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Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
Mon, 24 May 2010I was pondering a phenomenon on the way in to work today. When I swerve around an obstacle on my bicycle (or motorcycle), I've noticed that I never perform a nice sine-wave curve, with the obstacle at the peak of the wave. Instead I end up making a kind of stretched wave, with the obstacle at the front shoulder of the wave. In thinking about it, I realized that of course this makes sense: turning a cycle is a multi-step process, which is one of the reasons they're harder to pilot than a car. Step one: decide to turn. This isn't the meaningless distinction it may initially seem. You need to choose to turn before you can start the turn, and there is necessarily some delay between deciding to take the action, and actually taking it. In particular, when swerving around an obstacle, you have to decide it's safe before you're willing to turn back into your original path of travel. Step two: initiate the turn. This includes a bunch of sub-steps, which you may or may not take, but which I do. The first is to turn my head and look at where I want to go. If you're not already doing this, it's a simple but astoundingly effective way of guiding a cycle with confidence. The next step is to actually lean the bike over, a step I've actually spent hours and hours considering, filming, talking about, and writing about, using a method called countersteering. Finally, once the bike is leaned over, you're actually in the turn. Step three: roll through the turn. This is the simplest part: you've set yourself on a path, and you continue along it. Interestingly, there's a kind of inertia to turning a cycle, so that deviating from a curved path takes more energy and thought than just staying on it. Newton might not be happy with it, but it's true. Step four through whatever: recover to your original path. This is essentially the reverse of the curve you just took, but without the decision-making step about whether or not the obstacle is a further factor. The key thing in all of this is that in order to describe a nice curving path around an object, and place it at the peak of the curve, you have to decide to turn back, and actually be in a turn, before you can pass the obstacle. As I've just outlined, it takes time to follow through with those actions, and particularly with obstacles (and double-particularly with live obstacles like animals or humans, who are prone to doing stupid things like move toward you), you don't really want to decide to swerve back until after you're past the obstruction. Thus, the too-long curve back to your original path. This all actually plays heavily into racing. If you're running as fast as possible, and you decide you want to turn, you have to have made the decision and gone through all the steps to actually get you into the turn well before you reach the turn. It's kind of counter-intuitive, and is one of the reasons that inexperienced racers end up running wide through turns, or having to dramatically slow down: you've got to be looking at the next turn, not the one you're in. I'm still working on that, myself, mostly through turns 3 and 4 at Pacific Raceways, but that's a discussion for a different time. Posted at 11:31 permanent link category: /bicycle Sat, 15 May 2010I finally took some time to do to do a couple of minor tasks on my commuter bike, and looked down to note the mileage (I keep a maintenance log, and that probably tells you more about me than I could in ten times as many words). There it was, in bold letters on the little display. 7003. That's a lotta miles, y'all. Posted at 15:40 permanent link category: /bicycle Fri, 19 Mar 2010I've been riding with my Supernova E3 Pro for about a week now. After the initial shock of the beam pattern wore off (see previous entries), I had some more thoughts I suspect will be welcomed by searchers on this subject. Effort: I haven't actually noticed any difference biking with the new hub and light. I've got a front wheel built around a Schmidt Dynohub, and if I were to judge only by riding, I don't think I could tell you it's any different from a normal bearings-only front hub. Of course, when you lift the front wheel off the ground and give it a spin, it slows down noticeably quicker with the light on than off. But still, that should give you an idea -- spin the front wheel with your hand, and it goes around for a while. The hub just isn't taking much energy from the wheel. Hardware: The light itself continues to impress me with its design and construction. I've got the Lefty mount, and flipped the arm over so that the light hangs pendulum-style, and then used the straight arm to mount the whole thing under the handlebar stem. To mount it, I just drilled a hole through the stem itself, and a M6x45 bolt with some red thread locker holds the whole thing together. In an effort to make it less glaringly obvious to potential thieves, I colored the bolt head with a black marker so it's not shiny and stainless-steel looking. I should probably redo it with matte black paint so it more closely matches the anodizing on the stem, but it's not a big enough deal for me right now. Support: When I contacted Supernova via email about my beam shape problem, I had a response the next day. Their support has been very good, and I certainly have nothing to complain of in that realm. The fact that they're in Germany complicates shipping and means that email exchanges take a day apiece due to time differences, but I knew that going in. Overall, if you discount the fact that I ordered the wrong lens on mine, I've been very happy with the light. I really enjoy having a light that just comes on when I ride, and incurs so little penalty that it makes sense to leave it on all the time. I have the Supernova tail light that I still have to install, but once I do that, I'll have front and back lights that are always on, which is very cool. Once I get a different lens in my front light, I think I'll be quite happy with my bike light setup. Posted at 10:51 permanent link category: /bicycle Fri, 12 Mar 2010
Supernova further update -- wanna buy a light?
Supernova has indeed agreed that they can swap lenses for me, and that the turnaround will be right around 3 weeks. They also offered me the option of buying a symmetrical-lens'd light at a discount, so I could sell the glare-free unit on Ebay or some such. Honestly, that sounds like the best option. Are you interested in a slightly used glare-free lens'd Supernova E3 Pro? Scroll down for video of the lens pattern. I have to admit, my reaction to the light definitely falls under "personal preference," and clearly Supernova thinks enough of the design to produce and sell it. I suspect it would be a good choice for someone whose average speed is a bit lower, or who rides in different situations than I do. If you're interested, please contact me at reaper at obairlann dot net. I'll post a picture of the light as installed in the next day or two. The only thing that's not absolutely shiny-brand-new about it is that I cut off about 12" of the supplied dynamo wire, and one of the mounting screws has had a wee bit of the black paint chipped off. This could work out well. Posted at 16:43 permanent link category: /bicycle Wed, 10 Mar 2010I got an email back from Supernova, to the effect that they are quite capable of swapping lenses, but that it will require me to send the whole light back to them, as it will involve soldering in a different LED in addition to putting in a different lens. Hopefully I can pursue that course of action soon, as riding with the light in its current configuration is irksome. Posted at 16:40 permanent link category: /bicycle Tue, 09 Mar 2010I just uploaded this video showing the headlight pattern of the Supernova E3 Pro with the "glare-free" asymmetrical beam.
