Author: Bob Harrison

Tonight is the opening game of the UH Rainbow Baseball season. We’ll be going against the Beavers of Oregon State, ranked either 10th or 25th depending on your poll. They’ll be good though, that’s a given.
The weather looks a bit on the iffy side and it’s been raining off and on all day. On top of that it’s cool, currently around 68F. That’s not bad baseball weather…if you’re a player. In the stands, at least here in Hawaii, it’s a bit more challenging.
Anyway, rain or shine, cool or warm, I’ll be there tonight!
Aloha!

A day or two ago my Grip King pedals began to make just a wee bit of noise. I’d opened them up and stuffed a bit of grease in them when they arrived, but I hadn’t completely disassembled them and done a real overhaul.
Then on Sunday when I took my new SlickerSack for a ride I started having the same problem as I did with the Touring Pedals earlier. So…
Today after doing my laundry I decided I’d head out to a meeting I attend which is conveniently located about 12.5 miles down the road. That means I get a nice 25 miles ride doing the round trip.
But I realized I didn’t want to ride 25 miles with a creak so I took off the Grip Kings and put back on my touring pedals, this time with a twist. I put on the Power Grips I’d ordered along with a few other odds and ends from Rivendell.
I need a bit more tweaking on them to make the fit just right, but to be honest, I think I’d better where socks next time I use them. The problem is that with sandals the strap can rub up against one’s foot. My right foot was fine, my left…not so good. I didn’t rub it hard enough to draw blood or anything, but I do have a little raw spot.
The upshot is that I overhauled the Grip Kings when I got home. They have 12 ball bearings on each side unlike the touring pedal’s 11 just in case you need to know. They should be fine now if my previous experience is any indication. I put the newly overhauled GK’s back on my bike and decided not to experiment with the Power Grips right now. I might put them back on when I do the Haleiwa Metric Century trip.
Speaking of Grip Kings, I’ve ordered another set to put on the beater so I guess I like ’em a lot.
And my Hennessy Hammock arrived today. It seems like a brand new one, but it could be my old one cleaned up. It was a little too late to dig deep into the matter.
The only thing wrong with this picture is I was going to order a new rain fly and have it shipped with the returned hammock. It’s not a big deal. I should have it in time for my April trip.
That’s all the news that’s fit to print around here.
Aloha!

A while back I built a Penny Alcohol Stove having gotten the directions here. I’ve used it twice and it works great. But…
There’s always a but isn’t there?
I really want a full cook set that works well. The penny stove itself hasn’t been the problem, it’s the stuff I don’t have with it; windscreens, pots and pans, so on and so forth. The solution, as far as alcohol stoves go seems to be Trangia. This Swedish company seems to have claimed the market as far as alcohol cook sets go.
The one I’ve been interested in is the 27-7 UL/HA. All of that means it’s a small set, useful for one or two people, made from ultralight aluminum (UL) and having a hard anodized coating (HA). This is one of the models recommended on the Rivendell website.
The set I want looks a bit, well more than a bit, like this…

Series 27 offers good stoves for the lone walker or two people. The pans are smaller and the kettle is sized accordingly. A small, compact stove that takes up minimal room in the rucksack. Here too, large billies can be placed on the raised supports in the upper windshield. All the stove systems in the 27 series have two 1-litre saucepans (1 graduated, 1 ungraduated), an 18 cm frying pan, windshields (upper and lower), a burner, a pan grip and a strap. Dimensions 18,5 x 10 cm.

Aloha!

My last post on the SlickerSack was taken from an email I sent to the RBW Owners Bunch Google Group where a number of us talk about…you got it…Rivendell Bikes and associated topics.
I’d not noticed this before so I checked it out. Sure enough, my bag is more like the Grid Grey model shown at Riv. The Dark Green model has the leather straps to connect to the Platrack in different spots. The D-rings for the shoulder straps are also in a different place. Perhaps that was an early model, perhaps mine is…who knows? Well I’m sure Grant and the folks at Riv know, but as for me…I’m just glad mine works well.
Well my post generated a query about the way my bag is fastened. It seems their are two distinct methods used on the bags shown on the Riv site.

