Toy Heaven

It’s been a really busy couple of weeks. (Actually, it’s been twelve days, but it seems like a lot of time has passed very quickly). I spent last week in Wichita, KS on a business trip. I didn’t feel good about the amount of work I got done; things didn’t work out like expected and I spent most of my time waiting around.

On a personal level it was a interesting trip. My lovely wife had decided that it was finally time to purchase the kayaks we’d been wishing for and talking about for almost 4 years. So, I spent all my free time searching for kayaks, evaluating the ones in stock in the various stores, comparing features and prices, and deciding the best way to get them from Kansas to Oklahoma.

My wife wanted a sit-on-top kayak. It turns out that in our price range there were not many sit-on-tops to choose from here on the Great Plains. But fortunately I was able to find the actual model and color she wanted – an Ocean Kayak Venus 11 in the Tangerine color.

I wanted a sit-in model. There are lots of sit-in kayaks available in the sporting goods stores, but most of them are the little 9 foot fun boats. I wanted something just a little longer and narrower. I ran across a good deal on an eleven-foot Old Town Voyager, which was on clearance, and which I think will work well for a beginner like me.

The really difficult part of the whole process was coming up with a good method of transportation. I wasn’t really too keen on the idea of a roof rack, because I know that lifting 40 pounds of kayak over my head can be a chore, especially in a high wind. But I didn’t want to drive the 300 miles home with the kayaks sticking over 5 feet out of the back of my pickup bed. I could find no one in Wichita (or Oklahoma, for that matter) selling trailers made to haul kayaks, and I don’t want to pay $1500 - $2000 for a good trailer right now anyway. In the end, I managed to find one dealer in Wichita who had in stock the exact parts to install a good roof rack on my pickup, so I went with that. It’s not my preferred option, and it cost a bundle for a few pieces of metal, but it worked. I got the kayaks home safe and sound. Today they’re hanging in my garage just waiting for warm weather, and we’re anxious to get out on the water.

*****

The UPS guy brought my new bicycle Friday evening not long after I go home. I spent a little time that evening pulling it out of the box and assembling it to the point that it looked like a bike. I spent most of the day Sunday making all the necessary mechanical and fit adjustments and moving all the accessories from my old bike to the new one – racks, pedals, bottle holders, pump, computer, lights, fenders, saddle. I wanted to put a kickstand on it, but the rear derailleur cable is routed in exactly the spot where the kickstand would be mounted, so I’ll have to try using one of those that mount near the back of the bike on the chain stay and seat stay.

I think I’m gonna like the bike. It’s going to take a little time to get the fit just right, and I’ll have to adjust to shifting using STI shifters instead of down-tube levers. And lots more gears.

CDT

Central Daylight Time ... that's what we're on now.

What do I think about Daylight Savings Time, you ask? Well, I say put it somewhere and leave it. I don't care what numbers you use to express the time. I've used Standard Time, Military (24 hour) Time, GMT, etc. and I get along fine. The numbers are arbitrary.

Yeah, I know all the arguments. But If you want me to save energy, tell me to save energy. Don't tell me to change my clock. Just stop changing the dadburn time twice a year!

And that's all I have to say about that.

Get Them Bars Up !

I replaced the stem on my touring/commuting bike this week. I had put on a set of wider bars a few months ago, and that helped, but I’ve always felt that they were a little too low. I had pulled the stem up to it’s “max” mark, and it still felt low. So I bit the bullet and ordered a Nitto Technomic from Rivendell. As Grant says, “This is a good stem to get if you just can’t get them bars up high enough.”
Well, they’re high enough now!

See the difference:

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

A common question asked of children is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s almost like a game, and most children enthusiastically play along. It’s an imaginative game, and since there’s no pressure attached, they feel free to let their thoughts run and let their answers fly. We often hear the expected answers like “fireman” or “ballerina” or “singer”. But occasionally a child will think for a while and then respond with an “mmmm … I don’t know”. Maybe they truly don’t know, but I suspect that if they’re like I was, they just don’t want to say. I think some people realize at an early age that the lives they dream about don’t quite fit the expected pattern. I think they may somehow understand that the things they dream about would probably sound impractical or even irresponsible to most other people.

