Toshi's thread

My 5010 is back safely in my garage. Clunk turned out to be the lower pivot--I didn't understand dan-o's collet bolt comment. In practical terms it means there's a 5 mm allen outer cover, and once that's opened there's an 8 mm bolt that tensions the pivot bearings. I was told this should just be hand tight, like headset preload tight.

Either way it's back, I'm not on call this weekend unlike the last, and I therefore plan on riding both days this weekend. Saturday will be a crack of dawn type ride, likely beating the ~6 AM sunrise. Wife wants me back at the house at 9 AM so that we can head as a family to Costco at their opening.

I'm thinking White Ranch on Saturday since that's the closest to me and Dakota Ridge on Sunday.

stevew said:

toshi...haiku ceiling fans.....their parent company is big ass fans.

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Yeah, the mother in law has one. They're nice, but so is running the AC just a bit more. 3 Haikus would take many years of increased AC usage to pay off.

Toshi said:

I guess an Evora might work (or a Porsche 993 +/- low seat rails). No way that's fitting in my Denver house + lifestyle, though. Maybe after I retire early…

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Nick said:

oooh, that Evora 400 looks like the business.

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http://jalopnik.com/the-lotus-evora-400-is-the-best-track-car-i-have-ever-d-1784855962





Perhaps when visiting Seattle I'll hunt down a dealer who has one in stock so that I can sit in it, brush the headliner, and scratch off yet another dream.

Zillow finally came up with a Zestimate for my (newly built in December 2015) house. It's $130k or so above the sale price. Therefore my net worth on paper/in Mint jumped by that much instantly.



(Now we have over $1M in assets per Mint's accounting. If only I didn't have so much debt...)

Starting next month I think I'm going to throw an extra $1k at our highest rate debt each month, with the rest to Betterment. Highest effective rate is only 2.875% at this point but the market seems very plump. I think I'll put my bonus proceeds due at the end of October into the 35% stock account based off of this hunch, ready to transfer portions of it until the 75% stock bin at the next large correction.

Serial Midget said:

Good for you? Denver's housing market is notoriously stable...

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Denver is appreciating as rapidly as anywhere else. 10.9% annual is what I recall reading lately.

Tracking home worth, etc. is important to me since I base my insurance needs off of net worth. Once I hit +$500k net worth I'll drop $500k of life insurance, for instance. For my risk group that costs me $380/year. I'm all about shedding unnecessary expenses when possible, because life + my wife conspire to add on extra expenses +/- necessity.

For the record Mint tracks my vehicles' expenses using KBB values that update periodically, and as of Zillow giving an estimate for my house tracks its value that way as well. There's some fudge factor involved (how much is furniture worth? my fancy 5010? does it change that I have replacement value insurance?) but it should be pretty close since all of our accounts are plugged in.

A million in assets means nothing if there's a million in loans as well. I'm at about +$144k at this point net, but with a good trajectory even aside from the artifactual bump from Zillow.

My Land Cruiser now has three functional/mechanical faults:

- rear defrost button doesn't light up
- driver's seat belt height adjuster is stuck at the top position
- only tilt now works on the steering wheel, with telescoping attempts just resulting in a sad electronic noise

I guess those aren't so bad after all. This last telescoping issue just cropped up recently, and it looks like one that's common given that the Series 100s are getting long in the tooth (and because the motor would get a workout twice every drive, as it auto tilts and telescopes out of the way/back to position with key actuation).

http://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/diy-telescoping-column-motor-removal-repair.610648/



Update: seatbelt height adjuster wasn't broken! I am merely an idiot who was pushing the wrong (non-)button. 2 faults, plus the poor cosmetics. I'm going to get the hood repainted, replace the steering column telescoping motor, and get a cracked mirror surround on the RAV4 EV once bonus time rolls around.

1) I gave the Zoic Ether shorts a few tries. I like the construction and design of the outer short but the inner liner is still weird, even when in the right way. It's short both on top and bottom and in general just seems a size smaller than the outer liner.

Therefore I just ordered a few Pearl Izumi bib shorts from REI, to use with the Zoic outer shells so as to not shock passers-by.

