Last snow of the winter?

For most of the winter we have been in a snow-free bubble in Edinburgh. The rest of Scotland, and even the rest of the UK, have had dumps of snow. Traffic-stopping, school-closing snow. So it was a surprise to travel north through the central Highlands the other weekend and discover the white stuff. Above, Blair Atholl. Below, a desolate scene at the Drumochter Pass.



Herds of deer were foraging near the road.



Blank hillsides - hard to remember that these were vibrant with purple heather a few months ago.



On the lower hillsides of Speyside the snow had all but vanished. Is it wishful thinking that there is a slight haze of spring buds about the trees?

The Good, The Distracted and The Quite Ugly...

Well... here's the good - the last of our wonderful Christmas day with family from big to small, young to old(er) heheh, and what a great day it was for all! Then we pulled out all the stops again, starting with steak. Some of you might remember what this is supposed to mean. Hmmmmmmnnnnnn.
Today I face the San Mateo County Fairgrounds gate as I try for my second leg of Novice A. Mom feels pretty confident that I will qualify.
We pass lots of doggies getting groomed for conformation classes. I barked at these. Not very polite.
I wanted to play with this cute young golden I saw! We finally found our ring, where the Open B classes were still going on. Here is "Dream" handled by Deedee Anderson. Dream won just about everything in that an obedience dog can get. Check out her heel position!
Wow!
Here we are listening to our judge's instructions before we get a walk-through of the heeling pattern. It was very easy. Because my dad was taking movies, there are no stills of my (er... ahem, cough, cough) performance. Suffice it to say, it was furry distracted, although I tried my best. I did the heel-on-leash, the figure-8 and the stand for examination just fine. But my off-leash heeling went south when I was asked to halt and I didn't sit. Weird. And then on the recall, I kinda rolled my head around like I was looking for dad, so I didn't hear mom call me - I really didn't - I was looking somewhere else. On Mom's second call, I was disqualified.
Sorry Ma, but I was worried about where Dad was (she seemed to be saying as she later nom nom-ed on steak...) Next Sunday, I'll be headed for the Cow Palace for a Fun Match to "straighten" things out a bit. (And mom says ditto for her heheh!)

A Short, Warm Ride

With the cold Spring we have had, I was surprised yesterday when I started to prepare for a bicycle ride. Noon, it was already warm and muggy. Filtered sunshine and almost no wind. Still wanted to ride, so grabbed the road bike and loaded it on the car rack.

In the morning, I was still tired from the ride Saturday, so slept in. Kitting up for my ride, i realized that I had not eaten, so grabbed an apple to eat on the drive to the trailhead.

Aired up the tires and lubed the chain on the bike. Already, I could feel the humidity (though it was only in the low 70s. Headed out of the Lake Manawa Trail. Took it easy, but still feeling pretty good - a decent speed up Mosquito Creek.

A little over 2 miles into my ride, I saw "Tom" (a wildlife photographer - "birder" friend) on the trail. Stopped to visit with him. After all, I was not in any hurry. Drank some water before heading on down the trail. I started realizing that this was not going to be a good ride! Was happy to get to the Indian Creek Bridge for rest and consume fluids. It was obvious, it was time to turn back to the car.

By the time I got back to where Tom was photographing a nest of owls in a tree across the road, I was a little light headed. Stopped long enough to take a couple photos of Tom, drank some water, and popped a Shot Blok in my mouth. On down the trail to car.

A mile from the car, I had to stop to drink the rest of my Gatorade and almost the rest of my water. Slow ride with the wind (what little there was). Seemed it took all my energy just to load the bike and exchange shoes. Glad I still had some of my ice water in the cup in the car.

After resting a bit, I warmed up a pizza from the freezer. Drank lots of water and washed doen the pizza with PowerAde Zero. Processed the couple photos (that's my wildlife photographer friend Tom) and crashed into bed.

Don't want to duplicate that ride! It was about the worse I have ever felt finishing a ride.

Diluvian New Year

Holy cats, has it been raining!

We had 4.5 inches one night, then 2.5 inches fell the next day. (That's about 11.5 cm and 6.5 cm.)
I'm a few days late in posting these pictures, and the ground is still boot-sucking soggy.
If "beaver-drowning rain" isn't an old country expression, it should be. Driving towards town, I saw two dead beavers on the side of the road. You know it's a lot of rain when that happens.

It's hard to complain about this much rain after 3 years of drought. But it was starting to become worrisome.

Jasmine fretted. She whined. She barked at the water!

Just starting to recede.

Ahh. Much better.
This is a little drainage ditch that hasn't had water in it for 3 years or so.
This was the last time the water was so high. That was in the spring (when you expect that sort of thing), almost 4 years ago now.
They say it's going to rain again tomorrow...

