Ride Lugged

So recently I’ve been looking at handlebar bags like the Sunlite Bartender 4 and thinking about how useful these can be. Albeit generic looking and not at all unique, which is something someone like me is often concerned with when deciding on bits and parts that will have no overall cohesiveness nor rhyme or reason in how it matches the bike. I got thinking about wacky ideas for handlebar bags and instantly the vision of a clunky metal lunch box found itself in my minds’ eye. So I started looking on eBay for rad lunch boxes and found all sorts of cool ones…eh, cool to me. Stuff like “The A Team” or “The Dukes of Hazzard” were obvious choices, but not cost wise. I found a repro KISS lunch box that rocked! Then came the thought of drilling holes into them…or drinking from a 1983 thermos…YUCK!

So I reconsidered and settled for a compromise of space and functionality over pure aesthetic. Which as you can see is definitely not an issue here. An Einstein Bagels lunch box with handle removed.

Then I got working on a high-tech mounting system that will securely hold my lunch box and it’s payload while riding over bumpy terrain and not be clanky and loud…

Now the fun part….drilling holes with precision and exactitude…

I then secured the lunch box to the mounting system with superior stainless hardware for easy removal at rest stops and so noone steals it while I’m inside a liquor store shoplifting…

So now I can carry my three PB&J sandwiches and a can of Mountain Dew safely and within easy grasp while I’m riding. Plus, I can tape the queue sheet to the inside of the top of the lunch box for easy reading at busy intersections. I’m also going to trick it out with bottle cage mounts on either side for a couple cans of Sparks.
Here’s the finished product!

There’s just enough room for my hands to comfortably grab my dialed BMX brake lever in case of emergency. So there you have it. Seven dollars worth of hardware and a one dollar lunch box from a consignment shop…and I’m rollin’ deep. I tested it (with four innertubes in boxes) around the backyard and it rattles like crazy and clanks and jiggles….perfect.
Rob

Holy cow: Walking consumes more gasoline than driving! | Brad Ideas

I’m a little offended that he didn’t include segways in his analysis. I’m also suprised that he’s the chairman of the EFF.

Biking’s better. The average-diet cyclist is getting 85 miles per gallon of fossil fuel. Still better for 2 to share a Prius. The beefeater is, as before only 1/4 as good. At 21mpg he’s better than a Hummer, but not that much better.

Calfee claims its $3K bamboo bike will save the planet. Riding lugged makes mother earth cry.

so i was walking to the post office today, (on a dirt road) and was lamenting the fact that with all of the crazy mapping software out there, GIS, google maps, USGS, etc, there isnt a good way to tell if A. your route will work (is that someones driveway?) and B. what the road surface is.  The closest we get is USGS, which tells us if something is unimproved or not.  Well that could mean anywhere from paved and not maintained, to cow path thru a field.  Not very exact, and consequently, not very helpful.  What if there was not only a route mapping site that allowed users to tag roads according to surface, but also made notes of where there were potable springs, country stores with ice cream sandwiches, and included tagged pictures of overlooks, vistas, sites of note, ect.  Wouldnt that be great?  Users could search by town, state or county and get a list of user generated tags, ride info, and visual information.

Of course, this would involve server space, and alot of work on not only the web interface but also general usability.  How would roads be tagged?  Could we color code them?  Thats my choice.  Roads could even be rated, for traffic, passability, (if its a dirt cow track, maybe 23s arent a good choice) and general pleasantness.  Key features would include elevation output ala route slip, editablity ala the new google maps, terrain maps ala google, satelite imagery, and an easy to use east to print cue sheet like routeslip.

I bet it would cost a bundle to make, and to maintain.  I’m guessing that part of this cost could be offset by getting appropriate advertisers, rivendell, velo orange, ect.  I think the data compilation would be interesting.  We could have content submitted through a blog, directly onto the website, by mail.  It would be an interesting compendium of others rides, thoughts, and interests.  I have started a blog to promote the discussion of this idea, although I guess all discussion could take place right here too.  It just seems easier to move it to another forum.  For now, users could create ‘dirt specific’  routes in routeslip or bikely,or even gmaps, and link them to the blog.  We can start a database without any real work.  It wouldnt be as convient or easy, but it might get cogs turning.

Definition of acceptable road surfaces:  hard packed dirt, wide paths, bike paths, hardpacked gravel, well maintained fireroads, old wagon roads, logging roads that are passable, chip roads.  Each needs its own tag, or maybe it can be narrowed down: dirt, gravel/chip, fireroad/logging road.  Personal favorite: dirt.

Update: no blog yet, wordpress is down.  Perspective name: dirtroaddatabase.wordpress.com, or if availible: drd.wordpress.com

whaddaya guys think?