When I was about 10 or so, one of my aunts signed me up for a subscription to Boy’s Life magazine. Every issue of that magazine described boys doing things I could only dream of – adventures, new skills, learning outdoor things like tying knots, sailing a boat, making things out of sticks like whistles and slingshots, building a fire, raising a tent, hiking, swimming. Those boys were not like me, stuck at home all summer with nothing to do. They went to summer camps and had exciting fun-filled days doing neat things.

Then there was the series of boy’s adventure books, the name of which I can’t recall, that I found on our hallway bookshelf. The boys in these books were not like any of the boys I knew, not even like the boys in the magazine. These boys lived lives of constant high adventure. They were always hiking or canoeing hundreds of miles through the untouched forests of Maine or Canada or somewhere, finding excitement and danger around every turn. Man, that’s what I wanted to do. Nothing sounded finer.

The most enduring boyhood fantasy of mine was that of the eighteenth century American frontiersman. For some reason it was the perfect fantasy. I loved the whole idea of leaving home with a long rifle in my hand and a dog by my side, wearing buckskin leggins and a coon-skin cap, and heading off toward the western frontier territory of Kantukee. Leaving home and friends and walking into the “howling wilderness”. My daydreams never included much about fighting the Indians whose home I was invading … I just assumed I would live so much like them that we would become friends and learn from each other. I wanted to walk along animal paths under a canopy of hardwood trees, discovering waterfalls and hidden pastures dotted with grazing elk and buffalo that had never seen a man. I wanted to climb high into the Appalachian Mountains and peer far into the smoky distance. I wanted to follow creeks to their source, gather food from nature’s bounty, and hunt animals when necessary. I wanted to live like the natives, but never stay long in one place. I wanted to see everything unspoiled. I wanted to be away from factories and cars and planes and trains and schools and stores and houses. I wanted to lie awake at night and hear the whippoorwill and the panther. I wanted to discover where the animals live freely and without fear, to swim in undiscovered pools and drink from secret mountain springs. I simply wanted to be part of the world as it was meant to be.

Router

If you like woodworking, and you like tools, what better project for a weekend than making a woodworking tool? One specialty plane that I’ve been wanting is a router plane. These planes are used to level the bottom surface of grooves and dadoes which have been cut using a chisel or other tool. The planes come in various sizes and construction types. Most commercial ones are (were) made with a metal body, while most craftsman made routers (and a few manufactured ones) have wooden bodies.

Over this past weekend I made a router plane using John Wilson’s excellent instructions in the August 2005 edition of Popular Woodworking magazine. His photos and text made for a quick an simple project.

I formed the wooden body of the plane from a well-seasoned plank of white oak a friend had given me several years ago. Since I’m not a metalworker, making the right-angle cutter and the holder to attach it to the wooden body was obviously the most challenging task. I I did an ok job shaping and grinding the cutter and holder, and they do work, but I think some fine-tuning is in order.

I did find it humorous that I used an electric router to round over the edges of my new manual router. In fact, all the operations in making this hand tool were done with power tools … bandsaw, drill press, belt sander, drum sander, and router.

Post Haste

Ok, so I finished the trestle desk yesterday and asked my sweet wife to take a couple of pictures of it for me. In fact, I'm using the desk now as I write, and I must report that it completely fulfills its requirement of being a sturdy horizontal surface.

I think I'm supposed to write a whole bunch more now about how great it feels to be finished with the project, about all the things I learned, all the mistakes and problems I had to overcome, and my plans for the next project. Nah. Maybe later.

Resisting Temptation, and How Flat Is Flat?

I’m nearly finished except for the finishing.

What I mean is, I’ve nearly completed the woodworking portion of the Shaker Trestle Desk, and I’m almost ready to begin putting the finish on it. I think I’ll paint the support a nice dark green, and finish the top with a stain and a clear poly.

Last night I performed that ancient rite of passage into galoot-dom … the hand planing of a tabletop. I’d done quite a bit of surface planing before, but nothing is quite as satisfying as watching (and performing) the transformation of three common pine boards into a smooth, level tabletop. Considering the fact that I was using 4/4 pine from the local building supply center, the edge jointing and gluing resulted in a pretty level surface. The misalignment of the individual boards did not exceed 1/32 of an inch in the worst places.

