A Quick Tale From The Commute

Last week while biking home from work, the car in front began driving erratically and slowed down to around 10mph. I went to pass the car and saw that the woman was texting, holding her iphone in the middle of the steering wheel. I leaned over and screamed "STOP TEXTING!!" into her open window. Startled, she tossed her phone onto the floor and sped off. Social justice feels so good sometimes.

Kidical Mass DC: The ABC's Of Family Biking

This Saturday (4/21/12), a group called Kidical Mass is teaming up with DDOT and WABA to put on the ABC's of Family Biking.

This free event, the first of its kind in the Greater Washington area, will celebrate the joy of biking with children and introduce local families to the tools, skills and equipment that can help them start biking together. 

This event appeals to me as I have a family and we're often found biking. I'll be the one drooling over the Belgian cargo bikes.

Saturday, April 21st from 11am – 2pm at Capitol Hill Montessori at Logan

On the family biking front I met this dude, (hand and shin are shown below) who came up with a pretty cool solution for his daughter's foot rests on his Kona Ute. He uses static line to make stirrups. This seams like it would give a passenger piles of leverage. I'm also digging the flipped up drop bars, well played dude at Whole Foods whose name I forgot.

On the anything bike related front, I spied this Bone Shaker in an old barn and took a picture of it. That's pretty much all that happened.

I'm as Tuesday as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!

Xtracycle: DIY Child Seat

My first project was to make a new snapdeck and attach a child seat to it for my eldest. As I spec'd out wood for this project I found the scratch and dent section on Xtracycle's website and scored a scratched and dented snapdeck for half price. Perfect for drilling holes into! 

After dremeling the legs and springs off a Topeak child seat, I attached it to the snapdeck using 5, 1/4" bolts with large washers for stability. Now, when I'm taking the little one to school I put her snapdeck with the seat on and when I'm going to work or running errands I put the regular one on, easy peasie. As a precautionary measure when I have her seat on the xtracycle I strap the bars together in the front and back to make sure they tight and secure against the snapdeck. 

When she's older I will move the seat back for my youngest, put a pad on the snapdeck and add a hadelbar for my oldest.

Xtracycle: The Longer Haul Trucker

As previously stated, I have been slacking. Here is my attempt to catch up.

For a long time now, I've been wanting a sport utility bike of some kind. I think this has to do with the amount of kids I have. When the first one was born the idea crept in that it might be nice to have one some day. By the time number two arrived I was in a state of full on man/gear lust. At first I thought I might just spring for a bike trailer and the I could tow the kids to school and go to work in one trip. The problem with this is that I park my bike in my cube and it would suck to have to negotiate a trailer through the office every day. I definitely wanted an SUB.

Being a Surly fan I considered a Big Dummy, but I am a cheap scrounging bastard so the consideration was fleeting. The logical step was to put an Xtracycle on the LHT(yeah you know me), but that too had a stiff price tag (cheap scrounging bastard*).

I decided to use the vast social media empire I built over the years to my advantage. On February 21st I tweeted "anyone in DC want to sell me their Xtracycle?". At the time I thought this was one of the douchier things I've done, which it was, but it worked!
Soon I had a shinny used Xtracycle Free Radical with bags waiting to be installed. I had to purchase another chain and tandem length shifter and brake cables for the extended rear. I also had to do things like measure the elevator at my office to make sure this SUB would make the trip I wouldn't be hiking a 7 foot bike up the office stairwell.

The install went smoothly with no troubles. I had heard of LHT owners complaining that the Xtracycle didn't fit well because of the LHT's longer chainstay but I didn't run into this problem.

The Xtracycle and the Long Haul Trucker seem work pretty well together; the LHT is strong and is already geared for hauling heavy loads. The Xtracycle design is impressively simple, it's easy to install and has a cult following that documents tons of mods and DIY projects.

Now it's time to get my DIY on.

Monday! Thou yeasty milk-livered haggard!

Tales From The Downloads Directory

My computer is running slower than usual. I usually pick one of two options when this happens: go piss off the IT guy or delete everything on my computer that isn't nailed down. The second option usually results in the fruition of the first. With the second option in full swing I stumbled into my Downloads directory. It dawned on me that a look into one's downloads directory is like peering directly into their soul. 

Here is a random sampling of the images in my downloads directory. With no explanation or insight I bare my soul to thee.

Ever Slackward!

It seems I've taken my finger off the pulse of the DC bike scene. It's no secret I've slowed down my blogging efforts. It hadn't really hit me just how bad things have gotten until a few minutes ago when I learned that the BSNYC came to the Bethesda Barnes and Noble this past Wednesday. Having no idea this was happening I lulled away with my cubemate (LHT), a few hundred yards away, plotting the next big thing we weren't going to blog about. A dramatic reenactment can be seen below.

Further evidence of my slackery is the fact that I'm resting my feet on my new Xtracycle installed on the LHT three weeks ago, which I have yet to mention until now. It seems that having one kid and blogging is a lot easier that having two kids and blogging.

I have seen the light and will do my best to raise the quantity of bloggery. The quality however shall remain suspect.

From hell's heart I stab at thee Monday!

Tour de Fat Is Coming To DC

New Belgium Tour de Fat is coming to DC!

6/16/2012 9:00 AM- 4:00 PM Yards Park