NYC Journal

Phil,

I have a set of Sun Tour XC pro cranks I can gift you. They are a 175mm length, but understand these are Compact drive. These are for a triple… If a 175mm length works for your left leg you are in.

You might have to get one of those old White Industries bottom brackets that allow for adjusting the chain line to fight any crank offset. You could kinda go ghetto and have your 175mm left and 170mm right. Both crank arms would be Sun Tour.

Cal
 
I used the pressure treated lumber I brought yesterday to build out a foundation for the cedar She-Shed. I kinda overbuilt it thinking that cedar can last a long time, even without any paint.

Tomorrow I get two cubic yards of 3/4 crushed gravel to ensure animals don’t borrow underneath the shed to create a home. I used 6 inch lumber to raise the shed off the ground, and Ti kinda keep it high and dry.

Monday the custom glass for the walk in shower gets installed, and a light for the vanity now that we hung a mirror.

Next is moving the 2 cubic yards of gravel into the pressure treated frame I built out. I have a dump wagon so not so brutal.

The She-Shed does not block too much of the view of the marsh and the forested hillside. It will be tucked under some of my neighbor’s spruces.

Been obsessing about bike buildups. I have a 24 inch built wheel for the Ti IBIS. Currently that bike is a single speed and I think I will gear it up as a 42/32 2x11 XTR. I have a 4-hole spyder that uses chainrings with aggressive ramps for fast and violent chainring jumps Which are great for rolling hills and climbing.

I’m also going to convert the “Newsboy” into a 2x11 from a 1x11. I have a long cage rear XTR derailleur that can allow a total of a 45 tooth maximum which would allow a 48/32 along with and 11-42T cassette for wide gearing. The Newsboy has a tame geometry that is relaxed, so it suits long rides.

I’m looking into placing an order, and following Phil’s advice I’m thinking about getting a handlebar bag. Salsa makes a nice one, but it is mucho big. Also need to buy more tubes and a CO2 inflator. Doing a lot of researching because I’m a careful buyer.

Cal
 
Cal,
I would love to get my hands on Cedar here in the Victorian goldfields. Cedar is very prescious, I love the smell and the buttery way when finishing. I've been lucky to have some for making shaker pieces. Current stock in my workshop is limited to pieces from old doors and the likes.

How about some photos Cal so we get a sense of what the house looks like and how it was constructed? I find it difficult to imagine what a 1910's house looks like, is it like one of those 2 or 3 level houses in San Fran rows that are now painted in all sort of colors?
 
57,

My house is an Arts and Crafts house with Victorian styling. My first floor does not have the high ceilings of a true Victorian, but I do think “Maggie” is correct that our house was a show piece or model for a developer.

I do not post, but you might get an idea from Maggie’s blog AccidentalIcon.com or her Instagram Icon Accidental.

I kinda got snookered into leading the NYC Meet-Up, but I try to keep a low profile.

Know that in 2007 I was swing trading oil stocks in a margin account, and during the credit crisis I was flush with cash. Pretty much I sold my position when oil first hit $135.00 a barrel, and then hours later there was a blow off top in oil and then it crashed. Then 2008 and the housing crisis happened…

I bought some expensive items and payed it down right away, and as a result of data mining I was kinda mistaken for a “Joe Rich Guy” and somehow I kinda got “A” listed.

In one year I was invited to meet Mayor Bloomberg. I got invited to join “The Hudson Society” where I could meet and socialize with the power brokers and the elite of New York. Got invited to attend presentations of Generals, Prime Ministers, and Heads of State. Even got a free subscription to Forbes Magazine.

Also know that through Maggie’s blog I have had a lot of my work “lifted” without any photo credits.

So I don’t post. Sorry.

If you know me or read through this thread, you will know that I try to lay low, but all kinds of unusual things happen to me.

Check out WWW. OutdoorLivingToday for all kinds of cedar kits. I bought a pergola and two sheds from them. You are correct about the smell and the look of cedar. Long lasting also.

I’m going to let the sheds grey out and get bleached by the sun.

My pergola I painted white.

Yesterday I ordered two 8 foot lengths of cedar fencing with a “Topper” from my lumber yard. $1.2K for 4 cedar 4x4 posts and the two lengths of fencing.

I love the best my location: an hours train ride to NYC, right at the edge of the city of Peekskill where I border on public land and only have one next door neighbor, and two blocks away is a 1500 acre wilderness that is a preserve.

Waiting for warm weather to get more work done. I have a bathroom door to strip further, and I will be building a bathroom cabinet for the new bathroom upstairs. Perhaps I rigg up the new table saw tomorrow And start cutting some wood.

In California there are lots of Arts and Crafts neighborhoods. Unfortunately many have been HGTV’ed or opened up and modernized to the point where they lost much of their historical value. My Baby-Victorian seems to have only been remodeled once in the mid 70’s. Much of the original detail remains, and pretty much our remodeling honors the past and is more a kin to a restoration.

Cal
 
yep, same. They really do look identical on the inside, same staircase, framing around doors etc. Mine was 1915 if memory serves.
 
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Fidel,

Do you have a stained glass window? How about pocket doors that separate the “parlor” from the dining room.

Did one of the previous owners paint the molding, a major offense to the Arts and Craft styling, and an insult of sorts, because the aesthetic back then for Arts and Crafts was natural materials and stained wood.

Supposibly our “simple” houses were to counter the overdone ornate style of the Victorian era.

