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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 291 responses total. |
russ
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response 264 of 291:
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Sep 9 23:21 UTC 2002 |
Adjusting the cable on the front derailleur made it work a bit better,
but didn't fix the problem. Oil on the joints improved it further; I
can now depend on it shifting, albeit not as quickly as I'd like. I
believe the stop screw isn't even a factor (I couldn't see it protruding
when I looked at the bike), so it's either dirt or it's bent. Either
way, not too hard to fix or live with.
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keesan
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response 265 of 291:
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Sep 10 00:24 UTC 2002 |
Feel free to fix my front derailleur now you are an expert. It still takes
two arms to move it (or a stick to lift up the chain manually and move it
over). Anyone know what might be making my front brakes really noisy? We
could not see anything out of alignment. Cantilever brakes. The repair book
said some brakes are just noisy and you should get earplugs. I feel bad using
them at night (but it does get pedestrians to move quickly out of the way).
Rain possible next weekend. I hope they move it up a few days. Eaton County
has the distinction of having nothing at all mentioned about it in any of the
library books about what to see in Michigan. No big cities or state parks
or famous restaurants. Sounds very peaceful. Jim is getting us ready by
fixing a tape deck, a VCR and a boombox (so we will have more space to pack).
It was too hot to go outside to work on the bikes. He should put an aluminum
front wheel on his Murray. The seat post is too short on his better one that
already has the pannier racks - anyone have a super long seatpost?
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jep
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response 266 of 291:
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Sep 10 01:13 UTC 2002 |
There is a pretty famous restaurant outside of Eaton Rapids, though I
can't remember the name. Eaton County is a lot like Lenawee County; a
mostly rural farming county.
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gull
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response 267 of 291:
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Sep 10 02:23 UTC 2002 |
Re #265: Have you tried sanding the brake shoes to break the glaze, or
getting new ones? My brakes tend to get noisy when the pads get glazed or
the rubber hardens from age.
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scg
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response 268 of 291:
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Sep 10 06:19 UTC 2002 |
You probably need to "toe in" the brake pads. That is, make the front of the
pad hit the rim before the back of it does.
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keesan
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response 269 of 291:
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Sep 10 22:44 UTC 2002 |
Thanks, we will try both these fixes. Before the next trip, I hope. I really
sound like a banshee going down hills.
I have started posting our bike trip photos at www.usol.com/~keesan/aug02.htm.
20 photos (about a third of the trip).
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clees
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response 270 of 291:
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Sep 11 07:59 UTC 2002 |
Check your site, Sindy. Nice. It seems some links (to pictures) don't
work.
I invite you to have a look at my biking site:
http://www.godutch.myweb.nl/
Working parts are: Slide show, 'behind me'; stories on Italy 1996,
Pyrenees 1997, Alps 2000. Under contruction are Alps 2001, M. Ventoux
2001 and Italy 2002, and the 'front wheel' (quiting)
It's ever growing and graphic intensive.
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keesan
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response 271 of 291:
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Sep 11 13:27 UTC 2002 |
I will check out your site next time I am using a graphical browser, Clees.
I found one broken link in the Aug2002 section (to Hanni's info - I typed the
wrong URL) - which other ones were broken? For a while I had the jpgs in the
wrong directory but they are moved now, please check again and let me know
what else does not work. It is very slow for me to check them all with my
modem connection. I will post more soon (today?).
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keesan
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response 272 of 291:
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Sep 11 17:06 UTC 2002 |
Clees, may I put a link to your site at mysite? I have finished posting
and would appreciate knowing of any broken links. www.usol.com/~keesan.
Does anyone know how, using the command lines of cuteftp for DOS, I can
1. Go back to a higher level directory?
2. Move files between directories?
I cannot find the manual for cuteftp anywhere online. Does grex have anything
better than the list of commands that I get when I type ? in cuteftp?
I figured out how to list local and nonlocal files, to put and get, to quit
and close, etc.
