Urban Adventures & More

The last few months have been uneventful in personal biking news. I did learn some of the finer points in chain maintenance and the non-transmission components of the bike. I now have riser bars and a mountain bike brake. I learned about the “fourth hand” tool for tightening brake cables. Critical to this process was Open Bicycle, easily the best bike shop I’ve ever been to. Go out of your way to visit (although not in the next week or two; they’re moving).

The most eventful thing for me took place Monday evening. I was rapidly pedaling over the Longfellow Bridge on a very bumpy ride home, and all of a sudden my rear wheel completely locked up and I skidded to a stop. On closer inspection, the chain had jumped off: it was locked between the rear cog and hub. After some struggling, I managed to dislodge it; two links (and inch’s worth) were crushed and twisted. I rode home irrespectively; it was very bumpy every time  the broken links went over the cog.

I tried throwing on a spare, narrow-width chain I had lying around. No dice- the cog was for wide chains only. I didn’t have enough slack in the old chain to just remove the bad links. Furthermore, you shouldn’t break a chain any old place; my chain had a three-piece master link, which is composed of two plates and a clip which locks them together. This is the only place one should break a chain (when I practiced, I alternately used a flathead screwdriver or a needlenose pliers to widen apart the two arms of the clip), and the clip is reusable.

Since my favorite Open bike is closed for a few weeks, I went to my second favorite: Broadway Bicycle School. (I give little to no business to other, unnamed Cambridge-area bike shops, as they are obnoxious and terrible for many reasons.) They sold me a new chain, which was laterally stiffer, and therefore better suited for a fixed gear.

I went home and used my super-cheap chain tool to cut the chain to length (once you reduce the chain to the proper length, you can use the master link to close it). The tool failed miserably. It got jammed at the start of the job, and the pin that drives out the link simply mushroomed to the point of utter uselessness. I threw away the tool, and over the last two days, found myself in Broadway bikes asking them to take off successively more lengths (using a quality chain tool) until it was done correctly. They were very helpful in the initial explanation, and also didn’t mind the few seconds it took to break the chain for me.

This evening I got the chain on, and discovered a number of things. First, the back tire, which I hadn’t examined, was more than bald in one place; this heavy-duty tire had worn through its many layers in the skid (from 20 mph to zero in about 6 seconds). That’ll have to go. Second, the wheel was very wobbly, and always landed in the same spot when I let it run freely.

This inspired me to use all my drive-chain knowledge. I oiled the (brand new chain). I adjusted the chain tension. I made sure the bolts and washers were tightened down on the rear axle (they weren’t! A few weeks ago, I had them split in half because they were loose and had too much force placed on them). I adjusted the chainring bolts to get an even chain tension (that helped – my chainring actually has gotten straighter over time; perhaps I’m just getting better at this!). The result: everything runs pretty smoothly, although I’m still concerned the rear  hub or bottom bracket are damaged; at low rpms, there is still a wobble, although the chain runs quieter and there is less wobble at high speeds.

So, tension your chain sufficiently and save yourself at least $60 in new parts, possibly a lot more.

I wish I had a camera so I could show the various damage. Then again, I’d just as soon forget.

Back to the cycle.

I went to watch the ships come into harbor yesterday at the beginning of Fleet Week. There were about a dozen ships from the US Navy, Canadian Navy, and the Coast Guard, along with lots of little harbor police boats. I also went looking for the aircraft carrier that usually shows up; I recall last year it docked out in the main harbor, but this time they took the ship in a low tide and docked by the Intrepid before the rest arrived.

Click on the pictures for bigger versions. If you click again, be warned that some are very big files and may be slow to download!

In the last week, I have talked to two people who graduated from Baruch a few decades ago (one as an undergrad about 35 years ago, the other as an MBA probably 45 years ago), and who had only glowing praise for the school. I know that CUNY has changed a lot since then with relaxed admission standards, but I can’t help but think that my new affiliation places me in prestigious company.

Worst movie of the year?
As my girlfriend said, “I went there expecting to see Harold and Kumar and I got Pulp Fiction.” So true.

Long before there was an internet, and before there was any organized freecycle community (that I know), my family was freecycling.

Instead of taking the copious amounts of children’s clothing or outmoded furniture to a charity, we just put them on the sidewalk for the taking. Just this weekend, an old set of lawn furniture, including 8 white chairs and an umbrella went from our yard onto the sidewalk and straight into the courtyard of the building across the street. Furniture of all sorts usually gets picked up and taken away post haste. A children’s bike had a half-life of about 2 minutes. (I put a sign on it to give law-abiding citizens an equal chance at it.) Now if only we could get a tax deduction with this convenience…

I took the CFA Level I this weekend. I think I did well, but we’ll see how I do. I’m particularly sensitive to commenting on it, because they make such stern statements about what you can and can’t say about the test (I wouldn’t dream of saying a word about the material covered!).

It is, however, inconceivable to me how it takes 2 months to grade a multiple choice exam. All excuses aside, that is well above any of my upper bounds on time.

I now firmly believe that computer recycling will not work until it’s required by law, and until it’s free. There are various charities that will pick up your happy, working computers for free, but they’re not interested in old or broken machines. There are commercial carting companies, but they charge a big fee just to show up, which prices it way above what anybody will want to pay. I happen to think there’s a small business to be made here.

I did have a funny conversation with a guy who works at one of these commercial companies. After we spoke on the phone, he sent me a quote. I then replied with the following email:

Thank you for the quote.
As we are simply a private residence with only a small number of items to discard, the cost you have quoted, roughly $220, is prohibitively high when it is acceptable for us to put the items into the regular trash stream. Therefore, we will not be pursuing recycling as discussed.

He then replied…

Well in that case you have to do what you got to do, we are a business not a
charity, although we are all about the environment and keeping things out of
the trash. We cannot force you to do the right thing, just keep in mind if
your equipment is found in the trash and they trace it back to you, there
are going to be heavy fines. Good luck.

I couldn’t let that blatant falsity stand…

I understand that, and it is regrettable to contribute to waste for us as well. I have to correct your information: it is not a crime for private residents to put computer items into the trash in NYC: see http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/recycling/electronicsrecycling.shtml. Otherwise, we would of course be using a removal service such as yours.

So he said…

Well if your computers have no business use whatsoever than yes you are
correct. However I simply try to help people realize that the throwing
hazardous things in landfill only hurts in the fight against Global warming.
You justifying your email and mine don’t help the environment. Thank You.

The discussion continues to be ludicrous. They’re not helping global warming, strictly speaking, and they certainly are not educating anyone. The direct effect of throwing away electronics in a landfill is a problem of toxic metals leeching into the water supply. The indirect effect is that recycling and reusing products is far less energy intensive than producing them from raw materials. The net effect there is a function of what is being recycled and how, but that is almost exclusively the case.

I wrote this shortly after September 11, 2001.

Continue reading…

We’re wrapping up our final report for Clinic right now. It’s an amazing time to actually have a year’s worth of work in a 157-page report (it may grow a few more pages, yet), a poster that gets hung in the department, and a presentation to show off. I’m also proud to have done such a great job with everyone else on the team. We get a bound copy of the report once we’re done, and dad is coming to see and tape the final presentation.

I decided that while I’m at Harvey Mudd, I might as well learn to unicycle. I missed previous opportunities to learn how, but this is my last chance. Today, in an hour and 20 minutes of practicing, I managed to learn how to balance and ride for about 10 feet before falling off. I was hungry and dehydrated by the end, since I chose to do this instead of eat breakfast, so I think with a little more preparation I can do pretty well. I’ll make sure to stop by and practice once in a while.