Ride Lugged

Consider some problems faced by Manzini Cyclery, a small U.S. maker of custom bicycles:

1) In December 2002, when the exchange rate was $1 per Euro, Manzini ordered parts for next year’s production from Campagnolo. They agreed to a price of 500,000 euros, to be paid when the parts were delivered in one year’s time. One year later, the exchange rate was $1.22 per euro. What was the actual cost in dollars for Manzini when the payment was due? If the price had instead been set at $500,000 (which had equivalent value at the time of the agreement), how many euros would Campagnolo have received?

2) In December 2002, banks were offering one-year currency forward contracts with a forward exchange rate of $0.987/€. Suppose that at that time, Manzini placed the order with Campagnolo with a price of 500,000 euros and simultaneously entered into a forward contract to purchase 500,000 euros at a forward exchange rate of $0.987/€ in December 2003. What payment would Manzini be required to make in December 2003?

Answers in the comments! Don’t cheat!

so route slip became the beached whale that is left to die on the sands of new jersey and is looted by tourists and inuit wannabes.  they sort of stopped providing support, and rolled over and lost all my routes, which was a lot of routes.  thats what you get for free i guess.

anyway, they got ‘bought out’ by mapmyride and so we have to use that now.  which is actually a good thing.  it makes your cue sheet for you, has a decent road follower tool which allows you to delete big parts of mistakes at once, shows real time elevation, ect.  the cue sheet set up is particularly nice.  i tested its accuracy yesterday, and it was spot on, even giving the name and route number of a given road.  this feature is super good for country roads missing signs.  this feature makes it better than bikely and routeslip combined.  it also allows you to add tags like water or food and provide a description, like google my maps.  so i started an open group, for who ever, to add ridelugged minded routes.  the URL is http://www.mapmyride.com/community/groups/833088119056

you have to sign up to the site, which is free and easier than even getting an email account from a blind chinese fortune teller.

go sign up, make a route, join the club, go ride your bike.  yeah you, the one who should be training.  go ride.

Day 1 – 88km
(preride: 1.5 ham and cheese sandwiches, water, orange juice, slow release vitamin C capsule)
1 water bottle with energy drink, 1 with water
ham and cheese sandwich on buttered roll, 1 pack Clif Bloks
pork chop steak with potato wedges
2 - 17oz beers, 12oz Coke
2 cups of tea

Day 2 – 83km
2 egg omelette with ham and cheese, 1buttered roll with jelly, 1 with honey, wild berry breakfast cake, cup of tea, slow release vitamin C capsule
1 water bottle with energy drink, 1 with water
large block of fried cheese with french fries, 17oz beer, 10oz Coke
chocolate covered ice cream snack
2 more water bottles, 1 more wild berry breakfast cake
grilled chicken fillets in cream sauce with potato wedges, 2 - 17oz beers, 10oz Coke

Day 3 – 95km
2 buttered rolls with ham and cheese, small side salad, cup of tea, slow release vitamin C capsule
1 water bottle with energy drink, 1 with water
ham and cheese sandwich on buttered roll, 1 pack chocolate wafers
2 hot chocolates, Beef broth soup, small portion of fried meatloaf w/ spicy mustard, espresso, double shot of Becherovka
large ‘Mega-řizek’ pork steak, potato wedges, 17oz beer, 10oz Coke, Becherovka w/ currant juice

Day 4 – 104km
2 buttered rolls with jelly, 3 eggs scrambled with cheese, cup of tea, slow release vitamin C capsule
1 water bottle with energy drink, 1 with water, 1 pack Clif Bloks, 1 pack chocolate wafers
pork à la some Moravian sparrow with sauerkraut and potato dumplings, 17oz beer, 10 oz Coke
1.5 more water bottle
large portion of grilled pork ribs + side salad
1 bottle of local red wine

Day 5 – rest day
2 buttered rolls with ham and cheese, 1 with jelly, cup of tea, 2pc. strawberry breakfast cake, slow release vitamin C capsule
‘czech-style hamburger’ with tomato, cucumber, lettuce, & onion; 17oz beer, chocolate covered ice cream snack
olive, ham, and corn pizza; 10oz Coke
½ bottle of local red wine

Day 6 – 138km
1buttered roll with ham and cheese, 1 with jelly, 1 roll with honey, cup of tea, 2pc. strawberry breakfast cake, cream-filled doughnut, slow release vitamin C capsule
2 water bottles 1 pack Clif Bloks,
ham Pizza, 12oz Coke
1 more water bottle, 1 pack chocolate wafers
grilled chicken baguette, chocolate croissant, 12oz coke
3 – 17oz beers

_
so this guy was stamped out august 1991, and I have retired him today.

it seems that I have actually worn this poor saddle out. a near fatal collision with a incorrectly labeled drive-thru canopy in North Carolina left it a bit worse for the wear almost 9 years ago, but it was still going strong. but it seems the last 510km loaded ride to Vienna was the downfall.