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clees
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response 273 of 291:
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Sep 11 19:42 UTC 2002 |
Next time I am browsing I'll keep an eye to it, but it might take some
time. As from next Saturday I'll be in your town for a week.
And of course you made add alink on your site. I' shall put a link on
my site, then.
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keesan
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response 274 of 291:
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Sep 11 19:51 UTC 2002 |
We may miss you as we hope to go biking for a week leaving Saturday ;(
I have asked a grexer with a DSL line that he could not think of much use for
to check out my links to the photos. Clees, do you have a place lined up to
stay while you are in Ann Arbor? What are your plans (I have not been reading
your travel item).
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clees
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response 275 of 291:
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Sep 12 06:18 UTC 2002 |
My plans?
Heh heh, Renfest, a BBQ, there is a birthday coming up. For the rest
Ill just see what happens. Maybe have lunch with this or that.
I'll be staying with Anne and Sylvia.
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keesan
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response 276 of 291:
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Sep 13 13:31 UTC 2002 |
Clees's site (www.godutch.myweb.nl) has links to various other people's bike
tours. There was one cross-country US tour made by three people who posted
a long list of what they took (why do people bring shaving cream and razors
on camping trips when they are travelling light, and three tents for three
people). This one had a map, and journal entries for all three. Two of the
journals were blank, the third had two entries in it for the day when it
poured rain all day and the day when the kid's rear tire blew and wheel broke
and he had to wait two weeks for a replacement (before joining the group a
few hundred miles west - I get the impression they were not doing this for
transportation). There was a more interesting bike trip by someone in D. C.
originally from Michigan, done solo, with lots of photos, and his 1995 AIDS
bikeathon with 3200 other people, 3 days Boston to NY. He took the train
north and biked 3 days with the group (it rained, 700 gave up, they were all
issued tents and food and luggage every night) and then 3 days by himself via
hotel. Nobody else seems to bike in circles - they all depend on cars or
trains or airplanes to get them somewhere or back from somewhere.
Nobody listed the cost of their trip just the daily miles and what they took
and what they saw. They stayed in $10/night campgrounds with showers and ate
doughnuts. Our trip cost nothing for the bikes except our time. We already
had the tents and sleeping bags and bought one $61 mat (marked down from $90
because someone had returned it) and three bags of corn chips (79 cents on
sale). I paid about $2 for maps - photocopied the library county maps. We
paid nothing for entertainment or museum admission or campsites or hotels.
We ate once at a Milan restaurant for $4 each and JEP treated us in Tecumseh.
The other trips were all along carefully marked transcontinental or east coast
bike routes. We hiked two days once on the Appalachian trail and they must
have been much like this. You keep meeting the same people and everyone along
the way knows what you are doing and is bored with tourists.
They took spare tubes and tires. We met someone interesting in Milan when
I needed a tire. He sells used bikes out of his yard. They stayed in
campsites. We stayed in a pole barn when it rained hard and met some llamas.
THey ate in restaurants. We took along our millet and lima beans and dried
mushrooms and peanuts and cooked with people that we visited. They bought
expensive new bikes that needed replacement parts which you had to mail order.
We got ours as 'offerings to the curb gods' and moved parts around. They went
on paved roads. We went on dirt and since we were the only bikers ever to
pass that way, got offers of yards to stay in and breakfast and conversation.
They went hundreds or thousands of miles from home. Our circle had a diameter
of about 35 miles and we met a wide variety of people and did not have to be
anywhere at any particular time so changed plans often.
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keesan
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response 277 of 291:
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Sep 13 18:54 UTC 2002 |
Jim's housemate went crosscountry one year in April and May alone on his
recumbent bike. He told us of how many people thought he looked hungry and
fed him. One biker kept him for a few days during a snowstorm. He was not
following any set of biking maps and headed south when he got tired of snow,
just in time to hit hot weather in Iowa instead of snow in MN.
