Nov 21 - what did I forget ?

Ah yes, I forgot to provide an update on Dad's videos. Now I have three to cover, but this will be short.

The first was labeled June to Aug 89. Except for a brief bit of Hawaii at the beginning it was all shot at the cottage and a little at our place in Mississauga. Jason, Lorraine & their three boys playing in the cove, Kim -- same age as Meghan, friends of Jason's; Philip, Sarah and Meghan; Stef driving the 3-wheeler being bugged by David (hilarious); Joyce on the ski tube and around the cottage; and last but not least, Jim & Bonnie. Other than the Hawaii bit, there was little fast forwarding through this one !

We watched two videos last night from Jan 89 through Mar 89. There were many good shots of my Grandmother but they were mostly neighbors and their kids, shots of the beach, boats on one of the canals, stormy weather ... it's of these that I should really create edited versions. Perhaps I will ... but then again, once I've packaged them up and sent them off that might never happen. Who would watch them ? Probably only me when I'm older and grayer and don't have the energy to go biking !

More deliveries yesterday -- the replacement coffee carafe, the car charger and usb=> headset adapter for Sandy's phone and some carb-boom gels. I blew the order of the headset adapter, ordering one for 1/8" jack instead of 1/16" -- now I have to go to radioshack and buy a 1/8"=>1/16" adapter. Sigh.

I spent much of the time yesterday online looking at lighting systems. Oh -- I take that back -- I did take an hour or so out and take Abby to the dog beach. It was windy and cool but she enjoyed herself. I only saw two other people on the beach, both with dogs, so at one point I was in an area where I couldn't see anyone and took Abby off leash. Sure enough, around the corner came one of the beach patrol trucks. I hurried to get Abby back on leash -- the truck was headed towards me and veered off once they saw that Abby was leashed. At first we had been too far away to see unless they were using binoculars but I was too quick for that. I never saw the truck again or any more people but kept Abby on leash.

Back to the lighting systems. There are too many choices, and this is all from one website -- peterwhitecycles.com. He is based in NH and is the importer of the best gear. There are choices of hubs, but not really, since the Schmidt hub is so much more efficient than anything else. At 65% efficiency, 3 watts of lighting takes less than 5 watts out of me to drive it. That's not much, you might think, but at 200-300 watts typical effort pedaling the bike that means that 2% of my output is for lighting. It's less than that when the lights are turned off ... and it's less than that for LED lighting vs Halogen lighting.

After you choose the hub then you build the wheels. His choice of spokes and rims is pretty standard and I'll likely go with the WheelSmith spokes and Mavic Open Pro rims. For the rear/drive hub (the front hub has the generator) I'll likely use the Shimano 9 speed vs the 10 speed, simply because a shim allows me to use the 9 speed hub with 10 speed equipment but if I go with a 10 speed hub I won't be able to use it on my backup bike which has a 9 speed setup.

An explanation of terminology -- 9 speed vs 10 speed is simply the number of cogs in the rear cassette. The cassette is separate from the hub and replaceable. 10 speed is the latest and greatest. To achieve 10 speed in the same amount of space as 9 speed the gears and chain are narrower. At the front, i.e. the crankset there are either 2 or 3 chainrings, I have 2 on my bikes. The 3rd chainring on bikes so equipped is referred to as a "granny gear" -- most mountain bikes have a triple crankset and road bikes either have two or three, depending on whether the biker needs the extra small gear to climb hills. I can manage with two so why carry the extra weight.

So ... with 2 chainrings at the front and 9 cogs at the back, that is 18 gear selections. They do overlap, i.e. some combinations produce the same number of inches of travel per crankset rotation. With 3 chainrings and 10 cogs ... yup, you'd have 30 gears. With the granny gear many of those gears are much lower than the 2x10 that I have, but haven't needed. There is also a compact crankset available where the chainrings are smaller and the gearing between the small chainring and larger chainring do not overlap. With the compact crankset your highest gear is lower than the highest gear of my crankset -- you sacrifice being able to pump away at high speed going down hill.

Choosing the wheels is the easy part. There are then many, many choices of lights -- singles, combinations, Halogen, LED, different beam patterns, different mounting systems -- on the fork, at the crown (where the front fork comes together), above the handlebar, below the handlebar, you name it. I think that I've narrowed it down to 1 or 2 options, below the handlebar, and want to talk to Peter White for his recommendation.

Then you have to decide on tail lighting. I have three taillights -- one in the center and one on each seatstay. They are battery operated and run for a long time on a couple of AA's (like 30 hours, I think). The advantage of the dynamo powered taillight is twofold -- one, you don't have to worry about batteries (you use both, for more lighting and backup), and two, it uses some of the voltage so that you don't have to have compensating electronics so that the excessive voltage produced by the dynamo doesn't burn out the headlights. That's not a problem if you go with two headlights or with a 3 watt halogen bulb. I have not decided yet whether I should have 1 or 2 headlights but they will probably be LED because they run for thousands of hours vs a hundred hours for the Halogen lights.

As usual with these things I spend a lot of time when there are multiple choices -- online. If I am in a store I buy quickly, because I hate brick & mortar shopping ! I have not decided whether to order these now or wait until after Christmas for delivery late January.

That's about it. Bill and Collette arrive this afternoon and I'm planning on getting out on the bike before they arrive since my riding will be limited over the next week. It's light outside and I think that I'll take Abby for a quick walk since Sandy will be busy housecleaning until they arrive.

I have exchanged a few emails with Bonnie -- no ice up there yet even though it's been cold. I'm sure that there is ice in the back bays and down the Wolf River, but there is nothing in the main lake. It's probably been too windy, based on what I've seen online. It takes a period of calm for ice to freeze and then no amount of wind makes any difference, it keeps getting thicker if it's cold. Of course with our lake it seldom freezes down at the ESS Narrows due to the current, but that is far away and a small spot of water, not large enough to build up waves to break up ice further down the lake.