Repurposing is a common theme on Bike Hacks, and if your movie tastes have changed, reader Jim sent along a hack he spotted that might make for a good repurposed reflector.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
While in Mexico, a bicycle I saw had a faded DVD as a rear reflector. I'm sure it didn't work any more since it was so faded, but I'm sure it reflected quite well when newer. Of course the bike was quite faded as you can see in the picture. By the way, they offered to sell or rent the bike to me while I was there. Our depressed economy is reflecting on their economy.
A few days ago we ran a post on a pencil sharpener bike hack, and a few readers expressed an interest in seeing it action. I sent the hacker, Michael, an email and he responded right away with the following video. The chain hangs free and all that is required is some pulling. Thanks Michael!
Tired of hanging around the out of town relatives? Is your team getting crushed early making it miserable to watch the game? Disillusioned with holiday consumerism? Electronic beeps from new games/devices driving you mad?
If the holidays are getting you down, here's a hack from holiday past to give you a pick me up. Step into your work space and repurpose a tire or inner tube. Reader Menard from Austin provided us with an easy hack to spread some cheer. Menard's Flickr name is BackAmp and he writes the following:
This isn't exactly a BIKE hack, but it is a bike part hack reuse. I needed something circular to make a "wreath" to hang over my garage light. A quick look around the garage and I found the perfect item - a old tire I couldn't bear to throw out.
I'm planning to leave the light strand on the tire and just stash the whole thing in the attic for next year.
Do you have a bike themed holiday idea? Let us know.
For those sleeping off their Festivus hangovers, I thought that rather than retiring the Festivus pole to the attic or closet until next year, it might be better repurposed for a bike hack. Reader comments/ideas are welcome!
I cannot remember the last time I used a "traditional" pencil (been on the mechanical bandwagon for years), but that does not mean that I have forgotten the sweet smell of a newly sharpened pencil. When I was in elementary school, the first thing I would do after sharpening my pencil was take a long, deep whiff of the freshly sharpened tip. Maybe those long whiffs explain a lot of things about me, who knows how much lead I might have inhaled =)
Reader Michael still prefers OG pencils and came up with this sweet hack when his sharpener broke. I can smell pencils by just staring at the picture below . . . memories.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Recently my pencil sharpener was wear out due to a broken handle, to restore its function I attached an used cassette and a old chain to it, so by pulling the chain you can sharpen the pencil again.To connect the cassette to the sharpener,I fill the center of the cassette with acrylic sealant and after dry out(about two weeks) it'll adhere to the sharpener.
It is not uncommon for me to select theme music for some posts, the most recent being from the lost decade of the 1970s. Well, it was not entirely a lost decade, the founding of Van Halen is the one redeeming quality of that ten year expanse of time. Clocking in at a mere 1 minute and 42 seconds, Eddie Van Halen shredding out Eruption single handled saved the entire decade.
The theme song for this post however could not be the more polar opposite of Eruption. It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want To goes back to 1963, and this video is from 1965.
This video proves that lipsyching is actually older than most people reading this blog and not an invention of modern pop stars. So how does this song relate to this post? Well, "It's my blog and I'll rant if I want to . . . rant if I want to."
Yes this is a bike blog, and while this rant is not entirely bike focused, it does overlap, and as a bonus I will give a preview of a future post. Aren't you lucky! Cue the rant music . . .
I am not a huge fan of holiday gift giving, but I do enjoy the tradition of holiday greeting cards - mostly. There is one holiday card feature that makes me want to shout, "Bah Humbug!" Take a look at the top of a greeting card I recently received -
So what's so bad about this you ask? GLITTER! I hate the stuff, it gets EVERYWHERE. The glitter starts on my hands of course and then everything I touch within a few hours is vitimized by the stuff. After opening the card pictured above, for days I found glitter on almost everything owned. It was on my jacket, pants, glasses, shoes, helmet, handlebar grips, bag, and even inside of one of my headphones for crying out loud!
It's the gift that keeps on giving, but in the most annoying way possible. I am sure if you were to track my commute you would find a trail of glitter. The stuff is pervasive! If I were President, the first item on my agenda would be passing a law making glitter illegal. Okay, rant over and now on to a preview for a future post . . .
Readers are welcome and encouraged to guess why I am going to feature this picture in an upcoming post.
A few weeks back I published a post on the challenge that salt on roads poses in the winter. I encouraged readers to submit their own hacks for keeping their whips corrosion free and our first submission focused on Plasti Dip as a possible solution. Reader Chuck rides in Wisconsin during the winter and sent along his own advice on fighting the corrosive combination of CaCl2, MgCl2, and KCl found on roads.