You Are Here

Small, two day vacations include naked drummers and lemonade stands out in the middle of the Pinehurst mountains on your way back from your 50 mile, 90 degree bike ride.

Small, two day vacations include driving over to Tijuana that same night and eating tamales and drinking tequila.



Small, two day vacations include driving along the coast the next day and riding bikes by Mavericks and old biplanes and chickens and on the bluffs on the ocean to sweat out all the tequila.

Go Stuff It

I have this habit of sometimes stuffing things away. People around here don't really like it. But I don't really care.
Last night they all ganged up on me. Me, the one who cooks them all dinner every night, who makes sure their back packs are ready by the door each morning with their homework and lunches ready, the one who puts their folded clean clothes nicely back in their drawers, the one who hangs their current team kit on wood hangers in their closet, the one who cleans out the damn litter box now that no one will do it because it smells like ass.
Bunch of complainers.
I don't like a lot of stuff. I'm a minimalist. I don't like acquiring a lot of stuff. Too much stuff makes me crazy. Maybe it's a weird tick to have when in just about every other way in my life, I'm a perpetual teenager.
So sometimes, I stuff things away. But it's not like it's gone - it's in the general area of where it should be. Like manuals are filed in the filing cabinet near the manual folder. Receipts are in piles near the desk. All cords for all the power taps, garmins, ipods, sync, cameras and whatever other electronic gadget Morgan happens to be into that month are in two drawers in the office.
Bike clothes are in the bike clothes closet.
And then the legos, which hurt like hell when you step on them in bare feet, those are in his top drawer or his lego buckets.
But apparently yesterday, someone rode his bike at lunch at work and ended up wearing a size small team jersey instead of his usual XL team jersey. I'm surprised he actually got it on his boday.

And then someone else found his newly built star wars lego battle thingamajig in his top drawer in the wrong bucket.
And then someone else complained that she still couldn't find her tooth that I'd miss placed that fell out of her mouth a few weeks ago.
And then they all started in on me.
So then I told them all to shut up and I busted a few karate chop moves on them and grabbed my box of thin mints and my glass of wine and went into the other room and watched jackass. But only after I folded the laundry and made THEM all put it away themselves.
Bunch of big fat whiny babies, that's what they are.

Schwinn Le Tour II Restoration, Phase 3 - Single Speed

Before

After

Background
If you have been bored enough to follow my posts, you'll know that early in the spring I bought a 1976 Schwinn Le Tour II for cheap. After a couple of weeks, I restored it enough using the stock parts so that I could ride it for a while, putting a few hundred miles on it. I then tried to do a 650B conversion on it, but ran into trouble with brake reach. The stock brake already had a long reach, so the newer "long reach brakes" weren't any longer than the stock brake.
I had already put the Le Tour's chromed steel 27 inch wheels on my daughter's 80s model Schwinn Varsity, so the Le Tour was sitting wheelless, lonely, and unused, especially since I was satisfying my road-style biking needs with the Specialized Tricross.
The Single Speed Conversion
Yesterday, on a whim, I grabbed the frame and Tektro 556 brakes and headed down to Re-Cycle bike shop to see about getting some wheels for the Le Tour. Mike, the owner of the shop, had me go ahead and put the bike up on the work stand so we could start fitting wheels. Over the course of the next five or ten minutes, we worked out a plan to single speed the bike with parts he had in inventory. You'll recall that the Le Tour II has semi-horizontal dropouts, and is a common candidate for single speed conversions.
Mike turned me over to his mechanic, Dan, and within an hour, most of the work had been done. It all happened so fast, I almost wasn't able to keep up with what we were doing.
Here's a list of what we (mostly Dan) did:

• Selected single speed 700c wheels with freewheel. I didn't know that wheels could be built for single speed. I think the difference is the dishing of the wheel to better accommodate the single cog, Also, these are bolt on wheels. Mike said it's common to use bolt on for single speed, especially on the rear when to need to ensure a snug fit. 700C give me more options for tires than I would have if I stuck with the 27 inch. Also, it opens up a tad more room for fenders should I go that route.
  
• Selected an optimum rear cog. Mike suggested an 18 tooth cog. He's familiar with some of the hills I ride, so he was able to make a suggestion. Of course, I can change it out to make it easier or harder after I ride it some.
  
• Put on a new drive side crank and chainring. By chance, they had a busted crank set brought in by someone who tried a jump and bent up the left side of the crank. The right side was in perfect shape, and included a single 40 tooth chainring. The crank arm length was 170mm, and matched the Schwinn crank arm perfectly. I got a really good deal on this part, and was pleased the way it turned out. My original plan was to keep the existing dual chainring, but this looks much, much better.
  
