Arcturus' Travels » hiking

Oshkosh Fly-In:

Gary — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 03:05:33 +0000

Breriot XI bis, First US Air Mail, 1911

Judy and I just today left Oshkosh, Wisconsin and the EAA Air Venture fly-in. We spent nearly two weeks camping right at the airport, (Whitman Regional,) and got to be up close and personal with about every aircraft you can imagine. We walked around under the new Boing 787 Dreamliner, and studied a flying replica of the 1911 Bleriot XI that delivered the first sack of air mail on September 23, 1911. By the way Lewis Bleriot flew the original model of this aircraft across the English Channel on July 25, 1909, and claimed the 1,000 Pound prize for the first channel crossing.

Of course there was lots of air show goings on. There was flight after flight of War Birds including the only flying B-29, “Fifi.” Every hour we would watch the departure of two airliners from the 1920’s; a pair of Ford Tri-Motors.
We were able to walk almost right up to the active runways and watch the planes landing and later departing. It is an amazing sight to watch two and even three small general aviation airplanes landing on the same runway at the same time. Then a minute later two or three more planes do it again. We listened in on the air traffic controller’s frequency with my hand-held Ham radio. Instructions would go something like this… “Cessna over the gravel pit, waggle your wings. Good waggle, you are number two to land on runway 27, cleared to land on the green dot.” The second later it was… “Citation, as soon as you have you plane under control, turn left into the grass, follow the volunteers to parking, welcome to Oshkosh.” Each runway had a set of huge painted dots at 1/3 and 2/3 of the runway. Each was a different color, red, green, purple and pink. I kept thinking what if the pilot is color blind?

Traffic Jam at EAA Flyin on last day

Many of the pilots and often their families camp under the wings of their airplanes for the week. Imagine, if you can, a field that is over a mile long and two city blocks wide. Small general aviation aircraft are parked wing tip to wing tip in rows that are perhaps twice as wide as the wingspan of the typical Cessna or Cherokee. There are thousands of these planes stretching as far as you can see. It is a great opportunity to talk to the pilots. Judy and I volunteered as “Protect Our Planes” watchers. The air show crowd mingles with the pilots and crew among these same aircraft. They like to sit in the shade of the planes to watch the air show. Our job was to keep people from touching and leaning on the planes. When we saw a leaner we would approach and ask if they were the owner. If they answered yes, we told them to carry-on, owners get to touch all they want. Almost every time the owner would thank us. Some even had stories to tell of inconsiderate people actually damaging their planes. Most people apologized and moved away from the planes, when approached.
We had lots of fun with the Wisconsin weather while we were here. One afternoon a severe thunderstorm popped up while we were hurrying back to our camp. We were soaked to the skin. The weather was in the 80’s so we were not chilled, just wet. The rain turned the camp into a mud wallow. Saturday afternoon we got a blast of wind and dust while we were watching the planes. Later when it subsided we observed many tents and awnings that had been destroyed in the camp ground. Another reason we never leave the awning up when we leave the rig. We were dry camping for the whole two weeks. We would come home with the temperatures in the high 80’s and run the generator and air conditioners for an hour to get the coach livable. Tonight we have glorious electricity and no mud in our camp.
I am starting to ramble, so it is time to close.

Classroom Team: Mike, Dave and Gary Fabric Covered a Horizontal Stabilizer

Oklahoma!

Gary — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:32:09 +0000

I woke up this morning with the first phrase of Oklahoma spinning through my mind. I searched the net and came up with the real words. Here is a quote of the first verse.

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain
And the wavin’ wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.
Oklahoma, Ev’ry night my honey lamb and I
Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk
Makin’ lazy circles in the sky.

We have driven one full day into Oklahoma. Down from the rarified cold winds of New Mexico at 8,000 feet to Black Mesa State Park in the very northwest corner of the Oklahoma panhandle at 4,000 feet. Now today we are camped in a Corps of Engineer Park on Fort Supply Lake at 2,000 feet. It was a two hundred mile drive along the full length of the panhandle.

Ever wonder why Oklahoma has this skinny pan handle? It is only 35 miles wide. I still remember taping it back onto my Oklahoma State piece of my US Map puzzle as a kid. It has to do with making Texas a state on December 29, 1845. The Texans agreed to be limited on the north by Latitude 36 degrees, 30 minutes. Kansas was admitted to the union, January 29, 1861. So Oklahoma got what was left over, November 16, 1907. By the way New Mexico is celebrating their centennial in 2012.

