[DaveW]

We sell that Serfas pump you have and the Lezyne pump in my shop.
Take the Lezyne pump any day IMO.
But if your thinking about going tubeless get the Lezyne "dirtdrive" as it a bigger volume pump and better at beading the tires.

 

[Toshi]

The valve head screw on nature and the mere rubber hose on the Lezyne turned me off, along with the image of the company as selling "high style" Chinese crap to unsuspecting Americans. I'm not saying the others don't do this, too, but Lezyne in particular rubbed me the wrong way.

I have a 12V compressor that I use for topping off the cars' tires, which worked quite well (via a Presta adapter that also has a one-way valve) for seating the tubeless tires on my now-sold-off Turner.

 

[Toshi]

Today I'm refinancing my Land Cruiser at 1.49%, down from its prior 3.24% rate at my previously-local credit union. I went through Digital Credit Union, and so far the process has been very painless.

Their rates are flat from 1-65 months, so I went for a 65 month term per the above, figuring that the extra money freed up by virtue of the longer term/lower payment will be put to more productive use attacking my other debt at (slightly) higher rates, of which I still have plenty.

Debt summary in decreasing rate order:

Now:

Wife grad plus loan 7.9%
Wife grad plus loan 6.8%
Wife undergrad private loan 5% (small amount)
Credit union car loan 3.24%
Wife undergrad Federal loan 3.125%
My med school Federal loan debt, nominally 4.25% but effectively much less due to foreseen PSLF

Post planned mortgage and loan refinancing:

Wife undergrad private loan 5% (small amount) <-- soon wiped out
Wife undergrad Federal loan 3.125%
Wife grad loans consolidated with SoFi, < 3% variable rate anticipated
Effective mortgage rate under 3% assuming 4.5% nominal thanks to my high marginal rate
DCU car loan 1.49%
My med school debt at its effectively very low rate, with no incentive to prepay due to PSLF

 

[DaveW]

The valve head screw on nature and the mere rubber hose on the Lezyne turned me off, along with the image of the company as selling "high style" Chinese crap to unsuspecting Americans. I'm not saying the others don't do this, too, but Lezyne in particular rubbed me the wrong way.

I have a 12V compressor that I use for topping off the cars' tires, which worked quite well (via a Presta adapter that also has a one-way valve) for seating the tubeless tires on my now-sold-off Turner.

Lol the Lezyne is higher quality than that serfas which is a pile of crap, get the dual head Lezyne and you don't have the screw on problem.
But if you have a compressor why are you thinking of getting a track pump? Seems a bit redundant to me.

 

[Toshi]

Compressor is 12V, so I have to pop the car's hood each time. I bought a 120V compressor to just plug into the wall but it turned out to be a noisy pile of slag so I returned it.

Serfas pump was bought this past spring so I'm already stuck with it. I'm ok with it other than it being a little light weight.

 

[dump]

The Lezyne pump is nice - it pumps fast and is completely rebuildable should anything break. I initially thought I'd try the screw on and then get the double-head press-on but changed my mind after using it for a bit. It provides a solid interface, takes an extra 5 seconds, but you won't ever bend/break a valve nub. The rubber hose... I think every pump I've ever used has had a rubber hose. Seems to do the job nicely. I like how it packs away over the top of the handle. Going on 4 years with it... good stuff.

The only other product of Lezyne I tried was their tire levers - perhaps the worst I've ever used - broke them almost immediately.

 

[Toshi]

For home use I'm very satisfied with my large Park metal tire levers. So simple yet good.

 

[dump]

The best I've used are no-name plastic lever from the bike shop in the red plastic sleeve. I've always wondered about metal levers and marring the rims.

 

[Toshi]

I despise tire levers that I can see bending during use. The Park metal ones really are quite nice, although your concern wrt rim damage is vaild.