Time to pack our bikes for the next adventure. Jim is looking for a bottle
for cooking oil, and the missing sheet.
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iggy
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response 278 of 291:
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Sep 13 22:04 UTC 2002 |
planning a wesson party, are you?
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keesan
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response 279 of 291:
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Sep 14 02:02 UTC 2002 |
We are nearly packed for our next adventure. This time I packed heavy wool
shirts and long pants. Jim has a new mat cover that snaps all the way around.
Little comforts (this one weighs over a pound but keeps the mat from being
slippery and sticky) make all the difference. We saved time by putting all
the cooking and other non-clothing gear into a box last time and the contents
just go into the panniers, along with quinoa, split peas and the other basic
foods and some clothing and bike tools. JIm refuses to take a spare tube.
I seem to be much harder on tires than on tubes anyway. He is deciding
whether to take a Goretex jacket (that works in light rain) or a nylon rain
cape (that does not work as a jacket but does work in the rain).
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keesan
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response 280 of 291:
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Sep 16 15:53 UTC 2002 |
Greetings from the Eaton Rapids library. WE had a nice visit and walk around
town with the Perries (John I and Ruth) and now we know why John II was not
afraid to make bookcases. Their house is full of professionally looking
built-ins made byJohn I. But his mother is a great cook so he has no excuse.
He says someone had to do the eating, they could not all cook. The town is
very pretty, withseveral parks on the Grand Ledge River, a nice library, a
Chinese-Polish-Thai restaurant, a hardware store, and lots of quiet and clean
air. Heading south to visit someone with 120 varieties of fruit trees and
then home.
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jep
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response 281 of 291:
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Sep 16 19:40 UTC 2002 |
That's the Grand River.
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jep
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response 282 of 291:
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Sep 16 20:04 UTC 2002 |
My parents enjoyed meeting Jim and Sindi. They thought Sindi was
pretty inquisitive. They thought the house they're building was
beautiful. They hadn't seen much in the way of digital cameras, and
were very pleased to have the pictures of all of us for my mother's
computer. They used a picture of me for their computer wallpaper.
It was extremely helpful, to have Jim to help me load my dad's canoe,
which I'm borrowing for a weekend trip with my son. Thanks!
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keesan
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response 283 of 291:
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Sep 21 15:01 UTC 2002 |
Has nobody else been biking since last weekend?
Thanks for the instructions how to fix our squeaky brakes. One of my front
brakes had a reverse slope (the back part hit first). It is quiet now (except
in the rain - which we had lots of Friday coming back). Friday is a good day
to be biking in intermittent rain because of the garage sales. We came back
with 50 pounds on my bike and 85 on Jim's including a large electric pressure
cooker, a lightweight pan/pot/bowl/lid combination (we left them our heavy
wok), an antique voltmeter, something equally heavy that you can set to behave
like any two transistors, a large heavy drill sharpener, mouse trap, ant bait,
carpet shampoo, mink oil, two videos (these small items were at the curb after
a sale), a large bunch of files and handles. I am waiting for Jim to weigh
all the new toys. Also about 5 pounds of home-grown black beans, a whopper
onion. We ate the apples along the way. I pushed my bike up much of Newport
Rd. Jim was carrying the toys - I was carrying the same as I was carrying
most of the trip, which he claimed was all light stuff (bedding, clothing,
a bit of food most of which had been eaten on the trip). Me and bike came
to 195 pounds, Jim and bike to 290 pounds. He is 50% larger but 100%
stronger. No wonder I could not keep up and had to go first.
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bru
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response 284 of 291:
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Sep 21 20:27 UTC 2002 |
BIKING! LEt me tell you about what my PT indstructor is going to put
me thru! No. never mind. I'll save it for when I find out. But it
ain't gonna be pretty.
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keesan
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response 285 of 291:
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Sep 22 00:46 UTC 2002 |
What PT instructor? Do you want an exercise bike?
