Enginerve : Bikes

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

  • http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=3Tzut&page_id=115586&v=3w

    Everyone says you will be on their blog, these guys actually put us on.

    Feeling was mutual guys, loved your attitude.

  • Oregon Manifest celebrates the art, craft and community of bicycling. Our mission is to engage a wide audience with cycling lifestyle through innovative, influential events around the bicycle.

    (more…)

  • Today, the first day we were on the Trans Am (American) trail (www.adventurecycling.org and we saw a total of 12 bikers (23 June), 9 EB and 3 WB. We camped with two from Grass Valley,CA at Ochoco County Park which was extremely nice. We stopped fornany others we could and yelled or waved to th others.

    We are the unofficial neutral support on the route at present.

  • GreenWheel
    GreenWheel

    Feb. 18, 2009 — The next time you change a bike tire, think about upgrading your power as well. Scientists at MIT are testing a new power generation, storage and propulsion system known as the GreenWheel that will turn any pedal bicycle into an electric hog.

    “Just take the wheel off, put a GreenWheel equipped wheel on in its place, plug it in and it should work just fine,” said Ryan Chin, one of the GreenWheel designers. “The whole thing has been designed so all the parts except the throttle are enclosed in the wheel.”

    From the outside, the GreenWheel has the radius of a small dinner plate and is about 2 inches thick. Inside the aluminum frame sits the three major GreenWheel components: an electric generator, batteries and an electric motor.

    For now, installing GreenWheel on your own does require a moderate level of technical knowledge or a trip to a bike shop. The GreenWheel can be installed on any bike frame or wheel size, but the original spokes have to be replaced with shorter spokes. Michael Chia-Liang Lin, a master’s student at MIT developing the GreenWheel, called his parents in Taiwan, who own a bike shop, to figure out how to respoke the wheel.

    Under its current configuration, a bike powered solely by a single GreenWheel (front, rear or both wheel can be equipped with a GreenWheel) has an estimated range of 25 miles. Pedaling the bike doubles the range under electric power, provided the rider isn’t traveling at the nearly top speed of 30 miles an hour. The bike can be charged by pedaling or by plugging it into the electric grid. (more…)

  • I may not be the last person to figure this out; however, I feel like it. I apply talc (baby powder) to my tubes to restrict pinch flats and ease all sorts of issues. And to speed finding objects in my tires I always mount the same way, the label on the tire is bisected by the nipple, which always leaves the last section of the tire to pull over the wheel at the same place. Today I applied a fine coat of baby powder just to the inside of that one section and pow! the whole tire simply glides on with no effort, and this one is rigid. Try this trick if you have ever had any issues at all with your tire, skip this if you really like to wince and grunt and have sore palms after the last bit of the tire goes on. Time saved is time to ride, and this will pay off on the road for your buddies who wait as well.

  • Thinking about quiet rides when I drive across the country this summer I came upon this on Trails.Com. Now all I have to do is find something free with a few more comments. http://www.trails.com/toptrails.aspx?area=12399

  • Did this ride Memorial Day, 2009 for the first time.

    I tried to input it via MapMyRide.com which put out a nice map, but was miserable to work with as I was using the free version and not the paid version so every point you edit it scrolls off the screen. So far, that leaves me with Google Maps and that became as time consuming as anything else. So far, 30 minutes wasted and no maps. Great tools out there, but is it any wonder they are robustly used.