Awesomeness

Toys R Us Ferrari Cruiser Bike. What's so awesome about it? It's $4,400 and it's an aluminum frame! A "comfort" aluminum frame. Anyone familiar with bikes can tell you: Those words don't fit together.

It appears that what's running the price up is:
1. The front generator wheel hub.
2. The automatic shifting electronics.
3. A cheap saddle that says Ferrari.

I must admit that if you got rid of #3 and charged $1,500 you might actually sell a few to rich folks looking for "the mostest awesome bike." You can't sell at Toys R Us though.

Why Cyclists aren't Cool

In case you're unaware of this factoid: Cyclists aren't cool. We try, God knows we try. We even buy overpriced shorts. We have special hats. We constantly obsess over our rides. We even work out!

But in the end we're still riding a one man vehicle which denies the primary purpose of life: To have sex and create more people. Well, at least that's the apparent purpose of life to anyone under 22. And let's face it: "Cool" is a term that exists to help people under 22 find a fertile partner.

To make matters worse we actually tuck our pants into our socks (or worse yet, buy a special strap) to keep it out of our chain. If we were cool we'd put that bike where it belongs: In the garage. Then we'd drive a friggin' car cause it's just easier! We'd eat chips (crisps, chips, or fries as long as it's a fried potato) and get fat like a normal person. Then we'd go on to demand free health care for our now necessary heart surgeries.

There's just nothing cool about cycling. But we would be doing fine if it weren't for these guys.


These guys retroactively made us all uncool. I vote that we kick them off the island.

My Next Bike

Ah I've found her. She's a long way away but I've found my next bike. And here is the frame to base her on: http://www.somafab.com/speedsterplus.html

I'm thinking downtube shifters (part of the Dura Ace group) and decent brake levers. I've grown to loath STI brifters and long for brake levers that weren't made for ogre hands. That longing has been fulfilled on my commuter which uses bar end shifters. I'd rather reach to shift then have humongous hoods that I can barely get my hands around.

Anyway, the frame is lugged which is the big thing I'm looking for. I thought I'd have to go used but I managed to find a sexy lugged frame for $800, new.

And of course it's steel.

Trouble with a frame like this is that I can't ride it anywhere so I'll have to figure the geometry and sizing out on my own. Well, if they still make this frame when I have money to buy another bike that is.

Commuter Benefits. Just in case you thought you're being ripped off by not getting a tax credit for your transit costs I'd like to remind you that the federal Government already gives a tax credit for:
* Use of mass transit.
* Paid parking costs.

It's about time they gave something to cyclists. I think I'd be happier if they ditched all of the incentives and invested in building useful bus systems instead. The last thing we need is more subsidized downtown car parking.

Toyota iQ

Have you seen the iQ? This is a pretty cool concept. It's pretty similar to the Smart ForTwo with two big differences:
1. You can actually seat 4 people if you need.
2. It gets great mileage. The Smart only gets 33/41 mileage which is great but this car is claiming 55 mpg (they don't specify city/hwy). I'm unsure why the Smart doesn't get better mileage: It has about the same weight and volume and it's engine is similar. Smart must simply be making a cheaper (read sloppier) product.

In other, unrelated, news: Target's battery selection looks like it's been under attack. I forgot that normal people buy 10 thousand batteries after Christmas for all of their new devices. I, on the other hand, simply needed to keep a few more AAA's on hand.

9sp Means 9sp

When I ask for a 9 speed cassette I mean a 9 speed cassette. The last time I got an 8 speed cassette. It's a good thing I road the bike before assuming it was ready to go with this new cassette.

It'd also be nice if bike shops carried non-performance parts. Hyper glide is overkill for commuters. I don't want to pay more for chains that wear out faster. I want to pay more for chains that last a lot longer.

Ultracapacitor

Similar energy density to Li-ion battery. It'll be interesting if this isn't vapourware.

Asus Eee

This is exciting. The Asus Eee. It's so inexpensive it's scary and it's a solid state system.

