Tie

Today for the first time (after only ever using the Four in Hand Knot), I've ventured outside of the usual and I went with a Half Windsor Knot. I like it, I'll probably do it like this from now on.

Corrados in Driveway

I'm still getting used to seeing two Corrados in my driveway everyday. I'm not going to lie - it's pretty fucking cool.

Danger!

I had a link explode at the top of the hill on sunday's ride. The chain snapped and then wrapped itself around the rear cog and locked up the rear wheel. Luckily I wasnt moving very fast when this happened.

Photo by Alex Juwong:

Game Time

Belgian beer to my door

This should make biking this summer easier

What to do with 180 plastic army men?

They come in packs of 180. Photo set here.

traffic

It took a really really long time to get home today.

New Phone

Last Saturday we went on a 20+ mile ride in and around downtown Detroit. I snaped this picture using my new phone, a Motorola Droid. The Droid has a 5MP camera built in, and takes amazing pictures when the lighting is perfect (in low light or indoors forget it).

So far so good with the phone. Today I listened to (with great success) Pandora radio on my way in to work, which i streamed from my phone into the AUX input on the cars radio. Tomorrow... who knows.

Can I Get a Fork?

I've been cheating on erg/home with another blog. Can I get a Fork was started in the beginning of November. It's a food blog.

Lisa and I had been talking about starting a food blog for a while, and in the beginning she was just doing her thing on her blog. We had talked about starting a new one where we were both setup as authors. Originally my contribution was going to be minimal and Lisa was going to do her nutrition thing, talk about, and analyze the food we cook at the house.

It was supposed to be geared more towards vegetarian cooking and help motivate us to cook at home and eat out less often.

Well, we told Matt about it and he got really excited and wanted to be a part of it. So now, the subject is everything food. Whether Lisa gets technical on some nutritional information, someone has something good at a restaurant, someone wants to post a recipe, someone cooks something good (or bad) at the house, anything goes.

The end result is, I don't know where this blog is headed but I think the contrast of Matt's I don't like vegetables, "I've don't think I've had avocado before" reluctance to try new food, Lisa's technical incite, my quest to find good mexican food in Michigan, and the continuing input we're getting by adding additional authors should keep it fresh. That said consider this an open invite to any one interested in contributing.

Moving In

Slowly but surely Lisa and I are unpacking a few boxes everyday. Today I found the boxes that had the paintings/posters in it!



Also, I put the bed frame together, so now we're back off the floor.

First Night in Ferndale

We moved to Ferndale. Last night was the first night at the new house.

Last Sunday I posted this picture on the local message board in an attempt to in list friends to help us move. It was quickly pointed out, that I was almost out of tape. As the picture suggests, I was already a few beers in and wasn't feeling a drive to Home Depot.

I figured I'd call for pizza delivery, sober up, and then make a tape run. Problem was it was 10:30, and the pizza places don't open till 11.

"Jimmy Johns is open, and does deliver" I thought!

JJ: "Thank you for calling Jimmie Johns, how can I help you?"
R: "Hey, what's up?"
JJ: "Not much, what can i get for you?"
R: "How 'bout a #12... Jalapeno chips, and an .... an ice tea."
JJ: "You got it, anything else?"
R: "well, this is this one thing... "
JJ: "what's that?"
R: "I appear to be low on packing tape, you see we're in the middle of moving."
JJ: "Sorry, sir we dont sell tape."
R: "You dont have any in back?"
JJ: "No, sorry sir."
R: "That's all right - it was a long snot."

So the delivery guy (chick) gets here and low and behold... she's got packing tape with her!!! I pay for the sandwich. I pay for the tape. I tip the lady. Score!

The new hotness

After tooling around on the velodrome, it became clear that the old Peugeot wasnt going to cut it. I picked up an actual track frame on ebay on the cheap and swapped over a few of the parts from the Peugeot to get it ridable.

Over the winter I'm going to be on the look out for parts so I can restore the Peugeot back to it's full glory.

Here she is:
The spec sheet:
'09 Bianchi Pista frame (59cm)
Chris King headset
Nitto Ultimate Ideal 2 120mm stem
Nitto drop bars w/ track grips
Origin 8 Pro Light carbon set post
Origin 8 Uno seat (from the Peugeot)
Origin 8 165mm cranks (from the Peugeot)
Tang 68x103 BB
41/15 gearing (from the Peugeot)
Eightinch Julian wheel set w/ formula hubs (from the Peugeot)

Raven, Meet Velodrome

Imagine you're the kind of guy who loves whistling along to Otis Redding's Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay (who isn't?), and all of a sudden you come to find that the very dock that Redding wrote the song about is only 10 miles (give or take) from your house. Now you're thinking: "huh, maybe I should go over there and give wasting time a try... maybe do some whistling" and why wouldn't you - sounds like fun, right?

Maybe you're also into riding bikes. Maybe you've been riding a track/single speed conversion around for a while and have been thinking, if only there was a track around here - maybe I'd give it a try. Would you believe there is a velodrome less than 10 miles from my house? Why don't people tell me these things???

This morning Micah came over and we took a good ride on the fixies. The total trip was just under 23 miles, destination: the Velodrome at Bloomer Park... and maybe some lunch and a beer or two at Rochester Mills brewery along the way.

We were really hoping something was going to be going on at the velodrome; a race, some people practicing, but when we rolled up no one was around.

Cautiously (shit is steep) we made our way into the infield. The very center portion of the infield was paved. The only provision for bike storage were two long red bar sets to hang bikes by their seat, canopies were set up with chairs under them for the racers, and a low metal fence circled the inside of track.

At first the banked turns were extremely intimidating, standing at the base of the 44 degree sloped turns (it's like looking at a wall) your asking yourself, should I really do this?

Why not - starting out at the bottom of the track, building up speed and carefully venturing higher and higher around the turns, I was starting to get the hang of it. After a few times around I found my self leaning deeper into the turns and wishing for a taller gear to go faster. It was fun, really fun. I couldn't help but smile as I gasped for air and prayed for traction along the steepest part of the bank.


According to the track's website there's an intro to riding class. I'd really like to do this (not to mention it's free). Also, I really want to watch a race - and maybe someday participate in a race.

edit for video of intro to riding class: youtube

Clinton River Trail Ride

Matt met me at my house and we rode south a few miles to meet up with the Clinton River Trail. We followed the trail all the way up into Rochester and stopped for a beer and a sandwich. Had two more beers and then rode home in the dark, this time, taking the more direct way. Here's the GPS.

Total Distance: 19.23 mi
Elevation Gain: 796 ft
Ave Speed: 12.6 mph
Max Speed: 25.0 mph