Roger Bikes

Author: Roger

  • Getting excited

    Getting excited

    It’s Thursday night and our week long ride starts in a few days. Tomorrow we work one last day before driving to Tucson Arizona on Saturday. I’m so excited for this trip it’s hard to sit still.

    The only real concern was my rear tire. It had been leaking air for a while but slowly. I would pump it up every few days and it would be fine. Then I tried fixing it and that was catastrophic. The problem is that it’s a tubeless tire so things have to be sealed up just so.

    I finally relented and too it to the local bike shop to see if they could repair it. That was on Monday. I took it in just as the shop opened and the owner took a look and noticed a crack around the hole that the nozzle sticks through. I figure it was goner but he mentioned they could tape it and that would probably work.

    Fast forward to last night and they called to let me know it was ready for pickup. Naturally we had a mild blizzard this morning so I figured I’d get it tomorrow morning. Then Kate went to see an office space and swung by the shop to grab the tire. Huzzah! All the parts are back together and we are ready to roll!

    Enzo zoomies in the snow
    Enzo zooming in the morning blizzard

    Now it’s all the final check lists to make sure we’ve got all we need. Tools, clothes, charge cables, excitement!

  • Looking Closely is Everything — by Craig Mod

    The question is: When the gears of society start moving again, will we carry the wisdom of this stillness forward? I hope so. Out the other side, back onto those transatlantic and transpacific flights, pressed against one another on our daily subway commutes, schedules full of dinner parties, brunch dates, weddings, funerals, brit milahs, concerts, pizza cook-offs, retreats, homecomings — back into libraries and classrooms and the homes of our grandparents and elders. Inspecting it all once again with our newly honed, ever-close-looking eyes.
    — Read on craigmod.com/essays/looking_closely/

  • Work From Home: Tech Companies Cut Pay of Workers Moving Out of Big Cities – Bloomberg

    Nice coverage of how work from home WFH is changing pay and diversity.

    White-collar workers are taking advantage of a newfound flexibility to leave expensive coastal cities, even as companies move to “localize” their pay.
    — Read on www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-17/work-from-home-tech-companies-cut-pay-of-workers-moving-out-of-big-cities

  • Tour de Bisbee

    For our 10th wedding anniversary Kate and I knew we would do a bike tour. For our 1st anniversary we rode from Salinas California down the Pacific Coast Highway to Oxnard California. It was a great trip and we did a mixture of tent camping and hotels along the way. We have biked a lot since then and done a few bike tours, but we have not done another bike tour for our anniversary.

    Till this year.

    A good bike tour involves a bit of planning to make sure it goes without any problems. The route is the first thing to figure out. Since our anniversary is in March we have to think south of Colorado. The temperatures are just too cold to spend 5 days riding and have a fun time. Southern Arizona is a days drive away and there are plenty of route options to consider.

    The one we decided on starts in Tucson Arizona and goes to Sonoita, Bisbee, Tombstone, back to Sonoita, and finishes back in Tucson. The roads are decent enough to be enjoyable and the weather will be right in the perfect zone of 70F in the day. Also the longest day will be 55 miles which is about 5 hours of riding time at a comfortable pace.

    5 days of riding, 4 nights at AirBnB’s, 226 miles, 8k+ feet of elevation gain, and a 10th wedding anniversary. Sounds like a perfect trip to me. Since we are staying at AirBnB’s we can pack very light. We will take the AeroPress so we can have good coffee each morning without having to leave the comfort of the AirBnB.

    Otherwise we will be eating out, take out of course, and grabbing food from markets. The goal will be to not think about much other than riding bikes and being in love with each other.

    10 years of fun down, 100+ more to go!

  • Danny MacAskill – The Slabs

    Just crazy awesome stuff as always from Danny MacAskill. I don’t think I would even want walk down this stuff!

  • How much electricity will we need?

    How much electricity will we need?

    We are still working on finding a builder for our custom home in Colorado. We are very close to making a decision. In the meantime we are thinking about all the different parts and peices that will make the home work. One of the most important parts is our solar power system.

    The house is going to be tied to the power grid. So the solar power system will indirectly generate the power we use giving us a $0 power bill each month. That means we need to build a solar power system that is at least as large as all of the electricity our home will use. An extra complexity is that our local power company only allows us to have a system that is 120% of our overall usage.

    So we used this online calculator for an off-grid solar system to get an estimate of what our home will use on day 1, plus we added an Electric Vehicle Level 2 charger. We figure that within 5 years we will have an EV and will want to be able to fast charge it at home.

