Vermont to Switzerland
Seen this morning near the Maple Street Marina / Boat Dock – a Bilenky Viewpoint with homebrew trailer. The trailer looks rigged to carry a small sailing rig or a dinghy for water access. SS couplers, double derailer drivetrain with idlers… and plenty of on board water storage!
Surly LHT seen downtown. Nice racks, plenty of water, fat tires.
The Camper Long Flap after a run to the CSA pick up, drop off posters for the Cycle Celebrate Champlain, grocery store, dinner, bike shop, and mail. Room for more.
After a recharge nap I set out to fix the leaking faucet / pipes / drain / sink in the kitchen. A turn of the shut off valves ended in a crumbled mess, so I had to get at the main water line in the basement. Hunched over, working under the sink, crawling in and out of the cabinets – it was like work. A ride to the hardware store. Then a return under the cabinets to hook everything back up, only to find that the faucet itself is leaking from its innards. Off to the home improvement superstore on the other side of town.
Fixed Surly, Carradice Barley, and my messenger bag. Plumbers putty and an updated Pur filter in the Barley, the faucet barely tucked into the messenger bag. Back under the cabinets. Installed with minimal knuckle gnashing and no mishaps save a reversal of the hot and cold (the original plumber put them in backwards) and the filter doesn’t fit without some special adapter. Turn the main back only to see a drip drip coming from the main valve. A slight turn of the wrench to snug it up – I don’t want to blow a gasket and have a flood in the basement – and all seems well for the moment. I need to search around and see if we have a main outside of the house – I’m worried now about the gasket in the basement valve… and have no idea how to repair it without shutting us down from without. Not a bad day after all – sunny skies, three bike rides, and a household chore knocked off the list. I’m hoping the fine weather sticks around and I’ll get in a decent ride tomorrow. Coffee cruise first thing – and if all systems are go perhaps a run out to some dirt.
The pig rode, he didn’t fly.
Custom SyCip delivery bike from Boccalone at the San Francisco Ferry Building Marketplace. A more traditional rig with porteur rack is parked to the left…
I just discovered Bike Route Toaster. So far I love it – the two main features I was looking for was the ease of use of GoogleMaps and a cue sheet generator. Bike Route Toaster uses the GoogleMaps interface but with the option of disabling the ‘Auto Routing’ feature so you can sketch over trails, short cuts, bike paths, etc.!!!! The Cue Sheet generator is editable, exportable to several formats and allows you to view the location of the cue and edit the information. Add in elevation profiling, export to several different formats including GoogleEarth, and a friendly interface and it will be a nice addition to my route making toolkit. If you register you can save routes and pick up working on them where you left off and / or make your routes public. So far its just what I’ve been looking for…
What fits into an overstuffed Acorn Boxy Rando Bag?
Plenty. The half loaf of bread went into the Acorn Medium Saddlebag with my tool kit. The Shower’s Pass Elite 2.0 was strapped to the outside. The front bag was pretty unstable as I’m still riding without a proper decaleur – need to remedy that in the near future. Still able to ride no handed down our drive at speed. Lots of wheel flop when rolling the bike into the garage – but that is to be expected at slow or no speed.
I’ve been working on mudflaps for my rando rig on and off for the past two years, never really coming up with anything I liked, or that was durable. The stair tread / scrap rubber version works well enough – but on narrow fenders the rubber doesn’t quite conform to any particular shape – and it tends to flop around a bit adding some fender rattle to peaceful noise of rolling down the road. The Surly is fit with Planet Bike Cascadia fenders – and as I was studying the Surly for ideas I discovered Planet Bike sells replacement mud flaps. My Honjo fenders are the narrow version, 35mm width – so I ordered up a pair of the Cascadia Road Mudflaps. $5.00 + shipping (I added a Superflash Stealth to my order) and it included the snap locks for mounting… about as expensive as the rubber tread I bought!
They couldn’t possibly fit… could they?
Like a glove. I need to drill mounting holes for the quick snaps or a removable bolt – and I need to get a test of them on a wet road. The Cascadias mount up a bit short on front coverage – but with the extra length of the Honjos I should get great coverage!
The little one has outgrown her infant seat… so we moved to a booster in the Bak. I debated padding the box and using one of the over shoulder harnesses – but she tends to fall asleep when we are rolling – so a toddler booster seat keeps her nice and snug without slumping over. I’ve given up some cargo space up front as she’s gotten taller… 
First long ride on the Bak today with the little one – getting back into our utility cycling groove.