WR and i were just talking at mass last night about lights and how most of them leave you wanting for one thing or another. if they’re small enough to not affect the aesthetic of your ride, they’re not bright enough. and if they’re bright enough, they’re a monster. and if you want small AND bright, you have to get those eyesores with the attached battery pack. it’s all such a fucking nightmare, and it’s one of the most necessary pieces of equipment for a cyclist.

anyway, today when i went to the shops to get some piecesParts for loos3y(tm)’s blackout, i stopped by the rack of lights and noticed the blackburn flea. i’d seen it just one week ago in a bike light review in the NYT, and they’d been very pleased with it, so i turned it on. and it damn near blinded me. and that was the LOW BEAM. i clicked it again and it popped up to a high beam. one more click takes it to a blink. i compared it against all the other lights on the rack, and it was brighter than most — even the big barrel lights. i was amazed. and at like $20 or whatever it was, i bought it immediately.

what i didn’t know was EXACTLY how ill it was. let me explain. this is what’s included in the package, with a quarter thrown for scale comparison…

there’s a light, a velcro strap, and that other little thing, which is the charger.

the charger is the single sickest part of the deal. you pop open that little cannister to reveal a unit with two wires on it…

so notice there that on the bottom of the light itself, there’s two little brass dots. those correspond to the two little brass dots on the bottom of the charger, and they’re all magnets. so you magentize the charger to the light, and then, using the magnets that are on the ends of the wires, you magnetize to ANY BATTERY YOU WANT, from which the light charges…

and THAT’S the sick shit. the light softly blinks as it charges, and i have no idea what happens when it’s completely charged, because i bought it with a full charge and haven’t drained it yet. but anyway, after you’re charged, you just wind the wires up around the charger and put it back in it’s little case…

the only downside i’ve found to the light yet is that sometimes it doesn’t activate when you push the button. and i don’t think it’s a faulty product, because the display model had the same problem. but really, that’s not a big deal.

and because the thing mounts with a velcro strap, it comes off easily AND is able to be mounted to a MUCH wider variety of places on your bike. i tested it on my HEAD TUBE. awesome.

i also have yet to, you know, ride with it at night, hahaha!!! but like i said, it was brighter than all the lights on the rack in the store, so i have the faiths.

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Awesome. This has been an agenda item forever, and has met with much resistance. Sounds like it’s happening! Guess they aren’t fearing vandals as much as before…

http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/view/89123

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We talk a lot about helpful safety tips for new riders, to hopefully save them some angst and risk in their new adventures. But even experienced riders have the troubles. For all my planning, I leave without a pump or my ventilator or misplace a glove here and there. But as a general rule, I manage to avoid bonehead moves that put myself at increased risk (you know, skitching, that sort of thing*)… but sometimes, I can find myself in a situation you’d expect of a newbie.

This morning was one of them, though perhaps experience saved me from a newbie fate.

I was riding wB(tm) to my wifebot(tm)’s office, as Critical Mass is tonight and I wanted to ride it thus, but some sensitive shit was to arrive today by freight at the office, so I’d need the MINI to bring it home. So, I ride to her office, she drives there, we swap, she gets all the cool comments for walking the fixie into her office, I sit in traffic to head into Marin. OK.

Around 3rd and Townsend (dammit, tole, Townsend again!) I sensed that something wasn’t right. I glanced down, and my pantleg had come unrolled on the drive side. That’s not good on any bike. But ESPECIALLY on a fixed gear. What happens when a fixed crank stops? It stops. The bike. What happens when a pantleg gets up IN there? The deaths.

