Weather Out There

I haven’t posted in here in a good three weeks, but as I noted then, the original plan for this blog has somewhat disintegrated. Since last week, I’m no longer working at Hub Bicycle (and after all that promotion here!).

I haven’t mentioned it in a while, but I finally got some inspiration to close up the case on my bike light, and I plan on actually testing it out soon. Here’s to hoping my “off the shelf” lighting works, and is quite bright!

Another bike related project I’m looking at is making the TB Designs panniers. While my own design is functional, it has a small problem with keeping its shape. I suppose I could retrofit it with some aluminum bracing, but I really like the idea of the TB Designs: have a separate bag and rack-mount. I think the benefit he touts is that you can make the bag of very light material to cut a little weight off. I like the idea of being able to transport cargo of many sizes and shapes and then be able to easily take it offer the bike at your destination. After many readings and re-readings of his page, I understand what’s going on, and I’ll try to post my own instructions once I make it.

My other project was to turn my (and the fiancee’s) Surly Crosschecks from double chainrings to triples. This went off pretty smoothly, with the exception that going off the current Surly parts list is very confusing: in the last year they switched derailleurs from having a double (i.e. the front derailleur is only compatible with two chainrings) on the stock bike to a triple (to make this conversion easier, presumably). After a few hours scratching my head, I looked up the parts on the 2010 model to confirm that in fact, it had a double derailleur. A few trips to the semi-local bike shop got the parts I needed and put me back in business.