I never really thought my pointy sit bones could pierce a saddle shell. About 360km into the ride on some rough dirtroads, I noticed that it seemed that the padding directly under my sit bones had been quickly ground down and I was riding directly on the plastic/fiber reinforced shell.

when I made it back home this morning, I decided to put the flite out of his misery. in the interest of curiosity, I choose to break the saddle down to its base elements. the perforated leather cover came off without too much trouble, and the glue holding the foam on gave little resistance as well.

I was surprised to find the culprit of the sudden loss of padding.

it seems that my ass actually cracked the shell with my sit bones, at which point the padding in that small area was ground away fairly quickly.

I don’t recall any major impact, but there were so many repetitive jarrings that day, I am not surprised.
anyway I am saddle shopping now. I may look at a racy brooks, maybe a nice fizik (the misses seems to enjoy her two), i might stick with the flite. if I do stay with the flite, it looks like I will have some modding ahead, to fix the new and unnecessary spaceship styling.

ok, off like a prom dress!
-c

1. to pedal a bicycle along the edge or gutter of a rugged or rutted path in an attempt to find less demanding, smoother passage. ex. I just rode 500km from Prague to Vienna, and some of the roads were so rough I had to paris-roubaix that shit.

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Mel has been riding some sugino xd 500s for a while now, but for some reason, no matter what, they get chain suck. not every ride, not every shift, but sometimes it happens. And its not her fault. I rode it and the same thing sporatically happens to me. What gives? Changed the rings, changed the chain… She knows how to shift… Anyway, I have been planning on getting rich and buying her either the white industries road double or a pair of TA cranks, set up as a wide range double. That would be minimum 200 bucks though, 200 bucks I dont have. Unless my couch is holding out on me.

Anyway, digging and shooting shit at freeze thaw the other day, and ran across some SR apex cranks. Never heard of them. Minor interweb research led me to believe they were introduced around 1980-1981, had a short market life, and the world moved onto the soon to be standard 11o BCD we all know and sort of love.

here they are, prior to some time with some polish and steel wool, and they still have all 3 rings

118 BCD, came stock with 48/46/28 rings, looked to have a low Q, used standard bolts, standard crank puller, SR made them so they were probally cold forged… nice finish and low wear despite the years in a dust pile. I traded a salsa stem for them, made them a wide range 46/28 double, and slapped them on Mel’s Atlantis.

they look sharp I think. more elegant than the sugino cranks. lighter, lower q.

Ahh lower Q factor. Mel doesnt really know or care about Q factor. But we went for a ride yesterday, and she said something like “why does my bike feel so fast?” also, perhaps more bizarre: “why do i feel more stretched out?” well, didnt know Q did that…. But check out the tread photo:

if this were the 1990s, and it was a basketball game and not a bike part set up thing, and you had made a basket from say, 3 yards beyond the 3 point line, you would say booyah.

OK what else?

Sorry, this post will just go on and on and on and on.

Mel hasnt been on a mtn bike for a while. Last summer. Like me. I suck, I bet she does too. Logs? Ahhhh! Ok so we took a cue from Rob’s Christine course. And set up some obstacles.

start with a rock garden. rock and brick garden that is. you cant not hit some rocks, its a good thing.

log. not big, not small, just right.

log pile with easy finish. for now.

really annoying square edged stutter bumps. ratchet pedal. ratchet!

tiny north shore thing. for balance and confidence building. ends in a drop off.

said drop off. note quality construction.

ends with a teeter totter. easy, but fun. to come: bigger logs, more rocks, a jump. Mel likes jumping.

What else?

Our power went out a while ago, and I decided to try to make an olive oil lamp. I used a tiny glass jar, a rag for a wick, olive oil, and a coat hanger. It worked pretty well, for a while. Then I dont think the kink in my hanger was tight enough. The flame just kept creeping closer to the olive oil.

would cino cinelli hate on me?

I’ve been working on yard salads: using mostly stuff from the yard to put in wraps, have for dinner, etc. I have added dandilion greens now, but this is what i generally use.

I’ve been reworking some images into quadtone images. Here is a sample image, in quadtone and a link to the flickr gallery where more live.