I was busy this afternoon

I had to take a pretty long trip to pick up some raw stock from the Lowe’s in the next town over. This required a bus trip of about 3 hours round trip, not counting waiting for transfers or missing a schedule that never showed up.

The real fun was carrying the raw stock in my hand from the Lowe’s to the bus stop 0.3 mi away and then the 0.4 mi from the bus stop home. Since I need my right hand to drive the cane that means I had to use my non-dominant hand to carry this.

That’s between 13 and 14 pounds of 2″ by 2″ by 0.25″ thick according to my bathroom scale, that I carried over three quarters of a mile in my left hand. And let me tell you, my left hand did not appreciate the exercise! My arthritis is really complaining about it, and the tendonitis from pinching bicycle fenders into shape back in the Naughties is making its displeasure known as well. I used the proven technique of holding the object to be weighed as I stepped on the scale, noting the weight, and then putting the object down where I’m not supporting it and noting the weight again and subtracting. This avoids the well-known problems with weighing light things like angle iron and cats on a bathroom scale.

A small part of that stock, about 8″ long, will become the steering arm that the drag link will connect to the pitman arm. I have no idea what I’m going to do with the rest of the stock, but I’m sure there will be something that needs bracing from a heavy-ass piece of steel and that for some yet-to-be-determined reason light tubing won’t work. Now let me do some sums and this steering arm will weigh something in the neighborhood of 2 ± pounds. That’s pretty heavy for a steering arm.

Now I need to take some precise measurements and lay out my dimensions before I start cutting stock, I mean I only have enough stock to make 5 plus of this part, so I can only screw up 4 times before I have to buy more stock and make another 4 hour trip to the next town over that I could get to in about 20 minutes if I could still ride my bike. Speaking of which I wore my “All-Powerful Bicycle Lobby” T-shirt, but it was in Latin, so nobody knew I was buying stuff to make a car while wearing a “Cars Suck” T-shirt.😇

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I just got a news item that really bothered me, and the Feed

I read several on-line newspapers as part of looking for bike articles to post here, and in one there was a report of a 21 YO white dude shooting up a black church in Charleston SC while berating the victims for raping white women and other such nonsense. This is much worse than what we get as cyclists. At least as a cyclist you know that once you get off the road and put the bike away you are no longer in any more danger than anyone else of your demographic age, but being a Person of Color is not something that you can put away and be done with at the end of the day. My heart goes out to all the people of Charleston who were affected by this tragedy.

Up first because it’s in TX, Houston cyclists are getting killed faster than they can put up Ghost Bikes to mark their passing. THREE HOUSTON AREA CYCLISTS KILLED IN THREE WEEKS Seriously, all those cyclists getting hit and nobody is even getting a ticket for failure to pass 3 feet or more away? TANJ!

Another double dose of Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Bike rider shot to death in LA’s Mid City; LADOT GM Seleta Reynold is new interim VP of NACTO Another senseless shooting death.

Part 2 is a guest post. Guest Post: Testing to Destruction I don’t like this post, it places too much blame on the victim for being there to get hit.

Some good news from NYC. Report: City Will Partially Ban Cars From Central, Prospect Parks and New Maps Reveal Expanded Car Ban In Prospect And Central Parks

A VT wreck is suspected to have been caused by a drunk driver. Police: Suspected DUI in crash that killed cyclist Really a 0.123% BAC and DUI is “suspected”? Oh, the perp is a cop’s wife…

This kind of wreck is very rare, but unfortunately it does happen. UPDATE: Cyclist dies from bicycle crash The juvenile mis-judged the clearance when he(?) made his turn. This might have been a case where a helmet would have helped.

This was a wreck where the helmet made absolutely no difference, in spite of what the LEO posited. Brooks cyclist escaped serious injury thanks to helmet When a big truck hits a cyclist they either have a head injury, or they don’t. Presence or absence of a helmet is not going to make any difference one way or they other. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.

Trigger warning: the video in this clip shows a cyclist being assaulted from a moving vehicle with intent to cause harm. Disturbing footage captures laughing yobs shoving cyclist off bike from moving car The people inside the car thought it was hilarious as the cyclist face-planted in the grassy verge. I did that a few years back and even wearing a full-face BMX helmet it wasn’t fun. I got momentarily stunned but the helmet prevented skin to ground contact. This guy didn’t even have that level of protection. There is a special circle in Hades for animals like this.

One reason the aforementioned animals might have done their assault is articles like this. Dorrington cyclist fatal hit-and-run: Suspended sentence for lorry driver Cyclist wearing HiViz and equipped with flashing lights still gets hit and killed, and the driver gets 200 hours of community service and a 2 year ban on getting caught driving.

Still in Jolly Olde is this report on a wounded veterans support ride. North East cyclists support wounded soldiers on gruelling bike ride

Ozzie cyclists strike back at crap infrastructure. Bike activists take guerilla action by painting ‘unsafe cycle lane’ on Sydney roads A cyclist was killed a couple of months ago riding in just such a lane as he was thrown in front of a truck after bouncing off a door opened in his path without warning.

If building your own is too much trouble, or you lack the skills, then Pedego has your assisted cargo carrier needs in mind. Pedego Introduces a Superhero Bike — the Stretch Cargo! I wonder if it uses the industry-standard Xtra-bike seats and cargo bags?

In other e-assist news scientists are studying how battery materials act under overcharging conditions to design next-generation batteries with higher capacities. X-Ray Imaging Reveals Secrets in Battery Materials

And on a sad closing note, WoaB lost one of the founding employees today when Brian the Security Cat died on the job. Brian has been “working” for WoaB since before we started writing a blog. He had lost a lot of weight in the last few months and we were getting worried about his health, then his breathing got raspy this morning and he couldn’t find a comfortable place to rest anywhere in the house. He went to take his afternoon nap under the bed and never woke back up.

