Diary of a Mad Natural Historian » bike

Bicycle update

dr.hypercube — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:36:39 +0000

Got the new bars swapped in. Molto comfortable so far. Next upgrade – enhance the engine so that it can average 15mph and not be sweating at the end of a ride (street clothes theory of bicycling).

Wordly Wise

dr.hypercube — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:34:35 +0000

Derny (also spelled derney) – “a motorized bicycle for motor-paced track cycling events such as during six-day and Keirin racing) or motor-paced road races. It is driven by a 98cc Zurcher two-stroke engine and by being pedalled through a fixed gear, typically of 70 teeth on the front chainring and 11 on the sprocket on the back wheel [!!]. The combination allows for smooth acceleration and slowing, important when the rider taking pace is centimetres from the pacer’s shielded back wheel. A coupling between the motor and the back wheel ensures the machine will not stop dead if the motor seizes.[...]

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.” *

Via Ride the Machine.

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.

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.

New Hampshire Media Makers Spoke Card 1

dr.hypercube — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:17:40 +0000

Rewards drive behavior.

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.

Second shakedown ride

dr.hypercube — Sun, 30 May 2010 20:01:38 +0000

One nice thing about transitioning from ‘old guys who get fat in the winter‘ to just old guy out for a ride is that stopping to see the sights is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I’m not in any particular hurry and if I see something I want to check out, I do.

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

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

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)

Goggomobil TSxxx (Bavarian)