after they bolted, and the hollyhocks when they burst into wevil covered bloom the second year. Inspired by this, I reclaimed another small barren cat claimed square of land on the backside of the house with zinnias, morning glories, california poppies and peppers (from a wind damaged ristra). Success again. I attribute the success to unrestrained application of seeds, some new improved soil and water. Not all the plants did well, but enough did to deter the cats. Now onto more complex demonstrations.

We have a wood stove that generates lots of ash. We have lots of mule deer/bear/racoon/fox/coyote leavings in the yard. We also have cat and window killed critters in the yard: mice, gophers, birds and snakes ( and airplanes). None of this stuff goes in a compost heap. But it does go into the demonstration compost heap. Which is under a 50 year old lilac bush in the back corner of the property. So the thinking is that the soil has never been improved there. Lilac bushes do well with alkaline soil, but you can easily over alkilize the soil with wood ash. Hence tempering it with poops, coffee grounds, leaves, dead things. I also threw in an old chile ristra (left over from demonstration garden two) to deter critters from digging into it, along with some cut flowers and other stuff I did not want to throw in the primary compost heap. So there you have it. Either I will kill the lilac bush, or it won't notice, or it will magically bloom prodigiously next year. I don't expect much success or failure, but hopefully the combo of all of the ingredients will cause none of the single ingredients to be that bad an idea. I will rake it out in the spring and see if deadthings and poops decompose. Presence of worms is unlikely but will be considered victory.

Any thoughts?