Grrr! Soma’s “Morning Rush” coffee cup holder uses a Cat Eye H-27 bracket, which (of course) is not the same bracket that came with my HL-350 headlight, which is the only Cat Eye headlight stocked by my LBS (Peak Adventures). So I searched the Cat Eye catalog for headlights that use the H-27 bracket (part #533-8591). A Google search for site:cateye.com 533-8591 returns 3 matching items:
HL-500II (which is in fact mentioned on the Morning Rush page).
Peak Adventures is willing to special-order the light for me, but I found it in stock at City Bicycle Works (mid-town store) so I’ll just pick it up there.
Raley’s gave out an amazing recipe for chipotle beef for Cinco de Mayo back in 2001. We loved it, but we managed to lose the recipe last year when we moved. Here’s our best guess as to the original recipe.
Ingredients:
3 lb. boneless chuck, fat trimmed, cut into ~2″ chunks
3 canned chipotles in adobo sauce, coursely chopped
~2 tsp. oregano
~1 tsp. cumin
3 cloves of garlic, minced
Dump everything into a crock pot and stir to mix. Cover and cook on low heat for about 8 hours. Take off the lid and cook on high heat for about an hour. Use a slotted spoon to remove the beef from the crock pot. Shred the beef with a pair of forks (more difficult, but you get to eat sooner), or refrigerate it for several hours and shred it with your fingers (much easier, but you will be tormented by the delicious aroma while the beef cools).
We usually make burritos out of this, just because they’re quick and we’re usually ravenously hungry after smelling this cook all day. If you have the will power and imagination to come up with another use, feel free to leave a comment!
I seem to be making a lot of bicycle-related posts lately, so I guess it’s time for another hobby entry.
I got my first bike, a Schwinn Stingray, for my 7th birthday and I’ve been riding ever since. In fact, I didn’t even own a motor vehicle until I graduated from college and got a professional job at the age of 24. At that point, bicycling went from a necessity to a pastime. That was nearly 20 years ago, and I’ve found that the sedentary lifestyle doesn’t suit me. In May 2005 I was finally able to move close enough to my job to allow me to commute by bike, although it wasn’t until January 2006 that I got to the point that I was bicycling to work more often than not.
Over the last couple of months, I’ve been looking at Sacramento-area bicycling clubs. I’ll do a post some other time showing all the clubs I found, but the club I decided to join was the Sacramento Bike Hikers. They seem to have a lot of organized rides starting near my house, so that tipped the balance heavily in their favor.
One of my co-workers introduced me to BikeJournal, a world-wide online cycling community. Sadly you can’t really explore the site until you register, but a few days ago I wrote a post about BikeJournal and included some links (no registration required!) demonstrating the site.
Between the online- and meatspace communities that I’ve joined, I managed to find a few commuting buddies over the past two weeks. We had some pretty nice cycling weather in Sacramento last month, but March is off to a nasty start. Hopefully the rain will clear up soon and I’ll be able to return to commuting by bike!
Semper fidelis, the Marine’s motto, means “always faithful”. I thought it was appropriate for this post. Read on…
Waaay back circa 1985, I was forced to buy a new bicycle when somebody stole my then-current bike. I didn’t own a vehicle, so every trip I made was by foot, public transit, or bike, with the vast majority of my trips being via bicycle. In addition to commuting and errands, I also did quite a bit of riding for pleasure. In fact, I would often ride the entire American River Bike Trail, (approximately 100 km/62 miles round trip), several times per week during the summer. So it was pretty important to me that I buy a bike suited to riding long distances. I went to my LBS, then known as the Mountain Wolf Co-op but now Peak Adventures. I told them what I was interested in, and they suggested that I get a touring bike. Here she is, still ride-worthy after 20 years:
Back in the 80’s, a Japanese toy company named Takara was re-branding and selling inexpensive bicycles, and this was the brand that the Moutain Wolf Co-op was carrying at that time. Tribute was the model name for their touring bike. My bike above is almost stock–the only changes I’ve made are leather bar grips (the best!) and a longer (120 mm) stem, both of which were done almost the day I got the bike.