 

[Westy]

I refuse to run a tire with a bead so tight I need anything more than a single plastic lever. I do not want to find myself halfway down some mountain trying to fix a flat tire that requires serious hardware to mount/dismount.

 

[Toshi]

I agree with that, too. I just like the feel of the metal ones better, and don't care so strongly about my rims staying perfectly unmarred.

 

[Toshi]

I've yet to start funding it (starting next month once earnest money set aside--that'll be in a low risk, low yield account since it's a very short term expense), but here's how I plan to manage my down payment account with Betterment:

It makes it ridiculously simple to change the stock:bond allocation, and if you have over $50k in the account it does fancy automatic tax loss harvesting for you, as I gushed about a few posts back. It says aggressive risk despite the 50:50 allocation because I set a time horizon of 2 years for it. In reality, I need more like $60k in 1.5 years so I'm ok with taking on more risk (it suggested 35 stock:65 bond).

I included the actual makeup of individual funds as an aside and to illustrate that it invests in Vanguard funds that are individually sane: one doesn't control the individual fund allocation directly, but instead just picks the ratio with a slider and it does the rest. This "hands off" nature clearly becomes more important when it's juggling fund classes around for tax loss harvesting.

In the more distant future when the house stuff is settled down then I'm going to go very aggressive with a 90:10 or 95:5 for a general taxable investment account with a longer time horizon. At least once my wife's student loans are refinanced then all of our debt will be at pretty good interest rates (see post #5524), such that I will choose the mathematically correct option of investing excess money each month instead of paying down low rate debt early.

Here's a referral link that'll get you 30 days free (and the same for me): http://betterment.com/invite/toshimasaclark

 

[Toshi]

1) Paid $1.22 (after credit card cash back) per gallon for 85 octane today:

This was the sole time this month that I've filled up, for the record, by virtue of having biked in a fair number of days.

2) I'm not going to be biking much if at all this week, on the other hand, given that there is still snow and ice on the ground at the moment, not to mention what's in store the next few days:

3) I bought a luxury good today, in a manner unlike my usual. Teflon skillet has been losing its Teflon in mangy pieces, and after reading about how ingesting Teflon is generally not a recommended thing I decided that we needed a change. Rather than support Chinese workers and buying a $30 cast iron skillet like a normal person, I decided to support French workers and get something with fancy enamel both inside and out (the inside coating is matte and black but is enamel nonetheless):

Think this but in a darker blue, to match the Le Creuset dutch oven that we got as a wedding gift back in the day. It's an upper middle class status symbol for housewives, I admit, but it's also a pretty nice hunk of metal. I got it for more than 40% off of its going rate online (outlet store + their own sale), which makes it seem a tiny bit more reasonable. I christened it today by making a batch of beef curry, and while it's not magic or even ideal in its design* it's a nice pan.

* handle gets hot near the body of the skillet. It's fine further out where the hole is.

4) I'm moving more of my banking duties from my Seattle based credit union, BECU, to one centered on the east coast, DCU. They similarly have no presence here, but via shared branching, deposits via mobile app, and fee-free ATMs that abound that's not really an issue. I'm switching because their rates are better: 1.49% on my Land Cruiser's loan, and 0.80% in a money market account with no fee and a $1,000 minimum balance to earn interest.

Said money market account pays a bit less than Amex Personal Savings (0.85%) or GE Capital (1.1%, iirc) but those accounts have a latency of several days when one actually wants to get at the money. Use of the DCU money market account, via the shared branching and local credit union offices, would let me write a cashier's check for earnest money on the house build without any delay at all. That's worth 0.3% to me.

The house down payment money, on the other hand, is something for which foreseen transaction delays can be worked around, and that's why I'm going to use the Betterment account as I posted about above with a moderately aggressive mix of stocks:bonds. Taxable account money above and beyond a down payment will have even a longer time horizon for its use, so I'll use Betterment + a very aggressive mix, perhaps 90 or 95% stocks.