My ride home last night was enough to show that I'm not at all happy with the asymmetrical beam pattern. It casts far too much light too close, with the result that I found myself repeatedly staring at a spot 10 feet in front of my front tire. That's incredibly unsafe when compared to keeping your eyes at the horizon, and I really don't want a light that encourages that kind of unsafe riding. I would be very happy with an asymmetrical beam pattern that wasn't so deep, and could be focused further out, but my hope now is that Supernova will be able to sell me a symmetrical lens, or swap out the one I have, or something. Peter White won't take the light back, because I actually installed it, cutting off some of the supplied wire. Silly me, actually installing a light. Still, I've read anecdotally that Supernova will swap lenses, so hopefully that will work out. I really don't want to have this ridiculously spendy light on my bike that angers me every time I ride in the dark. Posted at 10:58 permanent link category: /bicycle Mon, 08 Mar 2010
Supernova E3 Pro first impression
Last night, I finally got my new Supernova E3 Pro headlight installed. I received this, along with the new Schmidt Dynohub, a few months ago. I finally got the hub built into a wheel last month, and I finished installing the light yesterday. The E3 is a dynamo headlight that was designed to be the ultimate dyno light, and the price reflects that fact. If I weren't biking every day (and getting incredibly sick of batteries that need constant recharging), I wouldn't have sprung for it. But I am, and I did. I opted for the shaped beam version, which has a pattern similar to a car's headlight: a sharp cutoff at the horizon, so as to avoid blinding oncoming drivers, while casting as much light as possible on the road in front of you. I had actually temporarily installed the light a week or two ago (with a hilarious combination of zip ties, alligator clips and safety wire) and gone for a brief ride along a dark trail. That proved that the beam pattern was pretty useful, and showed that my intended mounting location (right under the handlebar) would work well. My very first impression of the beam was that it wasn't very bright. That is, it seemed about as bright as my current headlight (a NightRider MiNewt X2). Then I realized that, although it seemed about as bright, the bright area covered something like 5x the area of the MiNewt's bright spot. That means it's a tremendously brighter light, it's just spread out into a much larger, more useful area. There's not much point in spearing a single point in the distance on a bicycle, it's not as if I ever move any faster than 40 MPH at the fastest, and 25 MPH normally. The beam pattern itself is a bit odd, being quite wide, with "saddlebags" of brightness off to the sides, and not as much right in front. I have a feeling it was designed to be multipurpose, including being useful for offroaders. I'll see if I can get a photo or video of it, and post that here. The LED or optics give the light a greenish tint, which is a bit displeasing -- when spending this kind of money on an LED light, I expect excellent color, and greenish is not an excellent color. Now that I look at posted pictures of the beam pattern on both Supernova's site, and the Peter White beamshots page, I also have the impression that my beam is a weird shape, and not what I thought I was getting, particularly compared to the beamshot on the Supernova page. I may be talking to Peter White (where I got this light) after tonight's ride. The light itself, in terms of construction, seems to be well built. The mount is a very pretty machined piece, and the light body suggests high quality. It's fairly heavy, but that's to be expected, since this light includes a lot of aluminum to dissipate heat, as well as a large capacitor to act as a "stand light," keeping the light on for a few minutes after you stop riding (for use at stoplights). The stand light is about half the brightness of when riding, but it's still enough to be seen pretty well. I didn't time it, but my stand light was still glowing 5 or so minutes after a ride. It seems to slope down brightness over time. Other than the beam pattern, I'm pretty happy with this light. It was spendy, but ideally that's bought me a bright, durable light. I'll post updates as I have them, but I hope to get some photos and possibly video in the next few days. Posted at 10:58 permanent link category: /bicycle Wed, 02 Dec 2009So, for the last 9 months (sorry for the serious delay there), I've been riding with this Monkey Light on my front wheel. It's pretty cool. When we last touched on this story, that was my feeling as well. Prety cool. I remain, clearly, unswayed. What I can now tell you more about is living life with the thing. So far as I can tell, no one has tried to steal it, and no one has crashed into me from staring at it. I do get the occasional thumbs-up or someone looking intently at it, but nothing problematical. I've stood the bike up on its rear wheel and spun the front to show off the light at a stoplight on about a dozen occasions so far, and I expect I'll keep doing that as long as people express interest. The battery life is pretty good. With three 2500 mAh NiMH rechargeable AAs, I get many weeks of daily 30-50 minute runs with it running on the lower brightness setting. I have only charged the batteries about 4 times since I installed the light 9 months ago, but I've also mostly left it off for a lot of that time. Now that the days are shorter, and I'm using it every day, I expect I'll have to charge it every month or so. The low-battery warnings (a set of yellow X patterns, followed by red X patterns as the batteries run down) seem to come on with no warning. The difference between "dim" and "bright" (you have to switch from off to dim to bright to off in that order, every time) becomes visibly less obvious as the batteries wear down, but the low-battery Xs still surprise me when they show up. I've come up with some favorite patterns in the rotation, but I'm not sufficiently motivated to figure out the menu system to set them as high priority, or however it is that that works. Overall, I highly recommend this light if you're into side visibility that's more interesting than yet more blinky lights. It's a nice feeling to ride around and think that I'm putting a little bit of whimsy out into the world. Posted at 11:30 permanent link category: /bicycle Tue, 21 Apr 2009And people seem boggled when I yell at them for riding their bicycle through a stop sign:
From Facebook, today. Reasonable, non-violent people react to bicyclists. Posted at 11:02 permanent link category: /bicycle Tue, 24 Feb 2009The ride was essentially uneventful. I got one verbal compliment on the lights, one thumbs-up from a little kid, and otherwise very little reaction. Of course, I can't know what people in most of the cars were thinking, but hopefully I was more visible to them. I noticed from some more-distant observations that the light really is visible nearly 360° around the bike. As long as something wasn't blocking my sight line (such as a wheel, fork, frame, etc.), I could see the lights. When they spin around the wheel, they're pretty eye-catching. I got up into the low 20 mph range, and didn't notice the imbalance in the wheel. However, in the spirit of fixing that which ain't broke, I decided to make three changes. The first change was to move the light as far towards the rim as I could and still have one of the zipties capture two crossed spokes. This prevents the light from sliding outward at higher speeds. Having the light further out increases its sweep speed, making the patterns persistent at lower speeds-over-ground. The second change was to safety-wire one of the attachments. This makes the light visibly harder to steal, which will hopefully be enough deterrent for those times the bike gets parked outside. Having all the racebike gear turned out to be pretty handy -- MonkeyLectric recommended using a heavy paperclip, which would have been pretty annoying to install. The safety wire is hardly the last word in security, and anyone with diagonal cutters (such as anyone with a multitool, really) could have it off in a minute or less. The final change was the real "fixin' what ain't broke" choice: I added counterweights to the wheel. It ended up needing 49g of lead opposite the light to get it almost in balance. The wheel is still slightly heavy on the Monkey Light side, but my front wheel is now considerably closer to being balanced than it's ever been before. Of course, the downside to this is that people pay good money to lose less than 49g off a front wheel. Adding that much seems a bit ludicrous, but I'm curious to try it out. Might make riding more pleasant. Might make riding more work (this is almost certainly the case), but hopefully not by too much. It's worth a try. Check back, I have pictures to add, but they have to wait while I perform some vital computer maintenance. Posted at 20:46 permanent link category: /bicycle
MonkeyLectric Monkey Light -- initial impressions
I just received my Monkey Light, and eagerly tore open the packaging. I ordered it in the Eco Packaging, which uses less material that I'm just going to throw away anyway -- huge kudos to MonkeyLectric for making this an option! It came in a ziplock bag with some paper crumpled up as padding. The first impression was pretty favorable. The unit itself feels solid, and appears to be well-built. The "clear hard coat" over the LEDs was a bit unevenly applied, but appeared to have full coverage. Not a complaint, just an observation. It comes with two photocopied sheets, one with installation instructions and illustrations (more illustrations than instructions, really) that made it pretty obvious how to install. The second sheet contained a lot of the copy that's available on the website, plus the all-important instructions on what the various buttons do. I didn't spend much time delving into the menus, since they basically seem to limit the lights to less options. I don't really care about that yet. I was interested to note that the power button cycles from off to "efficiency mode" to "high power." This works well for me, since I'll be running it in efficiency mode (which is about 2/3 the visual intensity of high power) most of the time. Unfortunately, it didn't appear to then be a single-click to power off, instead requiring a double-click through high power mode before it shuts off. This is typical of bicycle lighting products, but I figured with the obvious brains available inside the Monkey Light, they could have engaged a 5 or 10 second timer so that whichever mode you're in, the next click on the power button turns it off. A minor upgrade (or option to include) for the next version, perhaps. Waving the device back and forth in front of my eyes wasn't satisfying (although I did see the patterns), so I ran down and installed the thing on my bike. Installation is about as straightforward as you can imagine. Three zipties, three rubber pads, and it's done. I debated a bit on the placement, eventually opting for shoving the light almost down to the hub. The trade-off is that it won't move as fast, so the patterns won't look quite as cool as if it were out at the rim, but it also won't unbalance the wheel quite as badly. Some quick initial tests suggest that the current placement isn't optimal, but I take too many hills too fast to risk the severe unbalance that would come from having it further out. I'll probably relocate it towards the rim once I get home, and can add some counterbalancing weight on the far side of the wheel. Even with its current placement, the bike was wobbling on the stand pretty severely at 15 mph indicated. This makes sense -- the wheel is now dozens of grams out of balance, if not over a hundred. I'm pleased with the light, and at least based on initial impressions, would recommend it to anyone who's interested in increasing their bike's visibility. I'll report back after it's been through some rain, and after I get it mounted farther out on the wheel. Posted at 11:23 permanent link category: /bicycle Fri, 20 Feb 2009
To the woman in the white SUV at 105th and Dayton
When you are turning left, you are expected to yield to oncoming traffic, whether that traffic is propelled by gasoline, electricity, or human power, such as a bicycle. If that traffic honks its horn at you because you are turning directly in its path, the appropriate response is not to stick your tongue out. The appropriate response is to stop and realize that you just commited a traffic infraction that can result in death, even if it's not your precious life on the line. Seriously. Sticking your tongue out? Who the fuck approved these people for driver's licenses? Posted at 18:51 permanent link category: /bicycle Mon, 09 Feb 2009Last Wednesday, a bicyclist was killed in Ballard. It was morning commute time, just before 9 am, and he was blitzing down a hill toward the center of Ballard. There's been some controversy over exactly what happened, but that's not really what I want to talk about. The general concensus, regardless of the details, is that the bicyclist was coming down the hill with some reasonable speed. A van pulled into traffic in such a way that the bicyclist was unable to avoid hitting it. For whatever reason, whether intentional or not, the bicyclist "laid 'er down," or fell off the bike. He collided with the van, and ended up under its rear tire, sustaining injuries that would leave him dead within a few hours. The situation he found himself in was essentially an impossible one, for a couple of reasons. He was by all accounts going pretty fast. He moved in such a way that would have been safe if the van had pulled into the flow of traffic instead of turning across it. By the time he realized the van was turning instead of joining traffic, he was too close to affect any changes that could have saved him. The driver of the van, according to accounts, was pulling out pretty quickly, trying to get the U-turn in before a wave of oncoming traffic arrived. In her haste, the driver almost certainly didn't see the bicylist coming down the hill, and the rest is history. There were a series of mistakes made in this situation, and that's what I'm