How to make your entire body hurt

Step one: Buy a house with pee-stained carpet:


Step two: Try to make above flooring look like the one below without anyone's help.


Step three: Profit. Wait, no, not profit. Step three is actually immense body aches because I am a pencil-pushing sissy of a desk jockey.

More to come soon.

No more rants

Letting slip with that rant was an error in judgement. Here is my latest and most successful stab at getting a really sweet handling mountain bike.

First some background. A good 60% or more of a rider's mass is on the back wheel. 60% or more of your braking force comes from the front brake (all this assumes seated rider, level ground). I think that last one is the reason why some mountain bikes use larger front rotors, though it seems to come from some fuzzy logic. Larger rotors are good for the following reasons: better heat dispersion (larger rotor area), higher initial bite (greater leverage against the hub), and greater brake force for a given hand effort. Larger rotors are bad for the following reasons: greater weight, higher initial bite (can be difficult to control for novices).

Some more background. I have never owned or even ridden a bike where the natural tendency was for the rear wheel to let go first during a corner (in a car, this is oversteer). I've owned and ridden a couple two three bikes, let me tell you. Every single bike I've ever ridden is an understeering pig with the front wheel letting go long before the rear. Many riders solve this by using a larger front tire (say a 2.5" front vs. a 2.3" rear). This is a good start, but isn't enough. In theory, that difference in contact patch shouldn't make a difference at all if the coefficient of friction is the same for each tire. So what to do!?!

You go here and you purchase one of these soft tires for the front:

and one of these harder tires for the rear:


Durometer is how tires designate coefficient of friction, by the way. Lower is softer, stickier rubber. Higher is harder, less tacky rubber. Maxxis is the only company I know making different durometers available in single ply tires. Of their tires, the High Roller, Minion and Larsen are the only tires I see like this.

This combination allows greater overall traction to the front tire, has numerous benefits and almost no drawbacks. Benefits: greater brake force available, greater cornering force available, more neutral handling (the front wheel still lets go first). Drawbacks: Your front tire will wear more quickly than it used to. I'm guessing it'll last about as long as your rear tire. Now you need that heavier 185 rotor, there will be a slight increase in rolling resistance while climbing (but only on the front wheel).

Seriously, for the mountain bikers out there, if you only learn one thing ever from the internet, it is this. Buy a softer durometer front tire. You'll be faster and have way more fun once you're pointed downhill.

The point of blogs is rants, right?

Above anything else, I'm a bike nerd and mostly, I love mountain biking. Really, I love tearing downhill just fast enough to be scared much of the time...but with enough control that I don't crash. This isn't possible without a machine like a bike. To me the whole point of dealing with an expensive, complex machine like a mountain bike is to have as much fun as possible with the minimum effort.

The point of all that is to give a little background to my rant. This photo bothers me:

It bothers me not because it is pixellated, but because there is a 185mm rotor on the front brake. If you want to be able to zoom in on what I'm talking about, go here. And Trek isn't alone. Specialized has adopted this foolish design as well.

begin rant

So why does that bother me? By increasing rotor size, you haven't increased stopping power.

How so? You have greater leverage to stop the wheel!

True. But, you still can't stop any faster. No one seems to get this, so I'll yell it: BRAKES DON'T STOP THE BIKE, THE TIRES DO.

How so?

Friction. Tires with higher friction will stop a bike (or any vehicle) much faster, because their grip on the ground is much stronger. Remember, even when you're moving along, the contact patch of the tire is stationary at all times.

I see. Go on.

With the puny little tires on this bike you have poor traction. With the increased rotor size you have a grabbier brake. So combining these two results in a bike that snaps into a front tire skid when the brake is applied firmly.

What happens in a front tire skid?

Usually you either put a foot down or you crash.

When am I most likely to apply the brake firmly?

The last time I did it, I was in a corner that tightened up abruptly. I also do it anytime I panic...you probably do it when you panic, too.

When I panic, don't I want to have control over the steering?

Why yes, you do! That is why Anti-Lock brakes exist in cars.

What do I do to solve this problem?
Sticky tire up front or a smaller (160mm) rotor. Either is a fine solution.

end rant

As promised...

...a picture of the crap on my desk! Actually, it's a smattering of capacitors, resistors, knobs and tube sockets that will form my replica Champ Amp (5F1 for those wondering).



See schematics here.

The goal is to make it look nice as well as sound nice. That way if it is the only one I ever build, it won't be an eyesore. I'm thinking a really dark stain on the wood with either polished aluminum or perforated stainless steel (that stuff can be spendy, though). Check this out for an idea on the look I'm going for.

Post number one

So my goal is to have this blog do the following things for you and I.

First, I want it to serve as some motivation to do the things I want to and see them through (I am sometimes lazy). It'll be a history/archive dealie while I'm at it.
Second, while I question that I'll explain or understand what I'm doing better than everyone else, maybe my info will be found more easily and that will help you.
Lastly, maybe we can teach one another something.

More later on a guitar amp.