5) Land Cruiser battery went dead after sitting in a frigid outdoor parking lot for a week. I think it might have been my OBDII dongle that caused a small drain, as said dongle has to use at least some current to broadcast its WiFi-ness to the world. I'll replace the 2012-era battery if it happens again sans dongle. Other than that and the inherent lack of wintry goodness that being on all seasons implies the Land Cruiser has been truckin' right along without a complaint.

 

[Toshi]

Once we decide that no more kid-births are in our future then I may switch to the high deductible plan so as to use the HSA as yet another tax-deferred hole in which to stash money (in addition to the 401(a), 403(b), 457(b) pre-tax and backdoor Roth IRA post-tax options available to me), but the incentive to do that is limited, as alluded to in my MMM vs WCI post above, since I'm already going to be putting enough to meet my retirement goals via these mechanisms.

Another good reason to not go the high deductible/HSA route is that billing becomes more of a car-buying haggling game, with unsuspecting sometimes being charged a "cash price" that is many multiples of the negotiated-down insurance reimbursement rate...

A few updates on this high deductible + HSA idea above:

1) I found out that my assumption as laid out in the last quoted paragraph is untrue. If one has a high deductible health plan one pays the insurance-negotiated rate for each given service, either out of pocket or from the HSA. This is opposed to the free-for-all cash rate for the uninsured, which is often much higher ($1,3xx cash rate vs. $40x negotiated rate for my wife's last ultrasound, for instance).

2) I think open enrollment for my health plan is in late spring, with changes effective July 1. This would actually work out nicely given Thing 2's planned May arrival. I will stay (not as if I have a choice outside of open enrollment) with my current PPO plan through June, with it covering nearly all of the costs, and then switch to the lower premium but higher deductible plan + HSA come July.

3) Where does one put HSA money? I thought it sat in a non-interest-bearing account such as in a Flexible Spending Account, but this is actually not necessarily the case. The default option is to have a non-interest bearing account, which is boring. One can use a bank like DCU as in the above post, where one can earn a paltry interest rate of perhaps 0.05%, only marginally better than nothing.

On the other end of the spectrum one can invest in the traditional sense. Vanguard doesn't run HSA accounts themselves but does point to an outfit called HSA Administrators, renamed as healthsavings.com, where their offering is an HSA in which one invests entirely in Vanguard funds. This really illustrates that HSAs are an investment vehicle that has the added benefit of the ability to pay medical bills tax-free. Here's what they offer fund-wise:

http://healthsavings.com/hsa/vanguard-fund-list/

As I need to avoid holding the same funds in multiple accounts (Betterment taxable, regular tax-deferred retirement, HSA) in order to let Betterment's tax loss harvesting algorithm work without the IRS crying foul, I think I'd have to go with all-in-one type fund like a LifeStrategy. As I'll treat this HSA mentally as just another retirement account I'll go aggressive for the long haul:

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0122&FundIntExt=INT

80:20 stocks:bonds, 0.17% fees. Not bad. I can afford the risk since if the HSA dipped to a point at which I couldn't cover medical expenses with it I'd just pay the expenses out of pocket, continue to contribute to the HSA at its $6,650/year rate, and then reimburse myself later once the HSA catches up. There's no time limit to reimbursement of any sort, from what I've read, so as long as I don't have a series of catastrophic health cost years this wouldn't be an issue.

 

[Toshi]

Amidst all this financial blathering I forgot to post recent photos! A few from Christmas day:

A veritable mini rendition of my wife, only with my nose.

Opening a present that was sitting on one of her uncle's laps.

Contemplating the alphabet.

 

[Toshi]

Xcel Energy has a Windsource program that basically duplicates the Green Up program we like so much.

Uh, whoops. I'd suspected as much from reading my bills, but my request to enroll in Windsource in June when I was setting up electricity service for our rental house was somehow not heeded. These past months my wife has been driving around smugly in a 33 MPG-equivalent (as judged by CO2) coal powered car.

