Chainless Bicycle

I celebrated the 4th of July by fixing the chainless bicycle. Took me a bit longer than it should have but since everything was loose and out of whack and I was clueless about chainless bicycles, not too surprising. It's actually a pretty slick set up. They use the same hub arrangement on chain driven bikes, substituting a sprocket for the gear drive. When replacing the shifter cable you need to put the "fixing nut" on 110mm from the end of the housing, put the nut into the hole on the pulley and then adjust the arm that the cable housing fits into so the witness marks on the arm and pulley line up while the gear selector on the handlebar is in 4th gear. The first go-round had too much slack so I put a mark with my Sharpie on the cable and closed up the distance a bit. After about three such adjustments, it was just about right on the mark with the final bit taken care of by the cable adjuster on the gear selector. I adjusted up the front and rear brakes and aired up the tires and took it for a spin around the barn. Everything was working OK so I took it down the lane so I could get it into a couple of higher gears. Since everything checked out, I called the guy up and it's back home again. Another satisfied customer.

I spent a bit of time yesterday morning before working on the bike trying to eradicate about a million of these things. I'm not sure what they are but they're doing their damndest to take over the yard. I need to send these photos to my brother. I'm sure he'll know what they are and can give me some advice on getting rid of them or at least point me in the right direction. I'm guessing all the conditions just happened to be right for the seeds to pop out of their dormancy this year. If they're an annual and I can keep them from going to seed, I shouldn't be bothered too much next year if the seeds sprouted this year. Again, I need to know what the are so I can figure out the life cycle and what to do to interrupt it.

The weather was in the 90s yesterday and looks to stay that way for at least a week. That's going to slow me down a bit. It wasn't too bad working on the bike since I was inside out of the sun but when I was on weed patrol that was a bit tough on this old man. I'll work in the shop a bit each day and just take it easy. I've been out in the heat enough that I'm getting used to it but there's really no reason to spend a lot of time out in it unless it would be an emergency. I am retired after all.

There will probably be another uptick in the cooties after everyone went to the beach or parties this weekend. The original part of our house was built in 1898 - no phone, television, electricity. Very primitive conditions by today's standards and most every day was a tough one. Now days most everyone has air conditioning and computer access, meaning they can comfortably entertain themselves while staying home or limiting their socializing to small groups in a safe manner. From the looks of things, this crap isn't going to be going away anytime soon (50,000 new cases nationally yesterday), so we all might as well get used to it and get our minds right.

Stay cool, wear your mask, wash your hands.