[Toshi]

1) for those not following along, Keith is in Afghanistan. he's posting some interesting musings and photos on his blog: http://blog.pedalandwrench.com/

2) i just listed jessica's commuter bike on craiglist since she wasn't using it. i'll build her something that she likes better +/- electric bits once we're in new york.

http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/bik/998386909.html

probably worth it to someone just for the XTR, Chris King, and Thomson bits!

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/2353/img5156zr2.jpg
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/7320/img5157pt2.jpg
http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/387/img5159pr9.jpg

 

[Toshi]

2) i just listed jessica's commuter bike on craiglist since she wasn't using it. i'll build her something that she likes better +/- electric bits once we're in new york.

and it's sold and out of my hands in one hour. this time i only had 3 people reply within the hour (one of whom drove right over and bought it for $250 cash) so i think it was priced right. the klein was probably too low. c'est la vie.

 

[Toshi]

more fodder from the new camera:

fog over alki [beach, west seattle]

 

[Toshi]

unsold cars piling up on Nissan UK's test track:

the meltdown continues...

 

[Toshi]

i'm not sure if this is accessible as a general link, but here's a video hosted on facebook of me skiing:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=858691383441

 

[Toshi]

 

[Toshi]

japanese riding instructors putting on a demonstration:

gets interesting about 1:30 in.


and here the rare sport of synchronized high-siding:

 

[DaveW]

That instructors vid is pretty cool, wonder how long it took to get the timing right?

 

[Toshi]

That instructors vid is pretty cool, wonder how long it took to get the timing right?

the japanese are obsessive about their routines, e.g. morning calisthenics ("rajio taiso")...

 

[Barbaton]

thanks for the local input. i'm not sure of what my commute will entail just yet because i'm not sure where we'll be living. it could be on the hospital campus, so my commute would be entirely by foot. the buying a place option is kind of out the door due to my pessimism about the economy's prospects for recovery in 4 years. thus i'll probably be coming from one of the local towns on surface streets, ideally less than 5 miles so as to make a bike commute pleasant in warmer months, too.

Long time no post, but late night procrastinating writing an OSCE + vintage port = check what's going on on RM for the first time in a few months.

WRT LI, as a relatively recent transplant I will tell you this is by far the least bike friendly place I have ever lived, including among the drunktards of Northern New Mexico. Even in cars, we were independently subjected to the receiving end of two unsolicited major road rage incidents within the first week of living here (in the second K was a passenger in a Town Car). These involved baseball bats, lots of Suffolk County police cars, etc. Long Islanders are mean, and frustrated with living in this suburban hell where it takes you 40 mins to get anywhere. Must be because the only place to eat here is Friendlys (seriously, there are 4 of them within a 5 min drive from my house). I almost got run down by a BMW 750Li because I somehow beat him off the line at a red light on my fixie, which apparently was unacceptable. Lots of honking.

Absolutely find a place with a route that can use small roads, and don't get stuck somewhere where you have to use one of the county roads. They look friendly enough on the map but if there's more than one lane people will treat them like the Interstate. You may end up like me and having to drive to places for riding, like MTB or dedicated road routes that have been set up if you want to get any riding in at all. That said, in the spring I'll probably take my chances and start commuting again, since with my hours I kind of avoid rush hour and I don't mind riding an extra 5 miles just to stay off the major streets.

Oh, and you can forget about Craigslist utility here. The bike section is barren and utterly useless...

 

[Toshi]

dude. i had completely forgotten that you were out there now. stony brook? you should PM ska todd and go riding.

 

[Barbaton]

dude. i had completely forgotten that you were out there now. stony brook? you should PM ska todd and go riding.

Yah. I've been meaning to find out if there were any monkeys here who could show me something non-sucky. Seriously if I weren't having so much fun at school this would be really be depressing.

btw, i forgot something in the original post that i went back and added. basically craigslist is useless here...

 

[Toshi]

new glamour shots from january on a rare sunny winter day. the columns are part of an overlook/mini-park near downtown and nearby to where i live up on capitol hill.

 

[Barbaton]

I see you upgraded your torque arm from the ziptie wrench version

new glamour shots from january on a rare sunny winter day. the columns are part of an overlook/mini-park near downtown and nearby to where i live up on capitol hill.

 

[Toshi]

I see you upgraded your torque arm from the ziptie wrench version

yeah, that ghetto torque arm kind of failed. at 30+ mph. it scared me, even though i managed to avoid crashing. buildyourown of RM fame built me my own torque arms as depicted.

 

[Toshi]

a wide-aperture night. 5 photos from tonight with the 50/1.4. first 4 at f/1.4, the portrait is at f/2.

 

[Toshi]

i took a Ducati home last night...