To my credit, I did try calling and emailing them to ensure I was enrolled, but had no luck getting through until today: I've been on a somewhat low volume service today so have been calling this and that company to check up on things.

From next month we'll have 100% wind offset electricity, as was my plan all along, and as the previous tenants also did Windsource it is possible that Xcel simply forgot to bill me but continued the service. Maybe.

 

[Toshi]

As of today my credit card debt is paid off.

(It was all at 0%, with a few 3% transfer fees. I probably averaged close to 0% overall cost after accounting for a few interval sign-on bonuses.)

I also am starting to put the next part of my plan into action: I need $N in readily available cash for earnest money for the house we plan to build. I'm going to take out that $N from my 2010-conversion Roth IRA but not empty it as I was planning previously. Then with the next $11k I see before April 15 I'll fund my Roth and a Roth for my wife for the 2014 tax year.

This way I'll still be able to re-raid the Roths for down payment money next year, if necessary, and if I save up enough later in the year in my taxable Betterment account then I can let them sit and accrue interest. This Roth re-funding is only possible because I'm still "front door" Roth eligible one last time this 2014 tax year, which I didn't realize until now.

x 2

Update: Holding off on Roth raiding as I must use the funds for earnest money/closing costs within 120 days of the distribution per this article. The home builder is totally mum about the timeline, and I can't be assured that things will move in the next four months.

I guess I could still withdraw my original contribution/conversion money in the short term and fund the small residual balance between the conversion money and what I need as earnest money with next month's earnings. It's all the same: taking from one pot, putting in another, with no net gain to me besides being able to access the money quicker. The original conversion money is fair game to withdraw as of January 1, 2015 without invoking home purchasing, so there's no 120 day rule to worry about here.

 

[Toshi]

I revived the Mac OS X side of my Hackintosh tonight! What a pain in the ass this has been. Given that I built it in 2010, updated it once with an SSD, and am still using it, I guess it's a good deal for the original $800 outlay, but still it has undeniably sucked up many hours of my life, including several tonight in wrangling it back to life.

As of now it's running Lion with graphics, wireless, and sound all working. Win. Although Thunderbird works ok on Windows, and Chrome is Chrome regardless of platform, it's amazing how much visually nicer the everyday experience is on the Mac side.

Update some hours later: Now running Yosemite, which I need for the recent XCode version, which I need in turn to update my iOS app.

 

[Toshi]

I thought to bust out the snowthrower and clear the paths in front of the group of houses of which one is my rental. Nope. Engine is seized. Barely turned it over once by hand, and the electric starter just groans.

Time to find a 21 mm socket, pull the plug, and see if the auto parts store has some fluid that might loosen up its workings.

 

[Westy]

I thought to bust out the snowthrower and clear the paths in front of the group of houses of which one is my rental. Nope. Engine is seized. Barely turned it over once by hand, and the electric starter just groans.

Time to find a 21 mm socket, pull the plug, and see if the auto parts store has some fluid that might loosen up its workings.

Marvel mystery oil. However, it is a bit like taking pain killers for a brain tumor. If it is a seized engine it probably will not last long if you get it running. I am not familiar with drive systems of snow blowers but hopefully for you it is somehow still in gear and your are trying to start under load, perhaps a partially engaged clutch.


Try it now.

 

[Toshi]

There's some kind of clutch in that one can select whether the auger spins or not, but the lack of turning over to me suggests something more intrinsic to the engine.

My theory is that the piston has seized to the cylinder wall, which makes sense since the last time it was run was the end of the 2012-2013 winter, nearly 2 years back. I did make sure to run it dry, but hadn't touched it since, being busy with other things in Seattle.

If I can't revive it there's a guy around here who does mobile repairs on small engines.

