Doing The Bicycle Thing Still

When I soldered the reflector bracket back on the rack on the city bike, I didn't notice that there were a couple of other spots that were also cracked. Surly pointed that out to me the other day when he was down. I took the rack off and got those taken care of and re-did the reflector bracket. I had soldered it while it was on the bike and didn't do the very best job. Everything looks pretty good now.

My new cork handgrips came in for the bike. They're exactly like the ones that were on there before, so I'm pleased with that. I do need to glue them on. They're just a bit loose. I need to decide if I want to shellac them. As dirty as my hands usually are, it would probably keep the grips looking nicer. I think I have some around here. If not, Surly will have some I can mooch.

This is a photo of the chopper bicycle we started making at the high school years ago. It was on the agenda to get finished before I retired along with my little boat but that didn't happen. I'm thinking it should get done and with a motor on it. I'm planning on putting one of the cheap Chinese two-stroke bike motors on it. Shouldn't take too much to knock it out. If I get this thing done, I'll have all the bicycle projects done except a little bit I have left on the rail bike. I should probably have thrown both of them on Cuzzin Ricky's scrap trailer when he was here the other day but I'm thinking the grandkids will like the motor bike. I'm thinking it could be a lot of fun for me as well. It'd be just the thing to ride down to the tavern down the road and park it out front with all the big Harleys, but the tavern went out of business a couple of weeks ago.  That's what happens when you're a world class procrastinator.

Enjoy the weekend!

Handshields

I fixed up the handshield on the right so the Missus could watch the eclipse last month. I put some fresh electrical tape over the cracks but I was thinking at the time that this old dog had pretty much run it's course. I'm thinking I inherited that thing when I first started teaching back in '76. The guy who I replaced had been around a while - in fact he was training welders for the war effort back in the 40's. That would make it about 75 years old. It's marked Air Reduction Sales Company - Patented.

Airco used to make all types of welding equipment - torches, regulators, power sources, etc. I've got a set of regulators and an Airco MIG machine with an Airco spool gun on it. I don't know what's up with the company now. I did a search and I saw a couple of new things with the Air Reduction Sales Company name but as far as I know they aren't making welding equipment any longer. I came across an outfit selling a copy of the spool gun at a welding show a few years back, which is nice since I can still get parts for mine that way.

Regardless of what, if anything is going on with Airco these days, the old handshield is no more. It went out with the trash this week and has been replaced with the one on the left in the photo. I had a junk helmet that someone gave me because they lost the pieces for the headgear. I cut a piece of PVC pipe, warmed it up with the heat gun to squeeze it flat and put an angle bend on it, riveted it to the helmet and then gave it a quick coat of flat black. I'm thinking I might wrap the handle with hockey tape. Not necessary, but I've got a roll of it, so why not?

I got a phone call from the local library the other day. They said I won a prize in the drawing they had to promote summer reading or some such. I went over to pick it up and I had my choice of several items. I picked the bag chair. Nice prize and it's got a little advertisement on the seat back, which is good. Everyone needs to read and take advantage of their local lending library. Now that fall is here, maybe I'll set the chair up under a tree somewhere and settle in with a book for a couple of hours. After I get a few more chores done, of course.

Boxing, Welding & Scrapping

Photo By Surly

Nice weekend - beautiful weather - not at all like those poor souls dealing with the current hurricane, the aftermath of the last one, or the next one in line.

The outdoor meet with the boxing crew went well Saturday morning. We had a great turnout and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves in spite of having to run a 1-1/2, do a 300 meter sprint, as many push-ups as possible and as many sit-ups as possible in one minute. We finished up with about 30 minutes of Jimmy and I holding mitts for everyone. We're going to try and do some more outdoor things before it gets too cold. There's a 5K in town right after Thanksgiving. We'll have to see how many of the guys we can get to sign up for that one. I'm looking into a fitness trail at one of the local parks for October.

Couple of jobs that were in the project box in the last post. Top photo is a Ducati 250 head that someone goobered up with a screwdriver when removing the cam cover. If you look close you can see a bit of weld in the center of the mating surface and another spot on the left where the rocker shaft goes in. Nothing to the welding. I'll let him file the welds down.

