My ride to work is about 16 miles with 1100ft of climbing, much of it along the ocean so I get some great scenery in the morning. About once a week Lorah rides in with me.
We had planned on riding in on Valentine’s Day and I awoke to find that my bike was decorated for the occasion, complete with heart shaped wire, a fuzzy rose, and a fuzzy handcuff lock.
She also included this balloon that plays “You’re still the one” when smacked. What could possibly be cooler? The sound volume and quality is really impressive.
It comes with a “50 play guarantee.” I think we’ve already exceeded it and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head all week.
Friday night I happened to be watching Hereos and there was a ad for this Sunday’s Battlestar Galactica. I won’t give it away (like they did!), but needless to say, I’m no longer watching the in-house ads for shows I watch.
I’m so mad. If this isn’t the strongest argument for Torrenting your TV shows I don’t know what is.
Sunday night update: The only thing worse than having stuff given away is being screwed with.
Earlier this summer I bought myself a spiffy Specialized S-Works Roubaix at Mike’s Bikes in Sausalito to replace my old Kestrel 300 EMS. I thought I’d occasionally ride the Kestrel but the Roubaix was superior in every way so I ended up selling it to some lucky person via eBay.A few weeks ago I found some sand on a descent of Apline Road and crashed hard. I had open wounds from road rash for nearly two weeks and caused significant damage to the bike. The crash snapped the carbon fiber handlebars, bent the rear derailleur hanger, bent the front brake mounting post, and most likely damaged the carbon fiber fork, stem, and seat post. Not wanting to pull a Hincapie I brought the bike to Mike’s in San Francisco. Normally I would have taken the bike to The Freewheel in San Francisco, as they’re an awesome shop with great wrenches, but I needed to get parts from Specialized so I brought it to Mike’s.
I’ve got a terrible short-term memory. I forget names, dates, places, you name it. I’ve learned to adapt by carrying a little notepad around with me everywhere I go. Any time I run across something I need to remember I write it down rather than trust my swiss cheese of a brain.
I’m also a fan of cargo shorts. I found some I liked and bought one (or two) of every color. The notepad lives in the right cargo pocket. Of course notepads aren’t any good without a pen, and finding a quality spiral bound notepad that will hold a pen isn’t easy. I found a decent one made by Boku that fits a .2mm Sanford Ultra-Fine Uniball in the spiral perfectly.
The problem is that after a few months the notepad starts falling apart and beings to look not-so-fresh. I recently discovered the fabulous Moleskine notepads, but alas, none of them have a spiral to hold a pen. Here’s a quick hack to make your own pen holder for your favorite Moleskine model.
I’m going to start posting a bunch of my ‘cheap hack’ UNIX tricks that I’ve picked up over the years. This first one is a DSL watchdog script.
How many times have you gone on vacation to find your DSL has burped, requiring a power cycle of your DSL modem, and leaving your home boxes (and email) stranded? If only you could train your cats to hit the power switch. Until then this script should work.
Continuing the trend of recalls for parts of my bike Specialized has just announced a recall for the S-Works carbon stem that comes on many of their road bikes, including the Allez, Tarmac, Transition, and Roubaix.
Apparantly the magnesium faceplate many break “causing the rider to lose control, fall and suffer injuries.” I imagine having your handlebars come off in your hands could be a problem. Just ask George Hincapie, who lost his bars in this year’s Paris-Roubaix.
If you have a S-Works carbon stem with a magnesium faceplate bring it to your dealer or call 877-808-8154 for a replacement.
Update (8/4/2006): If you call the phone number Specialized will tell you to go see your dealer. I called around to find a replacement faceplate and only one shop in the bay area had them on hand. Half the Specialized dealers I called weren’t even aware of the recall.
I highly recommend Go Ride Bicycles in Redwood City as they not only knew about the problem and had a bunch of replacement faceplates onhand, and even stayed open late so I wouldn’t miss my ride the next morning.
Shimano just announced a Recall for many of their front quick release skewers made after November 1, 2005. This a pretty big deal as it affects a lot of wheels that are out there. Pretty much every recent bike sold with Shimano components contains this recalled skewer.
I just checked and my new bike has an affected skewer. Good thing I have many drawers full of bike parts, one of which should contain a good skewer. I’m glad I noticed the recall as at least one person has reported a nasty crash due to their front skewer failing.
No plan has been announced for replacement yet, but you should be able to take the skewer to your local bike shop for a cheap or free replacement.
Update (7/30/2006): I stopped by local bike shop to swap the old Skewer and they haven’t received any replacements from Shimano yet. They added my Skewer to a pile of about two dozen others they’ve received and will let me know when the new batch arrives.
Update (8/4/2006): One thing that’s a little upsetting is the full service shop where I spent $5k for this new bike never bothered to call any of their customers and let them know. If I were to rank all the services I’d like them to provide, this would be at the top of the list, far above “free tune ups.”
Last March Steve Vaught started walking from Oceanside, CA to New York, NY in order to lose weight and show it’s possible for anyone to gain control of their lives. He lost 150lb along the way. It’s an inspirational journey that’s going to come to an end today as he crosses the George Washington Bridge into New York City.
I just recevied the Fedex tracking number for my Newegg order. I checked to see what day it will arrive and find that Fedex now gives a time for their delivery estimates.