 

[Toshi]

Revived. Turned out to be profoundly flooded rather than seized. I blame gyrations during two cross-country moves. In any case it fired up just fine after I pulled the plug and turned it over by hand (thankfully outside on the snow as I had an inkling this might be the case--no gas spilled in garage), spit out white smoke for a few seconds (some water in the gas?), and then proceeded to run as if nothing had happened.

I listed it for sale on craigslist as a result: seems more noise and space than it's worth to me in saved shovel time.

https://denver.craigslist.org/for/4832058567.html

Update: sold for asking price 3 hours later. Not through craigslist but rather through a local message board/Facebook group. Guy I sold it to sells the computer system that I use to read studies at work, funny coincidence.

 

[Toshi]

I think I finally found a decent group to play with. Too bad it's in Thornton, which is physically close but along the terrible during commuting hours I-270. The group is a step down from our Long Island group but is still pretty good in the community music scheme of things, plus I get to step in as assistant principal thanks to that person having fallen down and hitting her head, or some such.

Dr. Toshi in the Conservatory with a candlestick.

Said elderly infirm lady healed up herself enough to come back to the group, so as of last night I got booted down into the midst of the section. I will admit it's a bit of an ego deflater, but it'll still be a more worthwhile group to play with than the first that I tried (which was both much worse musically and more expensive in their dues by roughly an order of magnitude (!)).

 

[Toshi]

I'm going to give the alternative personal transportation thread a big bump with an e-bike state of the union update focusing on mid-drives, but in this post I'm going to muse a bit about something else electric-powered, related to the snowthrower that I just sold.

Greenworks Tools makes a whole range of lithium-ion battery powered and corded electric lawn and garden tools, all with green-hued plastics to fit with the theme. I have no need of any such lawn and garden tools until we move into a bigger house that has its own lawn and a non-negligible length driveway, but that day will come.

There are a few interesting things about their lineup. One is that they offer more or less equivalent corded and cordless electric products, allowing for easy comparison, and the other is that they are big on their latest "80V Pro" setup. (I bet their "80V" packs are really nominally 3.6V/cell lithium in a 20s configuration, allowing for high lithium voltages and marketing literature inflation, for the record. This is confirmed by their Wh versus Ah ratios on the subsequent screenshot)

Anyway, their 80V lineup includes only one battery size at the moment, labeled as 80V 2Ah, although their website has navigation elements with broken links referencing larger packs, up to a 16Ah (!) monster:

This 80V 2Ah pack powers two tools of interest to me, a lawn mower and a single stage snowthrower. The highest power corded tools they offer in these categories would be this (120V) corded 13 amp lawn mower and 12 amp snowthrower.

Lawn mower costs, everything MSRP to keep things simple:

Cordless lawn mower is sold as "tool only" per the website at $399. The battery is listed at $179 by itself (! ouch) and the charger at $99 (!!). I'll ignore the battery and charger costs since they're included with the snowthrower and the listing might be a mistake.

Its corded equivalent runs for $239. So far, point in favor of extension cords. Comparison of power is not possible since the cordless lawn mower doesn't have specs published yet.

Snowthrower costs:

$399 gets the snowthrower plus a battery and charger. Given the supposed $278 value of the battery and charger that seems like a pretty good deal for the chassis, motor, and auger, as the corded version is listed at $199. Point in favor of battery powered tools here.

Here we can compare power a bit as a sanity check. The cordless one is reputed to run for 45 minutes on said "80V" 2Ah battery per the marketing literature, 30 minutes per Lowes reviews. Even at 30 minutes that means it's drawing only 288W average. Hmph. The 120V 12A corded one should be drawing 1440W in comparison (since 120VAC already implies RMS voltage, AFAIK).

This rather large power disparity is very peculiar since the corded one has humdrum reviews while the cordless one is lauded… Perhaps a difference in expectations can account for this? The cordless one uses a more efficient motor? Whatever the reason, I think both of these Greenworks "80V Pro" products are worth a try a year or two from now, as they're available from Lowes and thus should be easily returnable if they suck.