really writing about. I feel like the driver's mistake was pretty obvious, and not worth discussing (there's already a lot of acknowledgement that bicycles are hard to see). The bicyclist's mistakes, on the other hand, are not normally discussed, and this will eventually kill more riders. The first mistake the bicyclist made (none of these are necessarily more or less important, so I'm starting at random) is practically built-in to a bicycle rider: "Must preserve speed." Riding a bicycle is hard work. Unlike in a powered vehicle, hitting the brakes is the option of last resort for most bikers, because it takes so much work to get going again. In fact, it's not that bad, but that's the mental attitude that develops. I suffer from this myself. This attitude leads to a lot of the behavior that non-bikers find offensive: swerving through traffic, blowing stop signs and lights, etc. If you don't slow down, you don't have to speed up again. It also means that if a car pulls into your lane, it makes a lot of sense to swerve out of their way rather than slow down. The next mistake the bicyclist made was that he assumed how the van would behave. Most likely, he saw the van pulling out, and thought, "This guy's going to join traffic southbound, so I'll swing wide of him on the left." If the van had behaved as predicted, this would have been a safe if somewhat obnoxious maneuver. However, the van didn't do what the rider had predicted, and started tracing a U-turn, so that it would be headed up the hill, to the north. The final mistake was that the bicyclist may not have understood how his bike worked. I don't know for sure, but many bicyclists I have met suffer from this problem. They don't understand emergency stops. I'm not saying anyone doesn't know how to use their brakes. I'm not saying they don't understand how to stop the bike. I'm saying that they've never practiced an emergency stop. This is absolutely standard practice in the motorcycling world. New riders are taught to practice emergency stops, if they go through any of the training programs available to them. Get thee into a parking lot, goes the wisdom, and practice running up to 15-20 mph and then stopping as fast as you can. As a motorcyclist, I do this myself, at least once a year, and am amazed every time at how much grip that front tire has. Yet, for bicyclists, there is no such encouragement. A bicycle, I think the common wisdom must go, is a low-speed recreational vehicle. It requires no skill to stop, because a bicyclist will never pass about 12 mph. Likewise, once you've mastered balancing a bike (which is actually mastering countersteering -- if you can stand upright, you've already mastered balance), no thought is given to riding, beyond some simplistic rules: don't ride in traffic; wear a helmet; etc. One dead cyclist from Ballard has recently proven that this is not the case. He was going about as fast as a 50cc scooter can go, and that requires a license (this is definitely not a screed in favor of licensing bicyclists, I'm just pointing that fact out). He was going as fast as (possibly faster than) my average speed, when I'm riding a motorcycle. He was going fast enough that training and skill were required. What can we learn from all this? What is the lesson? I think there are a few. First and foremost, if you ride a bicycle, and ever get over that mythical 12 mph limit, you need to do some training in emergency stops. Get your bike out into a parking lot. Wear long sleeves and long pants, wear your helmet and your gloves. If you have pads for knees and elbows you might want them, too -- braking is dangerous, and you might as well practice with as much safety as possible. Ride it up to a decent speed: 15 mph or so. Pick a mark, and when you hit that mark, start braking as hard as you think you safely can, with both brakes. Keep your eyes up, not fixed on the ground (this is hard, but will help you not fall over when you come to a stop, among other things). If you're like me (I tried this exercise this weekend), you'll lock up the rear tire -- this is fine, the way to deal with a locked rear tire is to leave it locked and come to a complete stop. It's not as efficient at slowing you down as a rolling rear tire is, but that's not a big deal, and definitely not something to worry about at first. (If you try to release a locked rear tire in a real panic braking situation, it's possible to flip yourself off the bike due to the tire fishtailing, so just ride it to a stop every time.) Practice your stops as many times as you can stand. Start with relatively mellow stops and work up the braking pressure. I got to the point where my fingers were unwilling to squeeze the front brake any harder, and the rear brake was consistently locked. Based on my experience, I am probably going to look for a 203mm front brake disc to get more leverage out front. The next exercise is more mental, and you can practice when you're riding. I think of it as the "What if?" game, and I play it on the bicycle, on a motorcycle, or in a car. The way it works (you're probably way ahead of me, but I'll sketch it out) is that you look at a potential threat, such as a car waiting to cross your path at an intersection, and think, "What would I do if..." and make up a scenario. What if that car darted across your path right now? What if that car on the shoulder pulled a U-turn from the curb? What if that bus didn't see you were passing, and started to pull out? When you start thinking in these terms, you will start riding more defensively. Given that in 100% of collisions, you'll go squish while the car driver will wonder what that thump was, it's in your best interests to ride defensively. This defensive thinking must include the option, "I would slow down as fast as possible." If you fall into the "preserving momentum" trap, you're just as doomed as the bicyclist in Ballard. If you ride in traffic, you need to treat yourself exactly as you would if you were driving a powered vehicle. When you start ignoring the rules of traffic (not the laws, I'm talking about how people expect everyone around them to behave), you become unpredictable. Bicyclists are already at a tremendous disadvangage in almost every way: underpowered, nearly invisible, completely vulnerable. Anything you do to increase your disadvantages (such as behaving unpredictably) has the effect of multiplying them, not just adding to them. If you only take one thing away from this article, practice emergency stops. You can do it anywhere (check for anyone behind you first), and even a little bit of practice could save your bacon when confronted with a real emergency. You'll know how fast you can stop, your fingers will know how to behave on the brake levers, and you won't be surprised at what happens (for instance, the rear wheel locking up). This is practice that can save your life. (Update: I just ordered a 203mm disc and new caliper mount from Price Point -- total charge: $37. I forgot upgrading disc size was both easy and comparatively cheap.) Posted at 02:53 permanent link category: /bicycle Sun, 25 Jan 2009After my crash last Monday, I decided in the afternoon to