2) My commuter bike has about the same number of creaking noises when pedaling as does my 5010. The whole bike in general is pretty tired, and the front wheel spoke tension in particular is subpar. Combine that with a disc, non-Boost, 9 mm QR front axle and you have the recipe for some nice noodliness.

I'm not going to buy anything until calendar 2017, but here's what I want in a replacement for it:

- Gates carbon belt drive
- Alfine 11 Di2 hub, with overall gearing such that I can match the 44-13 that I use as my highest gear on the top end (low gearing won't be an issue whatsoever given the 408% range), which is about 98 gear-inches
- at least 35 mm tire clearance, ideally taking the 47s I have on there now
- a nice front or rear rack setup that isn't as wide and heavy as the Minoura one I have on the front suspension fork currently. I'm not wedded to a front rack after experiencing the weird things it does to handling.
- geometry that'd play nicely with the crazy swept Soma Clarence bars that I have on the commuter now, as it is quite nice to have a variety of hand positions to mix things up (this shouldn't be hard since I like long reaches, those bars increase the reach, and the long/low trend from the trailbike world is confined to there)

Looking around a bit, this Marin would seem to do very nicely:



Aluminum frame, carbon fork, rear rack good enough for the tiny/light panniers that I run, Alfine 11 with Gates belt, 32 mm tires, hydraulic discs, fenders, even a light. No Di2 but I could pass that up if that's the only thing.

It's running 50 x 22 belt-teeth, so I'd have speeds that span 32-132 gear-inches, with some very handy 70, 90, and 102 gear-inch slots in there.

I've already posted about some of the moonshot ones before, but Budnitz and Seven Cycles would always be eager to take my money and provide a beautiful titanium commuter with everything I would want (to pay for)…





Maybe after I finish paying off all these student loans I'll treat myself to some custom Ti goodness, more carbonz for the trail bike, etc. That $2419 MSRP on that Marin wouldn't buy even the frame on these oontzy ones.

Slowly getting quicker on my commute:



Back home is always about 5 minutes quicker than the way out due to the small elevation change + existential dread but this was a new record for me.

21:28 for 6.1x miles, 17.1 mph average, 17.7 mph while moving. Keep in mind that close to 3 miles of my route is on dirt/sand/gravel.

Another bike idea as I kill idle time between reading ultrasound studies:



That's a Specialized Sequoia Expert. Note that it's basically what my 29er commuter bike is evolving into, what with the bars that ape the position of being on the hoods, and my aborted plan to go to a 1 x 10 setup with 39 x 11-36 gearing (this would be 42 x 11-42).

I really don't like that Minoura rack I ended up slapping on the suspension fork on the 29er, but am not going to replace the whole bike this year since I have the sunk cost of the whole XT drivetrain (from the Turner build, recall). I do like the look of this setup, though...

Plan:

1) Return Minoura rack to credit card company. I bought it from modernbike.com, which is no Amazon as far as returns (Amazon was out of stock) and only will take uninstalled items. Chase will refund me in exchange for the "like new/good working condition" item (as distinct from uninstalled) within 90 days of purchase, which was in early July.

2) Go to a single ring setup a la this pretty Specialized. I spend most of my time in 44 x 13/15/17 with limited time in 44 x 19 and 44 x 11. To make the whole cassette more usable with the 1 x 10 setup (instead of just gears 5-9) I should probably go for a 45t ring on an Alfine crankset instead of the other option of 39t.

3) Get a Surly or Salsa steel rigid fork with all of the eyelets. Replace the returned Minoura with a much less ugly Tubus Duo:



...

4) ???

5) Profit! Actually, the final step would be to add carbonz via a new wheelset in the spring. This could be from universalcycles.com or maybe a local shop if the locals know of someone reliable. I could even build them myself, I suppose, since I have built one wheel with reasonable success thus far.

What this would get me would be less creaking (via replacing all the mid-bike parts), less ugliness (via replacing the suspension fork and huge, steel Minoura rack), 1 x 10 with reasonable gearing for my commute prowess, and lets me parcel out the cost over time.

StiHacka said:

Do you ever visit strip clubs? If so, I would like to see a similarly detailed analysis here.

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I grew up in the age of Internet porn. Who has time for strip clubs?