 

[Toshi]

Said alt personal trans thread bump is complete:

http://www.ridemonkey.com/posts/4028553/

Long and short of it is that Europe and Japan have lots of mid drive options. Mid drive seems the better technical solution than hub motors. There exists at least one mid drive retrofit kit, that'd run about $1000 accounting for the need for another battery.

Too bad these battery standards aren't interchangeable with those used in electric lawn equipment, as per my above post. That'd be something: use it to commute during the week and mow the lawn on the weekend...

Anyway, if we do build up north then electricity would be a good way to shorten my commute to ~30m including prep/lock time on both ends. I could add a 750W mid drive and frame mounted pack to my 29er, replace the terrible "suspension" fork with a steel touring fork so as to mount a front rack for panniers, and perhaps even fit my rear Tubus rack with a QR adapter (no eyelets on frame) if smaller tires let it fit.

(The Tubus rack, for 26" wheels, doesn't clear the current 29 x 2.1" meats.)

((Those who remember my earlier front pannier idea am few months back will note that it stopped when I found my work laptop wouldn't fit. Turns out I rarely bring my work laptop home, as cloud storage plus MATLAB installed also at home makes doing so unnecessary.))

 

[Toshi]

Jalopnik has a nice article on how Acura's designers focused on keeping outward visibility as good as possible with the new NSX, what with thin A pillars and a low cowl, the latter a welcome byproduct of mid-engined layout.

Sounds similar to their goals for the original NSX, which is a car that I would love if it had 3 inches more headroom (and a correspondingly higher top edge of the windshield).

 

[Toshi]

I also am starting to put the next part of my plan into action: I need $N in readily available cash for earnest money for the house we plan to build.

A few updates on this, with hypomanic interim plans not described:

- new best guess is early summer to be able to reserve our desired lot and enter into a contract with the builder
- new plan is to shirk all non-mandatory retirement contributions until closing time (no Roth monkey business now, and no 403(b) or 457 contributions this year), and make a mad dash to try to hit 20%
- if I'm really on top of the savings/expense cutting game I might even be able to pay down enough to make the mortgage conforming, for extra low-rate goodness. That last is a bit of a moon shot, though.

if we do build up north then […] I could add a 750W mid drive and frame mounted pack to my 29er

Now that I think of this idea more, I like it less. Perhaps I should just ride my 29er in as is only when I'm on academic days (flexible hours) or in the middle of summer, and suck it up and be very boringly conventional in a car the other days.

 

[Toshi]

Ugh. I had Jessica ferry me out to the plot up north where we want to build, and I rode back on the 29er.

It was unpleasant.

Just shy of 25 minutes from the dirt lot to our current rental's garage door, so perhaps 40 or just under to the hospital. That doesn't seem that bad, and I'm actually ok with the pace since I haven't been on the bike in a month what with Seattle trip, two+ frigid weeks, and then an icy, Tamiflu-laden last week.

It was the experience that was bad instead. My elation from my last exploring ride at finding a route through the underbelly of the neighborhood was replaced instead by frustration at my slow pace, the super slow rolling feeling when on gravel and dirt (better than half of the route), and lung irritation from traveling next to I-70 with headwinds whipping fine Kansas dust into my alveoli.

I'm still not sure which I would find more distressing: car commuting or uglifying my 29er with a mid-drive. After today, I don't think plain-Jane 29er commuting is a palatable option. At least I have a year and a half to make up my mind.

 

[Toshi]

On the topic of questionable financial things, I continued my streak and added two more credit cards to the stable today… because their sign-on bonus combined is 75,000 United airline miles.

In September I'm planning on visiting family Japan with Jessica + Mariko + unnamed Thing 2 (which will be several months out of the womb by then). 70,000 miles == one coach round trip ticket on a Dreamliner from DEN to NRT. That's a $1,800+ sign-on bonus, in other words.