So I see my pantleg halfunrolled, but not allunrolled, so I still have a chance. But there’s an errant tendril of cuff hanging below that, from how my pantlegs sort of drag and I step on them. That’s an Indiana Jones type problem there, as it danced around the fairly quickly spinning chainring. I was spinning pretty fiercely, and the traffic was heavy. So I veered the right foot as far out as I could to minimize the catch, and looked for a curb cut. None. I knew I had to stop, in the bike lane, and risk deaths by SUV swipe. So as I began to apply brakes and backpedal, it caught, and in one rev, ripped up my calf, wound itself deep into the ring and crank, and the bike came to a sudden, violent stop. Because I was already stopping, and because I run/rock/roll two brakes on my fixed gear [ayhcsmb] I was able to stop upright, before being hurtled into traffic. But it was wound up so much I couldn’t even dismount. And I couldn’t backwind because it had made punctures int he pant and gummed up.

Fortunately, I was able to disentangle myself before too long, roll the leg up to just below the knee, and proceed. But it was one of those moments where not only was I on the brink? I had time to predict that on-the-brinkness.

GAH!

wB(tm) came out of it unscathed though, that bitey little devil.

*admittedly, i did consider it, as my wifebot(tm) was in the MINI just ahead of me for a stretch. HA

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How crucial is having the chain line totally straight? I saw some $5 spacers to move the chain-ring in towards the frame. So far, mine have been, how-you-say? "almost straight".

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i fucking KNEW IT! i fucking KNEW someone would run freestyle front brakes on a FIXIE before long! how did i know? because i fucking thought of it a year ago and never implemented!

dammitTOLE!

for those not in the know, 20 years ago, BMX freestyle tech took a massive leap forward with barspin technology that allowed you to still run brakes. it was a two-part tech — hollowBolt stems and a thing called a "rotor." the hollowBolt stem is just that — the bolt that holds the stem on is hollow in the middle, allowing your front brake cable to run down THROUGH your stem and fork, loop back up, and then attach to the front brakes, which were restructured to have the barrel adjuster on the low end and the pinch bolt on the high end. when BMXers made the jump to threadless stems a few years back, manufacturers started making hollowBolt threadless stem bolts, which you can run on a roadbike. that’s what’s going on in the bike above.

the other part of the tech, the "rotor," was a bearing system — two plates that spun around each other, with the rear brake cable going from the lever to the rotor, then a second cable from the rotor to the brake. when you pull the lever, the whole mechanism moves up and down, allowing the brake to be pulled. the rotor was eventually superceeded by the "gyro," which i won’t get into, but which was a zillion times better than the rotor and which is still used on freestyle bikes today.

the funny thing here is that most BMX freestylers don’t use brakes anymore (riding brakeless fixed, dangerous. riding brakeless freewheel, DEADLY), and fixie freestylers have never run brakes, so i wonder if (a) fixie freestylers will resent and blacklist this advance, or (b) come up with a whole new list of tricks!

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Cool design for a bandana, if one were to:
a) be a sessioner
2) wear a bandana on the bike (ie. an ihooligan)
d) want to risk being beaten up by some strung out alleycatters who find it precious

Cool design, all the same.

http://www.kingkog.com

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I totally redesigned the website…most links aren’t connected yet. Note the footer

http://www.718c.com

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yeah.
SERIOUSLY.

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I have time for one more project before the baby comes, and I made my choice!
So this one isn’t possible.

But man, what a renovation opportunity.

"This is a very unusual and rare English Roadster bike. Has the head badge for the Glider brand which was made by Raleigh. It has a very early 3 speed Sturmey Archer hub. I believe this is the earliest shifter and hub that they made. It also has 28" wheels with ball bearing in the rims! Rod pull brakes. There are also ports for adding oil in the hubs and the bottom bracket shell. Very nice strong and heavy construction. Made in England. Rides nicely but not for your average rider. It will take some getting used to."

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/bik/1010731208.html

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good lord.

i always loved the dukes of hazzard, and their car was the SHIT. i’ve also always loved bicycles. and i’ve even had the idea to make a genLee-inspired bike. but i never thought to stick a pigtailed daisy in heels on it.

like SO.

the wierd toothless fishermen in the background are the only thing keeping my brain from totally exploding right now.

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