Bicycle Menagerie

While hunting big cats in Panther Hollow on a warm spring day, we came upon the dumpster of dreams.

After walking miles of groomed trails and passing the occasional college kid waddling off his twice-daily hot dogs and fries from The O, we rounded the corner and the skies opened up and the angel choir began to sing praises to our Lord Almighty.

The trash box was elephantine.  

When somebody finally bought the long-unoccupied residence down the street from our house, they tossed the innards into a dumpster big enough to fit four Smart Cars.  It wasn't just some little trash can you find behind the local Eat'n Park.

My chest thumps loudly each time I remember the scene.  Filled to the brim and stacked well above was a collection of my favorite rolling objet d’art.  From atop the mountain of treasure, I started handing wheels and frames to my friend who arrayed them on the pavement.  I surveyed my realm and chose the best subjects to be my personal servants.

Sorting completed, I dashed for the station wagon and loaded up.  Knowing the high value of my find, I hid the best from prying eyes to await my return, carefully piling a few of the worst on top as camouflage (which happens to be my favourite colour).

With my knees bent at an awkward angle and my passenger squeezed in sideways, we slowly made our way across town, offloaded the trove, and returned for the rest.

Finally returning home well after sunset since it was still Eastern Daylight Losing Time, I sat in the basement for hours caressing the new members of my menagerie.  They have become important to me and my family over the years.  I worked up a Robin Hood for my Mom.  Two of them became a recumbent I made for my Dad.  An Austro Daimler is my ride for summers in Paraguay.  

I still visit bike shop dumpsters, but always with a hollow in my heart knowing that my best dumpster dive may be behind me.  

Or perhaps in my basement just a few steps away.

Photos by Author.

Thrift Shop Dumpsters

There's always something new at the thrift shop.

Most of the time you don't even want to buy anything but it's entertaining to gawk in wonder at the objects people spend money on, never use, and generously donate to the thrift store.  But the prices are so good you feel like you can't walk out with just one favorite item.  I have the same problem at the $$ store.

Did you ever notice the monster dumpster behind every thrift shop?  Some people feel bad throwing things away so they have the local shop do it for them.

Then again, some thrifty employees feel the same way so refuse fills rack and shelf.  One man's garbage is another man's treasure, right?  But mostly one man's garbage is just plain garbage.

And haven't you always wondered about that characteristic thrift store smell?  That was one of the mysteries of my universe until I saw a blanket on a line being sprayed with some sort of industrial febreeze from one of those hand pump insecticide sprayers.  "Musty (fe)Breeze" should be the next Ralph Lauren scent for the local hipsters who take pride in conserving water and not laundering themselves or their previously enjoyed polyester.

Anyway, Friday's men's day at the local St Vincent de Paul.  So I'll see you there.

"I'm gonna pop some tags
Only got twenty dollaz in my pocket..."

Teach Fzx - Learning Viscosity

It started with a drinking race.  I know, it sounds like Friday night at the frat house, but this time it was a viscosity competition without inhibition-altering drugs.  Three volunteers sucked Mountain Dew, honey, or molasses through straws while their classmates cheered.

Note the cheering classmates

Mountain Dew won, of course - it always does.  Honey is slower than molasses in January, but you could tell by the look of disgust at the first taste of molasses that it's not his drink of choice.

Next was the water pistol demo.  I took the opportunity to show the wrong way to handle a firearm as the muzzle swept everybody and my finger on the trigger was making it rain. All the while I gave lip service to muzzle awareness and trigger contact.

muzzle toward students, finger on trigger - safety last

The other squirt gun was filled with motor oil and a student fired both into a sink with the proper gangsta grip.  The differences were evident in the exit stream and trigger force required.

Gansta Grip

Then on to the contrast between automatic and manual transmission oil.  Two samples of each were publicly poured from cup to cup to show the differences in drinkability.

Focus

Corn starch only costs a dollar a pound and, when mixed with water, it makes a great liquid toy that acts like a solid under stress.  My favorite is when you roll it into a ball and toss it into the air.  Between your hands it's solid but in the air it becomes a liquid again.

