Enginerve : Bikes

10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated power of will, 5% pleasure, 50% pain…a 100% reason to remember the name


  • Bar End Brake Light: BEBL – More DIY How To Projects

    Overview
    Group riding would be much safer if bikes had brake lights.  The lack of brake lighting on bicycles has lead to the audio cues of “SLOWING” or “STOPPING” being shouted at every turn.  While this may enhance safety, it certainly cuts into the serenity of a ride.

    This project offers a viable solution that can increase both safety and serenity on a group ride.  With embedded programming made easy by the Arduino integrated development environment, electronics getting smaller, more capable, and cheaper, this project is possible for the do-it-yourselfer.

    BEBL Challenge! Be the first, and get your hardware cost reimbursed.  I will award a $35 reimbursement, by mail or PayPal, to the first person to post a video online that demonstrates a functioning and mounted Bar End Brake Light made from these plans.  Looking forward to seeing your project.

    Design Criteria
     Other than the obvious criterion — light up when braking, I wanted this light to look cool, cool enough to mount on any expensive racing bike.  This rules out any visible wiring.  I also wanted the light to be portable, meaning it will work on more than one bike.  Thus no brake-lever specific triggering should be used.

    Solution
    The final design is centered around a 3-axis accelerometer board provided by Pololu.com .  This product is simple to use with an Arduino, small enough to fit inside the handle bars, and best of all cheap at $15.  Also, this accel has an on-board voltage regulator that we will take advantage of to power the whole circuit.

    The processing takes place in an ATmega328 programmed with Arduino.  These chips can be also be programmed directly in C, but Arduino takes care of a lot of setup and generally makes programming less tedious.  Arduino has everything this project needs.  The ATmega168 would probably suffice for this project but the ATmeta328 at $1 more, provides 2X the program space.

    Mounting the computer inside the handlebars provides an enclosure for the project.

  • It’s In the Blood

    Have you ever purchased a single month of cable T.V. just to watch the Tour? Shaved your legs to avoid road-rash? Calculated out your ideal Q-factor? Weighed the benefits of titanium versus carbon fiber with the intensity of an aerospace engineer? Pushed yourself to the point that you fall over trying to clip out? We have. We know. Join us.

    Here’s how it goes down:

    • We slap a primo piece of cycling gear on our site at a scandalous price.
    • We sell it ’til it’s gone.
    • You leave feeling like you just lapped Lance on a time trial.
    • The gear arrives fast and you’re back in the saddle.

    Sign up for Instant Alerts so you always know The Deal. But don’t blame us if you overdose.

  • I Feel the Need … The Need For Tweed

    By: Dahlia Rideout posted on DivineCaroline, please read the original article at http://www.divinecaroline.com/22254/77329—–tweed

    dustinj, sfwiggle.com, SF Tweed Ride


    Matthew J. Shaw, London Tweed Ride
    (more…)

  • Updated BikePortland.org article

    Posted by Elly Blue on September 16th, 2009 at 10:22 am @ BikePortland.org

    I have reprinted this here simply as it bothers me a great deal.  As it continues to change, go back to the BikePortland.org link (Title above) and see what is going on.

    Update: A candlelight vigil for Gordon Patterson will be held at 8pm on Thursday, September 17th at Hudson’s Bay High School (map).

    (more…)

  • The trick to the local trips is to jump on the bike and go, not to worry about anything but the joy of riding and the hardfun of getting there.  I think I view real riding the same way despite everyone talking about the bike and its rider as a unit.  My advice is to view yourself and your bike as a system, and while you are at it to pay attention to both parts.  My issue was a calf-pirformis issue and minor knee skirmishes.  And I viewed them as unrelated to my bike, despite their regular occurrence when I pushed my speed up a notch.

    The October, 2009 Bicycling magazine, a great magazine that still doesn’t get the Internet so don’t look for the article to ever be online, had a great article on repositioning your cleats to maximize power as well as removing painful conditions.  They apparently got the information from Joe Friel who wrote the “Training Bible”.  The article includes pictures and details, but is similar to the first paragraph of this article by Jennifer Sherry.

    So I moved the cleats back.  Tomorrow I will go out and find out if the adjustment has an impact or needs further tweaking.  The point I am making after I made the decision to adjust and before I know the impact is to read the articles, make your mind up, and think about the system as a whole.  Makes sense.

  		•

    Who’s team is going to bag this year’s Bike Commute Challenge?

    Tuesday is the first day of September and the first day of the BTA’s 2009 Bike Commute Challenge. We hope that you’ll join us again in the friendly competition to see who can bike to work more.  Weekly prize drawings, head to head challenges, the goal to beat last year’s personal or workplace record. . . It’s Challenge time again, and we hope that you’ll log back in and start logging trips.

    Did someone say prize drawings?  That’s right.  If you missed the survey email that went out last week, you have one more chance to qualify for the first prize drawing of the year by taking a short 3-minute survey from ODOT’s Transportation Options program, one of our lead sponsors.  The end of the survey will take you right to the Bike Commute Challenge homepage.

    https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=PAOAmysvyCEMjT07UjxM1g_3d_3d

    If you haven’t logged back in yet this year, go to the Bike Commute Challenge homepage, click “I rode last year,” and enter last year’s username and password.  (Forgot it?  No problem.  Click on the “I forgot” text under the login box, and we’ll send you an email reminder of your username and a link to reset your password.)  All of your personal and team information remains intact from last year’s Challenge, so once you’ve logged in for the first time this season, you’ll have the chance to make any changes to your profile.

    We thank you for getting on a bike, and we hope you challenge a friend to try out bike commuting this September as well.

    Wishing you luck in this year’s Challenge and many happy bike commutes,

    Stephanie

    The Bicycle Transportation Alliance has a mission to create healthy and sustainable communities by making bicycling safe, convenient, and accessible.

  • Well it does, of course the rules on unitards also is beyond believable, why not simply switch to costumes and do it like Dance Team?

    In any event, for an exhibition of bike handling skills, this was something.