The wind has been “sweepin’ down the plain” these past three days. The wind is from the south at 20 with gusts to 30 mph. Arcturus bucks every time we pass behind a big tree or enter a cut bank. It really keeps you on your toes.

Last evening we helped the neighbors ‘man handle’ their awning into submission. They had spent the day fishing and when they got back the arms were bent and they couldn’t retract it. They come from nearby Lavern, Oklahoma so they should have known better. It is a new-to-them, RV and their first with an awning. I guess we can give them a pass. We aren’t even deploying our living room slide for fear of tearing the slider-awning. The wind and humidity never slackened all night.

Neighborhood Tree House

Fort Supply Lake Patrol

We went for a morning walk into the little town of Fort Supply. It was still windy, but not quite as bad as last night. By the time we made our turn at the neighborhood tree house the wind was “sweepin’ down the plain” full force again. Now we realized the folly of our choice of directions. Yep, upwind all the way. By the way, the tree house seemed to be authentic neighborhood kids’ construction. Check out the photo at the website. I will also include a photo of the local troop of Canadian Geese patrolling in formation along the shores of Fort Supply Lake.

We will close for now, and wish you all good health and safe travels.

Gary and Judy

Catch Up:

Gary — Fri, 27 May 2011 22:31:38 +0000

The past ten days have been both exciting and hectic: Exciting in that we are exploring a completely new part of the country: Hectic because a couple things have quit working.
First the exciting part: We have been exploring the high country in north eastern Arizona, the corner of Utah and the south of Colorado. Now we are headed down into northern New Mexico to Santa Fe. We spent a whole day exploring Red Rock State Park near Sedona, AZ. We took the Naturalist lead hike to see Jack and Helen’s little cabin on the hill. It is called Apache Fires. Jack Frye was the TWA magnate. He ran around with the likes of the Rothchilds and Howard Hughes. Their little cabin on the hill was over 4,000 sq ft.
From there we went on a search for ancient cultures. First stop was Homolovi State Park near Winslow, AZ. These people dug their homes into the ground and farmed the shores of the Little Colorado River. After two days of wind and dust we migrated northward to Canyon de Chelly National Monument, (pronounced de shay.) They have a nice free campground where we dropped our shop trailer and took Arcturus on a tour of both rims of the canyon. This canyon has incredible sheer cliff walls some 600 to 700 feet high and a flat bottom that the modern Navajo farm. The ancient Pueblo culture lived in cliff dwellings and we got some good views of them from the overlooks.
Next we routed ourselves through the “Four Corners” and into Cortez, CO. This was the scene of our hectic time. The kitchen sink dropped away from the counter top and we had to get glue to stick it back together. Also the water pump is failing and it took a lot of creative thinking to get it to prime again. We ordered a new pump and will pick it up General Delivery on Friday in Espanola, NM.
Because of length restrictions we couldn’t tour Mesa Verde National Park with Arcturus. Instead we did a weekend rental at Enterprise and toured the park in a Nissan Sentra. There are an incredible 4000 or so ancient villages in Mesa Verde. Some 600 of them are cliff dwellings. We signed on for a ranger lead tour of Cliff Palace and climbed into the ruin and were allowed to peek inside the buildings. We hiked to a variety of mesa top pueblos and toured many more cliff dwellings with the binoculars. Our highest hike was to the Park Point Overlook at 8,072 feet. We discovered that there is not much oxygen in the air at that elevation.
Recently we have changed our ancient cultures interests for historic railroads. We toured the museum in Durango CO. The three Durango and Silverton steamers had already left by the time we arrived but we did get to see a couple roundhouse queens. Next day we stopped in Chama, NM to visit the Cumbres & Toltec Narrow Gauge Railroad. The rolling stock is marked Denver and Rio Grande and the rails are part of the original D&RG. The museum was open but the trains are not scheduled to start until Memorial weekend. They are rushing to replace two burned out trestles, and they have yet to get into the pass and clear out four feet of snow. It could be an exciting week for them.
We are holed up at the Corps of Engineers Park at Abiquiu Lake outside of Espanola, NM. It is a nice park with electricity and water and all. One defect, however, no cell service and no internet. We hike up the hill about a quarter of a mile and can get phone service, but I never did get the internet to work. I will ship this blog off when we get back to civilization. Big holiday weekends are always a problem for us full-timers. The campsites reserve full months in advance. We will probably hang out on the back parking lot at one of the tribal casinos around Espanola until Tuesday.
We are now in Espanola as planned. The new pump was waiting at the Post Office and I am planning the installation for the next time the tank is mostly empty. We are camped at the Ohkay Casino and Resort. All dry camping but it is better, (quieter,) than WalMart.