The bottom photo has some tee pieces I screwed together for one of the instructors in the lab. He had a box of the plastic parts and he wanted to join them together so he could have one of the little robots pick them up. It was going to be a lot easier to do the job at home than in the lab at school, so I brought them home.

In the bottom photo is a TIG torch for the welding lab. The threads where the water hose attaches were boogered up so I brought it home and chased the threads. I just bought a kit of thread chasing dies and taps recently - came in handy. I've been trying to get everything I might need to work in my home shop while I'm still drawing a paycheck, glad I thought of that one.

I also welded up a little job for Surly. TIG welded a little stainless bracket. That's me on the job in the top photo. Nothing to it. It took longer to jig it up than to weld it.

While Surly and the boys were here they helped my lift up the little potting shed so I could slide another course of bricks under it. The dirt has built up around the perimeter and is rotting the trim boards away. Now that it's up a bit higher, I can replace the trim boards and get them painted before the cold weather sets in.

Cuzzin Ricky came by Saturday afternoon with a couple of his helpers and we got the old freezer out of the basement. I had a couple of other things to throw on the trailer as well. So there's a bit of progress around the shack and just an all around great weekend of doing things.

Project Box

Box of small projects to do - of course these aren't for me. A couple of them for school and one for my buddy. Nothing too tough or time consuming. I'll have them knocked out by Monday.

Traveler for measuring out a 300 meter long track. We're going to put the boxers that are going to compete through the police department physical fitness test to establish a baseline fitness level. Quite a few of the fighters are obviously not in condition when they get in the ring. We'll be tracking fitness level and weight. Hopefully, this will help.

Figuring out how many revolutions the wheel needs to travel would have been a good math problem to throw out to the boys when I was teaching high school. Several ways to approach the problem. I could have measured the radius while the wheel was upright, doubled it, multiplied it by pi and got a fairly accurate circumference. Instead, I rolled it out five revolutions and then divided by five to get the circumference. I figured doing it that way would be a little more accurate than just rolling it out one revolution. I would have gone ten revolutions but I don't have any concrete at the house long enough for that. One revolution worked out to 84.84". Pretty straight forward after that to convert to meters and divide out. Ends up that 139 revolutions equals 300 meters. Feel free to check my arithmetic.

Here's the group from the boxing club taken earlier in the week. One of the biggest crowds we've had in a while. Some new faces and some old faces and some "new" old faces. No doubt they're tough. We'll find out today if they're in any kind of shape.

Things

Cuzzin Ricky and I went to DuQuoin for the Silver Crown races again this past weekend. Great race at a great venue. 100 laps on a one mile dirt track. I saw a video of one of the cars qualifying. The telemetry said he was hitting 150 down both of the main straights! Put 34 of those out on the track at the same time and you're going to have some racing.

Photo From a Facebook Post 

Kenny Schrader raced an open wheel car as well as his modified car. He looked pretty tentative during practice and qualifying but it's been something like thirty years since he's driven on open wheel car. I figured he'd pick up the pace once he got a few laps in during the race. He may have but he kept moving backwards until he was just about last. Good to see him out there, however. Jeff Swindell led most of the race but two cars got past with only a few laps to go so he had to settle for a third place finish. Swindell is 56 and Schrader is 62 - me, I turned 67 on the day after the race, so you know I was rooting for both of the old guys.

I saw where Walter Becker of Steely Dan passed away - same age as me. That's a little too close to home. I've been listening to their music since the beginning - probably got most of their stuff on vinyl. This one has always been one of my favorites:

That's the trouble with getting old - so's everyone else you grew up with.

Looks like another big hurricane is coming towards the US. The path hasn't been forecast definitively yet but looks like Florida is in for it. With the way the weather patterns have been running, might be wise to stock up on supplies regardless where you live if you haven't already. I was checking my stuff over the other day because I want to go camping one of these days and couldn't find my camp stoves, which is really bad since I have three of the things. Surprisingly enough, I found them where I left them and I've got fuel for them, so I'm set there. I charged the battery on the welder/generator and the tractor since I don't run those very often. I don't need those for a camping trip but that's just part of the normal routine. I've got a couple of gallons of fuel for them or the lawn mower or truck as need be.