Last trip something cut through both layers of the sidewall of my front tire.
We replaced it in Milan and the replacement is fine. Today Jim noticed
something had worn through the first of two layers of his rear tire. As he
was replacing his, I noticed the same had happened to mine. What sorts of
things cut through the fibers in sidewalls? Are we just three times unlucky?
At least it did not get to the point where the tube was bulging.
Jim is cleaning lots of sand from the bike and panniers. Wet sand from
Hamburg south (and part of the way before that). Kearney Rd. is continuous
potholes and they were all full of water while both sides of the road were
underwater. Sometimes cars would slow down to pass us. Jennings, Joy and
Stein were flat and nearly pothole free. During rush hour all the cars were
rushing north from Ann Arbor instead of rushing south past us. Southern
Livingston County is full of Ann Arbor people 'gone country' with horses.
There is a Lakelands Linear State Park from Stockbridge to Pinckney which
bills itself as a biking and hiking trail with a few sections open to bikes.
It was poor quality (thick gravel) surface chewed up by horsetracks and full
of droppings. We tried it briefly and switched to dirt road. A local
resident said it is only used for horses and she left it and took M-36 instead
(a really bad road for biking but at least level).
At Lakeland we nearly went on M-36 but discovered that the DNR had taken over
another section of the same abandoned railway bed. This had only one horse
dropping and no obvious tracks and about 2/3 of it was bikable. The rest was
deep in large round stones or sand, which someone had apparently dumped from
a truck every 10-20 feet so as to produce a roller coaster effect. Very
pretty scenery along the sides of cattails and bushes turning color. We went
from Lakeland to Hamburg. The other way goes to Pinckney.
On the short section we took of the State trail we saw NO bike tracks except
for one triple track going both ways. We eventually met up with the creature
that made it. They are now making 'jogging' baby carriages in luxury models
that look just like the regular ones but have three large wheels. At one
intersection with a road someone was selling tomatoes. They were rotten.
As we were eating our grapes she came out and pitched them all across the road
and put out fresh ones for us. In Stockbridge there is an authentic Mexican
takeout restaurant where he uses no cans. We bought corn chips, which we
later ate while waiting out the rain near the Huron River on the bike trail,
crouched under some sort of metal cage type thing (Jim says it is used to haul
things on railway cars) that someone had floored with screens and roofed with
a few wooden boards. He sat under the crack on a broiler oven. We put our
8x10' tarp over the bikes and the doorway propped up on a screen.
The next time it started to rain we waited under a plastic awning with four
legs that was also sheltering the Hamburg Special Olympics rummage sale. The
sale was continuing through the second annual Hamburg railway day on Saturday.
Jim got a large voltmeter and a large object that substitutes for any
transistor pair. We at the supper we had cooked under a tarp the night
before.
The third time it started to rain, just south of Hamburg, I spotted a garage
sale sign. We bought a very heavy drill bit sharpener and 2' level and stayed
to visit for a few hours until they closed up. They offered us a ride home
in a truck. We were stubborn and left at 5 in the rain. It rained steadily
until the Huron River, let up a few minutes as we crossed, then rained
steadily until we got home, at which point the dams burst. So did the gutter
over my back porch (it falls down regularly).
This trip Jim could recognize poison ivy so only got some on his ankles.
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keesan
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response 286 of 291:
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Sep 22 11:31 UTC 2002 |
Lakelands trail had a few sections open to horses (I typed bikes) and was
supposed to be mainly for hiking and biking. No fun biking in horse manure
and a surface like the craters of the moon.
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russ
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response 287 of 291:
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Sep 22 14:16 UTC 2002 |
I have been riding every few days, but just the usual exercise sprints.
They don't seem to be worth talking about.
I don't even read more than the first half-page of long screeds about road
trips. If they come to dominate too much, I may just forget this item.
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slynne
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response 288 of 291:
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Sep 22 14:50 UTC 2002 |
...and then you'll *really* be sorry!
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