It's called oobleck or some such silliness

We discussed some bottles of oil that were languishing in the basement,

Manly hand lotion

and then we went to Bob is the Oil Guy for a few viscosity tables from his Motor Oil University so we could discuss the differences between motor oils and their behavior at different temperatures.

Oil Type	Thickness at 75° F	Thickness at 212° F
Straight 30	250	10
10W-30	100	10
0W-30	40	10
Straight 10	30	6

(Oil Type Varying Thickness)

bobistheoilguy.com

The problem with motor oil arises not from viscosity decrease over time, but from an increase in viscosity from age or fouling.

So I focused on basic mechanical applications of viscosity.  No aerodynamics or hydrodynamics.  No tube or pipe behavior.  No duck legs on a frozen pond.  No blood viscosity at different temperatures.  No actual viscosity measurements.  But it was a good 20 minutes - demo heavy and entertaining.  We should do more of this.

Mis Motos

Following are most of the motorized two-wheelers I have owned over the past decade or so.

Some student sold this to me for $50.  I got it running and sped up and down the alley behind the house with some friends.  Then I sold it the week after the Steelers won the SuperBowl for 200% profit.

2003 Honda Ruckus on the way back from a run to the local steel yard.

Some of the bestest adventures were had on this bike. 

1981 Yamaha XS650 Bagger with a friend's XS400

Repaired, repainted, and running with one bad cylinder.

Ridiculous handlebars.

1983 Yamaha XS650.

This one left me stranded in MD for the weekend.

My current rocket ride, the 1988 Kawasaki Concours.

Nothing but smiles.

A brace of Hondas coming off the trailer

1970 Honda CB450 

Later parted and trashed

1970 Honda CB350.

I got it running and sold it to a cafe racer.

Turning Wheels on the Shop Smith

While looking for an idler pulley for a floppy chain run on a bicycle project, all I could find were pulleys that cost more than I wanted to put into the project.  I shared this with a few competent students and one said "Just slap a skateboard wheel into a three jawed chuck and have at it with a chisel."

It took me a decade, but I finally did it last week.

Dad has a Shop Smith and has used it on all kinds of projects through the years.  I think he even used it to make the wooden pistol and rifle I have handed down to my boys.

Dad's Dad had one of the earliest Shop Smiths.  Mom's Dad had one from Great Grandpa that he gave to me one summer in the early 90's.  It was great to me until it broke a belt and I took two years to replace it.  Once I opened it up to fix it, I got a fascinating lesson in a continuously variable transmission that I also experienced on my Honda Ruckus.

So I ran a bolt through the center of the roller blade wheels I had, chucked it into the chuck, and cranked up the speed until it sounded right.

45 seconds later I had a complete idler pulley.  It only took me a decade to do it.

Celcius to Fahrenheit

It was April 15th of back-in-the-day and I was pedaling to work just after 6 am.  The temperature read 28* on the weather channel that morning but it didn't register that 28 on the Fahrenheit scale was below the freezing point of water.

I rolled through a slow corner and was forced through a wide, shallow puddle.  Only it wasn't a puddle and I found myself sideways on a slab of ice still attached to the pedals and holding the bar.

As I extricated myself from the bike, I felt my hip bruising up and I knew my shoulder wasn't doing well either.  It was on that day that I finally understood the real advantage of the Celcius scale.  Not only are there 100 even divisions between the freezing and boiling points of water, but it tells me honestly when the puddle will be a sheet of ice.

So I decided to switch to the Centigrade scale and I've been using it for a while.  When I tell stories to family in Canada and Paraguay, I use Celcius.  Stories to Americans require Fahrenheit.

So I had to learn to convert from one to the other.  Quickly.  The basis of the scale is that 10 degrees Celcius = 18 degrees Fahrenheit.  Here's the scale pattern as it resides in my skull:

Celcuis       Fahrenheit

   40                 104

   30                  86

   20                  68
   10                  50
    0                   32
  -10                 14

I combine that scale with 5*C = 9*F and 37* Celcius is body temperature.  It's all I need for quick conversions and story telling.  Now I only crash on ice when I ignore the shiny part of the road.