Long Time

It's been a long time since my last entry.  Last one was about my most recent bicycle purchase, the Schwinn with the front freewheel system.  I still love the bike but now realize how heavy it is.  Tooling around the neighborhood with the kids, fine, but anything much further than that, I think I'll need a road bike.

Not the point

But biking isn't the direct point to this blog.  Entropy is the subject of today's post.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it means disorder or chaos.  In the realm of physics, it is said that the universe is constantly transitioning from a high state of order to a high state of disorder, or entropy.  Now lets just clarify I'm no expert on physics, but I do remember a thing or two from my high school physics class, thanks Mr Ozier.

My Entropy

I always seem to settle into a state of entropy myself.  Recently I was re-assigned to another worksite.  I won't complain about the work and working conditions, in fact, the work is interesting and the working conditions are as good as can be expected.  I will complain about change, though.  The change has allowed me to fall back into my old, bad habits.  I haven't been exercising like I should and it seems like I have been eating the same (or more) as when I was exercising.  

Woe is Me

Yeah, yeah, I know, you didn't wake up this morning thinking, hey, I wish I could read about some poor complaining schmo.  To that I'll say, too bad.  If you've gotten this far in the post then you failed in your schmo-avoiding venture.  Discipline.  That's what I need, discipline.  You'd think that, being a Marine and all, I'd have a little discipline.  Well, for physical matters, not so much.  

Rearranged

I will say that I have arranged my house so that it will be easier to exercise, or so I think.  I have moved the school room to it's own room.  Now David's old bedroom houses all of the schooling accouterments.  That means that I moved the highly unused treadmill from his old room to the bonus room upstairs.  That room is now set up for exercise, now I just need to find somebody that wants to exercise.  Or I could just work up the guts and do it myself.

Rambling Man

Enough of my ramblings about entropy and schmos.  Next entry will be better I promise, and it will come soon.

Yes, Another Bike

Well, I made another stop by the Goodwill yesterday to look for bikes.  Why am I still looking for bikes, well, my current bike doesn't really fit me, my daughter could use a larger bike, etc, etc...  Well, I found a Schwinn.  They seem to be nice old bikes; my road bike is an old schwinn.  

Love that Seat

The seat is nice to have.  It is sprung so it takes bumps nicely.  Also of note are the handlebars.  I've been looking for a bike just like this so you can imagine my surprise and delight when I saw it.

What's that Noise?

When I was at the store, I wanted to make sure that it at least shifted.  I lifted up the rear wheel and had my daughter turn the crank.  Everything shifted just fine.  In fact, it shifted even when she wasn't turning the crank.  I didn't think anything of it at the time.  

Later on, I was researching this bike on the internet.  It is a Schwinn World Tourist.  I assume it was made sometime in the 80s.  It has a Shimano Front Freewheel system on it.  Strangely enough, my co-workers Ben, Tom and I were talking about this crank setup last week.  The main benefit of this setup is that it will allow you to shift while coasting.  It is neat and has worked well so far.  I did 10-12 miles today wth no issues.  

Cleaning Up

This evening I spent a little time cleaning up the chain and rear cassette.  It was all pretty dirty as one can imagine, but it is much better now.  I plan on riding it tomorrow to work.  At some point I would love to take the chain off and clean it.  Maybe later.

At What Cost?

The bike has $25.00 written on it with permanent marker.  Goodwill had a 1/2 off day yesterday so I was able to talk away with the bike for $13.50ish with tax.  All in all, I'm pleased.  : - >

Later!

That old familiar feeling

Well, on my way home while pedaling my little heart out my pedal started feeling kinda wierd.  Strangely enough, it was a familiar feeling as this same thing happened to my Walmart bike (a Mongoose MTB).  The left crank (as you are riding) was coming loose.  Good thing I noticed it. 

The last time, on the mtb, the crank fell off in the middle of a 4 lane road.  I had to run back out and get it.  Then I had to get a ride home.  Oh well...

Good Catch

This time, I caught the problem before it got out of hand.  Too bad that out of all the tools I carry I didn't have what I needed to fix the bike.  I needed a ratchet and 14mm socket, but only had a small set of pliars and a leatherman.  This got the nut back on until I could get to a store to buy the appropriate tool.  Oh, and btw, the Florence Target does not sell a ratchet set, at least not that I saw.  I had to ride/walk to Walmart a mile or two down the road to get a ratchet set.  

From now on, I believe that I'll keep the ratchet and a couple of  the sockets in my under-seat bag.

All's well that ends well

All in all, I as able to fix the crank and I got a new set of tools.  I'll try to look at the bright side.  It was a mini adventure.  Later!

Well, I bought a bike the other day at a yardsale.  It came with almost no padding for the handlebars.  The tape on the bars was little more than slightly bumpy electric tape. 

To the bike shop I went!

The local shop, Montgomery Cyclery, had exactly what I needed.  They had a good selection of tape.  There was cork and other types of tape, but I settled on Bar Phat by Specialized.  The kit included the handlebar tape as well as gel inserts to go under the tape.  

The Phat has really helped with the bumpy parts of my commute.  Pics to come later.  Yea! for Bar Phat.

Recently I got a new yardsale bike.  The yardsale also had lots of tools and general junk.  The couple that were hosting the sale had married within the last 5 years or so.  The wife told me that they were trying to consolidate their things and thus, the yardsale.  Anyway...there were lots of tools and I'm kind of a sucker for tools.  Well I found two of these: 

They are wrenches that have 10 different wrench sizes.  They are also extremely small and light.  I saw two so I bought two.  They work and are kind of handy.  The only problem I have is that the sizes on each of the ends are pretty much useless.  If a nut is tight then how could you use this to loosen the nut without some sort of bar for leverage?  

It doesn't matter, I always carry an adjustable wrench with me anyway and it works well.  This evening, I was lowering the seat on my yardsale bike and one of the wrenches broke!  Oh well, that's probably why I've never seen one of these for sale in a store. ;-)