The combination of Upper-case and Lower-case letters and subscript numbers above came from a couple of quick Google searches on "road salt." The search made me dizzy and scared. Dizzy because chemical diagrams and shorthand make my head spin. Scared because I am pretty sure the "salt" we throw all over the place is super bad for the environment. I don't claim to understand most of what I stumbled upon, however the "salt" appears to be a combination of . . . long sounding words that are hard to pronounce and likely kills stuff.
I definitely don't belong in the lane that deals with chemical compositions, but if readers out there wish to comment, I would love to read more. Well, maybe that is overstated because I am sure whatever I read will depress me . . . anyway, take it away Chuck . . .
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For winter-proofing my ride for Wisconsin winter I use:
1-Change any fasteners that are not stainless steel to stainless and liberally coat the threads with anti seize.
2-Coat the inside of all the frame tubes with Gibb's aerosol lubricant. This stuff is amazing!
3-If it is bare aluminum and can be easily removed, it gets painted with black enamel.
One thing I think every rider can agree on is that you never want what is on the road to get in your mouth. Whether you ride on city streets, country roads, or dirt trails, crud can easily kick up on a water bottle sitting in a cage on the down tube. If the spout on your water bottle gets dirty, you don't want to put it in your mouth.
The folks over at AVEX have attempted to solve this problem with the Pecos AUTOSPOUT Water Bottle. They sent me one to review and not only will I offer comments, my wife will as well. I thought it would be good for her to offer her comments and I was right because she mentioned some stuff I did not think of.
First is a video from the AVEX website that shows how the spout is designed.
The main design feature is a spring loaded shield that is meant to keep crud off of the drinking spout. In addition, the bottle has an internal spill-proof valve that will only let water escape when the bottle is squeezed (seen at the 43 second mark in the video) and it features double-wall construction that keeps the contents cold for an extended period of time.
The first comment my wife had is that the spout is a little short. What this means is that if you do not want to digest crud that might be around the top of the bottle, the bottle needs to be held away from your mouth when drinking. I think this is fairly standard for any water bottle.
Second, my wife has small hands and she noted that she had difficultly squeezing the bottle to get the water out. This is innevitable with double-wall construction I think.
Third, my wife thought it would be cool if there was some sort of hole or clasp feature in the lid that would allow the bottle to be hung from a bag. This is a common feature in drinking bottles, but not so much in bottles designed for bikes.
I concur with everything my wife said, and I have one additional point, noted at the end of the arrow in this photo -
What I am trying to show is that the spring loaded shield does not create a "perfect" seal. There is a small gap that crud could get in to, but I think this would only be an issue if you were to totally submerge the bottle, which is unlikely to happen. Also, as long as you hold the bottle away from your mouth, even if crud were to pentrate the seal you are likely okay because there is a small reservoir of sorts that would keep crud away from the drinking spout.
All in all it is a well designed product that solves a very real problem and at $12.99 it is priced affordably. I give it five zip ties.
One day I hope to brandish a flame that is mega hot to stick metal things together, something reader Ben has experience doing as described in the following write up. Ben does the Flickr and can be found at thedidley's. Take it away Ben . . .
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
I finished this repair stand about 2 months ago. After I bought a welder, this was one of the first projects on the list. I had made a PVC stand about 4 years ago and it was not much better than leaning the bike up against a wall so I really wanted to make something worth using.
Another consideration was that I do all my projects in a storage shed (or outside it) and I wanted to be able to collapse the stand down to store flat. The parts include:
1 1/2" angle iron,
1 1/2" black pipe
3/4" square steel tubing
5/8" solid steel rod
a floor flange for the black pipe
a pair of welding vice grips.
The vice grips are mounted to the square tubing and the rod is sized to fit snugly inside the square tube. I use a towel or piece of foam to protect my bike when I clamp it in. I put a set screw on the square tubing using a weldable nut so that I could secure the bike at various angles. The floor flange is welded to the bottom of the stand and the black pipe threads into the flange. The way it's set up I can rotate the bike on the clamp post and on the vertical part of the stand (black pipe), so it's pretty easy to access just about any part of the bike.
All of the parts are available at the big box hardware stores. If you know someone who does metal work or has a farm, they probably have some angle iron or black pipe you could score. Metal bed frames are also a good source of angle iron. The project cost about $50 (using all new materials) so it's not as cheap as some of the PVC or hook type DIY stands, but its as sturdy as some of the $100+ stands out there.
Some people bike with precious cargo, but I was a bit stumped when I passed this bike the other day. Thoughts from readers on the exact point of this hack are welcome . . . logical or not =)
