Category Archives: Cycling

Spokes and truth

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10°C + all day…
Are people who true bicycle wheels just failed piano tuners?
It only takes a slight variation in tension on the spokes to cause an evantual breakage, especially with my 93Kg mass on the bike. My solution? Tap the spokes with a spanner and listen to changes in pitch, a higher pitch means a tighter spoke, lower= looser. If a spoke needs adjusting to make the wheel true, then make sure the ones either side are turned slightly as well to spread the stress. that way Wheels stay true, and breakages happen less often.
Looser spokes can be surprisingly troublesome, it’s as if the movement leads to metal fatigue, then failure. It’s the ones that are beyond the norm that are risky, either tight or loose.
Is this a metaphor for life?
 
 
 
 
er…no.
 
~

Split rim

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16°C, windy & warm

The rear wheel is split on the rim – along the braking surface. That made for a nervous ride home. It could conceivably, burst open so that the rear tyre would explode. It’s not unsafe unless it happens in front of a big lorry or something. Oh well.

Now I’m home all safe.

…that Yamantaka Eye record is fantastic! I need ot hear it a few more times before I can say anything meaningful about it, but it makes you listen.

Broken Derailleur

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16°C, light Westerlies

Cycle home with one gear 61.6 miles, broken derailleur in pocket- why?…

Well, it just broke off going up a hill in Ashby De-La-Zouch. The bolt had sheared dropping it into the rear spokes.

At first I was really puzzled- (hmm what to do?  is there a phone box nearby, do I need a lift home…can I fix it or make it ridable?) . Thanks goes out to the woman who offered to let me use her phone on Moira hill. She directed me to a shop in the town where I could buy bike bits. after getting a chain tool, I shortened the chain, took out the rear mech and rode home with one gear in use- 42 x 19. That’s a very low gear…

Home is 21 miles away.

The gear ratio was very low, but with rapid spinning I could get it up to 21 mph. and hills were no problem.

Fixing this is going to take some time.

Notice the autumnal colours! I couldn’t help wondering while out- are we going to get a blaze of autumn colours like we did the year before last.

Dinosaur- here’s the photo!

Pedal thinking

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I don’t know what category to put this entry in
 
15°C, much variety of sky, no rain.

Cycling today, ( incidentally 73.4 miles) – my head was full of thoughts.

think one:

The "Sprite" painting has to change- (NB :not only have I changed it’s name…), but the image needs to change also. The head is faaaar to big and needs ot be angled diffrerently. If you get your pictures down from the shelf regularly, you get to "know" them. Then you visualise  them when out & about. I thught this over and over while cycling today. So changes are afoot in the underpainting. This MUST be done before overpainting oily layers .

 

3D :The other think was "Mentalray"

Mentalray is a renderer that was included in my copy of 3ds max 6. Been running max 6 for 18 months now, particle flow is great, as is reactor 2 and all the new mapping tools. Just overlooked the new renderer, but having read some enthusiastic chapters in 3ds Max6 Bibile.

Later: Tried mentalray- it’s very fast! Faster then Max’s scnline raytracer. The difficult bit is using shaders it seems.

Clean arm

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only 44.8 miles today. Windy warm & close. Rainy bits too.
My hand doesn’t smell of that incident yesterday anymore.
AW38 Whitley renders. the mesh is near enough finished, so made some sample renders today so the Whitley-project people could have a look.

Infuriation

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23°C, SW winds
Flat tyre made itself noticable on Muckley corner round-about as the back wheel slid outwards. It’s odd how soft tyres behave on cornering, a bit like severe understeer.
If proved to be the most infuriating to fix. I put the spare tueb in to inflate when it in turn went straight down. So with a nearby garage, I sought out a bucket of water to find out which tube was the best. The bubble test failed- there were no bubbles. Then the obvious thing to do is put the tube back in the rear wheel then that went immediately flat too. I really hate it a perfectly fine thing that has nothing wrong with it except it doesn’t work.
 "narked"
there was an old guy who stopped to watch at first. He stood in a coat with a dried rollie cigarette stuck to his lip. He ended up helping out a bit. His voice was unclear but meant well.
Anyway- even after fiddling about with a bucket of water and the two innertubes, no inflation. Then after changing it around it decided to co-operate in part- so I rode home with only 70psi in the rear wheel.
Oh well, rambling to a quick finish- arrived home 40′ late.
Narked to pieces.

Wasps

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Hot & sunny, 27°C. blimey
 
wasps– you’re late this year. Only saw the first one today. Come on my little stripey foes, you only stung me once last year and not at all the year before! Your average is dropping, you’d better do some catching up!
51 miles today in hot sun, few clouds and it’s set to be same tomorrow. Last mad rush before new term.
Paint: that seascape is driving me nuts. How difficult is that ?!

full up

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25°C; !; no wind. Perfect conditions.
Summer is moving into it’s last phase, the colours are fading, straw is everywhere and most of the grain harvest it is in. That means no more arriving home with a deep-chest cough from the clouds of brown dust whippped up by combine-harvesters. The downside of that is that the tractors are being released for hedge-trimming- the cause of 4 punctures already this week. I’m not complaining though, it is quite rare these days toget that many flats.
Dead trees everywhere.
Where are the wasps? Most years I have clocked up a few stings by now.
I have clocked up 68 miles today, but got home unusually tired which I blame an inadequate meal yesterday for that. The last ten miles near home I could see purple spots, and I felt quite wobbly on arrival.
One spoke needs fixing.
More on the dead trees: Royal forestry Society
Tomorrow I go to Wales for a few days. There are reports of large schools of dolphins inshore so I wil pack a pair of binoculars. The dogs like the beach as much as we do.

Snakebite

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Had a snakebite puncture today. It happens when the tyre hits something that pinches the innertube against the wheel-rim. Characterised by 2 holes that are lined up and are slightly elongated in shape. Whatever it was I hit it shot sideways into a hedge, possibly a stone or whatever. So there was puncture number 4 ( of the week). Is this interesting?… er… thought not.
Try this instead:

3 punctures!

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It’s hawthorn trimming season. Farmers drive up local lanes with hedge-mowers cutting back rapidly growing hedgerows. It scatters shredded plant debris over the road-surface, some of which poke tiny little holes in bicycle tyres. Us cyclists can only carry so many spare innertubes and patches, so that after a point we have to put back in a tube that is known to be deflating the slowest, then ride the shortest route home blowing up the tyre each time it gets too soft.
fortunatley, it’s a nice day, warm, no wind and so on…
Results
Thursday is A-level results day. Time for an annual arguement that they are getting easier, or is it the teaching is getting better. I will keep an eye open for anyone saying that it’s both- easier+ better teaching. Here is a pre-amble BBC.