quality of life issues

Figure 17a: the White Industries guts of a MadFiber rear hub

lighter   smoother   stiffer   harder

It’s amazing what people put on YouTube but it's even more amazing that the shit gets 1,734,292 hits because people watch it

Below you’ll see a not-even-close-to-scientific demonstration of ceramic bearing performance with a soundtrack that overwhelms any objectivity

ask me about sphericity

Craig Etheridge photos

I’m not taking as many photos as I have in the past and maybe that’s why Rob and Craig both sent me some in the last few days and Bret in ABQ too and I poached from Seth this morning.  The top two photos you see here were taken by Craig   but they reminded me of the two photos seen below.  When I take a photo it usually triggers something in my photographic memory and reminds me of a photo I took 5 or 12 or 3 years ago… …something I put in kickstand or on this here site, so when I have a string of words I need to get out of my head and I’m looking for a picture to accompany them sometimes I just skip a few steps and dip into the pilderwasser archives instead of pulling out my camera which at 3.2 mega pixels is so-seven-years-ago it’s like an ancient artifact.  Little little kid’s dolls now come with 12 mega pixel cameras built into their eyes and sell at retail prices lower than the Six Million Dollar Man action figure doll my mom bought me as a kid which had one bionic eye to look through, however it was just a cheap-ass little plastic lens as I discovered one day when I smashed Steve Austin’s head enough to remove the lens for inspection and then I felt I was grownup enough to not even try and put it back looking back I’m glad I at least got some wear and tear out of him and didn’t leave it in the package to try and preserve the resale collector bullshit value you see shrinkwrapped for sale just a few clicks away today on eBay ask me about the vivisection of Stretch Armstrong someday by the way thanks for the photos Craig and Rob and Seth and Bret and Lane

Six-Nine photo

Robert Kittilson photo

before

after

Howdy. My name is Mark and I was a bike messenger in Seattle for 12 years and now I’m working at MadFiber about 20 feet away from Justin Littell (another former messenger) and he said you may be interested in the ENO freewheel that I’ve enclosed in the envelope. Perhaps you can put it in the White Industries petting zoo. It’s returning home after years of real world testing and abuse and it’s still more smooth and silky than any brand new ACS claw.  

I bought it barely used at nearly full retail price at Second Ascent in Seattle in 2006. I put it on a single speed cross bike and rode it gently for a bit before I rode it across Iowa on RAGBRAI that same year. Then I rode the shit out of it for a couple years as a bike messenger here in Seattle. I did nothing to the freewheel except ignore it, as I wore through a couple chainrings and replaced the chain a few times. Doing nothing except pulling the wheel back in the dropouts to suck up the slack chain tension. I rebuilt the hub into a new rim once too because of Seattle Sidewall Syndrome, burning through brake pads and tires and blowing out Carhartts and Dickies. Drinking and working through dark Seattle winters as a messenger, the White Industries freewheel was the last thing on my mind. I finally stopped riding it after a couple years when the teeth were shark-finned enough to drop the chain just dropping off curbs.

I’ve had it hanging on the wall in my shop for a while as a tangible reminder of years past. And I’ve been too lazy or clueless to try and rebuild it.

In my single speed life, I’ve blown through countless ACS Claw freewheels and several Shimanos too. They have a relatively short lifespan in Seattle weather and often offer audible indicators of when it’s time to let them go and buy another. Unlike your amazing freewheels, the ACS bearings and pawls go way before the teeth.

Cheers to you. I admire and respect your products.

pilderwasser
Seattle

Visualize a professional cyclist being poked prodded and praised by a bunch of engineers tweaking his time trial position

narrow low and aero

OK    now                          OK
now             is this real life?

visualize me riding a 30lb basket bike on a Library-Red Apple-beer-run hammering out of the saddle and into the wind up hill struggling to get home before kickoff on a cold Saturday afternoon

heavy slow lugged steel 12-pack of IPA

utility cycling in November means
raising your saddle 13mm
riding in Red Wing boots

two wrongs don’t make a wronger
but it adds up to one short of wrongest  

you can’t win them all
unless you’re a Catholic high school football team

this is not your mom‘s Herb Alpert

this is a CETMA cargo bike

not necessarily in that order

return to photo #1 as needed 

lookuphere   lookuphere    look up here

keeping it in perspective since 2010 

something old    something new

ask Jay   what Dave Matthews would do

Bret Haskins photo

Would you like to come downstairs and see my blown-out bike part collection? I am slowly recovering from the creeping decay that was thriving on my messenger bikes. Now that I’m a full-time chuffer, my bike parts will last a lot longer than they used to.

However, I'm still seriously suffering from Seattle Sidewall Syndrome (SSS), a condition which causes the premature deterioration of wheels ridden by messengers and hardcore commuters in wet grimy winter conditions as rim brakes, especially high-power cantilevers, wear through the braking surface of the rim.

The cross section of a clincher rim after one rainy season of aggressive riding is transformed from a box shape to more of an hourglass. It’s like the brake pads are made of 80 grit sandpaper. Left unattended the wheel eventually fails when the bead of the high pressure tire can no longer be contained by the paper-thin sidewalls of the rim. The end result is a catastrophic failure one day when you’re just riding along. The tire blows up and the sidewall peels like a banana and snags the brakes, locking up the wheel. If it occurs on the front wheel you’re launched over the bars in a dramatic acrobatic display. But if you’re lucky it happens on a Sunday afternoon while you’re watching football on TV and your bike is leaning against the wall by the heater, when suddenly your tire explodes like a firecracker and propels bits of rim shrapnel and inner tube powder into your personal space, scaring the shit out of the cats.

There’s a strong correlation between SSS and Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) another common malady this time of year in the Pacific Northwest. According to the pharmaceutical industry SAD can be remedied with prescription drugs. But many people just choose to increase their caffeine and or alcohol intake. There's a noticeable shift even an oscillation along Seattle’s coffee-beer continuum. It’s as clear as setting the clocks back or the lack of daylight or the sun’s shallow winter arc across the sky up here at the 47th parallel.  Bike riding or what doctors refer to as "regular exercise" is a simple elegant solution to SAD.    

coffee beer coffee beer beer beer bikes beer bike beer bikes beer

Seattle Sidewall Syndrome can simply be avoided by using disk brakes or riding with no brakes at all. Or you could just stop riding your bike and walk.

Wheels in Focus

Sandbagging
being lazy at a job and getting close to nothing done in a given amount of time while maintaining the appearance of working hard

Sandbagging  
temporary flood protection using sandbags

water gets where water goes
slippery slopes slip
where white knuckling won’t help
off-camber Catholic guilt goes nowhere 
stay loose   get squirrelly
think 3rd Avenue cheese graters in the rain
embrace your inner Jonny Sundt