There's virtually no space and the screen is tiny so it's not laptop replacement. However, it's more portable and likely more comfortable in ones lap so it may be a great platform to take on the road.

I'm strongly considering buying one for ciding, especially since I can buy one with linux pre-installed.

Yay for Studs

So this week was a good test for all of my equipment. On Monday it was bitterly cold. On Tuesday we had lots of snow. On Friday we had a sheet of ice. Zero falls all week. The only close calls I had were in driven snow on Tuesday night when I decided to make use of side streets: Big mistake.

I did end up going out and buying ski goggles after Monday.

Snowy Ride In

Today was my first truly snowy commute. There was probably an inch and a half of fresh snow this morning and double that on the way home.

By and large it wasn't a problem. On the way in it was virtually all fresh snow: Lots of work but very little affect on stability. On the way home I took some side streets which were completely unplowed by driven a little bit. This was a rough ride. You'd hit certain patches of disturbed snow and your bike would shake back and forth. At first it was extremely disconcerting and I thought impossible to deal with. However, I eventually realized that I wasn't falling down and if I kept my speed up I kept better balance.

Keeping my speed up meaning to go faster than 6mph...

Overall it wasn't bad. Last night I purchased ski goggles. These are a huge help. At this point I cover every inch of skin and keep everything pretty warm. I could use some warmer gloves though.

The current winter equipment:
* Studded tires: $90 (pair)
* Fleece mittens: $10
* Cotton glove liners: $10
* Weather shell: $100
* Ski goggles: $45
* Insulated Shoes: $40
* Balaclava (smart wool, I recommend it): $30
* Beanie (half wool, I couldn't find all wool): $20
* Warm long johns: $40 (I'm not sure, they were a gift)
* Regular shirts and jackets, I'm not gonna cost this cause it's not for biking.
Total: $385

Winter cycling gear is not cheap. Although most of the cost is in a few small items. You only need studded tires on a few days, but you can't put them on each time without wearing the tire out before the tread is worn. Anyway, purchasing a second wheelset or putting the studs on a junker bike, solves this. You'll wear through wheelsets anyway, so don't worry about the cost in the long run.
The weather shell is worth it and is useful during every season but summer.

You can live without the ski goggles. I wanted something to keep my glasses from icing over and to keep that part of my face warm on negative temperature days. They keep my face warm but I must admit that I still get some fog on my glasses. It's better though. These things really ought to be cheaper though. Hopefully I can get several years out of them.

You need insulated shoes if you intend to ride when it's below 20 degrees.

Chevy Volt

How is it that the 2500lb Tesla Roadster has a range of 244 miles on commodity lithium ion cells and the Chevy Volt has a range of 40 miles on a 375lb advanced technology lithium ion battery pack?

If the Roadster has 6 times the batteries it would have to be a 200lb frame, motor, wheelset, and axels: It's not, there's no way.

Is the Volt simply that much of a power hog? Is Chevy making stuff up because they don't want to ship this car? Is the Volt vaporware?

iPods are Cheap Junk

This is the 3rd time my iPod has locked up in a year. Each time it does it you have to wait for the battery to fully discharge before using it again: Be careful not to plug it in, you could be in for a long wait. This isn't acceptable behavior, especially from a device with a sealed battery.

Next time I'm buying a Zune.

Possibly a new bike shop

LJS blog.

One of the commenters suggests it could be a trek store. I hope not. We've got plenty of Trek here. It'd be nice to have something like monkey wrench on the south side. Something that carries good stuff in addition to what's popular: You know, a store where the saddle area isn't filled with gel cushions but has a wide variety of saddles including Brooks. Something that carries some steel frames.

Flats and Tires

Monday night I had a random blow out flat. The tube was toast: There was a centimeter diameter hole in it that had ripped into an even larger tear.

I swapped that tube out and went to the bike shop to refill my supply of spares. The shop informed me that I was using too large of tube by using the tube which says it fits my tire size: Life is so straight forward. So, now I have about a billion tubes for 32-35c tires.