I did all of the planing with a jack plane. My attempts to improve the surface with my old wooden coffin smoother were disappointing. The plane felt and acted like it’s bottom had gone convex since the last time I used it. I also tried a few strokes with an ancient No. 3, but it seemed only to want to gouge and catch. ( Looks like I have some tuning up of planes to do before my next project.) So, after rounding the edges with a block plane, I removed the few remaining plane marks on the top with a good helping of hand sanding. I’ll sand again with a couple higher grits tonight, then it’s out of the cold garage and into the warm kitchen for a little finishing.

There were a couple of times during this project when I really thought about rolling out a power tool. Like when I needed to drill a couple of ½ inch draw-bore holes for the pegs in the leg joinery. I seriously considered using the drill press because I didn’t want to mess up the framework that far into the project. In the end, I carefully used a brace and bit. Then there was the temptation to use my bandsaw to form the large leg tenons. But I used a backsaw with a bench hook, and cleaned them up with a shoulder plane. Easy.

This project feels like it’s taking a long time. But then, I’m only working on it a couple hours a day, a couple days a week. I don’t think the choice to use only hand tools had much impact on the time. I know from experience that setting up a power tool and running several test cuts can really chew up valuable shop time. Sometimes I think “designing on the fly” is what actually takes up the majority of my time. Now that the design and construction details are complete, I’m sure building a second one would take less than half the time of the first.

Surrounded By Nonexistent Bicycles

I'm in Wichita, KS this week on company business. I usually make this trip about once a month. If you've ever spent much time in hotels on business trips you know that it can get pretty boring trying to find something to do when you're not actually at work. There's usually at least 8 hours of non-sleeping time to be used up.

I've been to the mall of course, but I'm too old to be a mall rat, and there's only so much time you can spend wandering through candle and soap shops. I tried finding woodworking stores but apparently nobody in this entire city cuts wood as a hobby. There are several "outdoors" stores that are good for a few hours worth of stooging. (You know, the stores that are full of guns, millions of fishing lures, furniture made from antlers, and ultraheavy camping equipment.)

One place I almost always go is to the local bike shops. And on this trip I decided to hit some shops along the way, too. In preparation, I emailed most of the bike shops in central Oklahoma and southern Kansas to see if they had any touring bikes in stock. Two or three of them responded positively, so I marked them on my map to visit, along with the regulars. Alas, so far the closest thing I've seen to a touring bike is one Bianchi Volpe. Everyone says they can order a Trek 520 or a Cannondale T800/2000, or even build up a Surly LHT. But no one seems to want to stock touring bikes.

I'm guessing that when gas prices go back up there will be an increased interest in actual transportation bikes. Till then, if you want to see a touring bike you'll just have to look at pictures of it on the web.

One Less Bike ( For Now ... )

Well, I sold my '88 Cannondale Criterium bike this morning. I really didn't ride it much. I had never really gotten comfortable on the bike like I have on some others. It was just taking up room in the garage.

Still, I always have mixed feelings when a bike grows up and leaves home. But at least I know the new owner, and I think it will be ok in his hands. I would have hated to sell it to a stranger.

Hmmm ... now I have room for a new bike :)

Trestle Wrestle

Just a couple pics of the trestle desk I'm working on in my garage workshop. I've decided that this one will be done all with hand tools. No electrons are being harmed in it's construction.

I figure that I need to learn to do joinery both by hand and by machine, so I thought I'd do this one all by hand just for kicks. It really makes you think hard to solve problems in different ways. You can't simply use a table saw for every little thing. And doing joinery without routers and mortisers is quite interesting, to say the least.

Freewheeling Again?

Last summer Glenn, Paul and I went on the Oklahoma Freewheel, a 7-day cross-the-state bicycle tour. We've been talking already about whether or not to go this year. I guess Glenn has made up his mind over the weekend, because I just got this message from him:

Lloyd,

I was trying to figure out how much it would cost to go on the freeWheel this year,after all I have most of the equipment already so it should be much cheaper.

Here is a rough estimate of my expected cost.

