Porsche 917 in Gulf colors with a lounging McQueen. ‘Nuff said.

STEVE McQUEEN | LE MANS & BEYOND GRATUITOUS 1970s RACING GOODNESS « The Selvedge Yard.

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Via the bicyclelifestyle goog group.

BRIDGESTONE TRIKE PICNICA WAGON TRICYCLE BICYCLE BIKE – eBay item 350350828293 end time Aug-04-10 08:05:38 PDT.

David Lo Pan is back with two wives and a monkey monster to chauffeur his heavenly hotrod through the hell of the too-cool-to-stay-dead sinners.

The Manly Art Shop — Lo Pan Express. Via Super Punch.

The name derny is now applied to all such vehicles, regardless of manufacturer. It is used by the Larousse dictionary as a generic term for a small pacing motorcycle used in cycle races.” *

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Via Ride the Machine.

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Check out the front wheels/forks! The pizza plate chainwheel! Side note – at some point, it becomes easier to go to 2-stage gearing as seen on John Howard’s 152.2 mph bike.

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Via Ride the Machine/Andrew Ritchie.

To those of you who may, justifiably, wonder how this squares with my eschew the hydrocarbons/bike evangelism – I’ll quote Wally Whitman: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” Seriously – though I love bicycles and am going to try to reduce my fossil fuel consumption, I do not intend to be a scold or to turn my back on gearheadish gnarlyness.

]]> http://hawkdog.net/wordpress/archives/2706/feed 1 http://hawkdog.net/wordpress/archives/2695 http://hawkdog.net/wordpress/archives/2695#comments Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:17:40 +0000 dr.hypercube http://hawkdog.net/wordpress/?p=2695 Rewards drive behavior.

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As regular readers know, I’m trying to re-integrate bicycling into my life as an enjoyable, practical transportation option. Given the ongoing nightmare in the Gulf, I’m feeling pretty evangelical about biking, so I thought I’d see if I could encourage locals (or folks from a distance, if they’re up for a big ride) to come to this Sunday’s NHMM meetup via bicycle. I was inspired when I fell across spoke cards while looking at commuter bikes on Flickr – you can see the results of said inspiration above.

The first 8 people to ride to NHMM get a spoke card on the spot – if there are more riders than that, I’ll have more made up and make good on my offer within a week. If there are less than that, anyone from further away than, say, 20 miles can have one if they tell me that they’ve ridden a bike to and from the grocery store this week (6/6) – knowing my own problems with good intentions, it’s gotta be a completed ride.

A shoutout to the good folks at Infinite Imaging who did a bang-up job on printing and lamination.

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Carro de cacería mayor: An Argentine barn find hunting Ford at Hemmings Blog.

Semi-hidden patch of flag iris. Sorry about the quality – I don’t know what was up with the cell.

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A BIG white oak. I’ve known about this tree for years, but today was the first time I stopped and said hi.

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I saw the Goggomobil Dart in town yesterday and popped by to make sure it was not for sale (it’s not). Out back there was a second Goggo.

Goggomobil Dart (Australian)

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Goggomobil TSxxx (Bavarian)

Reduce, re-use, recycle

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The title of the post comes from a zine published back in the early 70s (called -anyone? anyone?- Low and Slow) covering the wild world of hang gliding. How wild? Folks were making gliders out of Visqueen and bamboo. I mailed off for a copy – because I wanted to build one – sadly, it’s long gone, though a post here suggests I can reread all the Low and Slows on a DVD. Enough of all that – the point of the post: my bike racing (venue = triathlons) days are done – I’ve found myself wanting a bike I can just jump on and ride (comfortably). My fast but twitchy road bike does not exactly fit the bill. My old mountain bike, however…

So, let the conversion to two-wheeled Vista Cruiser begin! IMHO, there are 2 things that determine 90% of overall bike ‘feel’: frame geometry and tires. You’re not going to do much about frame geometry – about the only thing you can alter is the front fork and that costs $$$. Tires can make a surprising difference and unless you’re racing (in which case, why aren’t you running tubulars?) fatter ones than current fashion dictates are what I suggest. Here’s the bike – after the pic I’ll run through current and planned mods.

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‘Fatter tires’ is relative – although they’re much thinner than the knobbies that I took off, these are fat road rubber. They’re Kenda Kwests (the 100psi variety) – a nice balance of volume and low rolling resistance. I also mounted a rear rack and put on new, longer grips – I like riding with my hands close together, as if I’m up on the flats on a drop bar. The shakedown ride today was a success – the bike rode like a dream.

I haven’t decided whether to move pedals over from the road bike to this beastie – I’m leaning towards yes. The road bike’s saddle will probably come over at the same time. After that, the next order of business will be handlebars. I have an On One Midge ready and waiting, but because road handlebars are not the same diameter as mountain bars I need to replace the brake levers (not too $$, and I wanted to do it anyway) and swap the thumb shifters for barcons ($$$, and though I LOVE bar-cons, I would have made do).  The other short-term priority are shopping bag panniers – the grocery store is within easy biking distance – ’nuff said.

Down the road a bit, I’d like to tweak the drive train a bit. I don’t know whether the chain stay will accommodate a significantly larger middle chainring, but if it will I’ve always been partial to half-step setups – with the triple it’d be a half-step plus granny (and contra Mr. Brown, I’ve used a half-step setup successfully).

Way down the road I’m thinking about fenders, lighting, a front rack – part of me says that I should just save my pennies for a Velo-Orange frame (or something similar) and build up a baguette hauler around it. We’ll see. First order of business is to re-integrate ‘just hopping on the bike’ into my life.

Update – the saddle and pedal switch happened this morning, before a second shakedown run (pics from which will be posted later today).

Big brass faux rivets!

Aggressive Quadrotor Maneuvers – DIY Drones.

“Valentina Tereshkova orbited the Earth 48 times during her three day spaceflight in Vostok 6 in 1963. First woman in space! .”

“Born in Shanghai to missionary parents, Shannon Lucid became the eighth woman in space when she flew aboard the Shuttle Discovery mission STS-51-G in 1985. Shannon made four more spaceflights including the 1989 Atlantis mission to launch the Galileo probe to Jupiter, and a stay aboard the Russian Mir station saw her break the record for the longest time spent in orbit by a woman. 188 days in space!”

Flickrset here.

Via BruceS.