Calzone
Gear Whore #1
A sunny mild day with cool temps, a good day to kill Knotweed in the dead-end and my neighbor’s property (abandoned house).
The Dow was up 1000 points on some tariff agreements. Was interesting to expand the charts. People who panicked and sold lost money.
Gold dropped to the low $3.2K range, but oil prices are in the $62.XX range.
Cal
The Dow was up 1000 points on some tariff agreements. Was interesting to expand the charts. People who panicked and sold lost money.
Gold dropped to the low $3.2K range, but oil prices are in the $62.XX range.
Cal
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
This is the 5th year of battling Knotweed, and by now the Knotweed is very weakened. Large stalks taller than me I can pull out of the ground with the root and all. My neighbor’s property is mostly shaded by trees, and since I have to avoid the sun it worked out well.
Still have to pull Knotweed by the marsh on my dead-end neighbor’s property, but the ground is softer there and it is easier going.
I think I will expand my war on Knotweed and use my 7-8 inch Milwaukee chainsaw to cut-cut-cut by Dickey Brook. I’ll start weakening the thicket there. The chainsaw is easy work and will take only a few minutes. The stalks are thick like bamboo though and are hollow.
I also weeded out the newcomers and stragglers on our property and JJ’s and Snoopie’s Yard.
On the abandoned house big piles of Knotweed are mulching.
Not bad for about 5 hours work. Lots of bending and use of my legs and upper body.
Cal
Still have to pull Knotweed by the marsh on my dead-end neighbor’s property, but the ground is softer there and it is easier going.
I think I will expand my war on Knotweed and use my 7-8 inch Milwaukee chainsaw to cut-cut-cut by Dickey Brook. I’ll start weakening the thicket there. The chainsaw is easy work and will take only a few minutes. The stalks are thick like bamboo though and are hollow.
I also weeded out the newcomers and stragglers on our property and JJ’s and Snoopie’s Yard.
On the abandoned house big piles of Knotweed are mulching.
Not bad for about 5 hours work. Lots of bending and use of my legs and upper body.
Cal
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
The war with Knotweed now is like a street fight where I broke the Knotweed’s nose. The fight is kinda over, and now is the time to end the fight and finish.
Pretty much the Knotweed is depleted and so weak it has no fight left in it.
BTW this invasive plant is mucho hard to defeat, and I did it without chemicals or herbicide. This was man verses nature, and because I’m stubborn I won.
This is a pretty big accomplishment.
Cal
Pretty much the Knotweed is depleted and so weak it has no fight left in it.
BTW this invasive plant is mucho hard to defeat, and I did it without chemicals or herbicide. This was man verses nature, and because I’m stubborn I won.
This is a pretty big accomplishment.
Cal
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
BTW Phil’s bike buildout surely is no “Extra-Medium.” Phil went way out there to be retro, period correct, and pretty much did what perhaps only a few are capable of doing.
Lots of skill, knowledge and experience…
I am seriously humbled with my bikes.
Cal
Lots of skill, knowledge and experience…
I am seriously humbled with my bikes.
Cal
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Phil_F_NM
Camera hacker
Thanks for the praise but to be honest, I only remained faithful to the spirit and era of that bike. There's a lot of "cheats" here and there, but most folks wouldn't notice and only the most pretentious would even care that the headset is from the late 70s, rims the early 80s, saddle is only 30ish years old, the hubs predate the frame by a decade, all sorts of little stuff. Of course, there's the obvious brand new Sturmey Archer barcon as well as the bar end mirror, and the glaring handlebar bottle cage, which will be getting replaced with something more appropriate.