On Tuesday night I discovered the same tire had jumped up over the rim in one spot. I found this out on my way home as the tire rubbed on the brakes: Shockingly I was able to go quite a way like this before I realized that vibration wasn't from the road.

So I got to use my frame pump twice this week. I hate frame pumps!

I can't wait for those new wheels so that, at least on dry days, I can ride with decent tires!

Silly Rabbit, Linux is Free as in Freedom

Some silly teacher went and confiscated (without good reason) some kids copies of HeliOS. It's a sad sad world when our teachers are so confident in what they don't understand. Alright, it's not so bad. This is just one idiot and for some reason schools seem to have a tendency to try far to hard to obey the law. Often obeying laws that don't actually exist.

WSJ Reviews an eBike

The Electric Car Is Coming

Finally, what looks like a sensible electric car. It's expensive but it's competitive. I doubt it could be as cheap as a Smart Car (TCO) but it's competitive. So, if avoiding buying gas, or avoiding carbon use, or making use of that insane solar array is a goal this looks like a reasonable electric vehicle.
* It's small but it has 4 wheels, not 3. 3 wheeled vehicles probably work fine but they look funny and right now that's a concern for most consumers.
* It has enough range for city driving: 50 miles.
* It's cost to purchase is competitive with 5 seat economy cars.
* It can do 70mph, if the DOT passes it for safety. This will be important for those who live in cities with a beltway.

It looks like it has a big limitation: A lead acid battery. To the end user that means that the 50 mile range is not something you can do regularly. Lead acid batteries die if you fully discharge them often. They're cheap, and handle partial charges well which makes them perfect for your car starter. I'd like to see this in a NiMH version but I'm guessing that would add a few thousand to the cost.

For this kind of vehicle I would think it'd be reasonable to cut the battery size by about 20% (assuming you can do a full discharge) to 40 miles range and drop the power such that it can barely hold 55: This would be a stop gap car for folks who can happily give up freeway driving. Towns like, well, Lincoln, NE which have no freeway don't require a car that can exceed 45mph but they do require 45mph. It'd make an excellent second car for quite a few people: The car "daddy drives to work."

This isn't how I know the electric car is coming though. This is. Electric bikes are becoming cost effective using Li-Ion cells and pedal based throttle. It's a lot easier to make this (electric power supply) work on a bicycle due to the efficiency. And what happened the last time that bicycles became affordable for the common man? Henry Ford and others made cars affordable for him as well. It has to do with the shocking amount of infrastructure and function that they share.

You can currently buy what looks like a nice electric bike for $1,900 in the US. They don't appear to be popular but they're new. While $1,900 sounds like a fortune for a bike it works out quite a bit cheaper than an automobile: If you actually use the bike. The advantage? While Giant doesn't seem to be forward with their numbers most of these bikes offer a 2:1 power ratio. That means that the bike gives twice the power you do. So a regular guy with no cycling history can keep up with someone who cycles semi-regularly. It means going to work at 15mph without choosing between crawling up the hills or getting sweaty.

Missile Defense Works!

Sort of. It works if the missile you're shooting at doesn't have any counter measures. Wow, I'm so impressed. Ignoring the political implications of this there are some engineers who should be very embarrassed right now. Embarrassed that some idiot considered this a successful test and told the media about it.

Weren't we arguing about this 8 years ago? Wasn't this supposed to work by now? I mean, really work in a test that wasn't screwed up?

New Wheels

Okay, so studs are wonderful. Studs are work. So I'm buying a second set of wheels to put my regular tires on.

I decided to go with a nicer set of wheels than I have. They're lower spoke count and lighter. The same rim width for easy swapping. ALX220's for under $250. It's good to know that not everyone is insane and you can buy wheelsets that are cost effective (assuming these don't turn out to be cheap junk).

So I'll put my normal street tires on these and put them on on days like Friday where I really didn't need any studs.

Studs

Yesterday was my first ride with studs. No falls, so either I was on my game (read: chicken shit of falling) or they work pretty well.