My new winter sport

Up until the last two or three years, the winters in Wisconsin had been mild enough that I had been able to keep riding my bicycle through the winter. It was cold, but the lack of snow kept the roads and trails clear. In fact I posted about it and some of the gear I used back in 2007. Since then the winters have been a lot snowier, so it was time I found an alternative sport for the winter. This year I found it, by taking up snowshoeing. The first weekend I rented a pair of snowshoes, and after that I was hooked. I ordered a pair of snowshoes the next day and had them in time for the next weekend. Getting them that quick was lucky, as here in the Midwest, we had some record snowfall (even a blizzard) during that week (Feb. 2nd). The next two weekends I was "shoeing" in my own pair of snowshoes.

Snowshoeing at Lapham Peak

This past week, we we had a pretty good melt, so snowshoeing was out, but my wife and I took our dog out to Lapham Peak and did some walking/hiking on the paved trail.

This week, we've had a little more snow, so snowshoeing might be back on the agenda for this weekend.

25 Random Things about me (#1 - #5)

I recently got tagged with the task of coming up with 25 random; things, facts, habits, or goals about myself. Here are the first 5 of 25.

01- I started doing some serious yoga a little over a year ago and enjoy it very much.

02- My interest in biking re-started several years ago as a way to improve my health, now it's a passion (or is it obsession?).

03- I have drawings I did for an art class of a clamshell "communicator" / cellphone in ~1979, several years before the StarTAC was introduced.





04- I grew up on a farm in West-Central Illinois.

05- I enjoy cooking and baking, which I owe to my Mom for letting me help with baking as a kid.

More to follow...

Bike Computer Consolidation

The question I'd invariably get was, "Why do you have two bike computer?" The engineer in me would answer "For redundancy!". But the truth is, I liked the computer (Planet Bike Protege 8.0) that I bought with my SPECIALIZED Allez, nice large display with a 4 line, easy to read LCD display. The second computer a Cateye Astrale 8 came later and was monitoring cadence and the rear tire speed (for my indoor/trainer riding). By the way, there was a third computer, an older model Polar Heart Rate monitor (wrist unit).

So, as I've done in my job, I needed to put together the requirements for a computer consolidation. My requirements;

• A single computer capable of monitoring all of the following;
• cadence
• speed
• Heart Rate

• Wireless sensors (I don't want to deal with the cables)
• Large LCD digits (these eyes aren't getting any younger)
  

I settled on the Polar CS100, it came with almost everything, except the cadence sensor which had to be purchased separately. It did have one issue, limited range between the sensors and the computer. So limited, that I couldn't mount the wheel speed sensor at the rear wheel and have it register on the computer at the handlebars.

Range Limits

• 1.5 ft for the wheel speed sensor
• 2.5 ft for the cadence sensor

So, my solution was to mount the computer on the top tube. But the top tube on my SPECIALIZED Tarmac isn't exactly round, so I cut a small section of an old bike tire to used between the computer mounting bracket and the top tube.

With the computer positioned there, it's now well within range of all the sensors. I was even able to get out yesterday for a short ride to make sure everything was working.






All the products that I've have mentioned in my blog are products that I personally own and use for my day to day bicycle riding.

Super Heroes and/or Super Villains

Like Geoff , I found some of the questions very amusing, but I answered them as truthfully as possible. I guess I'm not to surprised at the result, since Superman topped the list in my collection of comic books.

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 90% Green Lantern 75% Spider-Man 65% Robin 62% Supergirl 55% Wonder Woman 50% The Flash 50% Iron Man 50% Hulk 35% Batman 35% Catwoman 25%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test

My Winter Biking Gear

I don't do a lot of outside winter riding, but I do enough that I need a collection of clothing to be comfortable if I venture out into the cold. It's a pretty varied collection of gear but these help keep me warm in temperatures from 20-30 degrees.

Gloves - SWIX Split Finger gloves - having two pairs of fingers together is a big benefit to keeping your hands warmer and allow a couple of fingers on the brakes and a couple on the handle bars.

Tights - CW-X Insulator Expert Tights - these are actually running tights, so I just wear a pair of bike shorts underneath.

Hooded jersey - Nike Hooded Dri Fit - I use this as a base layer, the hood is great and can be worn under the helmet). Mines a year or so old, the closest thing to it in the Nike line now is the "Sphere Hooded Thermal Jersey"

Shoes - Shimano SPD SM-M121G - these are a MTB shoe with SPD cleats, but those are the ones I'm used to using.

Socks - Cabelas Thermolite/Merino Wool Socks - the length of these is nice for keeping the ankles warm.