I do have a set of "sprints" for the Rotrax, which are wood filled tubular rims with no brake surface made for the Velodrome only. These are currently laced to a set of Brampton hubs. One of these days I will be finding the absolute correct NOS spokes for those wheels. I'll need to have the rims "rolled" in a kind of press to gently re-establish the roundness of the rim before lacing, as they have some flat spots. Then I'll need to find the best tubular tires I can find while maintaining the look of what should be period correct. Once those wheels get built and the decals and headbadge are on the Rotrax, I could say it is actually restored. If I get really crazy about it, I would use an inch pitch block chain, but those are going for insane money when they are available and they do sell. I mean more than $100 per foot and a track bike needs at least five feet of chain... Inch pitch roller chain is cheaper and a way to use inch pitch 3/16 cogs and chainrings, but in that instance I might as well just use 1/2" x 1/8" normal chain, since it's cheating on the build just the same.
Last fall I thought I had found the matching red flange Airlite hub for my restoration build of the R.O. Harrison. The front hub came from the UK and was NOS but it hadn't been properly packed, so the flanges were slightly bent. Mind you, the newest of these hubs is 60 years old and anodizing goes back to the 1930s. I can tell by the axle that this hub is post WWII, but not into the 60s when they adopted wider diameter hollow axles and wider shells for quick release skewers. These are bolt on track hubs with 5/16" axles. Anyway, let's say the hub is 70 years old and it has two slightly bent flanges. I'm not going to trust the flange on a front hub since it may have been work hardened from the impact and made more brittle. It was so sad. I told the seller, he filed a claim and I got a 100% refund and I got to keep the hub. So it's back to the old plan of getting my original Airlite matching anodized to the rear hub, then build the final set of wheels for the Harrison. These aren't priority issues, so I'll surely sit on the parts for a while.
Next project up is the Frejus, which is going to be much closer to original, once I find the correct front hub.
Phil
I do have a set of "sprints" for the Rotrax, which are wood filled tubular rims with no brake surface made for the Velodrome only. These are currently laced to a set of Brampton hubs. One of these days I will be finding the absolute correct NOS spokes for those wheels. I'll need to have the rims "rolled" in a kind of press to gently re-establish the roundness of the rim before lacing, as they have some flat spots. Then I'll need to find the best tubular tires I can find while maintaining the look of what should be period correct. Once those wheels get built and the decals and headbadge are on the Rotrax, I could say it is actually restored. If I get really crazy about it, I would use an inch pitch block chain, but those are going for insane money when they are available and they do sell. I mean more than $100 per foot and a track bike needs at least five feet of chain... Inch pitch roller chain is cheaper and a way to use inch pitch 3/16 cogs and chainrings, but in that instance I might as well just use 1/2" x 1/8" normal chain, since it's cheating on the build just the same.
Last fall I thought I had found the matching red flange Airlite hub for my restoration build of the R.O. Harrison. The front hub came from the UK and was NOS but it hadn't been properly packed, so the flanges were slightly bent. Mind you, the newest of these hubs is 60 years old and anodizing goes back to the 1930s. I can tell by the axle that this hub is post WWII, but not into the 60s when they adopted wider diameter hollow axles and wider shells for quick release skewers. These are bolt on track hubs with 5/16" axles. Anyway, let's say the hub is 70 years old and it has two slightly bent flanges. I'm not going to trust the flange on a front hub since it may have been work hardened from the impact and made more brittle. It was so sad. I told the seller, he filed a claim and I got a 100% refund and I got to keep the hub. So it's back to the old plan of getting my original Airlite matching anodized to the rear hub, then build the final set of wheels for the Harrison. These aren't priority issues, so I'll surely sit on the parts for a while.
Next project up is the Frejus, which is going to be much closer to original, once I find the correct front hub.
Phil
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
Tomorrow I go to my radiation oncologist for my blood to get drawn. This is the first one, and two weeks from now is the second. Pretty much close monitoring.
After the second blood drawing I have an appointment with my radiation oncologist to talk over the results. My side effects are not so bad. A bit lower energy and my body temperature regulation seems overly sensitive.
Cal
After the second blood drawing I have an appointment with my radiation oncologist to talk over the results. My side effects are not so bad. A bit lower energy and my body temperature regulation seems overly sensitive.
Cal