Gear Appeal

I'll be cleaning my brake surfaces on my dad's wheels. After reading an article on brake maintenance, this seems important to me. I just hope that there is not too much grime from not washing the braking surface for so long. I don't think it matters too much. No one yelled that there are dire consequences in not washing your breaking surfaces.
Carbon wheels, according to the people who make money on them, need to be cleaned often with S

imple Green type cleaner and only their pads will work. I think there is some truth to this, but time will tell if similar brake pads can be applied to all types of carbon wheels. I think this cork break pad idea will dissolve just like cork will dissolve. The article was in Road Bike Action, December 2010.

Yesterday (Christmas) I rode 22 miles to Barefoot Landing and beyond, back by Watertower Road where the scenery gets primordial and the road is really smooth. I'll go even further back into Waterplace road next time. Thanks Myrtle Beach Bike Bandits for showing me this route. Here's a map of the route.

Looking into gear ratios, there are apps for Iphone and Android that calculate gear-inches and probably spoke ratios.

Santa Envy

I miss the days of riding my bike to deliver turkeys or caviar. I delivered a turkey to the,"Pacific Mission" on Dearborn and Congress in Chicago. I probably delivered Christmas presents too. Thanks to Billy Dwyer at Accurate recruiting for hiring me to deliver Christmas peanut brittle to offices around Chicago. That was another chapter. Funnnnn! We teamed up at the velodrome in Northbrook, IL as well.

These jobs gave me rosy Santa cheeks.

I'll figure out how to do Christmassy things by bike now. Yesterday I rode 5 miles north to Books=A-Million to buy Christmas cards. Maybe I could deliver bribes to potential employers.

I bought a spoke wrench (black) to save money on trueing my wheels. There's nothing more annoying than knowing you're doing a number on your wheels because they're too much out of true. Anyone in Myrtle Beach need their wheels trued? $6 each wheel. No joke.

Money's ever tighter. Here's hoping Toys 'R Us will hire me. Maybe I can deliver something on bike with a santa costume.

Did 19 miles. Moderately windy. My speed went 24 mph for a stretch or two. Ran into Fleet. He had alot to say.

I'll be heading out on a short 20 mile bike ride the usual route. Robert Grissom to George Bishop to River Oaks. A circle to the right.
Bike = Tomossao ???
Long underwear = Chilis bottom and craft top.

Should be pretty cold but not as bad as the past couple days. 32 degrees.

My first new messenger bike was a Specialized Crossroads with a candy apple chrome red finish and a cruiser body. - memory

I want a fixed gear cycling touring bike. - new thing

Past and Future is tense

Memories will go in this section.

New Things will go in this section.

Frosty Brew/Brow or Frosty guerilla-look.

Compare this with the 2-ply fleece ones I make with artwork patterns:
But I like the ones I make better.
These cost around 2$ to make. Though there is alot of blood sweat and tears in these. I rode around Chicago and found metal objects to do rubbings of and translated them to silk screens. In some cases there was no photography or computerating involved. Ask me how. Check the "tell me more box" if you're interested.

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Not fogetting you Critical Mass and Willow.Unfortunately, the screens and objects and balaclavas are back in Chicago. I can't get them to send them to anyone interested. Am working on it though. Check back.

Today it was cold. In Chicago it was in single digits, but here in South Carolina it was 28 degrees at the start of my ride with 11 windchill. Here's my great new balaclava.

The Balaclavas I make are 2-ply and have art made from metal objects ground into the pavement on the streets of Chicago. The larger image on the Balaclavas are a squished can found on Logan Boulevard and Sacramento. (Yeah, it's a bus stop at the Starbucks.)

Toys ('R Us) for the unemployed.

It's been record low temperatures here in Myrtle Beach. I guess the Maiers brought the cold weather.

I've ordered a balaclava, though I could have made a perfectly good one out of fleece myself. Duh. I left all my cold weather gear in Chicago... as well as my artwork that I hope to submit to a gallery or show here in Myrtle Beach.

I bought gloves for $6 at Lowe's. They're the ones dipped in PVC liquid with a ~cotton glove. They've been good today.

The latest gpx is to the unemployment office. Today I applied at Toys 'R Us as a bike assembler. (bike builder is a better term.) They want me to build bikes in 15 to 25 minutes. Wow.

Nothing to sneeze at.

So I found "Cyclopedia," in Pawley's Island. I talked for about 20 minutes with Aaron and Tom. They have some good moderately priced bike shorts.

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Another 23 miles today going north.

I have orginated an art from that involves biking. I find manhole covers and other intricate metal work to do rubbings on paper of. I am also working on doing molds of objects. They can either be direct rubbings, which just show the quality of the object, or they can be worn down objects, or they can be pieces of objects put together on the same page. The worn down object can sometimes be captured. It can have a great effect, such as this one. This is a manhole cover in Chicago that from about the 1890s and it is very worn down. Notice the star in the middle.
It is on the sidewalk. In the future, I can make a gps file with the manhole covers on them. This one is a can that is permanently squashed into the pavement.

Pleasure Cruises

Just logging two rides, both about 25 miles. Yesterday's ride was, for some reason, a flood of memories as I made it to the Starbucks on 72nd and Ocean Blvd. I was having major recall of my time as a messenger in Chicago. Almost every morning it seemed, I'd end up at Starbucks (or Intelligensia or another local cafe) waiting for a job. I'd be gambling with how much time I had. During the last couple years of messengering, this was possible because work was so slow with "standby."

Not ME!!

I also found a web site by a person doing a ride for mental illness awareness. Instead of Chicago to Washington DC, he is going around the world east to west and north to south. Here it is.

Also, I created a script and python plugin for my desktop so now I can get forecasts to plan rides.

It involves "wminfo" a dockapp, and python's script "pywapi" which is available on ohlo.