Another grocery day, and another Feed

Life is continuing on. I got up Too Early this morning to get the stock for the stair railings for the church paid for and documented, and later this afternoon I’m going grocery shopping. So, Nothing New going on outside of the blog, just things continuing on. I’m two days out from getting the $1 gift card on that silly phone game I have been playing, and almost halfway to getting the $10 card.

Up first is a report on a cyclist killed several days ride south pf WoaB World HQ in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell. Organ Donation Ceremony Held For Man Killed In Bicycle Accident I’m biased, but I think cyclist transplantable organs are of higher quality than your average couch potato.

Continuing in the “cyclists are better people” meme. LSU doctoral student killed Saturday night while riding bicycle remembered as focused, compassionate Once again a blind driver is given a free pass to kill. TANJ!

Our Daily Ted part 1. Morning Links: Confronting LA’s diabetic drivers, and bike thief’s mom gives back bike her son stole

And Ted part 2. Bike rider killed in Riverside; no details available

Still in CA. Cyclist injured, driver jailed in Marin County road-rage incident The cyclist was the victim of a “Swoop and Squat” something that used to be a favorite manuever for insurance scams. The driver admitting to it was unexpected, although it may have been more of “bragging about” than “admitting to”.

Unhappy update on the cyclist hit but a tree in NYC. Cyclist Dies Days After Tree Fell On Him In Red Hook The contractor completely ignored all safety protocols that might have prevented this tragedy.

Also in NYC. Speeding Hit & Run Driver Runs Red Light & Kills Brooklyn Woman The comments section blew up big time on this one.

More on the IL driver that killed a cyclist while DUI and got off with a gentle tap on the wrist. Stroger executive gets 100-day sentence for DUI, fatality of bicyclist Hospital exec with lots of political connections trumps middle-class veteran. So it wasn’t entirely the failure to wear the glow-in-the-dark clown suit by the victim that got this guy off of murder charges…

Meanwhile in Portland. Most of those new traffic victim memorials will be gone soon: Here’s why Again ODOT and PBOT don’t like reminders of how they failed to do their jobs.

They aren’t convinced yet that diverters are necessary? Let the city know (again) if you support diverters on SE Clinton For those not familiar SE Clinton is a bicycle boulevard that is seeing increasing motor vehicle traffic as a cut-through, placing cyclists at risk because the cars and trucks are going much faster than the speed limit.

Still in OR they have an app that allows them to ignore safety problems at a single place. State’s ORcycle app is now a one-stop shop for reporting road safety issues If you think I’m being overly cynical about this I suggest you go back to the first BikePortland link 2 paragraphs ago.

More crowd-sourcing of traffic information in the Great White North. CYCLISTS CROWD-SOURCE CLOSE CALLS ON TWITTER This is a job for the DiY DOT!

Not much information on this wreck in the Great White North. Cyclist in Bible Hill seriously injured after collision with vehicle At this point all we know is the wreck was at an intersection.

A permanent memorial to cyclist victims of motor vehicle violence in Canada. Permanent national monument for downed cyclists planned for Ottawa The idea is to somehow make cycling look fun and safe while remembering the people killed while doing it. That sounds like an oxymoron to me, too.

Meanwhile a cyclist is assaulted with a motor vehicle in Oz. Bunbury cyclist forced off the road in deliberate act The driver crossed the road and made a head-on pass at the cyclist in a deadly game of chicken.

Would you like to save your city tons of money? How Much Can Bicycling Help Fight Climate Change? A Lot, If Cities Try The benefits are more to coastal cities (especially closer to the equator), but everyone benefits from reduced noise and pollution from motor vehicles.

And that’s all I have tonight, be back tomorrow.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

Advertisement

Random thoughts on Wreck-Free Sunday

Well I don’t have anything coherent planned for today, just a few random thoughts.

Last night my church selected Hestia as our patroness for the coming church year. The problem is finding 6 virgins to tend the eternal flame out of a committee of 4 ritualists, with half of those being males and a different half being over 50 YO. That kinda makes us fresh out of virgins. On a related note we missed having Lakshmi as our patroness by a single point for the selection process. A few food items or a few votes would have swung the process either way.

Here in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell the citizens are an important unpaid part of the PD and streets department. Both are reliant on citizen input to fix problems whether those problems are drivers that drive like they have the only vehicles on the roads or roads that are changing from paved to potholed gravel. I mentioned that I can do camera enforcement of road infractions if I buy the cameras and install them on the bike, well I also need to tell the Streets Department where the dangerous pavement is. Part of the problem is that what is most dangerous for a bicycle is a complete non-issue for a car, cracks and steps along the direction of travel. Those can trap a wheel and throw a bike (and rider) to the ground in a heartbeat.

Fun stuff I’m up to is I have a few parts that I’m using to improve the altermotor assist bike. Since I never mentioned this bike before, the short story is I’m converting a junkyard car alternator to a brushless motor that adds power to the drivetrain of the bike and has no additional drag when it isn’t assisting. The idea is to climb easier, or faster with the same amount of human power, so only about the same power as a human can produce is added to the mix. The original setup had a small sprocket attached directly to the converted alternator pulling the chain so that it saw the gears used on the back but not the front. There were 2 problems with this method. The first was that there was a limited range of RPM that could be used, and all of them were very low. This kept the motor below the speed where it developed the most power at the voltage used which caused a big current drain and also caused the cranks to spin too fast when the motor was activated in the middle and granny gears on the crank taking those gears away from use with assist. So, to get better power and use less electricity I needed to get the motor speed up above power peak at the voltage used and also do something so that I have granny gears even with assist, so that no matter how steep the climb I have the option of adding assist. The plan is to use the same sprocket on the motor driving a jack shaft with 3 output cogs and one input cog for human power and one for assist. This reduces the pedal speed to human levels and also gives granny and mid-range choices for both the rider and assist as both power sources have a single input that feeds through a choice of 3 outputs. I’m still building this so I’m not sure about the ratios yet for the motor side of the shaft. The human power side of the shaft uses a 48 tooth chainring to a 16 tooth cog on the shaft, with an 11 tooth small cog up to a 22 tooth big cog with a 16 tooth middle cog, converting that to what the equivalent crank would be is 33 granny, 48 mid, and 66 big going to a 20″ drive wheel. The equivalent for a full-size bike would be 25, 37, and 50. I still haven’t figured the power peak or the speed that happens at with the motor as I’m building a new controller that will run at full power. The old controller would only run at a maximum of 95% power because of using the power switching process to run a circuit that allowed the high-side FETs to be saturated when turned on. Also I was running the motor at such a low speed that the controller would lose commutation (knowing which phase of the motor to turn on). The new controller uses different high-side FETs that don’t require that circuit to function at full efficiency. This will allow the motor to be run at 100% without any worries about burning up the FETs in the controller. I think the free-spin RPM at the voltage this system runs at will be something between 800 and 1000 RPM. But I’m not sure because there are 2 parts to the equation, the power applied to the rotor which controls the magnetic field in the motor with a stronger field making a slower motor but more torque, and the Kv of the stator windings which I have no idea what it will be because that is a measured variable that I haven’t measured yet. Incidentally that power applied to the rotor is the main reason why this project exists, when there is no power applied to the rotor there is no drag from the motor, which means that a single control lets me select assist or no assist with no drag.

And that’s what has been banging around the inside of my skull this week.

PSA, Opus