$1,300 for a new Trek 520
$1,300 for accessories
$200 for a new tent
$100 for a sleeping pad
$120 for entry fee
$450 for spending money
$150 for gas or bus fair
$200 for a bike box
$15 for spare tubes
$15 for a freewheel T-shirt
$35 for spare mirrors
______________________

$3885 total


Let's see what I'll get for my money.

I get to sleep on the ground,
take cold showers,
get rained on,
get crowded out by cars,
to take alot of blurry pictures,
smell bad most of the day,
eat in overcrowded restraunts,
get wind burned AND sunburned,
fight for a camping space,
live on Gatoraid and Cliff bars,
spend most of the day looking for arrows painted on the road,
sit in the hot sun, after a 60 mile day in the saddle,
eat food undercooked or overcooked by the boyscouts or some women's axuillary,
ride 5 miles with PeeWee Herman,
Have to talk nicely with some overweight woman looking for a husband,
get passed by that same overweight woman on the hills, (damn I hate that!)
get knocked over or run down by Lloyd who's only excuse is "I was clipped in",
get chased by mad dogs,
fix flats, mostly for Paul,
put up with people who sing,
get flipped off by mad drivers,
spend every day covered with a mixture of sweat, road grime, sunblock and gnats,...............................
.......but if the wife don't kill me first!.......

I'M GOING!

New Life South of the Border

A year ago this month I posted an entry about an old Giant Rincon mountain bike I was working on. I had picked up the bike from a garage sale with the thought that I might convert it to a touring bike to use for the Oklahoma Freewheel cross-the-state ride coming up in six months. After disassembling and cleaning/repairing/adjusting everything on the bike, I put it back together with drop bars and road shifters. Not long afterwards, however, I had the opportunity to purchase a 20-year old tourer which I rebuilt and eventually used on the Freewheel ride. So, the old Giant languished in my garage for nearly a year.

I justified it’s taking up valuable storage space by imagining it would make an excellent around-towner with its sturdy frame, flat pedals, and decent rack. I even put straight bars and mountain bike shifters back on it to make it a little more nimble jumping curbs and dodging potholes. But the unfortunate truth is that I simply didn’t ride it. No matter how suitable it was for urban trips, I just didn’t need it.

With the help of my old friend Glenn I found a way to give this old warrior a new lease on life. You see, for several years, Glenn has been going on mission trips to Mexico to provide support for several fledgling churches. He and others supply Bibles, hymnals, clothing, toys, musical and electronic equipment for several congregations there. One real need has been for transportation for the local pastors, some of whom serve more than one church in an area, much like the circuit-rider preachers did in the early days of our own country. For many pastors, owning a bicycle for transportation is simply out of their financial reach.

The accompanying pictures are of a pastor in Coxcatlan, Mexico picking up his new bike. He looks happy to receive it, and I’m happy that he’ll be putting it to good use. It’s much better than having it parked unused in my garage.

Rock Solid Sawbenches

Although I own and use power tools, I consider woodworking solely with hand tools to be a separate artistic discipline, and I am doing what I can to learn and practice that discipline. For hand sawing, a good sawing bench is indispensible. Sawing dovetails or tenons is done at the regular workbench at about waist height, but using a handsaw for crosscuts or ripping requires the material to be held at about knee level. The saw can then be held at the correct angle toward the floor while the cut is made.

Several years ago I made a three-board sawbench, but its wide legs made it difficult to keep the bench from wobbling on the shop floor during use. It was made of ¾ inch pine and was too lightweight, so I ended up disassembling it and recycling the wood.

In Issue 6 (Autumn 2006) of Woodworking Magazine, editor Christopher Schwarz writes about building and using sawbenches. In the magazine he provides drawings, parts lists and instructions to build what he calls a “traditional English sawbench”, and on the magazine blog at http://www.woodworking-magazine.com/blog/ he shows how to use the bench for handsawing.

I liked the sturdy design, so I decided I would build a couple. I followed his design pretty closely, with only a few minor deviations. For example, I just couldn’t bring myself to follow his recommendation to nail the bottom shelf boards, so I glued and pegged each one in place. The finished benches are heavy and rock solid. The only problem is that now I need a larger shop!