• Selected tires. Mike set me up on skinny 25c, almost smooth tires. I've never ridden a skinny tire before.
• Used a step drill bit to enlarge the rear brake hole on the fork to accommodate the recessed mounting nut. The stock brake had a bolt that went all the way through and a hex nut on the outside. We saved the curved washers to get a better mount between the brake and frame.
  
• Used a Dremel tool to open up the rear brake mounting hole on rear of the frame. There was no room to get the drill in there.
• Mounted new Tektro 556 brakes.
• Removed all unnecessary shifting components: shifting levers, cables, cable guides, derailleurs.
  
• Cut chain to fit the single gear and bolted the wheel into the dropouts.
• Selected a new saddle to replace the broken stock saddle. I got a budget racing style Velo saddle. It looks pretty good, I think, but may get replaced with something else in the future (Can you say "Brooks," boy and girls?)
  
• Selected new brake levers and cabling. I took home Tektro RL520 levers, black bar tape, and new cabling and cable housing. I installed the levers, cables, and bar tape myself at home. I'm impressed with the look and function of the new levers and how the cables disappear beneath the tape. It makes for such a simpler look on the bars. It's almost like there aren't any cables, as the visible parts of the cable are minimal. It took me a few wraps, and then unwraps, to get it right. My taping still isn't perfect, but I think I'm getting better.

What remains, potentially:

• A nice powder coat job, to make that 33 year old steel frame look new again.
• Fenders? Rack? It'd be a shame not to ride this fun bike just because the streets are wet. On the other hand, I already have a bike with fenders and a rack.
• Brooks saddle and earthy colored, varnished bar tape?
  

That's Interesting, But How Does It Ride?
Oh my goodness! Oh my! I never knew it would feel so different. I think all of the changes done to the Le Tour, with the new skinny tires, light weight 700C wheels, well performing brakes with sturdy hoods to hang on to, plus the direct drive to the wheel, it's like a totally new bike.
I'd tried to simulate the single speed experience a few times by setting my geared bike at an equivalent gear. However, there just appears to be something magic about that nearly direct connection to the street through the single gear. It's probably not as direct as with a fixed gear, where's there's no freewheel/freehub, but much more so than with a geared bike, and all of the extra chain snaking through the derailleur jockey wheels. It feels more efficient, as if I get more power using the same gear ratio on the single speed as I would using a geared bike. The clicking of the freewheel is loud, but when I am turning the pedals, it's totally silent.
Of course, when using a geared bike set on a particular ratio, there's always that knowledge in the back of my mind that I can change the gears if I want to. When riding my new single speed today, it was kind of liberating knowing that I had what I had, legs, feet, pedals, chain, to wheel, and that was it. I had to make do with the gearing, such that it was.
I took the Schwinn out for a test ride this afternoon to run some errands over about 12 miles of in-town riding. First I rode some of the bigger hills on my normal daily commute. I found that I could stand out of the saddle to do the toughest hills, but for the most part, I didn't need to. I think it's that efficiency thing again. I did notice that on some downhills and some slight downhill flats, I quickly topped out my cadence, and had to resign to coasting, as I couldn't make my legs go any faster. On my geared bikes, these are spots where I could almost keep up with traffic using really big gears, but on the single speed, I'll just have to relax and take what I can get from gravity. On my first few stops, I felt the urge to downshift on the phantom levers.
The steel frame seems more comfortable than the aluminum Tricross frame, as I think it really absorbs the bumps in the road, despite the more narrow tire. Nothing I've ridden is as comfortable as my Trek 7300 hybrid, with its 35mm tires and seatpost and head shock suspension, plus gel saddle. But the performance of the Schwinn was a lot of fun. I've got the brakes tuned so that I can do most of my braking with a feather touch from my index finger around the hoods. I did have to toe in the shoes a bit, since I was getting some vibration and squeal on my rear brake, which came right up into my saddle for an odd sensation. With my clipless pedals, the acceleration is quite snappy.
I will probably try to commute with this bike this week. Between the 12 miles of errands I ran this afternoon, plus the eight mile round trip to dinner out, I've really enjoyed riding this "new" bike. I think the single speed conversion was the right thing to do at this point in time with the Schwinn, since I already had the hybrid for hauling and wet weather, and the cross bike for fast road and gravel riding. The single speed will be my "city" bike, for fair weather commuting, and tooling around to the coffee shop and restaurants, and casual, easy rides when I don't need to carry any cargo.
Pictures
Here are some photos of the completed bike.