The technique is made possible by small wireless pollution sensors and custom software that allows the phones to report levels of air pollutants wherever they happen to be around town.

here it is in all its glory. one per customer.

spoke card for the ride spoken of below.

you will be there.

nick, get your ticket. or hide in cory’s baggage.

ok i gave up at the end there.

i have taken over 400o pictures in the past month and a half. this has given my computer indigestion, most of my graduate committee the french fits, and _________ ____ ______. for those that don’t know, i had a bit of an artistic breakdown, where i realized that i couldnt really embrace the future, kinda thought new media was bogus, and ran off to vermont to mourn the loss of a concept.

poultney river, waist deep in 50 degree water

I think the spiritual journey paid off, although it was hell to go through. Being lonely in an intensly beautiful place is really depressing. Good news: when I came back, I negotiated to inhereit some land up there. So 7.8 acres of undevelopedish sugar maples, a small brook and two sugar houses awaits a spring and summer renovation, outhouse building, rain water gatherings, ect.

When I came about, I milled around for about a week then saw some grapes, rotting on the vine. I was generally depressed, and also thinking about the war, via a poem I heard on the Writer’s Almanac, called the campus in wartime. Here is a link, because I don’t want a copywrite case on my hands. You have to scroll down a bit, but its there, and it’s worth listening to, even if it means downloading realplayer to do it.

These first photos were no good, just a lame initial reaction to the concept I had been kicking around in my head: why doesn’t the media show dead Americans? I’m positive that part of the massive protests staged during Vietnam where caused by casualty photos. I feel like the media needs to bring the violence home, and whats more, contextualize it. Why are these people fighting us? They are not terrorists, but rather patriots. Would we not do the exact same thing? If we sat down and let invading forces run us through, we would be considered anti patriots, traitors, capitulators, cowards.

With this in mind I thought more about violence and death and decay. I thought about how photos from WWII, in their incredible terror, can also be poignantly gorgeous. I thought about the dicotomy that exists within all photographs, the seperation from reality that comes by looking through a mechanical eye and presenting the subject through mechanical means. Cameras show us what humans can not see.

Still, artistically I thought I was at a dead end. I walked home from class late one night. It was raining, and the streetlight revealed recently fallen leaves, smashed into the pavement. I kept that in my mind, a good idea that lasted through the night, as good ideas often do not.

I took my camera out the next morning, and pointed it straight down. I was capturing intensly local crime scenes, buried bones, fractured limbs, entropic portraits of leaves becoming the ground.

This spoke of a muted violence, a thing you happen across, and only understand through the lens of time. It was violence at a distance, still murky through the mists of beauty and perception.

I journeyed on, taking 400 pictures in a matter of days.

I pulled the grapes off of the vines, and lay them in the dirt lane. Vehicles did the fruit great violence. I shot the result.

Now I felt as if I was getting somewhere. I started to orchestrate scenes, and use my body to create the violence rather than using the passing cars.

I took the fight to my driveway.

and my lawn.

now the battle rages in the snow outside of my shed.

Last night I went out to take pictures of the fight in the dark.

Instead I ended up taking pictures of falling snow.

which is strangly reminecent of watching star trek.

I wandered back into my grape bushes, and tried the same trick.

other worldly photos ensued.

Somewhere in between, I went to Pittsburgh twice, and tried to capture violence, decay, industry, beauty and entropy.

I don’t really know where all of this is going, but I like the journey.

_
So I married into a summer house or a chata as they call them here.

It’s a nice little stuccoed brick cabin with a tile roof about 90 minutes west of Prague in a town called Řeřichy.
check it out at mapy.cz at 50°04′55.20″N 13°35′4.56″E

Verča, her mother, her dog, and I spent Sunday (April 29, 2007) there doing a little spring cleaning, lawn mowing, and replacing some chain link fence along the street. (Chain link fence is actually a pain in the butt, if you didn’t already know.)

It has a nice little fenced yard with a greenhouse and some old hedgerows. 2 bedrooms upstairs. a kitchen and living room on the first floor. and a little root cellar in the basement. indoor plumbing and hot water radiators but no bathroom inside. and Verča just tore down the outhouse, so we are going to build a new one with a composting toilet. (any suggestions for the composter?) Also after seeing Becky and Damien, we are going to probably build a little outdoor shower too.

It should be a good base for some biking. Amazing road rides through picturesque rolling countryside!! should have some solid mountain/off-road touring as well.

There is even Verča’s old bike if someone brings a little prolink and a frame pump.

You all are invited. (Be warned it’s a bit musty at the moment. we’ll work on that though.)

OK, take it easy.

Coffee Bean Depulper

Bicycle Metal Sharpener

Soil plow / till / hoe

I love these guys…but I’m a bit of a wierdo right?