Adding another few tens of thousands in available credit will only further improve my utilization ratios, too. On the other hand, my average age of accounts is kind of crap and this move doesn't help that at all. That will be remedied in a year and change when I'm actually applying for mortgages, as I'll transfer the available credit to my other Chase cards and close these two new ones before their waived-first-year annual fee kicks in.

 

[Toshi]

This rather large power disparity is very peculiar since the corded [electric snowthrower] has humdrum reviews while the cordless one is lauded… Perhaps a difference in expectations can account for this?

More on said humdrum reviews of the Greenworks corded electric snowthrower:

Hmph. That indeed is quite piss-poor. Interestingly, there's that two stage electric one above from Ariens:

Looks the business, right? Too bad it also is mediocre despite being quite expensive indeed:

CR's Take

Paying large for this 24-inch Ariens buys one of the world's only cordless-electric two-stage snow blowers: Its 48-volt motor is powered by five batteries, rather than the usual gas engine. But aside from those bragging rights, you get decidedly little performance for the price. Clearing speed and plow-pile removal were just mediocre, and throwing distance was unimpressive.

 

[Toshi]

Intriguing, if still a bit half-baked, site purporting to measure long term vehicle quality through objective analysis:

http://tradeinqualityindex.com/

It clearly vindicates my choice of Land Cruiser, so I approve of its methodology, naturally.

 

[dump]

I'm still not sure which I would find more distressing: car commuting or uglifying my 29er with a mid-drive. After today, I don't think plain-Jane 29er commuting is a palatable option. At least I have a year and a half to make up my mind.

I'd suggest doing it for at least 2-3 weeks before deciding to put a motor on the bike. When I used to commute SF -> San Rafael, it sucked in the beginning but I got stronger and it became a complete non-issue. I did change from dirt-jumper to road bike after about 3 weeks though, fwiw

 

[dump]

snowthrower:

Here you go:

Bonus that you get to reap the benefits of a bit of manual labor. I've been shoveling snow for a long long time, and snow blowers are worth the time, effort or cost. If you really have a lot of snow, pay a guy $20 to plow you out, otherwise the above device does the trick really well.

 

[Toshi]

It was a welcome aid in New York:

Snow is so fluffy here it hasn't really helped for fresh snow, and single stage units are nearly useless for packed snow... thus the reason why I sold it.

 

[dump]

It was a welcome aid in New York:

Snow is so fluffy here it hasn't really helped for fresh snow, and single stage units are nearly useless for packed snow... thus the reason why I sold it.

Yup, agreed.

 

[Toshi]

Yet another flat today. 300 strokes of my hand pump took the tire to about 15 psi, judging from its squishiness. Another goathead right through the casing. I'm going to order Schwalbe Marathon Plus (but not Tour) tires tomorrow in 700 x 38 unless the local bike shop has something competitive in stock.

I'd also like to see if they have a Salsa fork with rack eyelets in stock. Mmm nice cromo with eyelets...

In other words, while idly looking up crap on the Internet (e.g. lawn tractors with 48" snow plow blade options) I revisited the product info for the Bafang mid drive. Although it is nominally a 750W setup, it runs a 25A controller, and only accepts 48V. 48 x 25 >> 750. Hmm. The good news is that there's a fairly reasonable yet still light and frame mountable pack option that supports 25A discharge.

 

[Toshi]

I went to my LBS this morning. Nice enough guy. Lots of cheap bikes and high end road bikes--bimodal distribution which makes sense in Stapleton.

They had a beautiful Specialized AWOL, about which I've gushed in past pages of this thread. Its Gates belt drive is actually its downside for me, as with the Novara belt drive model, as that would preclude mid drive fitment.

700 x 38 mm tires look very skinny in person, especially as I have some dirt and gravel segments even on my current short commute route. The LBS only had Specialized tires, and their "Blackbelt" protection (Armadillo name long dropped?!) didn't seem that robust in light of the scourge of goatheads. I'm probably going to Amazon up tyte aforementioned Schwalbes in 45 mm width instead, unless I change my mind yet again.

