Yellowstone Super Volcano Explodes
on Nov 16, 2009 in Yellowstone My son Zach and I went to see the movie "2012" last Friday evening. It had a lot of good special effects, mostly of California falling apart and sliding into the ocean. The scenes of Yellowstone exploding were unimpressive though. This may...

Language Arts
on Nov 11, 2009My son Tyler received an assignment in his 8th grade Language Arts class. He was required to write about his hero. The subject had to be in Michigan. He told me that he wished to write about a baseball player he thought of as a hero. The player was D...

Planned 2010 Door County Tour
on Nov 8, 2009 in Fishing Bicycling For my first major bicycle tour in 2010, I plan to take the ferry across Lake Michigan to Wisconsin. The SS Badger leaves from Ludington, Michigan and arrives in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, after 4 hours of steaming. I'll drive from Oxford to Ludington, pa...

Something to Do (Part 17)
on Nov 7, 2009 in Bicycling Completion and Test Ride After the addition of a Topeak Tourguide handlebar bag, the Sanner touring bicycle is complete. We’re experiencing a warm snap, with a temperature today of 68, so I took the bike out for a spin and final adjustment. The ri...

Something to Do (Part 16)
on Nov 6, 2009 in Bicycling Rear Rack and Tape My rear rack is a Topeak Super Tourist Disk. I arrived at this choice because the Super Tourist has bars on which to mount panniers that are lower than the rack top. This will put the weight a little lower, but more importantly, wi...

Something to Do (Part 15)
on Nov 6, 2009 in Bicycling Seat/Seat Post, Pedals and Water Bottles/Cages I departed from tradition and chose a Selle Royal Respiro saddle instead of a Brooks B-17. I recently purchased one of these and used it on the DALMAC Tour. At the end of two days of riding, it occurred...

Something to Do (Part 13)
on Nov 4, 2009 in Bicycling Front Rack Positioning of the front rack was painful. I wanted a low-rider type of rack so that I could get a lower center of balance on the front of the bicycle. There seems to be a pretty limited number of these type of racks available. On my previ...

Something to Do (Part 14)
on Nov 4, 2009 in Bicycling Cabling I had to do some cutting and painting of brackets for the rear rack, so while I waited for paint to dry, I started on the brake and shifter cabling. I used Jagwire cabling and inline barrel adjusters. The front brake cable hanger had to be of...

Something to Do (Part 12)
on Nov 3, 2009 in Bicycling FendersAs I am running 700x32 tires, I opted to purchase some SKS P-45 fenders. The P-35 would be a tight fit, and I would be unable to go up to a larger size tire in the future. I first installed the front fender. This was actually done in coordinat...

Something to Do (Part 11)
on Nov 2, 2009 in Bicycling DerailleursOver the weekend, I mounted the front and rear derailleurs. I purchased Shimano Deore Xt's. The rears is an RD-M771-SGS and thus is a top normal design. In other words, when the shifter cable is slack, the pulleys would be positioned below...