Below are some photos of our travels, click on the photos to see larger versions.
Love to all from New Mexico, Gary and Judy

Sedona-Three Tales

Gary — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:11:44 +0000

Yesterday we chose to drive Renee’s rental car to Sedona and back, a trip of about 250 miles. Our plan was to get an early start, take the scenic route and have lunch in Sedona. Return via Interstate 17 and Montezuma Well and Montezuma Castle National Monuments. Here is the story of the trip from three different points of view.

Author 1: Renee- Mother and driver.

Red Rock Formations of Sedona

Things I learned on April 15th, 2011:
1. There are approximately 476 tight turns on the narrow, winding roads between Congress and Cottonwood Arizona, but the scariest are on the descent into and through Jerome, an amazing old mining town clinging to the cliffs in apparent defiance of the law of gravity. I think they must do quarterly checks of structural soundness. I know I would if I lived or worked there.
2. The red hills into which Sedona is nestled are unbelievably beautiful. It was worth the trip to see them. The town itself seems to exist solely for the tourism trade.
3. You can lead a four-year-old to restrooms, but you can’t make her go potty if she doesn’t want to.
4. Montezuma Castle is awe inspiring. To think how old these cliff dwellings are, built onto the natural caverns in the face of a sheer cliff, is just incredible. Archeologists still don’t know why the Sinagua Indians chose to live in this way, nor why they left the area abruptly.
5. The Dodge Avenger is not nearly as fun to drive as my Mustang GT convertible back home, which, of course, wouldn’t have carried all five of us anyway. I do see why big SUVs and minivans can come in handy at times.
6. There is a limit to my mellow second daughter’s patience after all.
I’m so glad we were able to make this trip and see such interesting scenery and artifacts. I apologize, Mathilda, for any inconvenience that all of the time in the car caused.

Author 2: Judy-Nana and childcare specialist.
Now, who’s idea was this trip? You got it! My sister Sonja took Gary and I on these gorgeous red rock roads a number of years ago and I was impressed sooooooo!

Mathilda at 7 Months

We could describe the seating in our mid size automobile. Mathilda was behind Mommy, the driver, in a travel car seat, and Georgia was behind papa, in the front passenger seat, in her booster seat. That left Nana the approximately eight inches between girls for her bum, making a major issue getting belted.

Georgia at 4 and a half

Now Georgia had plans for Nana having packed a game of “Go Fish”. Nana lost count of the games played, but Georgia seemed to have a knack for finding ways to win!
Now Mathilda being only seven months had different plans for Nana. It seems she likes to have help playing with toys and falling off to sleep, which she did quite regularly. There were also sips from the Mommy’s Camelback water supply.
All in all, the trip was lovely. The weather a perfect temperature, about 75, the girls were fun and we pulled it off with only a few minor hitches.

Author 3: Gary-Papa and navigator.
I loaded my trusty computer map program with the slowest most scenic route I could find through the Prescott National Forest and the Prescott valley to Sedona and the Red Rock State Park in the rim area of north central Arizona. It was an ambitions day of travel and as Renee related above, the road was anything but fast.

Georgia's Ice Cream Cone

In Sedona we found a nice deli for a quick lunch and then Nana bought Georgia an ice cream cone. When asked, Georgia remembered the ice cream cone as the highlight of the day. I was also the unofficial time keeper. Our plan was to visit Montezuma Well and Montezuma Castle National Monuments before they closed at 5 pm, sharp! The ice cream cone almost tripped us up, but we got under way in the late afternoon. The Xerox copy of a copy of a hand drawn map vaguely showed these two monuments in the vicinity of I-17 and McGuireville. The exits were clearly marked and we zipped up to the Montezuma Well about four. We did the whole tour including the stairs down into the basin, 75 feet down and 475 feet back up with Georgia pig-a-back. Mathilda was asleep in her mother’s arms for most of the route.
I was somewhat skeptical of our chances of getting to the castle, which is 11 miles away, in time but we made it with eleven minutes to spare.