I put thousands of kilometers on this bike when I first bought it. (Remember, it was my primary mode of transportation!) But then in the summer of 1987 I got a professional job, and about a month later I bought my first motor vehicle. I still rode for pleasure, but not nearly as much as I had been. In the spring of 1992 my wife, daughter, and I left Sacramento (and the American River Bike Trail), and we moved about 35 miles south to Galt. This is a fairly rural area with relatively low traffic, but the roads are brutal on skinny 120 psi tires! My poor Tribute spent about five years gathering dust in the garage, while I braved the local farm roads (and ornery cowboy kids playing “chicken”, pickup truck versus bicycle) on a more suitable bike.
Things began looking up for my Tribute in the summer of 1997. I was laid off, along with 90% of my coworkers, from my job in Manteca. The very next day, I landed my current job at CSUS. One of the first things I did was rent a bike locker on campus. I dusted off my faithful, neglected Tribute, brought it into the LBS on campus for some maintenance, and resumed riding the American River Bike Trail, right across the Guy West Bridge from campus, woo hoo! Last May (2005), the situation improved further when we moved from Galt back up to Sacramento. I’m now doing most of my commuting (3 to 5 days per week, unless it’s raining) on my 20-year-old Tribute.
I’m getting ready to do some long distance (≥100 km) rides again this summer, but I’m way out of shape compared to 20 years ago. There’s no way I’ll be able to climb a hill with the current gearing on this bike, so I’ll be replacing the stock double chainring (42- and 52 teeth) with a triple chainring (30/39/53). The chainring comes with a new external-bearing bottom bracket as well as 172.5 mm cranks. (My current cranks are 170 mm.) The parts just arrived today, so hopefully they will be installed tomorrow! I’m also thinking about changing to clipless pedals, mostly so that my knees won’t be “twisted” by the cleats, but that will probably have to wait until my birthday. (Barb, are you reading this? Hint, hint…)
I remember reading about Xocolatl on Acetylene’s blog some time ago. It sounded interesting, but I never pursued it. Then a few weeks ago my wife read about it in the Sacramento food co-op‘s news, and she decided to try some.
Holy cacao, Batman! This stuff brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “hot chocolate”! It’s not fiery hot. In fact, when you first taste it you only notice the chocolate (which is excellent). But you’ll definitely feel the chiles as an after effect–a very pleasant tingling sensation.
Warning: If you try this and are expecting warm chocolate milk, Swiss Miss, et cetera, you will be disappointed. This is almost guaranteed to be entirely unlike anything you’ve ever had before. Come to it with an open mind, and you may be pleasantly surprised.
I mixed this up according to the directions the first time, and it seemed a bit heavy on the chocolate. After a few adjustments, I now use the following: about 2½ Tbsp (35 mL) Xocolatl in a 12 oz (350 mL) mug. Add a few drops of cold milk to the chocolate powder and stir with a fork until you have a medium paste consistancy. (The old “Quik” chocolate milk trick.) Heat the rest of the milk in a saucepan, or use the microwave if you’re in a hurry. Slowly add the warm milk to the chocolate paste, stirring with the fork. Drink, and enjoy! When you get to the bottom of the mug, you’ll probably find some lumps of chocolate left over. I recommend that you just wash them out, but you probably won’t. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…
One of my co-workers turned me on to the bikejournal web site/application. If you’re a cyclist, it’s well worth your attention!
The site allows you to record all your rides, with as little or as much detail as you wish. I’m using my ride journal to track most of the data that my cycle computer provides along with notes on the weather. (20°C/68°F in February–I love living in central California!) The journal allows you to record which bike you use on each ride (if you have multiple bikes). It can even be used to track which tires are on your bikes, and how much wear they have accumulated.
One of the things I really like about the journal is planning for organized rides such as the Sierra Century. If you track all of your organized rides using bikejournal, your “century calendar” is only a mouse-click away. You can also see which other bikejournal-users are participating in the same rides, which might make finding car-pool buddies easier.
The site is free, but registration is required. (If you do register, check out my profile and send me a “buddy request”.) Some of the features are only available to “premier members”, i.e. those who pay $20 yearly support. For instance, as a premier member I can make my public profile viewable by non-members. I think the site is worthy of support, so I went ahead and paid for 3 years (and got a 20% discount). I don’t really need the “premier” features, but the publicly viewable profile is nice to have.
I finally shot a few pictures of one of my bicycles, a KHS alite 2000, Ser# U91290239. (The KHS serial number decoder indicates that this frame was manufactured in December 1999.)