    Here are the numbers:

    ApplianceQuantityWattsHours On per DayWatt Hours per Day
    LED Bulb – 60 Watt Equivalent251361950
    Fridge – 20 cu. ft. (AC)135341412
    TV – LCD215092700
    Laptop2100142800
    Router1724168
    Modem1724168
    Smart Phone- Recharge26336
    Water Heater – Electric145001.56750
    Oven – Electric1120011200
    Clothes Dryer – Electric130000.51500
    Clothes Washer18000.2160
    TV – LCD2150123600
    Blender115000.2300
    Circular Saw 8-1/4″1140011400
    Hottub15000630000
    EV Level 2 Charger111500111500
    System Calculation Results
    Killowatt Hours per Month:1,969 kWh
    Peak Load:30,404 watts
    Sun Hours:4.75 hours/day
    System Size:16.58 kW
    Just a rough idea that we will need a 16kW solar panel array at some point.

    This helps us understand that we will want to max out our south facing roof with 42 solar panels. At 330Watts per panel that gives us just over a 13kW system to start with. We still have the roof on the garage which could handle another 40 panels. So we will want to get an Inverter that allows for expansion.

    The next step is working with the power company to get approval. Then figuring out if we want or can roll this equipment into the mortgage of the house.

    Lots to think about.

  • Hush

    There are so many pop ups on web sites anymore that one is reminded on the mid 2000’s when pop up windows were the rage. If you use the Safari browser you may want to give hush a look.

    It targets those insipid, never-ending, utterly pointless “cookie notices”, popovers begging you to join email newsletters, and other bits of tracking. It kills dickbars and dickbar-like annoyances. I’ve been running it for days and it’s the sort of thing you don’t notice at all until you disable it and all of a sudden you’re back to approving cookie access every single goddamn time you load an article at The Guardian and squinting to find the hidden “X” that closes a popover asking if you’ll sign up for something you don’t want and never asked for.

    Daringfireball

    I’ve only tried it on iOS but will test on MacOS later. If you get the chance to test it there let me know if it works. Lord knows I don’t need to see anymore of those damn dickbars.

  • Be careful with assumptions

    Don’t assume someone has never done something before. Ask if they have.

    Don’t assume that you know the best way. Ask for suggestions.

    Don’t assume the sale is closed. Get a signature or charge the card.

    The old saying always applies: “When you assume you make an ass out of u and me.”

    Making an assumption can create unnecessary tension, misunderstanding, and potentially catastrophic failure. Taking a few extra moments to verify our assumptions can potentially save us tons of time. At worst we spend a few more moments getting to know someone better.

  • Should you Late Merge? aka Zipper Merge

    tldr; Yes you should as it can reduce wait times by up to 40%.

    You know the scenario: You are driving down a highway with two or more lanes. In the distance you see a construction sign warning that one or more lanes are closed up ahead. For some people this is a signal that it is time to move into the lane that will remain open and wait your turn. For other people this is a signal to speed up and get to the merge point quickly to get ahead of everyone.

    What is the correct option? Be courteous or be a jerk?

    Research shows that using the entire open road and then merging at the lane closure, when traffic is congested, will result in the shortest wait time possible for everyone. The issue is that we do not educate drivers in the US about proper merge techniques. So drivers are left to their own devices for figuring this out. From that we get the two generalizations: be polite and wait, or be aggressive and pass everyone.

    Instead we should drive cautiously to the merge point and then alternating merging together one car at a time:

    If roads are clear enough that everyone is already driving close to the speed limit, zipper merging isn’t as effective, but in the case of congestion, Johnson said that this method reduces backups by a whopping 40 percent on average, since both lanes approach the merge with equal stake in maintaining speed. “When the queue backup is reduced, the access points behind a work zone, like signals or ways to get on and off the freeway, those aren’t blocked,” Johnson pointed out. “People have a better opportunity to get off or on the system at that point.

    The beauty of zipper merging, or why you should drive ruder

    So go on use the entire roadway and help everyone get through the bottleneck faster. Just do it cautiously and keep an eye out for people pulling in front of you.

  • Bikepacking vs Touring Bikes

    In the last few years the term Bikepacking has risen in popularity as bike manufacturers have focused on a subset of Bike Touring. Bike Touring is the practice of riding for the joy of riding as opposed to sport, commuting, or exercise. At least that is the Wikipedia definition. For most people who do Bike Touring it means bicycling for multiple days in a self sustained manner.

    Bikepacking takes that concept and applies it to more rough terrain. This video covers the differences between what are sold as Bikepacking bikes vs Touring bikes:

    One aspect of Bikepacking that is bleeding into Bike Touring is the use of on frame bags rather than traditional panniers. On frame bags are more aerodynamic and have a better center of gravity. While they cannot hold as much gear that means they are lighter too.

    Kate and I will be doing a multiday bikepack trip for our 10th wedding anniversary in March. Since my bike does not have mounts for racks I am investigating bikepacking frame bags to carry our tent and sleeping gear. We haven’t done a multiday trip since 2017 when we did the San Juan Skyway and are excited to hit to road again.