The Girls at Montezuma Castle

Just enough time to walk to the foot of the cliffs harboring the castle and get our pictures. Georgia was quite impressed and wanted to climb to the ruins over a hundred feet up the cliff face. Fortunately the signs said ‘no one beyond the sign.’ Whew. (The ranger was waiting at the gate to usher us out of the park.)
Georgia requested an Indian princess story from her dad that evening for her bedtime story. Do we have a budding archeologist in the family? We should mention that Dad is slaving away in Hillsboro catching up on his work.
We had an exciting day and saw many wonderful sights and some spectacular scenery. We will have to return again. One day was about two weeks short of enough time. If you are ever visiting the Grand Canyon and Flagstaff, be sure and include Sedona in your plans.
We close with salutations from sunny Arizona from Papa, Nana, Mommy, Georgia and Mathilda.

Trial Fit:

Gary — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 03:25:49 +0000

Today I reached a significant milestone in the design and construction of the new bicycle. I put the major components together this afternoon for a trial fit. There is a photograph of the new bicycle on the blog. The components are the wheels with tires, the front fork, the main frame with a small front sub frame and the rear suspension frame its Fox Vanilla Shock and one seat.
As you can see in this photo there are no cranks or pedals and no steering. There are cranks, chains, brakes and shifters in the boxes. We have been hauling it all around for a year now. The trial fit was to see that the step-over height matched my design and that everything fit properly.

All the Major Pieces Get a Trial Fit

I did discover a problem with the width of the front fork dropouts. I allowed an extra millimeter for shrinkage when brazing. Unfortunately it shrunk three millimeters. It has to be 165 mm wide between the dropouts for a rear wheel to fit. (Fronts are normally 110 mm but my front wheel is driven by the captain.) I hold the dropouts firmly in place when I braze the tubing joints. Everything gets real hot and expands during the operation. The brass cools and the parts shrink back when they get cold. I think I can thin the locking nuts down on both sides of the wheel and get things to fit. Right now I have to use a crow bar to spread the forks enough to get the wheel in. Not a good plan for the roadside tire patching operation.
After placing the new bicycle back in the shop trailer, Judy and I went for a ride on Path, our green dragon recumbent tandem bicycle. There are about five miles of roads in the campground where we are staying near Congress, Arizona. We rode all the roads in camp at least once each and logged a total of six and a half miles. This is our first ride since I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. My balance has been questionable since the first of the year and we have not ridden as much as normal. Today my balance seemed better and we got along very well. Hooray! Just to be sure, however, the new bicycle is designed so either of us can be the captain.
The new bicycle does not have a name yet. We will have to see what his personality is like when we get him all together and go for that first ride. Path may be getting suspicious with the new set of wheels hanging out in the trailer, but so far I don’t think he has a clue that he will be replaced as top dragon.

So long from sunny Arizona

Gary and Judy

Arizona Springtime

Gary — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 05:43:49 +0000

We are in the middle portion of Arizona, about an hour northwest of Phoenix. The weather has been improving daily here in the Sonoran Desert. High temperature today was 78 degrees after a low last night of 42 degrees. It makes it up to 65 by about 11 am. That is how long I had to wait to do some painting. Each day we get in an hour of walking before the temperature gets too warm. As soon as the sun sets, however, it starts getting cool quickly.

The Old Geezer

We are staying at an Escapee Club park called North Ranch. It is in Congress, Arizona. There are lots of activities going on here. We just finished Woodcarvers Week, and now it is Beading Week.
Last week I finished carving a caricature in wood that I call “The Old Geezer.” I have a song I like to sing called “I Just Don’t Look Good Naked, Any More.” The song is about this character who steps out of the shower and gets a look at himself in the mirror. Pot bellied and bald headed, my alter ego relates his encounters that convince him that his body is getting a bit dilapidated. “The Old Geezer,” is also bald headed, pot bellied and bow legged. I had a lot of fun carving him. I gave him a towel so he could preserve a little of his modesty.
Judy has signed up for two different classes for making beaded bracelets this week. We are staying here with long time Boise Cascade friends, Ray and Peggy. Peggy is one of the beading instructors.

Gary gives The Old Geezer a Bath

On Tuesday we are expecting another long time friend, Sue from Portland, to come visit and do some beading too.
Meanwhile, I am still progressing slowly on the new bicycle. I expect to finish brazing the frame this week. I will be able to start putting it together soon.
Wood carvers and beading people are all congregating at the park for these two weeks and we are making new friends every day. We all have one thought in common…winter in the northern states is just too cold and wet. We all thank the rest of you for staying put in winter to keep the lights on. Wouldn’t that be a pickle if everyone tried to live the vagabond life. Spring is in full bloom here. The birds are nesting in a friend’s clothes pin bag, cacti are blooming and we counted at least a half dozen wild flowers on our morning walk today.