get myself in to the doctor. The pain in my hip seemed to be getting more intense, and taking on the edge that says, "This isn't just muscle pain, suckah!" In the mean time, I crammed myself full of ibuprofen (which didn't help a whole lot) and Liz came down at the closing whistle to take me home -- I clearly wasn't going to ride home in that condition; I could barely walk. The doctor visit came and went, with the doctor expressing the desire that I sling myself into an MRI machine to see what sort of clever rearrangement of bones and tendons I'd managed to effect. I called up, and got myself set up for a scan the same day, in the afternoon. After a very pleasant but painful day slacking on the couch with Liz, we trundled down to the Swedish campus for the test. She was dropping me off, to go tend to her own errands. To my delight, I found a free wheelchair at the entrance and with a nod from the information desk, plopped myself into it. Suddenly I could move much faster than before. On foot, I was making a step every second or two. Give that a try if it doesn't impress you -- it's damn slow. And I wasn't taking big steps, either, these were like, "shove foot forward 12 inches; pause; try again." Little baby steps. So the wheelchair was a most welcome addition to my life, however temporary it might be. I wheeled myself over to the elevator, and discovered that one of the many joys of the wheelchair is that they take a lot of room in an elevator. On the appropriate floor, I signed myself in, and after 10 minutes of paperwork and a mere additional 15 minute wait, was on my way into the lair of the MRI machine. Here I was instructed to slip out of my clothes and into the obviously much more comfortable dressing gown my helpful assistant pointed out. "Let's see, you're pretty tall," he said to himself, then, pointing at a pile of dark green gowns, said, "go ahead and slip into one of those." After several minutes of very very slowly divesting myself of my garments, I pulled open the dark green gown to find it was roughly the size of a three-person army pup tent. I extended my arms fully to the sides, and grasping the corner of each gown flap, wrapped it around me. I asked Liz later, and she said that if a person doesn't fit into one of the two sizes of MRI machine they have at the hospital (ie, someone who'd need the full extent of my tent-gown), they have to go to the MRI machine at the zoo. The tech laid me out on my techno-slab, and I was slowly trundled into the machine for roughly 40 minutes of lying perfectly still in a coffin-like tube while something that sounded like a broken bilge pump rat-a-tatted at me at varying pitches. This was the 20th, inauguration day, and the tech had given me headphones on which I could listen to KUOW, the local NPR station, as they covered the Obama-related festivities. (Suffice to say that I didn't make it to any inauguration-day festivities myself that day, but I feel I had a pretty valid excuse.) I felt exactly like I was trying to sleep on a small, becalmed sailboat, in a quarter berth which was a bit too small, and next to the bilge pump which would. not. shut. up. The first test they did was a location-scan, so the machine could figure out (or show the tech) exactly where I was situated. It apparently involved the highest power of the machine, and felt very much like tiny imps were plucking at all the muscles in my lower abdomen. It was a very odd sensation. Every once in a while, the tech would say something like, "Ok, the next test will only take 11 minutes," only he'd forget to turn down the radio, so what I actually heard was this sort of dream-like confusion of voices as whichever NPR reporter would continue with his story, while a discontinuous voice would meld in with weirdly-unrelated news. The headphones were all-plastic, piping the sound in quite literally, through plastic tubes -- magnetic headphones would have been ripped off my head fast enough to remove my ears, I suspect. Eventually, about 30 tests later, I was done, and surprisingly warm. The tech explained, after I asked, that yes, in fact, an MRI was roughly the equivalent of a precisely-metered microwave oven. (He didn't say that, I extrapolated it from his explanantion about stimulation of hydrogen atoms and radio-frequency energy.) I asked for and received a chance to review the pictures they'd gotten. It was a bit like looking at a black-and-white picture of what my lower abdomen would look like if you cut it cleanly off at whatever point we were looking at. If he panned quickly through the layers, you could make sense of the shape of legs and hips and such. Pretty interesting -- my legs looked like nicely marbled steak, which I guess is about what they are. He said he wasn't allowed to do any interpretation, but he did point a noticeably-larger pocket of fluid inside my right hip joint that wasn't there on the left. And with that, I was trundled out and on my way. No more paperwork to fill out, etc. Here's the elevator, off you go! All told, I'd only spent an hour and a half there, and I had entirely expected to wait two hours before even getting into the machine. Crazy! The joys of going when they're running on schedule, I guess. The next day, I got a cryptic phone call from my doctor's office. "Dr. Flooblejabble [not his real name] said to tell you that there are minor changes shown on your MRI," said the woman on the phone. "'Minor changes?'" quoth I. "That's all he said," she explained. Uh-huh. "Thanks," said I, and hung up. I'll be having a little talk with the good doctor about his willingness to do things like discuss my results with me on the phone. Trying to figure out his cypher left me with a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of the day. However! The excellent thing about that morning was that the night before I'd had my first anti-inflammatory pill. The good doctor looked slightly appalled when I told him how many ibuprofen pills I was shoving down my gizzard every 4-6 hours, and set me up with "the maximum dose you can take" of some prescription anti-inflammatory. "So that way, we know you're at the maximum and don't have to worry about your liver exploding," he said. If he'd had reading glasses on, he would have looked over them at me severely. And indeed, I had awoken that morning feeling noticeably better. I was definitely still broken, but I was walking much faster, and it no longer felt like someone had gone after some key muscle groups with a cheese grater. I was able to sit at the computer and pretty much work a normal day, albeit at my house instead of at the office. Each day after that, I'd wake up feeling noticeably better. Walking got easier and easier, until today, when I feel very nearly normal again. There's still a bit of soreness there, and I can tell that certain motions will be rewarded by more or less searing pain, but it's pretty cool to feel mostly like a normal person again. Hooray for anti-inflammatories! So, if you've been sitting on the edge of your seat for the last week, that's what's been happening. I'm scheduled to see Dr. Floobenjabble again on Tuesday, when I might have definitive word on