Serial Midget said:

Carbon wheels for commuting? Hard on the ass and wrists if you are not racing. Maybe. You decide.

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Maybe not crabonz then. Something tauter and lighter than the machine built bottom of the barrel set on there.

Last night I took the rear suspension apart on my 5010 (pulled everything except for the back pivot from the lower link, which would unscrew but which didn't want to come all the way out). I cleaned and greased everything up with Park grease and did the same for the pedals.

Lo and behold, my bike was almost quiet on this morning's (cold) ride. I still have a click with the right pedal stroke that's probably from the direct mount chainring but the other creaks and clunks have disappeared... for now.

CN: I took dan-o's advice and it seems to have worked for the most part.

By popular demand, a photo from today:

StiHacka said:

Nice! Looks like your lens was a bit dirty (sweaty? ) which impacted the contrast a bit.

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That's the iPhone auto HDR at work when shooting into the sun.

Serial Midget said:

OMG! Are those rocks?

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Earlier part of same loop that has things like this:

Toshi said:

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so it's no by-the-river trail. I still haven't cleaned the section in the quoted photo. Best attempt is one dab right above where the right shifter clamp is in the photo then riding it out.

I am super slow and inefficient at running. One can see from this that I ended up walking a whole lot more than I did running, and gave up completely about 16 minutes in. The last spike for the run was to cross the street before getting to my alleyway.

Got to start from somewhere, I guess (or just not run! heh). I wanted to get out and do something today since the rest of the day was allocated to tending to the wife (her 5k this morning) or kids.

Context for that 145-150 steps per minute "pace" that I was doing in my jogging segments: http://www.ontherunevents.com/ns0060.htm

What I gleaned from that: One can't actually run at less than 150 spm. Fast people are fast at 160 spm. Slow people are slow at that same 160 spm. The difference is flexibility/stride length. I've definitely noticed that my wife looks like she's shuffling along when she jogs, with the characteristic lack of hip flexion of a recreational runner. I probably look like the same, only in a penguin fat suit.

Adventurous said:

Fixed that for you.

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This is sound advice. I think I'll make little 1.4 mile loops of my neighborhood park now and then, perhaps mostly walking, as I want to be able to keep up with Mariko as she gets older. She'll have a 1 mile "race" she can do in a few years and at this pace she'd outrun me. Can't have the 3.5 year old showing me up.

Methinks this is a Land Cruiser:

https://www.facebook.com/ValiantJapanese/videos/1040941279354551/

Either that or this random Japanese dude driving through a tunnel actively wants to buy a new engine for his vehicle.

Toshi said:

Return Minoura rack to credit card company. I bought it from modernbike.com, which is no Amazon as far as returns (Amazon was out of stock) and only will take uninstalled items. Chase will refund me in exchange for the "like new/good working condition" item (as distinct from uninstalled) within 90 days of purchase, which was in early July.

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This process is now all but complete: I just have to return the thing to Chase's benefits manager company. Therefore I'm free in theory to get that Salsa or Surly fork and the Tubus Duo... but they're out of stock everywhere this side of the Atlantic, seemingly. I might as well go to my (weird*) local LBS and have them order that stuff through QBP, I guess.

* they're weird because they deal either in $100 kids bikes or $10k Serottas, seemingly. They did have a Specialized AWOL a few years back but that took them a few years to sell, in turn, and they haven't ventured into a similar niche since then.

Westy said:

A bike in an MRI would be a bad idea. X-rays would cause explosive decomposition of the composite matrix.

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MRI involves no X-rays...

I didn't let my inability to buy Salsa or Tubus junks keep me from spending money tonight, though. I ordered up a GoPro Session mini cam. It shall record my commute, which is admittedly boring, and weekend mountain biking exploits.

The main point for it really is the commute, though: as evidenced by my lounge post yesterday there are a shit-ton of unleashed dogs on my commute route, both from idiot yuppies in my neighborhood and the many transients living in hobo-villages along the Sand Creek Greenway. (I count at least 4 separate sites now, which shows that Denver's anti-camping laws are kind of a joke in reality.) Video would be key evidence if I have to go after someone for damages if I get bitten.