Poppys blooming in Madera Canyon

Ocatillo Cactus in Madera

2010 in Review:

Gary — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 04:06:12 +0000

Here is a very brief summary of our 2010 travels. We have been traveling in Arcturus, our 2001 Alpine motor home since 2004. That is going on seven years now. 2010 is the lightest year of travels yet. We drove just over 6,000 miles, about half our normal rate.

We arrived back in what was once the Territory of Oregon on May 14 2010. That is 162 years from the formation of the territory, actually August 14, 1848. Of course that factoid has nothing to do with our travels. In case you are curious the territory was broken up in 1853 to create Washington Territory of the North half and again in 1859 to create the State of Oregon. Washington didn’t become a state until 1889.

We also bicycled for 552 miles in 2010 and walked another 256 miles. Our biggest bicycling year was 2008 when we rode 2097 miles.

We spent a lot of time with our grandchildren this year. You will remember that Mathilda was born on September 10th. Georgia is now a five year old. Grandson Bryce is 10, Patrick is 17 and Cody is 20 this year. The whole family got together at our son’s place in Gilroy, California for Christmas.

Judy and I were lucky, each night we borrowed a car and drove home to the Alpine for a quiet night. Sure is fun being a grandparent!

We attended five bluegrass festivals last year; four in the southwest and one in Tygh Valley, Oregon. Other than that we helped finish a few hundred diapers for our daughter’s on line business in Hillsboro, OR. See: http://getantsy.com

Good bye and Happy New Year from Gilroy California.
Gary and Judy

CODELOCK:

Gary — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:44:14 +0000

As promised in my last blog, we started the grand adventure on Tuesday, July 13th. Sometimes these things just have a plan of their own. Join us on an alternate grand adventure.

Hokuloa and Regal Jug in Reflections

On our original plan, Ed and Sarah were planning to meet us on the St. Helens city docks and we were to do lots of hiking and playing around town until Phil and Sue arrived on Thursday afternoon on Rendezvous. So far our plans were working just fine. On Wednesday we hiked out to Columbia City and we all had a great time looking over Pixie Park and the deep woods in-between. Then we took in the Columbia County Fair so we had a long day of walking.

Phil and Sue arrived on schedule on Thursday afternoon. Phil spent the afternoon trying to shame Ed and I into polishing up our boats. We were quite content to watch and point out little cosmetic blemishes. For our evening entertainment the city of St. Helens scheduled a “music in the park” event just a few steps from our docks. Renee, Neil and Georgia all came out to have supper with us and listen to the music. Judy and I met a remarkable number of people we knew from our earlier life living in this community. Supper was Sarah’s famous fish stew and Judy’s famous 5 bean salad that has about 7 varieties of beans. Don’t ask me why it is 5 bean salad. Georgia had great fun playing with the knobs and switches on the big boats; Ed and Sarah’s boat, the Hokuloa and Phil and Sue’s boat the Rendezvous.

Depth finder is locked out

Friday morning was bright and sunny with about 15 mph winds and a heavy chop coming from the north. I changed down to the small jib and arranged for a reef in the main. About then Ed calls over that he has a bit of a problem. A gremlin had gotten into the instruments and each of them boldly stated ‘CODELOCK.” We studied the manuals and looked for faults in the wiring for over two hours. We even studied the possibility that the gremlin was the button pusher, Georgia, but we were able to absolve her of any involvement. It appears the instruments had lost power for a few moments and all of them decided that they were now stolen. We would be required to enter a code to get them to display depth, speed and wind information. The problem is no one had the foggiest notion what the code number might be. We decided that it was unwise to tackle a trip down the Columbia River with all its sand bars and mud banks without a depth finder.

Alternate plans were debated and a leisurely trip up the Multnomah channel of the Willamette River back toward Ed’s moorings seemed the prudent thing to do. All three boats started out and we were all soon under sail. Now I don’t want to brag too much, but Judy and I got the last start from the docks and at one point we passed both of the big boats. Now if you talk to them they will have stories about only flying half their sails to make it fair, but fair is fair and we were behind and we briefly got ahead. That is a win and that is that. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to get the camera out to take the photo finish picture so you will just have to take my word for it.

We camped two nights on Coon Island, a popular boat only park in the Willamette River. We hiked around the island. We had to hike fast to keep ahead of the mosquitoes.

As usual for this group the week involved lots of eating. Menus had been drawn up long in advance so there was lots of gourmet food and tasty wines to sample each evening. Many times the leftovers wound up in the omelets the next morning.