what exactly "minor changes" on an MRI might be. Hopefully we can also sort out a better arrangement regarding certain peripheral issues such as speaking in plaintext over the phone. Posted at 17:37 permanent link category: /bicycle Mon, 19 Jan 2009I was riding into work this morning, thinking whatever thoughts I normally think on my ride into work. There had been frost on my deck, but the roads seemed clear, so I was buzzing along at my normal clip. Coming down N 50th toward Fremont Ave, I downshifted a couple gears to take the turn as I normally do, slightly annoyed that a car had just passed me too close. I was peripherally aware of a biker standing on the sidewalk, but I thought he was waiting for the crosswalk or something. I turned into the corner, and with extreme consternation noticed that my bike was no longer under me. I hit the ground before I had any clue what was happening, and tumbled, noting in a sort of detached way that my helmet was scraping along the pavement. There was a bloom of pain in my right hip, and suddenly something heavy plopped down in front of me as I slid to a stop -- my shoulder bag, I realized. I lay there trying to disentangle my thoughts, testing bits of myself to see how damaged I was. The pain in my hip was subsiding, but it was obviously not going to be happy in the near future. Nothing was obviously broken, so I started getting up. "Oh, I wish I'd seen you," said the biker on the sidewalk, "I just did that exact same thing. There must be ice there." Thanks. I picked myself up with a severe limp on the right side, my hip explaining in bright flashes of pain that it was, in fact, extremely unhappy at the abuse. I got my bike onto the sidewalk. I didn't spare it much attention, but nothing seemed overtly broken. Slightly Helpful Biker asked if I was ok, obviously about to get on his way. He'd taken a moment to scoop some dirt out of a nearby planter and spread it over the area where the ice probably was. I said I was probably fine, but that my hip hurt. "Ok, I'm off to work then," quoth SHB, and rode off. I sat there, my glasses entirely fogged over (all the heat I'd generated in riding rising to coat them), and just stretched out on the sidewalk for a minute to see if I could stop shaking. I tried to assess what had happened. I came around the corner, and the bike just went away. Obviously, it was ice, or something so like it that quibbling over definitions was pointless. I bore the brunt of my fall on my right hip, although my shoulder was also unhappy. I could move, and I didn't seem to have broken any bones. I painfully hoisted myself back on the bike, after several false starts getting my leg over the seat. Fortunately, the path ahead of me was entirely downhill, and so required practically no effort. The worst part was limping up to my office to check into the meeting that caused me to be on the road 30 minutes earlier than I normally would have. Now, several hours and 1200 mg of ibuprofen later, my hip is the obvious casualty. There's a little bit of road rash on my patella, and my shoulder occasionally twinges (amazingly, I don't appear to have broken my collarbone), but I've got a patch of road rash on my hip that I can just cover with an open hand, and I walk at a highly comical and halting .3 MPH or so. Fortunately, sitting upright is completely pain-free, it's just standing upright and walking that sucks. Even more fortunately, I don't seem to have impaired my normal computering abilities at all. So, what did I do right? Helmet, baby. That helmet absorbed what would have been a painful if not deadly sideways whack, and kept the side of my face off the ground as I slid to a halt. Conveniently, I was wearing long pants and a slippery windbreaker that I believe kept me from getting worse road rash than I did. What did I do wrong? Well, I have a hard time classifying it as "wrong" exactly, but I didn't anticipate the black ice. The road had been clear of ice that I could tell, and I had no indication there was ice around this corner. I was complacent about road conditions, when I knew it was cold enough that ice was a possibility, if not likely. Given that the two-wheel crashes I've had now were both low-sides, and both landed me on my hip, I'm starting to think that some padded biking shorts are called for. They would have materially reduced the injury I received today, and would have made my racetrack motorcycle crash less painful, although that crash didn't result in any lasting injury. I find it interesting, although predictable, that my motorcycle crash caused me less damage than my bicycle crash. On the motorcycle, I was going about 70 MPH, but I was also riding a tiny bike (ie, I sit close to the ground) on a racetrack (ie, no curbs, cars, gravel, etc. to deal with), and I was leaned way over, so that my butt was inches from the pavement. On the bicycle, I was only going about 18 MPH, but I was sitting at least 3.5 feet off the ground, and wearing less protective clothing. The difference between less than 12 inches and over three feet is considerable, and that's where the real injury came from. So, I have a feeling I'll be working from home for the next few days, and may investigate getting some variety of cane or crutch so I can walk at a speed faster than a snail's pace. Hooray for dangerous pursuits! Posted at 11:13 permanent link category: /bicycle Sat, 10 Jan 2009About a week ago, mother nature dumped another load of snow on Seattle. I wasn't having any of it, though, and levered my studded tires on my bike, bound and determined to get to work the next day -- I'd spent too many days stuck at home between holidays and the previous snow storms. But then, once I had the snow tires on, it wasn't all that late... And I had this new camera I got for Christmas... So I shot a little snow-ride video. I had a terrible time getting the AVI file generated by the Oregon Scientific ATC-2K into a format Final Cut Express would use without losing the end of it (apparently the "30 fps" claim by OS is... optimistic, but they leave it in the video headers, which screws up conversion software). Finally, though, I found the answer: MPEG Streamclip, a free video conversion utility. It was able to take in the AVI file and spit out a DV file that actually included the end of the video. Posted at 10:30 permanent link category: /bicycle Fri, 19 Dec 2008So, Seattle was hit with a couple inches of snow in the last week, and totally contrary to tradition, it actually stayed cold enough to stick around. Then it snowed some more. The roads now most closely resemble very poorly maintained skating rinks. Of course, I was ready for this one! Last year, after a week of being stuck in the house or wherever I could very slowly hoof it, I had had enough. I ordered up a set of Nokian Hakkapeliitta W106 tires (scroll down on that page to see them). Of course, they arrived after all snow was done for the season, but I gave them a try anyway. Pretty heavy, pretty slow, and I suddenly seemed to be in worse shape -- oh yeah, rolling resistance. But when the snow came this year, hoo boy, was I ready! I levered a studded tire on the front rim (a