friday fun times: i love you

i woke up freakishly early this morning. i saw my favorite bike rack bike hack and i also saw another bike with another note.



foto of bike rack bike hack was taken awhile ago, but bike was still there. not sure if it is abandoned or if it's a worker's bike.



aww, well, i love you too. what a nice note.

when things calm down with work, i'll talk about bike camping, i swear!

happy friday to you all. summer has arrived in SF! time to go outside before the rainy season starts.

bike hacks for the rain

SF is not quite the pacific northwest when it comes to rain, but we do get our fair share. the SF rainy season is on the tiptopverge of starting, and as such, has apparently kept some riders unprepared, or some who have long adjusted to the rain and have accommodated their bikes.

unprepared, yet creative!

this homie knows what time it is in SF:

i love that umbrella placement!

as i've discussed before on the blog, this year my rainy season preparation has started with swapping out my steel rims for some aluminium ones. they are a noticeable improvement.

what do you do in order to prepare for the rain? what do you do if you are caught unprepared?

windy postscript

both ade and i rolled past this scene separately. talk about WINDY. tree was totally uprooted and fell on a prius and a saab. the prius was toast. crumbled like a rice krispie treat.

in other news, someone tried to steal my bike seat yesterday while parked outside a cafe. the wind has blown away the best $0.33 seat protector i've ever had (shower cap, another ade nod). so my lovely honey brooks seat was a target. thanks to my paranoia and my boo's bike hack know-how, we made that seat hard to take. however, at first glance, it does seem like that joanie's seat is up for grabs.

how did i know that they tried? well, my pesky back light mount was WAY askew last night when i went back to my bike. looks like they thought they could just easily put an allen wrench under the seat, a couple of twists and it would be theirs. plans were foiled. mwahahahahaha.

now it's time to go to the drugstore and get more of my $0.33 seat protectors. hopefully the wind wont take them this time around.

Zip Ties vs Snowpocalypse?

It's all ice and snow for the United States these days. Last night on the news they reported that every state except Florida has snow! So what is a cyclist to do when the frost was a surprise and studded tires are way expensive? Zip ties!!!!

Dutch Bike Company put up a post last November about this DIY solution to slipping and sliding through a winter wonderland. Makes me want to take the Bat up to Tahoe and give it a try!

Has anybody out there tried this? Did it work for you?

Have Rack, Will Drink Coffee

Someone asked me once what the point of a rack was when you could just wear a backpack. I could have showed him this picture as my response. No rack would mean no portable coffee table to allow me to stand outside the café and take pictures.

Duh!

Baggage. We All Have It.

One of the common challenges of a life lived without a car (or with only occasional car) is how to carry your stuff with you. I, for one, am consistently amazed at what I bring with me places (not to mention how much all that crap weighs!). Equally amazing, to me, is how one cargo solution that works today will be utterly wrong the next. This means that I, being a little obsessive about having the right tool for the job, have a few options for carrying crap around the landscape.

I will start with the most recent solution (it is the easiest to find pictures of). Carrying a camera all the time can get kind of complicated. I don't have the talent with my point and shoot that Meli does, and I end up carrying much bigger cameras. Wearing them all the time can become tiring and I hate how fussy camera bags are (especially if I have to carry them around when off the bicycle). So I did this-

I use a bag that holds my lenses and wallet and decided to come up with a way to make it into a pannier (I hate having my camera bounce around in the basket). I use these really cool clips to turn my bag into something that can be secured to the rack.

These clips could be used with a variety of bags and purses. In the future, this will be super helpful as I will be removing the front rack from the Bat once I am no longer carrying Declan everywhere. I could use this set up with any of my Coach bags, my Timbuk2 purse, my backpack... just about anything. Those clips hold 25 pounds each, so I am good to go! The rack keeps the bag out of the spokes and the whole thing is easily removable and isn't as awkward as carrying around a big pannier when not pedaling.

That is enough about baggage for today. I will write about my other options at another time. You, of course, are waiting with baited breath.

Reasons For Optimism (Or, Always Marry The Handyman)

As I reported the other day, the chainguard on my Batavus Soccorro was rendered utterly useless by a strong gust of wind and a poorly parked steel bicycle. Not only were the two remaining supports ripped out of the body of the guard, but the center of the guard was separated into two pieces and cracked in several spots. Yep. Complete destruction.

Several people gave me some links to possible replacements, but at this point, most of them are "maybe" at best. Seeing my extreme disappointment in the situation, and knowing how much research I did before choosing it, Hubby the Bikeman decided to try to at least get a little bit more use out of my broken, shattered chainguard while I seek out a new one.

He did it! We don't know how long it will last, but if it lasts just until I find a new one, then, fantastic!

The rear mount, that takes all of the weight of the guard was completely ripped out. The metal hardware was fine, but the plastic it mounted into was shattered. James was able to rebuild it with J-B Weld (this stuff is up there with aspirin and duct tape)! After sanding it down and shaping the edges, it is almost perfect. James thinks I should take a black sharpie to it, but I am so proud of the repair I want it to stand out.

The front mount suffered the same fate, to a lesser degree. There was not such a large area of damage as the plastic broke around the circumference of the bolt. J-B Weld to the rescue!

Some of the damage is beyond repair.

The bottom mount was damaged when I first purchased the bike when it was knocked under a parked car by a drunk woman outside the ice cream shop. It still worked, but it was cracked. It was rendered completely useless by someone in a bike valet who insisted he knew how to park a bike on a center stand (not!). The cracks and separation in the main body of the guard may be "fixable" with some strips of duct tape on the inside surface of the guard, but one more blow and that will be the end of this part.

I can not tell you how happy I am my chainguard is back! It may seem silly to some, but my daily transportation relies on things like my fenders and guards. Carrying a kid and groceries while negotiating cars and hills and potholes means that having to think about how to keep myself clean while doing all of it could easily be the deal breaker.

Over the last two years, I have repeatedly thanked James for buying my Bat for me (our first big purchase after years of financial instability). Now, I will have to thank him repeatedly for fixing it so nicely!!!!

I Can't Do This!!

I wish I could do panda's this good! "Sweet Olive" always shoots great pandas, but this one is my favorite.

Can you do better? Give it a try and send it into the Flickr group!

Tuesday Injection of Fun: Bike in the box.

When in doubt about 'weather' measures, bring a box. Like curious cats, people will be drawn to it. I know I was - even if my bike was parked next to it. Funny!

Best first ride ever.

Ready for your Monday dose of awesomeness?!?!
I love mythbusters. Who doesn't? and this is AWESOME.


I met Adam for a new york minute after a bike ride on Mission street earlier this year, I tell you if you live in the city, sooner or later people end up running into each other. No exceptions.

He is rad.
Mythbusters, unicycles, golden gate bridge and our beloved city = RAD.
♥okthxbye

scenes from the bikey lane: austin, super short bike hack, edition

i saw this from a car, but there is a bike lane right in front of it, so that counts, right?



mailbox bike hack. with lock, and everything. future CYLRAB headquarters. or perhaps our texas satellite office.