Brian 2000-2015, RIP

They closed the tax office an hour early today, and the Feed

Cutting to the chase, they closed the GISD tax office as I was walking up to it at 1600. The line of people out the door were very vocally unhappy about getting turned away, to the point that police were on hand for crowd control. I think that this may have been a planned thing, because the police were there long before the office was closed. I know this because I was walking up to the door as they closed it and there was a cop inside already.

Up first is good news from just a half-day’s ride east from WoaB World HQ in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell. Injured cyclist rides again following months recovering WoaB and employees very happy to see this. Her recovery period was about the same as mine.

LAPD shows NYPD how it’s done. Suge Knight Arrested For ‘Suspicion Of Murder’ After Fatal Hit-And-Run This was a pedestrian death on a closed film set, but still, NYPD should be taking notes.

Speaking of NYC, they had another fatal pedestrian right hook. Woman Fatally Struck By Nassau County Bus Driver In Queens And in spite of a bus full of witnesses NYPD failed to arrest of even charge the driver.

Another article on the loss of who may have been the world’s oldest active cyclist. Long Beach loses its 106-year-old symbol of cycling

And that makes for a great segue into our next link, our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Atwater paper calls legal cyclists lane hogs, a handful of links and a long list of upcoming events

Update on a cyclist that a road-raging driver tried to kill. Donations help injured cyclist recover at home I like the remodeled bathroom, Mrs. the Poet wants a shower like that, too.

Infrastructure news from VA via DC. Bills in the Virginia General Assembly would hurt and help transit and cyclists I’ll withhold comment on this because I haven’t read the full text for any of the bills.

A hit-and-run driver gets a gentle caress on the wrist from a CO judge. Woman gets probation for hitting Fort Collins cyclist, fleeing They totally ignored the sentencing guidlines for felonies of this nature. According to one commenter if this had been treated like other crimes of this grade of felony the minimum sentence would be 2 years with the possibility of probation.

A little legal infrastructure in action in Jolly Olde. Marjorie Trappenden accelerated into Kevin Lane on High Road, Woodford Green, on February 9 Another dead cyclist with the killer getting community service in the UK.

I find it interesting that a surviving cyclist elicits more severe punishment than a deceased cyclist. Diabetic driver mum jailed for crash which left cyclist seriously injured

Another “bicycle safety” article from people who haven’t been on a bike since elementary school. Life in the bike lane: Riding responsibly Once again too much emphasis is placed on helmets to prevent wrecks.

Another article that should not have to be written, but was because too many drivers have the morals of a Chaotic Evil kinder. Attorney John Nojima of Lederer & Nojima, LLP Reminds Cyclists to Carry Uninsured Motorist Coverage in Light of News Regarding Hit-and-Runs Now if they would just provide a source for this insurance that doesn’t require buying a car and getting a license first…

A little humor from Spokesmama. 10 Reasons Not To Get A Cargo Bike The one I thought was hilarious was the one about not supporting the poor oil companies… HA!!

Last link is a bit of bike culture from the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike. Critical Mass Set To Take The Streets Friday

And I’m out of links again.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

Thoughts on a sturdy but cheap cargo trike on a Wreck-Free Sunday

I think I mentioned that I was volunteered to organize replacing using golf carts as mini-pickup trucks with cargo bikes/trikes instead. I have been contemplating on how to do that for things that are too heavy or bulky to throw on the back of Blue. I have also been wondering how to make this doable for people who can’t ride a bike. The answer is a trike made just for hauling of course.

The quickest was to do this would be to add an HP drive unit to an existing cargo trailer, add a 12V headlight and a power source for the rest of the lighting system, and call it good. I was thinking about using this trailer as it has more than enough load capacity to carry what needs to be carried plus a rather large power unit, and the modularity of the construction allows replacing the drive portion when a better design drive unit is built by just unbolting 4 bolts and placing those bolts on the new unit.

Obviously this will have to be a FWD drive unit as there is no way to send power to those tiny wheels. I’m really busy trying to figure out how to add brakes to it much less trying to drive those tiny wheels. Obviously I will have to fabricate something to put a brake caliper on the axle and a disk on the hub, but the design work on that will have to await actually having hands on the trailer to see what I have to work with. For simplicity this will have to be a single-speed drive with fairly low gearing, but that’s OK because there is a blanket 5MPH speed limit on the property. The only vehicle allowed to exceed that is the golf cart ambulance that brings injured or ill people to the medical facility on property, and to the front gate if they need to be transported off property. And even that unit needs to be replaced as it ages out of service. But that aside, this will have to be a very simple and slow unit capable of moving significant loads over a very rough road system, but with only one significant hill/valley area to negotiate to get to the front gate.

So, I’m thinking something on the order of a 20″ front wheel with either direct drive (Unicycle wheel) or basically the same thing with a crank, chain, and coaster brake. Making this a very large adult tricycle with either the seat mounted to the fork and the handlebars mounted to the trailer for making tight turns and reversals, or the seat on the trailer and the handlebars on the fork for higher pulling power for climbing out of that valley I mentioned. I’m thinking at this point that the ability to ride backwards to get out of tight spots is a feature that will be little-used, while the ability to climb away from the Troll Bridge with a heavy load is something that will get frequent use, but I could be wrong. Or it could be that both abilities are vital, so I would need to build more than one trike, a light version for getting in and out of tight locations with a moderate load, and a heavier version to ferry people and supplies to the front gate over the Troll Bridge. After writing that I think the front gate hauler would get more use, especially if it had a seat that would allow it to be used as a pedicab so that people who don’t walk so good (like me?) could get a lift to gate duty for their community service.

Doesn’t this sound like a fun project?

PSA, Opus