story all in itself -- I had to remount it 6 times, somehow pinching holes in the tube every time), on the theory that there was snow predicted, and this would get me half the rolling resistance hit, but still allow good steering and stopping. Then the snow hit in earnest, and I put on the rear tire (another story in itself -- I had to take the bus down to the theater and install the tire on the stage after leaving my bike there in favor of a ride a few days before). Now I was fully prepared when the Real Snow hit a few days ago. So yesterday, the director and I took a census of the actors, and decided that, damn the snow and ice, we would put on the show! (I'm stage managing for the Judy Garland Christmas Special.) The roads were covered in packed snow and ice, but people were raring to go. It's closing weekend, after all. I hopped on my Hakkapeliitta-equipped bike, and made the journey. It was slow going (I didn't want to ride too fast, or I'd have too much momentum to stop in an emergency), and the now-frozen slush next to tire tracks made for the odd butt-clenching moment, but I didn't really have any trouble. It was a trifle nerve-wracking to ride next to the big FedEx trucks down Phinney Ave, but all the motorized traffic seemed to have the same "slow and steady" approach to not crashing that I did, and I didn't even have any close calls. I took the Fremont Ave hill very slowly. The real surprise, though, was riding home. It was late (of course) and colder, and most importantly, a lot more uphill than the way in. My preferred route takes me up a hill that must be a 10% grade, but it's pretty short. Of course, this time, it was also covered in packed ice. And I just rode up it, as if it were lumpy pavement. The tires didn't slip at all! I was terribly impressed. The ride home, in fact, was almost entirely uneventful, and I saw only a handful of cars. As I was riding past the Q13 building (a local TV station), I noticed another hardy soul biking slowly along. After dithering for a moment, I turned around to say hi, and recommend the sidewalk (which didn't have any of the obnoxious tire-track ruts). We ended up riding together for about 10 minutes, and it turned out she was riding on normal, underinflated mountain bike tires. It seemed to work pretty well for her, until we got to an incline that I didn't even think about. She had to dismount and walk very slowly up the hill, though, since her rear tire wouldn't grip on the slick surface. That was one of maybe three other bikes I saw on the trip. Also, the one absolutely insane guy on a 50cc scooter with street slicks on. Not a choice I would have made. Riding two-wheeled on ice is insane to start with, there's no call for riding something really heavy with gasoline power behind it (unless you've got those buzz-saw tires they use for ice racing, of course, which is its own special variety of insane). The whole experience definitely left me pleased with my purchase of studded tires. They'll last me many years, in this kind of service, and they work really well! Posted at 11:28 permanent link category: /bicycle Fri, 14 Nov 2008I've now had a chance to use the Planet Bike Blaze a few times (and I should clarify, this is the one-watt version, which is comparatively new). I have good and bad to report. The good news is that this is one bright light -- bright enough to use as a primary. So the optics are designed "right" in that sense. The reason I say it's bright enough to use as a primary is that it's about as bright, in its central hotspot, as the light I'm currently using as my primary headlight, a NiteRider MiNewt.X2. The downside is that the Blaze's beam pattern is still that you get wtih cheap optics. With a carefully crafted reflector, you can have a center spot with a tapering sidespill, which is how the MiNewt works. With it, I can see what's about to roll under my front tire, such as when traversing a tricky gravel path I use most days. With the Blaze, there's really no sidespill to speak of, so that although I can see what's in the center spot, the rest of the world is in darkness. This is a typical artifact of using a lens instead of a reflector. The real problem I ran into is that the Planet Bike mount offers exactly zero capacity to rotate that I can find. If you can't find a piece of handlebar that aims dead ahead, your light is aimed off to the side. Particularly with a light as tightly focused as this one, that's a huge detriment. There are almost no perfectly-straight/flat bars out there, so this model is going to spend a lot of time illuminating the side of the road. To PB's credit, the mount does seem to offer the option, albeit poorly thought out, of rotating 90°. However, it's just not capable of a 10° deflection like I want. I'd welcome corrections on this point, but I spent some time investigating it when I was working with my W-shaped bars, and was disappointed. I solved the problem for myself by rearranging items on my handlebars, and regretfully giving up my front reflector -- I'll have to apply some SOLAS tape to make up for it (something I should do anyway). I also had to tape up the handlebar to keep the light from rotating down. Sure enough, within 10 minutes on my first ride with the light, it was pointing at the ground. Although the mounting system offers the promise of pretty fine adjustability, it didn't quite deliver for me. It's possible I could have solved the problem with more futzing, but as I had to move it anyway, and the tape was handy, that was a good solution. The other bit of updating is that my MiNewt has developed a new and obnoxious problem. It appears to have a broken wire in its connecting cable, so that unless the wire's held in a certain position, it comes on with 1/100th its normal output, and can't be turned off. If the wire is bent around to complete the normal circuit, it functions correctly. Interestingly, this has roughly coincided with the charging brick randomly not receiving power. Fortunately, NiteRider is good about their support, so I've got an RMA number from them, and will be sending the whole kit and kaboodle in to them for repair. Good thing I've got a good back-up light! Posted at 11:22 permanent link category: /bicycle Wed, 12 Nov 2008I just picked up a new backup bike light. I'm always on the lookout for new, better lights, and this one looked like it'd be a good step up:
It's a Planet Bike Blaze 1w, and it does something I've wanted for a long time: it takes the Superflash concept (bright and not-as-bright flashes, with a characteristic pattern that's very noticeable), and does it in white light, for a front-light. So, that's cool. It's kind of an expensive light at $40, but what price safety? Unfortunately, it suffers from two bits of inanity that I simply no longer understand from manufacturers, particularly manufacturers I expect to be as savvy as Planet Bike. The first defect is plainly obvious when you look at it. It's tremendously front-heavy (it's a heavy light anyway, and most of that weight sits forward of the center-point of that bar clamp). I know that even using gaff tape on my handlebar, and clamping the hell out of this light, it's going to slowly swivel down until it's pointing its excellent flash pattern at my front tire. Well, it doesn't do me any good if no one can see it. This raises the second point. The beam pattern is just terrible, for a "be noticed" light: it's got a massively bright central spot that's fairly narrow, and almost no side-spill. Now, this is a good thing when it's a light I'm using so I can see. I want to see what's in front of me, and it's usually not so important to pick up peripheral vision. I even know why they designed it that way: the optics are easily and cheaply available. However, this light is not strong enough to be a "to see with" light. It simply isn't bright enough to be a primary light, except on the very darkest streets. (Note: I may reverse myself on this particular point, as I haven't actually ridden with it yet.) So its tight focus and mode order don't make sense (it switches on to low, then high, then flash, then off). What I want in a "be seen" light is a 90-150° beam. I want this thing to broadcast light all over the place, ideally in a flat arc that I can aim at cars, perhaps 20° in height, and at least 90° wide. It doesn't need to be tightly focused, it needs to be visible to as many targets as possible. All that said, I still paid my money for it, and I think it'll be an improvement over my current backup light, a CatEye something-or-other 410. The CatEye is even worse than the PB I already have (which uses the same clamping system as this one) for rotating forward around the bar, and the CatEye has a comparatively very weak beam. It also runs for twice as long on less battery, but I'll change batteries more often if it means I get more light and a still-reasonable runtime (PB claims 20 hours max out of this light, which I assume is on the flash mode). For what it's worth, I've been happily using my NiteRider MiNewt as my primary "to see with" light for more than a year now, and love it. If it goes away for any reason, I'll replace it with the same thing, most likely. It has an excellent beam pattern, runs most of a week before I have to charge it, and it's very bright, particularly for its size. So, super-secret note to Planet Bike engineers: quit it! Wide beam! And give me a light that actually balances reasonably on the handlebar, just move the whole thing back on the mount. It can't be that hard. Posted at 15:58 permanent link category: /bicycle Mon, 10 Nov 2008
Applying the scientific method to MY OWN STUPIDITY
So, about a month ago, I installed a fancy schmancy new saddle on my bike. A leather Brooks saddle, in fact. I almost immediately took it off, because I couldn't find an angle that felt good. It was either pressing too much in that sensitive spot, or slid me forward, or pressed to much in the other spot, etc. I put my old saddle back on with a sigh of relief, and proceeded about my life. Several weeks later, I noticed that, all of a sudden, my legs seemed to be chafing. Now, I'd been biking for over two years solid at this point, there was no reason for this to happen. Not all of a sudden. Not even bothering to find two and two to put together, I started changing things. I figured, hey, (and this is the point where you may want to turn off the monitor -- this discussion necessarily involves bits of my anatomy and articles of clothing I wouldn't normally talk about) I'm wearing cotton briefs which have a seam that runs right where I'm getting chafed: the joint where my legs join up with my pelvis, where the seat hits. Cotton == sponge. Maybe that's a bad thing! So I switched to boxers, which I had given up on a year and a half earlier as being entirely too uncontrolled. There is little so uncomfortable as having a testicle repeatedly crushed between leg and seat as you pedal. Trying to remedy this situation is also at least as embarrassing as describing it. The problem still existed, and furthermore, all the fabric seemed to get bunched up right where I was chafing -- before I'd had a small wodge of cotton there; now I had a huge mass. Boxers: FAIL. Next up were boxer briefs. I looked on Amazon (user reviews are surprisingly handy in this situation), and found some inexpensive but (and this is important) cotton boxer briefs. The best of both worlds, right? The anti-flopping properties of briefs, but without the triple-folded seams right where I was chafing! BZZT! Same problem as boxers, except with less testicle-crushing. So, a step in the right direction, but as painful as ever. And by this point, the pain had become excruciating. Not just "Huh, I seem to be chafing a little," but "Holy mother of god, maybe I'll call a taxi!" I had one hope left. I'd read about non-cotton alternatives, and at this point, I was ready to try anything. Anything. So I ran out and got a pair of Under Armour Boxerjocks. Stupid name, good product. Basically, they're boxer briefs intended to be worn tight, and made of the moisture-wicking polyester blend that UA uses so effectively, and which I've long appreciated in a shirt I wear under my racing leathers. I thought, Ah, heaven, these are perfect! I rode to work that day, and it seemed better at first, but then, dammit! They bunched up right where I was chafing, and it hurt like hell. By this point, even walking had started to hurt. So, I gave up. I also wised up, and went to the doctor, having finally realized that this was so abnormal, it must be an infection of some kind. He confirmed, yes, standard-issue jock itch (a fungal infection), apply this cream twice a day, etc. This elicited a huge sigh of relief from me -- it was just an infection! Problem solved. I rode the motorcycle for a couple of weeks, feeling both like I was giving up on my ideals, and like I was getting away with something -- after all, I had a valid medical reason I couldn't ride a bicycle. It was fun to get back on the Ninja and shuttle around without any exertion. There's nothing like riding a bicycle to give one an appreciation of what goes into acceleration and going up hills and things. Today was my first day back on the bicycle. The cream seems to have worked, and I figured I was ready. Wicking underoos: check. Infection under control: check. Rock on! Imagine my disappointment, tonight, as I was riding home, and recognized the now-familiar burning sensation. ARGH! Did my body get its one taste of that damned leather saddle, and is now spoiled!? It was nice how narrow the nose of that thing was, but surely one day of riding on it couldn't have... At approximately this point in my reasoning, as I rode along, I gave myself a virtual dopeslap. I pulled over to the side of the road, leaned the bike up against a fence, and pulled out my little toolkit. I adjusted one bolt in, and one bolt out, lowering the nose of the saddle about 5°. The rest of the ride back home was, well, not exactly burning-free, but was clearly no longer generating that awful burning feeling. Hey, cause? Meet effect. Effect, cause. You guys should get together more often. IN MY BRAIN. (Hopefully the ride in tomorrow will be a trifle more comfortable.) Posted at 23:31 permanent link category: /bicycle Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