... a Sandisk Extreme Ducati Corse 8 GB CF card, that is. the Ducati-branded one is actually the fastest in terms of write speed on robgalbraith.com's CF database for the 5D Mk II. the difference is actually quite noticeable compared to my prior Sandisk Extreme III 1 GB CF cards.

with the Extreme III 1 GB i could pop out 13 RAW shots in sequence and then the camera would stop shooting and would furiously write to the card for 10-15 seconds.

with the Ducati 8 GB i can pop out 19 RAW shots in (3.9 fps) sequence and then the camera continues to shoot in sequence at about 2 fps as it writes, and once stopped shooting it catches up with the writing very quickly. i approve.


in other news, the replacement U-lock from Kryptonite arrived, a few weeks after i sent in the one whose mechanism froze in the freak winter storm we had in december. in turn, i returned the giant and heavy OnGuard Brute U-lock to REI. the sales guy had actually suggested i do this! (buy a lock, return it when the kryptonite came in.) still feel a smidge guilty. the Kryptonite is quite a bit wimpier than the massive Brute, but its shackle also promises to be large enough to accommodate the downtube, front wheel, and a bike rack's pole. the Brute was just small enough that it'd take two out of the three above-listed things but not all unless extremely lucky and persistent.

 

[Toshi]

high ISO shots from roaming around puget sound yesterday post-call:

http://tinyurl.com/ccremt

yours truly, very tired. that's ISO 6400, 50mm, 1/5s, wide open at f/4

a theater from my old hometown (for the high school years) where my orchestra would occasionally perform, the Pantages in Tacoma. ISO 3200, 0.3s, f/5.6, 24mm:

more at the gallery. all the stuff from the bar was ISO 6400 -- really, really bad light.

 

[DaveW]

Go and shave ya scruffy bugger!

 

[Toshi]

oh, i did, finally. but not before going to clinic earlier this week looking that way! the good news is that it's orthopedic surgery clinic, we're all wearing scrubs anyway, and no one cared a whit.

 

[Toshi]

back to my roots: wandering about the city. i walked nearly 6 miles around town today with camera in hand, for the sunlight, exercise, and chance to see interesting juxtapositions of buildings.

 

[Toshi]

if you thought the above were a little geometry-mad, check out these:

http://i.gizmodo.com/5150360/monster-japanese-factories-are-the-stuff-nightmares-are-made-of

a sample, more at the link:

 

[Toshi]

 

[Toshi]

shots from a skybridge at one of the two hospitals at which i spend the majority of my time (and the last 6 weeks in particular, with 6 more before i head elsewhere again). unedited from the iPhone. just supposed to show the wide variety of times of day and weather that i see when walking by the same place while performing my duties.

http://tinyurl.com/cmpggh

 

[Toshi]

i had a day off so took a ride this afternoon. was nippy and windy, but was still the first ride in a long time where i wore sunglasses; didn't have my hood under my helmet for wind protection; didn't have a fleece on under my shell; and didn't don the rainpants over my normal gear. spring is coming but definitely not here, heh.

anyway, i headed along the waterfront away from downtown down by the seattle art museum sculpture park, for those familiar with the area. getting there is a slog, racing traffic up and down Denny and then Elliot, but the path itself is nice once reached, if a little crowded. once you get to the magnolia bridge area it gets really weird: the bike trail goes through a BNSF railroad yard, and it is bordered on both sides by fences topped with barbed wire. what's more, it narrows down to about 4 ft. in width -- and this is a two way path! -- and heads over some funky fenced-in pedestrian bridges over the railyard. very industrial and foreign.

on the way back i went along the waterfront, in fact passing by the venue for jessica and my upcoming wedding. getting from the waterfront back to downtown, and from downtown to capitol hill, where i live, is kind of a pain. my favored route involves taking an elevator to a skybridge that crosses over railroad tracks, climbing a few blocks up a very steep hill, racing the cars along 2nd avenue, then slogging up pike, dodging taxis, buses, and pedestrians alike. how steep is this steep hill? look at the elevation profile right after mile 8 on the route map below...

route map:

my lifetime energy usage/mile is below units are Watt-hours per mile, a commonly used unit for measuring the efficiency of electric vehicles. Tesla claims anywhere from 115-300 Wh/mile for their Roadster depending on the car's speed, for reference, confirming the common sense truism that cars indeed use much more energy than bikes, even when both are electric. the scattering of low values at the beginning is from when i used to ride it like a normal bike, only adding electric assist on hills. nowadays i'm more or less full throttle all the time, pedaling as well, of course.

 

[Toshi]

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/02/at_work.html

the big picture has consistently impressive shots.