It takes a lot of water for drinking, cooking and sanitation. More so if you have pets. Same with the food. The dogs and cats are still going to want to be fed when the power goes out. Be a good idea to stock up on a little extra food for them as well. Don't forget that the credit/debit cards don't work when the power is out. Might want to keep a little cash on hand too. Fresh batteries for the flashlights and the transistor radio. I still haven't gotten my ham radio license. I've been studying the book on and off. I think they are going to change the test next year, so I need to get that done soon. I've got no idea if that will be of any real use to me during an emergency but I've wanted to do that for a long time. No reason not too other than my being a slug. But don't you be. Remember the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared.

Labor Day

Happy Labor Day to all you working stiffs out there - especially those who have to work today. Let's hope it's double time at least! Saw a piece the other day that said the average working man pays more in taxes than what food and shelter costs him, or her, as the case may be. Definitely something wrong there.

Cleaning out the basement - going to give the triceps' bar away. I made this thing years ago. Actually used it too! We used to make all kinds of exercise equipment at the first school corporation I worked for. I do most of my workouts at the boxing gym now. If I do anything at home it's with exercise bands, dumbbells or body weight. 

I posted a short time back about maybe buying a mustache bar for the city bike. The machining instructor at the college had this bar and stem he said I could have. While not a mustache bar per se, it's a nice aluminum bar and stem set that are a little lighter and much nicer than what were on the bike - thanks Don!

I had to sacrifice the handgrips to put the new bars on. He had put a comment on the blog but I think it was after I re-glued the grips back on. At least I know the glue works well. I got the last grips from Rivendell but they don't carry that particular kind any more. The new style grips are a few bucks more, which is OK, but I'm not so sure I'd like the style. I was pretty happy with the ones I had. Those are still available from several sources, so I'll probably just order a pair like what I had on the bike. Should be all set after that. I also silver soldered the bracket for the reflector back on.

When I put the new tires on the touring bike I noticed the spokes on the back wheel could use some attention. I think I'm going to start riding the city bike more around here and work on getting the touring bike up to snuff. I'm hoping to take another trip next summer. I should take everything apart on the touring bike and get it lubed, true the wheels and put a new chain on it so I'll be ready to go if the opportunity arises. I fixed up the trailer a year or so ago with a new back wheel, fender and light, so it's ready to go. I even bought a guide book for the trail I want to do. I've talked to my buddy I did several other trips with about it. When I finish reading the guide book, I'll drop it off with him and see if we can put something together.

Zatopek

I just finished reading this one. The story of Emil Zatopek, the greatest distance runner of all time. Since I'm a "runner" and an old guy, I was aware of Zatopek even though he was a bit before my time. When he had his greatest triumph as a runner I was only two years old but his story continued for quite a few years after, including the 1968 Olympics when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their Black Power salute from the podium while George Foreman chose to wave the American flag. It was also the year I graduated from high school, there were riots in Detroit and Chicago here in the mid-west and Zatopek was confronting the Russians as they marched into Prague. Interesting times to say the least.

Zatopek was born in Czechoslovakia and competed during the time of Communism, secret police, political imprisonment and all that. Tough times certainly, and it probably helps to understand his story if you are of a certain age as I am and remember the Cold War era. During those years they even tossed the entire Czech hockey team into prison due to fear they were going to defect.

The book does a nice job of covering Zatopek's life as a runner, along with weaving in details about his wife, who also won gold at the Olympics, and many of his contemporaries, including Roger Bannister and the quest for the sub-four minute mile. While Zatopek set many world running records, his greatest accomplishment was undoubtedly winning gold in the 5000m, 10,000m and marathon at the 1952 Olympics. The only man to ever manage that, and probably the only man who ever will.

Good book. Incredible man.