Not Riding Much Lately

The weather has been fluctuating for the last couple of weeks. First we had about four inches of snow, which put the big clamp on any riding for a few days. I guess I wouldn’t really mind riding on slick streets if I was the only vehicle out there, but I really don’t cherish the idea of becoming a slow-moving target for the fair weather drivers here. I grew up in Ohio where it snows pretty often, and people there actually learned to drive on the slick stuff and prepared their cars for the weather. I remember being a young teenage driver and learning that if you don’t know what you’re doing in the snow, you end up in the ditch. But here in sunny Oklahoma it seldom snows much, and people don’t have the opportunity to learn and practice driving on snow-packed roads.

This week I’m in Wichita, KS on a company trip and didn’t bring a bike this time. The city streets here are not very bike friendly, although the city is slowly adding to the bike path routes. I guess the good roads where I normally ride have spoiled me, but here there are NO shoulders on any of the highways or city streets here. It’s my opinion that bike routes work ok for light recreational use. But here in this town, the heavy automobile traffic, lack of shoulders, and absence of bike lanes prohibit cycling on the streets for transportation. Too bad.

So, I’m looking forward to getting back home and enjoying the daily commute.

On another topic, I’ve noticed that the Hotter ‘n Hell jerseys are finally available again. They ran out at the event in August, and just now have them available on their web site store: http://hhhstore.org/

A Litter Colder!

Yesterday was a blustery, windy day – too bad to ride. I mean it was windy! There were wind advisories issued, and forcasts of winds up to 60 mph. Personally, I don’t think it was that windy, but it was more than I wanted to ride in.

This morning the wind calmed way down, and we were left with a wonderfully crisp, cool autumn morning. The thermometer outside my kitchen window read 28 degrees, and the neighborhood flags were hanging almost straight down … perfect for an invigorating commute to work.

I’m trying to dress better for my rides this winter. Last winter I tried to get by on the cheap by using various layered items purchased at the local *$#mart. This year I coughed up some dough for “real” cool/cold weather biking clothes, and I’m very interested in finding out what works and what doesn’t. There’s very little accurate (read: non-commercial) information out there about cool/cold weather riding, simply because the U.S. cycling business is so oriented toward the racing wannabees. But I digress.

Today’s outfit consisted of :

Light balaclava, heavy balaclava, helmet, helmet cover
Base shirt, short-sleeved jersey, arm warmers, heavy cycling jacket
Heavy gloves
Cycling shorts, wind-front tights
Poly socks, wool socks, MTB shoes

Results:

Head and ears – warm
Face – cool nose and eyes
Neck – hot
Hands and arms – warm enough
Chest, shoulders, back and torso, butt and thighs – warm
Knees and lower legs – cool
Feet – too cool

So, it looks like I mostly guessed ok for this morning. I think I’ll not double-up on the balaclava again until the weather gets really frigid, because I don’t like my neck being hot. And it looks like I need to put winter riding shoes higher up on my wish list. Other than that I’m ok.

And the good news is that after spending so much time getting my riding stuff ready, I only forgot a few work-related items. So here I am happily at work going commando, with my shirt tail out to cover my belt-less pants, and wearing my cycling socks with my loafers. Ha! Cracks me up.!

Mirrors

I suspect that all you racer boys (and girls) out there will disagree with me, but I like to ride with a mirror. Yeah, I know they look kinda geeky, but come on, riding a bicycle in the USA is already considered kinda geeky anyway. Using a mirror is just a different type of geeky. Like there’s “cool geeky” and “uncool geeky”. Anyway, if you’ve ever ridden long distances on the open highways, especially by yourself or only one or two other riders, you’ve learned to appreciate mirrors. There are simply times when being able to see behind you adds a great deal of confidence and safety.
I’ve tried several kinds of mirrors on my different bikes with mixed success. I had an unsatisfactory experience with a helmet-mounted mirror several years ago. It was the kind that sticks to the side of the helmet with double-sided tape. It was hard to adjust, the mirror part was too small, it was hard to focus on the objects behind, and worst of all it kept falling off. When it fell off for the ??th time, I finally just left it in the road where it landed. Since then I’ve used a bar-end-mounted mirror on my straight-bar bikes and I like it pretty well (some brands work better than others). I’ve not tried the kind that wrap around the brake hoods on drop bars, but a friend of mine had one, and he said it buzzed and vibrated. The worst thing about bar-mounted mirrors is that they break easily if (I mean when) you drop the bike.
Several months ago I decided to try a mirror that mounts on the frame of my eyeglasses. I doubted that I would like it, but gambled on the $15 price. For some reason I've found that I really like this mirror ... it's called the "Take A Look" by Bike Peddler. It's an acrylic mirror with no frame and has a thin wire stem that mounts easily on my eyeglasses or sunglasses. It stays put, is easy to adjust, doesn’t vibrate too much, and I find that it's easy for me to focus. And since it’s mounted on my head and not the bike, I can turn my head and sweep all lanes behind me.