Shoe covers - Louis Garneau Wind Tex Covers - I wear these over the bike shoes and for added warmth I'll put a toe warmer on each sock.

Jacket - Louis Garneau Gloucester bike jacket - this one has a mesh inner lining, zippered pockets (2 - side and 1 - back) and zippers under the armpits. This works well by itself over the hooded jersey, or with an additional layer between the jersey and the jacket.

Helmet cover - Performance bike Performance illumiNITE Stretch Helmet Cover - blocks wind and rain and it's reflective for safety.

Safe riding and Happy New Year

Blogging in the bike lane

What makes a blog popular? Well first there's an interesting title, (a headline if you will) that grabs your attention. Giving a title to a topic can be as important as the topic itself. But what makes a good headline now a days? Is it something that grabs the attention of a real person or is it now formulated to be at the top of some search engine hash table? Hopefully it can be a little of both, especially if you want others to be able to find your content. Next comes good writing, because what good is a teaser, if the content doesn't deliver on the promise? Trust is also a key element, without it, you just don't get read, and of course the trust part takes time.

I tend to write about topics from daily life, although I'm a little limited in what I cover related to my work. I cover the topics that I feel close to, ones that are important or interesting to me, for instance bicycling, where I've written about the Ghostbike program and club rides, hobbies - such as the recent set of Picoo-Z postings and my Instructables projects. And since I brought up the topic of hobbies or interests I thought that I'd go into a short overview of a few that have occupied my time over the last 5 decades.

Geology - mainly through grade school science fair projects
Model rocketry - fireworks without the boom (unless you want it too)
Model building - plastic car kits and some scratch built, like a Star Trek TOS communicator
Electronics - various kits and gadgets, which later resulted in a career path in Electronics and then computers.
Model railroading - I have yet to complete the layout, but I keep getting a little closer each year, during the winter months. This one combines almost all the others
Computer programming - mainly on a C-64, with a few articles published in the old Compute!'s Gazette. Later, as a Sun UNIX System Admin. the programming was more in the form of sheel scripts.
Bicycling - most recently (in the last 6 years) I've gone from mountain bikes to road bikes
Blogging - this stuff at http://inthebikelane.blogspot.com

Personal Computer re-cycling

I've had several different Mac computers over the last 12 years, as mentioned in this previous posting. All of these computers have found new homes as a later version displaced them in our home. The LC40 thru the 6500 all went to our local grade school or high school, but the iMac took a different route. After I purchased the Mac mini the iMac found a new home with my mother in law, who has found it a very easy system to use for several reasons; less risk of malware, virus', etc, the grandkids have their own accounts and it takes up less space than her previous system (pc with monitor & tower). So hopefully there have been a few less computers in land fills due to this method of PC re-cycling. And just so you don't think I'm a total Mac fanboy, I recently reloaded our old Toshiba laptop with Ubuntu. I currently use this laptop as a terminal at work to access our lab system(s), but it has wireless network access and the typical Ubuntu tools, such that a visitor to the office can use it for email or web access.

National Treasure

Over the holiday weekend we picked up the DVD of National Treasure at a bargain price. I liked it, in fact I liked it better than The DaVinci Code. But it's one of those movies that you don't want to think about too much. Ok, I thought about one part. The hiding place of this huge treasure was at the base of a huge hole, that was secretly excavated under a church graveyard. But the part that got me thinking was the wooden stair case that spiraled it's way down the wall. This was a place of Masonic origin, shouldn't it have been a stone stairway? Oh well, it was still entertaining.

Beta Blogger Tabs

If you navigate over to my blog you'll notice the latest "hack" that I installed. This was made possible by two Beta Blogger hackers (Hoctro and Ramani). It allows for categories within Blogger, such that clicking on one of the tabs will display all the postings that have been tagged with that name. There is a default Home tag and the next five are selected by their frequency (e.g., how many times that category has been used for a posting)

Picoo-Z video contest

I had a comment in one of my earlier postings, about the Picoo Z mod, about a video contest being sponsored by HobbyTron. You can check out the details at their website (http://www.hobbytron.com/piccozcontest.html). The contest ends on Dec. 31, 2006. There will be one (1) grand Prize of $1,000, two (2) 2nd prizes of $500 each and fifty (50) Honorable Mentions of $50 each.

Windy ride and Picoo Z

The Saturday ride was very windy, averging 20+ with gusts at 30+ and temp's in the 40's for the entire 47 miles. Did I mention it was a bit hilly too; ~2000 ft of climbing. But it was worth it, good friends and good food at the end of the ride.