 

[Toshi]

the obsession lives on

 

[Toshi]

two sweet M3 videos:

 

[Toshi]

found while idly looking for a bike for jessica. i really like the look of this. too bad all of the electra models have quill stems. the headset could be swapped but then that sweet front fork with the built in fender and rack would go to waste.

whatever jessica ends up getting has to have 1.125" threadless so that it can take the fork/torque arm/electric setup off of my current commuter. (i'll move to newer/faster parts at that time.)

 

[Toshi]

i changed all four brake pads on the commuter bike today at about the 790 mile point. i think i should try to change them much closer to every 500 miles: all four were worn down to the metal backing.

the OEM rear rim still was holding up ok under this unnatural stress even though braking power was a bit down. it didn't make any noise and still felt smooth. the chinese generic/Crystalyte rim that came with my hub motor kit is a bit worse for wear, however. the metal backing on the brake pad managed to pit and basically flake off half of the braking surface on one side. whoops.

a bit of time with a scotchbrite pad to remove large burrs and 4 new pads later and she's good to go again.

the amusing part in all of this: $13 for 4 new brake pads post-tax over 800 miles is about 1.6 cents per mile. that's 16 times more expensive than the electricity used to run the thing...

also/randomly, an Piaggio MP3 500/Gilera Fuoco 500 in the snow in Kiev:

 

[Toshi]

bikes that i find interesting or attractive from the NAHBS (pseudo-track-bike hipster fixies need not apply):

 

[DaveW]

Vanilla *sigh* I so want one of those

 

[Toshi]

here's a photo of a "ride" and a half:

the cockpit of a B-1? no: a Concorde.

 

[Toshi]

one of the reasons i built my electric bike was the ride to the VA hospital, which is located on a hill south of downtown. the VA is clearly car-centric, as it was built with huge parking lots and has limited bus service -- not that buses would have helped me given the hours at which surgeons round!

from where i lived last year it would have been a ride of about 11 miles each way, and with stoplights and all the elevation change involved it was about an hour-long on the road bike. given that we typically round around 6 AM, which means that the intern (ie, me) is in the hospital by 5:15 AM to pre-round an hour on the road bike each and every day wasn't going to happen, realistically, thus the electric bike.

as it turns out i wasn't assigned any rotations this year at either the VA or at Children's Hospital. my commute instead is mostly to Harborview and occasionally to UW, and both of these hospitals are much closer. indeed, i haven't been to the VA at all since medical school. nevertheless, as a nod to my original design goals and boredom while waiting for a night shift i rode to the VA today.

(i live at the top of the map. the VA is the pink thing at the bottom. the blue and white bar at the bottom is the elevation profile, with the X axis being distance traveled. stats: 10.5 miles via my weird loopy route with quite a lot of elevation change. 289 Watt-hours used, 27.6 Wh/mile.)

the ride itself exposed me to some of the seedier parts of seattle. to start with, the VA isn't in the nicest area. furthermore, it's a neighborhood that's very unfriendly to bikers. if you look at the map between miles 5 and 6 (near the bottom) then you'll see a section in which i appear to be riding along the west seattle freeway. in reality i was riding along a sidewalk, shielded from oncoming 60 mph traffic by a mere 6 inch curb. add to that multiple steep sets of concrete stairs that lead to sketchy underworld paths that cross beneath the freeway and you have a place that i hope to never visit again. it's clear to me that the designers of that interchange only made the bare minimum of concessions to allow for pedestrians to get from one side of the freeway to the other without physically running across the road surface.

(the last set of stairs taking one from the level of the roadway surface above down to Airport Way. carrying a ~75 lb. electric bike down these stairs was challenging.)

in any case i made it home fine without getting mugged, which these days is a non-negligible risk for seattle bikers, and am thankful that i don't have to ride this route every day.

 

[DaveW]

Those stairs would be fun for ya if they got covered in ice during winter!

 

[Toshi]

Those stairs would be fun for ya if they got covered in ice during winter!

no doubt. all in all a poor piece of urban planning. the interchange in question is perpetually plugged up with automobile traffic and, as i found out, is quite terrifying for those on foot or a bicycle.

 

[Toshi]

for auction: one copy of Windows Vista Business edition. new in box, retail version (not the upgrade). i'm selling it since it was my payment for doing a usability study for Microsoft today -- i do studies for them every once in a while.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110360677170

buy it! now!

 

[DaveW]

Vista........ *shudder*

 

[Toshi]

Vista........ *shudder*

selling it is a good way to get "free" money tho in exchange for my time and input on one of my days off. it's not like i'm installing it...

 

[Toshi]

my sister visited me, in town to interview for a heme/onc fellowship at the fred hutchinson cancer institute/seattle cancer care alliance. we visited what perhaps is my favorite thai joint in town, no mean feat given the number and quality of the same in seattle.

jessica has big eyes, it's true

i often look scruffy, also true

all of us lined up for a mugshot. eiko, my sister, is 24 weeks pregnant.