34 Degrees

We had a nice little cold snap this morning, with the temperature going down to about 34 degrees. The good thing is that the wind died down from about 20-25 mph to about 8-10 mph.

Today’s cycling kit consisted of (top-to-bottom)
Helmet cover
Thin balaclava
Long sleeve poly base layer
Short sleeve jersey
Arm warmers
Shell
Lined gloves
Shorts
Thin tights
Knee warmers
Poly socks
Wool socks
Summer MTB shoes

I was nice and comfortable without being too warm on my 4 ½ mile ride. I think today's outfit should suffice down to 25-30 degrees. Below that (or if the windchill is really low) I’ll go to my fleece balaclava, lined jacket and wind-front tights. I think maybe I should also get some really thin gloves to wear inside my lined gloves. And while I’m dreaming, why not order a pair of winter riding shoes?

Whatever I wear in the morning, I have to remember that it’ll probably be in the 50’s when I ride home that evening, so I need to bring light clothes to wear then. Ah, Oklahoma weather ... gotta love it !

A Special Day

Today is a special day for me, one filled with sweet memories, and great expectations for the future.

Four years ago today the love of my life agreed to become my wife!

New Old Tools

I really like old tools. Of course I like new tools too, especially hand tools. But there's something special about a tool that has a little age and wear on it. It just looks and feels comfortable, I guess.

There aren't really many old tools in Oklahoma, because there haven't been people here using tools for that long. (Yeah, I know, there were people here using stone tools, but you know that I'm talking about relatively modern tools, so don't be a smart aleck.) Most of the old tools are back on the east coast. But sometimes I run across some interesting hand tools anyway.

This past Saturday I picked up the items in the above picture at a local garage sale. These were just dumped in a box with some junk. As you can see, I got a decent old large chisel, which I'll probably never use since I don't plan on building a log cabin soon. The neat old four-fold rule is nice. I already have a couple larger, newer ones, but this old Lufkin has a lot of character. According to that well-known on-line auction this item is worth ten times what I paid for all five of the tools shown.

I'm going to like the little steel vernier caliper. It should come in handy. And the little 4-inch combination square is good to have.

So, all in all it was a nice GS find. It's this kind of stuff that entices me to go out early on Saturday mornings. Its a big job staying out of the way of the feeding sharks (oops, I mean ladies sorting through the kids clothing, cracked dishes, Avon bottles and assorted foo foo). But sometimes it pays.

Added: Yes, I do realize there are only 4 tools in the picture, not five. I can count; I just need to double-check sometimes :)

All Around Good Weekend

Yep, good weekend. But then, aren't all weekends good? Saturday we drove to Cordell, Oklahoma for a Pumpkin Festival. Trouble was, there wasn't a punkin in sight! (OK, maybe a few). But it was almost all venders of rubber snakes, Chinese toys and cheap knives. Later in the afternoon we stopped in Hobart, where there wasn't any kind of celebration going on. There we had a thoroughly fine time walking around the square, having lunch in a small diner, going to antique stores, and taking lots of pictures.

But, the coolest thing is all the wildlife we saw. We saw some really large hawks and a tall blue heron. We saw a snake in the sun on a back road near a little lake. We saw two deer standing by the side of the road. And coolest of all, a young mountain lion trotted across the road about 50 yards ahead of us as we drove through the Quartz Mountains. It was a rare privilege to see this reclusive animal, but I couldn't help thinking that I hope I don't meet up with him/her while hiking someday. Or even worse, have him/her nearby, watching me or even following me without my being aware of it!