My 1400-1500 square foot house has 40 windows. In many of ”Maggie’s” shots the golden hours are within the house. Then my second story is a bit crazy with 4 different roof lines, plus the two hip roofs that extend off the first floor (Porches).

All this on a tiny house. Kinda funny and ghetto: The Baby Victorian was advertised as a 4 bedroom house, well not really.

Only two real bedrooms, the office tower of course is oddly shaped to the point of how to fit a bed; then one “bedroom” is so small that perhaps you could fit a crib because it is the size of a modest walk-in closet, and in fact Maggie uses that room as a closet.

Cal
 
Seems like since contracting Covid “Maggie” and I have contracted every disease that the grand children bring into our house.

It is as if our immune systems got reset, and now we have to rebuild and fortify ourselves because we are in a weakened state and vulnerable.

Understand that I have a history of not getting sick, not even a cold, and I have one now from the grandson.

Cal
 
Calzone said:
Seems like since contracting Covid “Maggie” and I have contracted every disease that the grand children bring into our house.

It is as if our immune systems got reset, and now we have to rebuild and fortify ourselves because we are in a weakened state and vulnerable.

Understand that I have a history of not getting sick, not even a cold, and I have one now from the grandson.

Cal
Click to expand...
It's just kids Cal. My kid is sick all of the time from going to daycare which makes me sick about half the time too. Eventually even the best immune systems succumb.
 
Stained window in the dining room. check.
No pocket door
Dining room and bedrooms moldings were painted, living room is original.
 

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Fidel,

I’m stripping the paint. A commercial heat gun I stole from work makes it EZ-PZ. The original shellac or varnish softens so the paint comes off in sheets with a pro scrapper.

Pretty much the newly hired boss told me to take home whatever I wanted since we were abandoning the lab.

Later this afternoon an electrician will come to mount two vanity lights. The walk in shower glass looks great. Can’t use the shower until tomorrow.

2 cubic yards of gravel got delivered. The foundation of 4x6’s and 4x4’s will get filled with gravel for drainage and to anchor the She-Shed.

Cal
 
57,

You nailed it. They say the simple ornamentation is art deco’ish.

Note how oversized the moldings are. Stately in their own manner and kinda bold as a statement.

In Art and Crafts houses they used lots of organic materials like brick, stone and wood, but originally they were not painted.

Fast forward more than a hundred years and brick and wood are painted, hopefully not with lead paint.

”Maggie” did a lot of research on Arts and Craft homes. Bright colors were used. They also utilized mucho “built-ins.”

Also when compared to the Victorian era the houses are small and don’t have the tall high ceilings of a Victorian house.

I would describe our Baby-Victorian with its 4 different roof lines on the second floor as “cute.”

The Japanese red Maple in our tiny front yard is a monster of sorts. The trunk is about 2 feet in thickness, and is likely a hundred years old. When we viewed the house it had been pruned back 6-8 feet, so it looked very odd. The real estate people told the previous owner that the tree hid the house.

Then the next year it filled in. It features all these growths called “Witches Brooms” that resemble warts that have small branches growing out of the deformity as if hairs.

In the winter the tree looks haunted and spooky, but in the spring, summer and fall the foliage is so thick that the tree resembles a cloud. The view from above from the tower room is amazing.

Along the side of the house are massive Rode-A-DEN-Drums. I removed a paper wasp nest the size of a head out of the front bush.

A small patio and a pergola lays in between my two car garage and the house, and beyond the garage is a buildable second 40x100 building lot that I call my “back-backyard.”

Know that Peekskill is a City of 25K and most properties are just a 40x100. The rear of the back-backyard borders public land and the view is of a marsh, a frog pond, a brook, and a forested hillside. The She Shed I will be building will overlook the public land.

The geography is spectacular. Peekskill is a “rivertown,” the “Gateway to the Hudson Highlands,” and not far away is West Point. The Hudson River in Peekskill is a wide “bay,” the river has a tide, and the water is brackish About 40 miles north of NYC.

Cal
 
On a side note... Anybody heard from Bob Corbin? My only way of getting in touch with him is through Facebook messenger which he has not replied to in a month or two. Hopefully, he is just tired of social media and the real answer isn't a lot worse.
 
Cal, I may take you up on your offer for the XC Pro cranks. A bit of good fortune and a bike friend who needed some parts himself has found me trading some bits for a 1991Joe Breeze Lightning. Backstory on this is that I’ve been passively looking for a MTB or rock crawling trials bike for thw past 2 months. A while back i was looking on the big auction site and a set of Magura raceline canti-mount hydraulic brakes showed up in items i may be interested in. I looked at them and saw they were dirty, well used and had a “best offer” on them. They were up for $120 and I put in an offer of $15, explaining to the seller that a NEW set of HS 33 are both lighter and almost as expensive. So about 30 minutes later I got a “pay now” email and saw that my $15 offer was accepted.
The brakes arrived and they work well, as far as I can tell, no leaks, no tube kinks.
So one of my oldest friends sent me a picture of an old 1st gen Sachs cassette hub and said he was trying to get rid of this bike for pennies. It has a first Gen Judy XC that works and a worn compact drivetrain.
So this will be “payment” for a set of old White Industries hubs that I gave him. It has a aet of XTR cantis which I will be sending on to someone who needs brakes or possibly selling for pennies or a cup of coffee. I have to keep good bike karma flowing, so I don't like making a profit off of the good grace of others, just doesn't sit well with me.
Anyway, I may be looking for a crankset so I can continue to embrace the weirdness of using two different length cranks.
Phil Forrest
 
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