My Sackville SlickerSack and Nitto Platrack combination arrived on Friday. I paid for it with my member’s rebate and, because I only bought one bike last year (my QB), a few bucks of my own.
My Quickbeam is a great bike, as I’ve documented in other emails, but it still needed an easily removable bag of decent size. My Sackville SaddleSack (lg) is great, but I generally cable tie it to the back rack making it kind of troublesome to remove if I want to go in and out of the office. When I read that the SlickerSack would hold a small computer, I was sold. Just to answer that question, yes it hold my 13″ Macbook just fine.
After work yesterday I put the Nitto Platrack on my bike. The line drawn instructions were helpful, but frankly this rack goes on very easily. It is, of course, not a standalone rack, requiring either a Nitto Mini Front or Mark’s Rack up front. Since I’ve got cantis on my QB I’m using a Mini Front Rack.
The only thing different on my installation is that I had to run the strut supports to the inside of the upper platform instead of the outside as shown on the Riv site’s images. There does seem to be a slight design change between mine and the one shown there. The tabs to hold the struts on mine are a bit closer to the inside than what you can see at Riv. In order to mount mine to the outside I’d have had a bit of curve in the struts which would have added a bit of tension to the whole thing. In addition the instructions that came with mine show the struts mounted to the inside so…there you go.
In any case besides digging up a hacksaw I had no problems. I still have to round off the struts a bit with a file, but I didn’t seem to have one of those around either. Sigh.
Today I got to take this new configuration out for a short ride. I decided to go with a likely load and put my Asus Eee PC (10″) with assorted goodies up front as well as a camera and a cable lock. I’d guess I had about 7 or 8 pounds up front though I didn’t weigh anything. I’m used to riding on another bike with front basket so I wasn’t expecting trouble. And…
…I none. My QB handled very well with the configuration. In fact I did try riding a bit without hands and it was very stable. I don’t generally ride without hands so I didn’t go far that way, but it certainly wasn’t worrying when I did.
At speed, or at least as much speed as I generate, the bike was great. It’s still responsive and I had no trouble with regular maneuvering in and out of traffic and around obstacles in an urban setting. That’s important to me as commuting accounts for most of the miles I put on my bikes.
I did have to be a bit more careful at very low speed, but that’s the case with my “beater with a basket” bike as well. Again there was nothing to worry about and it was all very comfortable. Indeed, because of my experience with a front basket this all felt very normal and required no real learning curve.
The bag itself is lovely. I also love the fact that there’s been some accommodation made for lashing other items on it. I can see that I’ll probably use this feature on my next camping trip (a three nighter in April – more on that later). One can’t really overstuff this bag, but if you are carrying that much you probably need a different configuration anyway.
The only thing I think I’m going to have to tweak is the inner padding. There’s a Coroplast sheet at the bottom of the bag which works great, but…things bouncing on it make a bit of noise on certain road surfaces. I will probably add thin foam pad I have to the mix so things quiet down a bit. I’m pretty sure it was the head of the cable lock I’d brought along. The computer I had with me was in a padded bag as well so it would have been quiet. And speaking of the computer up front, I’m writing this email on it so clearly it survived the ride.
I’ve got some images of the bag and bike combo as well as some shots of the hardware on Flickr.

To sum up, I think I’m going to love this combination, especially for work. With a small computer, 13″ or smaller, I can pretty much hook up anywhere and believe me, I plan on it. I never felt as of the my control of the bike was compromised. And, to top it off, the whole thing is simply gorgeous.
Aloha!

No, I’m not. At least not right now. But…an acquaintance is selling the stuff he has used to make his Quickbeam into an 8 speed bike. It’s a Sturmey-Archer 8-speed hub with wheel and a J-Tek bar end shifter along with all the trimmings to make it work.
It’s really, really tempting.
But sadly, I don’t have the ready cash. I could afford it, but I might have trouble going to Rome if I do. I may not get to Rome, but I’d hate to miss the opportunity because I’d overspent on stuff I don’t need. Sigh.
Besides, it seems there might be a better solution for a wee bit of gearing coming out soon, also courtesy of Sturmey-Archer.
It would seem they are coming out with a 2 speed hub with built in coaster brake. I’m not sure I’d really want to the brake, though I suspect it wouldn’t hurt, but having the ability to have one other easily accessible gear might be just the thing for QB touring.
For more information on geared hubs in general you could do a lot worse than Hubstripping site.
Aloha!

I’ve been granted permission to do my Malaekahana camping trip and now realize I’ve got some choices…
Should I use my Hennessy or rent a grass shack?

One way is cheap. The other is, as might be expected, a bit more.
Camping for three nights, as I’ve planned would cost me about $25 without any amenities. Getting a shack would be more, at least $120 for the three nights and more if I added the coolers, chairs, and such. Hmm…
I guess I’m pretty much inclined to save the money and go with the camping. I’m going to check in to renting the chairs and cooler though. However I’m pretty sure I can survive for a couple of days roughing it. We’ll see.
Aloha!

I’m considering making a long weekend of it this coming April. At the heart of the ride will be John B. Kelley Haleiwa Metric Century. Running from Haleiwa to Swanzy Beach Park and back this is a mostly flat ride running through some simply stunning scenery. I’ve done a lot of it recently on my camping trip to Malaekahana.
And that’s the other part of the ride I’m considering. Malaekahana is about 60 miles from me. I’ve done it loaded on my Quickbeam as I documented earlier.

So the plan is reasonably simple. On Saturday I’d cycle with my gear out to Malaekahana and camp overnight. That’s the first 60. The next day I’d cycle 17 miles to Haleiwa, ride the metric century or 62 miles, then ride back 17 miles. The next day it would be back to Honolulu for another 60 miles, again loaded.
Insane? Not really, though it might be best for me to actually go on Friday, take the day off on Saturday mucking about out at Malaekahana, and then come back Monday.
And, now that I’ve put it on virtual paper, the longer version sounds like it might be a bit more fun. It would also give me the opportunity to cycle to Haleiwa on Saturday to check out that part of the ride. Which, of course, would really make the ride 250 miles in 4 days. That doesn’t sound like much, does it?
Finally, I’ve got to figure out which bike to take, the Quickbeam or the Friday. Gears, no gears? Hmmm….stay tuned.
Aloha!

And today my Grip Kings arrived. I opened them up to make sure they’d been greased, unlike my touring pedals and it appeared they had. I still stuffed some more grease in them though I didn’t take them completely apart.
Tomorrow I’ll give them a try and see if they live up to their name. They sure look nice though.
I’ll admit to buying them somewhere besides Rivendell. While I do buy things from Riv, I found these pedals at $20 less than the Riv price which is just too much to ignore. If there were a $5 difference I’d have been happy to buy there, but…