Although I found them a link from Salsa's site (buylocalbuynow?) and they probably could order stuff, they didn't carry anything from Salsa. No touring forks were thus ogled other than on that AWOL and a random Specialized Globe commuter special near the door.

Unless our house plans change and we pick a closer location (going to visit a model home today in a Stapleton sub-neighborhood such that my commute would be shorter even than now!) I think planning for an e-bike 2 build would be in order--not that I've ever said no to planning something for the future, anyway. I think I'll structure it as a two column table, with one for the cheapest option possible that'd work, such as a Nashbar frame, and another for the sane but nice choice, such as a Surly or Salsa piece. Perhaps I shall commandeer my wife's Chromebook and dive into that tonight, as such tasks are not fun on an iPad that reloads tabs and loses data without warning.

 

[Toshi]

They had a beautiful Specialized AWOL, about which I've gushed in past pages of this thread. Its Gates belt drive is actually its downside for me, as with the Novara belt drive model, as that would preclude mid drive fitment.

This turns out to be partially true. The Bafang mid drive as shipped has no conventional spider, but several outfits make 104 and 130 mm BCD adapters that result in a spider, so that problem is solvable.

What I fear may be intractable is getting the thing into alignment. Gates is rather picky about this and tension, from what I gather from their technical manual. Recall that a mid drive would add several tens of mm to the right hand crank via a super long spindle, as the final reduction gear fits in between the crank arm and the BB shell. I suspect that getting a chainring-equivalent-for-belts aligned with a sprocket in the back may require shifting over the rear sprocket beyond the physical constraint of the right side dropout.

As sexy as belts are it is probably best to stick to a chain, which although less efficient at cross-bike angles won't simply slide off.

 

[Toshi]

I think planning for an e-bike 2 build would be in order--not that I've ever said no to planning something for the future, anyway. I think I'll structure it as a two column table, with one for the cheapest option possible that'd work, such as a Nashbar frame, and another for the sane but nice choice, such as a Surly or Salsa piece.

I knew it already, but looking over the $99.99 Nashbar frame options was underwhelming. Surly, made in Taiwan similarly (iirc), offers up a more attractive range. For this purpose (e-bike commuter with off road segment) I think the following would work really well:

- Surly Ogre frame and rigid fork, which are both of a 29er light touring design wrought in steel with ample eyelets and nice touches like sliding disc mounts and sliding vertical dropouts
- full fenders per this linked blog post: some minor modifications are required
- Tubus front rack and panniers, with no rear rack to start (my Tubus 26" Cargo rear rack probably would clear the 700 x 45 mm tire alone but probably not with fenders)
- all parts save wrong diameter seat post but including wheel set snagged from my current 29er build (generally XT)
- Bafang mid drive in 750W flavor, which includes its own super long square taper BB and crank arms
- 48V 8 or so Ah 25A output capable pack mounted in frame triangle via bottle cage bosses

Here's an unmolested Ogre as a basis for imagination:

 

[Toshi]

Unless our house plans change and we pick a closer location (going to visit a model home today in a Stapleton sub-neighborhood such that my commute would be shorter even than now!)

Model home (and other not yet closed upon homes) duly visited. Location good. Lots way too tiny. Each house had good views of the next house's wall seemingly 8 feet away. House interiors were similarly long and skinny.

Verdict: :nononocat: In other words, the move north to to-be-built net zero house plan still is the working plan, with the longer commute that that implies.

 

[Toshi]

Re: Surly plus mid drive idea:

I was unaware of this, but apparently my idea has been struck on by others before. They used a Karate Monkey instead of an Ogre. Superficial differences seem no canti bosses and no sliding disc mounts. Upon further review of the Surly site, it also lacks rack and fender eyelets.

Also note that the narrator seems even nerdier than me!