Sarah, Head Chef

Chef Ed is Keeping a Close Eye on the Barbie

Finally on Sunday we all finished the trip to Big Island Marina on Sauvie Island. Phil and Sue returned to Portland and Judy and I were able to hang out for another day of gourmet cooking, instrument trouble shooting and hiking. Tomorrow we too will return to Arcturus who has been patiently waiting in St. Helens.

Flying Again

Gary — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:56:09 +0000

After eighteen days on “Shank’s Mare,” we are once again flying down the road on “Path,” our recumbent tandem bicycle.

Here is a brief recap. We were in Lake Havasu City and headed for the grocery store with the cargo trailer in tow. I let the front end of the tandem drop off the curb into the crosswalk. I had the brake fairly tight and had one foot on the sidewalk. The left chain-stay on the front suspension broke right at the brake boss. To get back we loaded the tire and the front end of the bicycle in the cargo trailer and walked it home.

I stripped the old parts; the dropouts, the suspension shock, the brake bosses and the pivot assemblies off of the old suspension and proceeded to build a new stronger version. I carefully painted it three coats of green paint and gave it an extra day to dry. I was so proud of my new stronger version until I assembled it on the bicycle. I suddenly remembered why the old version was asymmetrical and had no brace on the right side. The chain needed to go right through where the new stronger braces were placed.

I carefully charted out where the chain needed to be, and with saws and files I removed a section of one brace and removed the other brace entirely. I had to strengthen the one brace with a section of flat iron and braze everything back into place.

Rebuilt Brace

This morning I put it all back together and we rode around the campground loop twice just to see if things are workable. Hooray! Everything is working in perfect harmony. I wasn’t so confident as to paint the piece before assembly, so now I must take it back apart and repaint it.

It doesn’t look like rain for the next few days, so perhaps we will ride the shiny metal version for a few days to celebrate the event.

We have just finished up a week with friends at the Escapee, Chapter 32 Rally at Pass Mountain Regional Park in Apache Junction, Arizona. We hiked many of the park trails including one hike of over nine miles. Now we have moved across the valley to White Tanks Mountain Regional Park just to the west of Surprise, Arizona. The reoccurring rain this winter has created a lush green desert all around us. The Saguaros are fat with water, the Ocotillo cacti are leafing out and the desert plants are starting to bloom.

The Long Walk

Gary — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:36:51 +0000

Sometimes things go against you and you have to take a long walk to keep from doing something stupid. Today was one of those days.

From my last blog you know that we broke our bicycle. For the past ten days I have been working to repair the damage by creating a replacement suspension fork for Path. My goal was to create a new part that was stronger and more rigid in all dimensions. I have indeed created a replacement part that achieved those goals. I coated it with three coats of paint and it is a thing of beauty indeed: Aye! in spite of having to use “rattle can” technology.

Ah yes, this does not seem to merit a “long walk.” Well you see there is this thing called the “chain line.” Indeed to transfer power from the pedals to the wheel, the bicycle chain must flow unobstructed from the chain-rings to the cassette. Now I remember why the original design only had a brace on one side!

New suspension looks good, but...

My exceedingly strong and beautiful-to-behold swing arm is of limited usefulness. Primarily down hill where one doesn’t need to pedal. Well actually the chain will traverse nicely from the very largest chain-ring, with 52 teeth to the very smallest cog, 12 teeth. To find the mechanical advantage in this mechanism one must divide the smallest into the largest.

This gives four and a quarter against. That is one turn of the pedals turns the wheel four and a quarter turns.

View of the Chainline

One revolution of the wheel moves you almost 60 inches down the road. Each turn of the pedal takes you over 20 feet down the road. This is fine for downhill racing with a nice wind at your back, but is sure doesn’t get you up the hill. Our normal “granny gear” is about one to one.

My choices are; one, talk Judy into doing all the up hill work and I will cover the downhill legs, or two, take the hack saw to my new suspension and revise it somewhat. I would take a pole on the subject, but I think Judy still has the winning vote.

We have finished up the Bluegrass Festival in Lake Havasu City and we are now attending to a group rally near Mesa, Arizona. In a few days I will get another chance to work on the project. Meanwhile we will still be walking.

Good Day from Gary and Judy and from strong but powerless Path.

P.S. make welcome Herb and Darlene, latest members of our blog family. We spent many hours jamming together over the past few weeks.

Herb and Darlene: If you register you can create a comment and say howdy to all the nice people.

Gary