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A great travel blog
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Sarah Erck and James Welles are touring around the world on bikes for their honeymoon.
Today's post (The Suicide King) is a great example of why cyclotourists should be reading their blog. It's well written, funny, and informative.
I met them just before they left. James was working at Microsoft and I bought a GPS from him and found out about his trip. The three of us met later for lunch and I gave them some guidebooks for touring in New Zealand. Great folks and I've really enjoyed their blog. I hope that they end up back in Seattle after the trip so that I can hear some of these stories in person.
I also appreciate that they are being very upfront about the finances of their travels and writing about the good and bad.
Other favorite entries: Goodbye (funny) and A Day in the Life of a Cycle Tourist: NZ (useful).
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Cargo Bike Memorial Day Ride
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A lot of my friends celebrated Memorial Day with Seattle's 8th XtraCycle ride -- this one was organized by Ro Cooper and called the Cargo Bike Jamboree. We met at Pike Place Market and rode down to Lincoln Park in Seattle for a BBQ and Picnic. Everything was carried by bike, coolers, grills, food, beer, fun bikes, chairs, etc. The weather was fantastic and everyone had a great time. Click the group photo above to see the rest of them.
To find out about the next ride (probably on the 4th of July) keep an eye on the website for Aaron's Bike Repair or Point83.
I don't have an XtraCycle and these are XtraCycle rides so I brought my "extra cycle":
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I need a destination
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Mark Vande Kamp and I were out for a ride last night and had a conversation which gelled some of my recent thoughts.
I can really only motivate myself to ride when I have a destination in mind. For me this really boils down to two types of riding. Commuting and touring.
In 10+ years I've never been much of one for just getting on my bike and riding 20/50/100 miles and ending up at home again, especially if I've done the ride before and I'm just riding solo. I don't really feel like I've acheived anything but fitness, and cycling is about more than fitness for me. When I think back on my "just go out for a ride" type rides the enjoyable ones either all had a purpose or were more social events than riding.
Commutes I can do solo. The long form of my commute is 25 miles and I ride it a couple of times a week in the spring and summer. There are two routes to take and both are enjoyable for different reasons. The medium length commute is 10 miles and I do that on my other days. This makes it trivial to rack up 80-100 miles of riding every week during the summer. I also use the term commute lightly, commutes include any riding where I'm riding from one point to another. Riding to have dinner with friends? Riding to the grocery store? Both are in the rough "commute" area for me.
This year I'm making a big push back towards touring. I kicked it off with a overnight ride with the point83 club a few weeks ago. I hope to do one overnighter per month through the summer. In July I have a week long trip planned with Larry and John (my normal touring buddies -- Larry and I have been doing week long tours for almost a decade). Touring is the ideal pleasure ride -- I have a destination, there are no repeats, and the tours often involve riding with a friend or two.
This weekend I have two destination rides planned. Tonight I'm riding to a friend's cobb pizza oven party. Sunday I'm going on Ro's cargo bike ride to have a memorial day picnic in West Seattle.
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Alistair's Rack Jig and the start of another rack
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Alistair showed me photos of his rack jig a couple of months ago and I finally got around to building one myself. The core piece is some sort of holder that we got at "Science, Art and More", a fun science oriented store in Seattle. It consists of two tube clamps with a center pivot that can be rotated 360 degrees. Alistair added two other tube clamps on stalks, one for the frame or fork and one for the rack top. Using this you can position the rack top while you braze in the stays that will hold it in place on the bike. Click the image for more photos.
After building the jig I added the fork crown mount to one of my rack tops. I like how this one came out:
The bolt that goes through the fork crown is just a standard steel M6 bolt bought from my local hardware store. I cut off the head and brazed it to some 1/4" tubing. Finally I put a 5/16" sleeve around the bolt to provide something for the nut to compress against.
Nothing groundbreaking, but it is a little smoother looking than the similar design on a Nitto M12.