As for that counter clockwise rotation problem on my mini helicopter, it's been improved with just a slight drop of very thin oil on the tail rotor shaft. The problem had started after a crash where some lint and/or hair was wrapped around the tail rotor shaft. However, just removing the hair had not fixed the problem.

My Picoo-Z Instructables project

I completed the rotor mod project over the weekend and posted it on Instructables a little while ago. http://www.instructables.com/id/ECVKZ75ZVQET9K5TSC/

Getting close to finishing Picoo Z Mod

I should be able to post the Instructables project late tomorrow. I have the helicopter in pieces and have it ready to install the new parts. Here's a couple of preview pictures.

Getting started on the Picoo Z mod

The ball bearings from Precision-HELi came pretty quickly (for ~$8 shipping, I'd hope so). I knew they were going to be 3MM OD (or ~1/8"), but wow, that's really small, it should be an interesting project.

















I'll fully document the project and the results via Instructables. I should have time to get it done this weekend, or post the progress here, if I don't.

TAGS: picoo z helicopter

Mod'ing the Picoo Z mini helicopter

In the next week or so (once I have all the parts) I'll document a mod that I'll be doing on my Picoo Z helicopter. After a few crashes it's developed a nasty vibration. I picked up some .04" (1MM) carbon fiber rod to use as the rotor shaft and I ordered a set of 1x3x1 MM ball bearings. This mod is documented at the website I mentioned in a previous posting.

The weekend ride went fine, although it was a little windy. In the colder and windy weather this short (~30 mile) ride, with about 1200 ft of climbing, seemed a lot longer.

More Picoo / Picco Z info

I've had a little more time to play with this micro helicopter that I mentioned in my previous posting and it's way cool. One problem, after a few crashes the rear tail rotor was getting lint and hairs wound up in it. This was easy to fix by gently pulling the plastic rotor blade off of the motor shaft (that's correct, there's a separate, very small electric motor on the tail) and clearing the stuff that was fouling the prop. This allowed the trim to work, as the rotor was being slowed down by the hairs. So that was part of what was causing the constant clockwise rotation in flight.

There's also a website devoted to the Picoo Z (that's the spelling on the box). There's two mods I may do right off the bat; 1) the bearing and carbon fiber shaft replacement and 2) the Airwolf body change out (that one is totally custom at this point, so I'll wait till someone sells a kit).

Tuesday Ride: I missed it this week, we're just starting to early and the days are getting to short. Looks like it will be weekend rides for me, for awhile.

Picco Z Helicopter

I've been seeing the videos on the web, and being the gadget nut that I am, of course I had to have one of these. Most of the Radio Shack stores are sold out, but I found one that said they could order it (this was last Monday) and I'd have it by the end of the week, plus the shipping would be free direct to my home. That's alot better than the eBay deals I've seen, people are paying between $39-$49 and then $15 dollars shipping on top of that. Anyway it arrived on Friday, so I've had the weekend to play with it a bit. So far I haven't quite got the hang of it, it's been crashing a lot and our dachshund hates it :)

Thursday Show n' Go ride

Thursday Ride: As I mentioned before, we're starting earlier, 5:30PM, so it's getting tougher to make the weekday Show n' Go rides (I missed the Tuesday ride this week). The trees are just starting to turn as we made our way along the trail from Waukesha to Wales and then on to Dousman. We may have had some frost in these outlying areas this past week and it's starting to show.

I also have a new favorite glove to wear on rides when the temp's are a little cooler, the brand is Ironclad. I like them because of the fit, feel and the visibility, the price isn't bad either, I paid about half of what I would have paid for a comparable Bike Brand glove. With these babies on there's no mistaking it when I signal for a turn.

Helmet safety

This is an interesting article, it suggests that drivers actually pass closer to a rider who is wearing a helmet, than one who isn't. Hmmm, maybe helmets need a "skin", to make it look like you're not wearing a helmet. That just sounds too bizarre.

PTK Preview tomorrow

Tomorrow morning bright and early, I and a few other club members will take to the roads and preview the route out from Waukesha for our tour/ride the following weekend. Since we all volunteer our time during the actual PTK ride, this weekend is our chance to ride and check the markers for the route (we don't want to steer anyone the wrong way).

I came across this the other day while looking at the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin website, it's a project that they (and others) have called Ghostbike. The stark white bikes are placed at the site of a cyclist death in order to raise awareness and act as a memorial.

Thursday Ride: Yesterday was the usual ride on the Glacial Drumlin Trail, but this time we had a club sponsored pizza party/meeting afterwards to discuss the PTK ride and the various duties that each club members will be assigned. I'm taking a morning shift and driving one of the SAG vehicles.