The Gmaps “Pedometer” has a relatively new (2006-01-28) feature, server-side permalinks for routes. I saved my “extended” commute route to see how this worked, and it looks pretty good. The server-side permalink takes care of a limitation on TinyURL length, which hasn’t been a problem for me yet.
But the feature which really got my attention today was the elevation display–very cool! For example, check out this route near Markleeville, California. (The elevation profile should show up as a blue graph below the map. If it’s not visible, find the “Elevation:” setting in the control box and select the “large” link.) You can see that this route starts at about 5065′ then climbs steadily to about 5765′ with a relatively steep descent over the last mile. This is great info for planning a route, especially in an area you are unfamiliar with.
NB: other Google map posts on this blog are tagged google+map.
I’ve been reading The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling by Edmund R. Burke, Ph.D. and Ed Pavelka. If you’re interested in LD riding, (i.e. more than 60 miles/100 km or so), this book has lots of advice. Some of it is pretty obvious, such as “drink water while riding”, but it’s all good to know.
One place where the book is a little scattered is the chapter on fitting a bike to the rider (chapter 3). There are 16 suggestions for sizing a road and/or touring bike, but they jump around between riding positions and component sizing in a seemingly random order. In fact, the most basic measurement (bicycle frame size) is the very last item mentioned. What’s up with that?!? I sifted the size/fitting suggestions from all the technique/posture tips, then I put the component suggestions in an order that made some sense to me. (I omitted information on custom-built frames, e.g. top tube length, as this isn’t financially realistic for me.) I use (fit #n) below to refer to the original fitting number scheme in The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling. Be sure to check the book for more advice, nuances, and trade-offs in fitting your road bike! Keep in mind that these are for long-distance cycling with a road/touring bike. If you’re riding for speed or you’re on a “mountain” bike, these may not be appropriate.
The first body measurement you need to know is, how long are your legs? To find this, stand in front of a wall with your feet about 6″/15 cm apart. Use a large hardback book to simulate a saddle. Put it square against the wall and slide it up (gently!) until it’s pushing firmly against your crotch. Mark the wall at this height and measure to the floor. This is your “inseam length”.
Multiply your inseam length by 0.67 to determine your frame size, from the center of the top tube to the center of the crank, along the seat tube. (Fit #16)
Multiply your inseam length by 0.883 to get the saddle height, the distance along the seat tube from the center of the crank to the top of the saddle. (Fit #10)
Use your inseam length to determine the proper crankarm length (fit #15):
Inseam length
Crankarm length
<29″
165 mm
29-32″
170 mm
33-34″
172.5 mm
>34″
175 mm
That’s it for the math! Now that the basic frame components are set, we can move on to slightly more subjective measurements.
Shoes, cleats, toe clips: See (fit #14). It’s almost a page long, and all of it’s very important to people (like me) with knee problems. (It can also affect saddle adjustment, below.)
Saddle adjustments: The saddle should be level (fit #11). Sit in the center of the saddle and backpeddle until the cranks are horizontal. Slide the saddle front/back so that a plumb line from the forward knee touches the end of the crank. (Fit #12)
Your handlebars (drop bars) should be as wide as your shoulders or even a little wider, (fit #5). Position the brake levers per (fit #6) and your personal preferences.
Stem adjustments: Try setting the stem height about 1″ lower than the saddle–if you cannot comfortably stay in “the drops” for several minutes, raise the stem until you are comfortable. As you gain flexibility and strength, lower the stem for a more aerodynamic position, (fit #7). A good guess for stem length (a fixed component, not an adjustment) can be derived by sitting in the saddle, grasping the brake hoods, and bending the elbows slightly (as if riding). Now look at the front hub–it should be slightly (or completely) obscured by the handlebars. If it’s not, try a longer or shorter stem (fit #8).
For completeness, (fit #1-4, 9, 13) have more to do with riding position and technique than fitting a bike, IMHO.
Joseph wrote an interesting post on the futility of rel=nofollow for blogs. Apparently he is not alone–there’s an anti-nofollow organization, NoNoFollow.net, that lists several valid objections to this technique. They also list a few plugins for WordPress which are supposed to disable the rel=nofollow “features”, but according to conversations with Joseph none of these are 100% effective. So I have followed his lead and manually edited my WordPress 1.5.2 code to remove the nofollow bits. I also added a badge on the left column of my blog.
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