Thread Drift

[DebW]

*maniacal laughter* HA!!!!! I FINALLY got a pic of my bike!

Careful! She bites! =)

She won't bite me. I have a 12 inch crescent wrench and some sharp cable cutters (they cut spokes too). Seriously, she looks like a great bike. I won't call her adorable or cute, but harda$$ might be appropriate. Is she what you call Miss 'Cakes? You must tell us how she got that name.

Trek, congrats on the new nephew. I have a new one too, born Aug 5, 8 lb 9 oz, 21 inches. His brother, now 3, has already been backpacking and bicycling with me. Truthfully, I'm only an honorary aunt (no real relation) but I love these kids and their moms are special friends.

[Kitsune06]

She won't bite me. I have a 12 inch crescent wrench and some sharp cable cutters (they cut spokes too). Seriously, she looks like a great bike. I won't call her adorable or cute, but harda$$ might be appropriate. Is she what you call Miss 'Cakes? You must tell us how she got that name.

She bites constantly when I'm careless with the screwdriver and it slips etc.
I was riding with a Eugenian MTB group, and my exdh and I were talking about how pagan folk in Eugene talk about woodland spirits. We decided it'd be funny if there were one named "B*tchcakes" who clomped around the woods in heavy steel toed boots (not unlike me and mine) and one guy in the group heard the name and thought we'd attributed it to my bike. It caught on with us quickly, and soon she was the woodland spirit that clomped through the woods with beefy, knobby tires.

Since then, I've had a hard time talking about the bike or her name because some people are sensitive to such words... and as I've grown more attached to my bike and less militantly "Grr, boots/leather/grease!" er... (less militantly *cough*d_key*cough*) she's gotten the title "miss" and her name abbrevriated.
... and that's the story of the name Miss 'cakes. If I'm a hard-a** cutie-pie, I must be the cutie-pie on the hard-a** bike.

[DebW]

She won't bite me. I have a 12 inch crescent wrench and some sharp cable cutters (they cut spokes too).

Since I posted that, I've been trying to estimate how may spokes I've cut in my lifetime. If I built 5 wheels per week for 15 weeks per year for 4 years, that's 300 wheels, and each wheel had 36 spokes, that's 1080 spokes. And cutting one wheel's worth of spokes was almost enough to give me tendonitis. The fun part was cutting the first half dozen spokes, which are under so much tension that they can fly across a room when you cut them. To be safe, we'd stand the wheel on top of a trash can and cut the lower spokes first.

My estimate of the number of exploding tires I've experienced is 400-500. I'm surprised I don't have hearing loss from that. Less than 5 of those were tires I was riding on, and most of them probably failed stitching in patched sewups.

[Lise]

Ho-lee cow, Deb. I had no idea that bike wrenching was such an exciting and dangerous profession!

[DrBee]

Congrats on the house CC! It looks nice and sounds like it's in a nice location! Cool!


Lise - she said she'd be gone a week. So - only a few more days. I miss her, too!

[Brina]

cc, that is awesome. congrats on the new home.

[Bruno28]

The new house looks great CC! Good luck with the move. I moved 18 months ago and I still have boxes in the garage that I haven't unpacked. Guess I didn't really need half that stuff after all.

Nanci- we don't seem to get that much american wine here. Y'all must keep it and drink it yourselves! Still in the name of research and maintaining international relationships I have purchased two bottles of Californian red. A 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon from Esser cellars - a snip at £4.99 (about $10) and, a more impressive looking, 2002 shiraz from Clay Station, Lodi, California at £6.99 (just over $13).
Unfortunately, it's lunchtime here and I have to work through the rest of the afternoon before I can go home and start the fun bit of this research project

[salsabike]

Greetings, girls, from Albany, New York, where I've been the last two weeks because my mom is in the hospital. Too pooped to post much (although I did manage to get my porn name--Cynthia Oakwood (I see a big-breasted blonde extra for this name)--on that thread), but I at least get to check in every night for TD entertainment, so thank you and keep up the good work. That book, Last Days of Summer, will start the TD rounds to MP as soon as I get back to Seattle.

Miss my bikes!

[DebW]

I've been trying to estimate how may spokes I've cut in my lifetime... The fun part was cutting the first half dozen spokes, which are under so much tension that they can fly across a room when you cut them. To be safe, we'd stand the wheel on top of a trash can and cut the lower spokes first.

My estimate of the number of exploding tires I've experienced is 400-500. I'm surprised I don't have hearing loss from that.

Ho-lee cow, Deb. I had no idea that bike wrenching was such an exciting and dangerous profession!

I assume it's not quite so exciting anymore. The large number of blowout in the 70s was due to the 27 x 1 1/4 inch tires that didn't fit rims very tightly. Combined with our shop compressor which inflated tires too fast. It was actually pretty nerve-wracking when 3 or 4 blowouts happened in one day. Sometimes it was so bad that when one person headed towards the compressor, everyone else ran the other way. And the shop was small, so it didn't help much to run away.

Cutting tensioned spokes is inherently dangerous, though we never had any injuries from it. Thank goodness for the metal trash can. Our chief wheelbuilder (not me) did get tendonitis frequently from turning the spoke wrench thousands of times.

[mimitabby]

My estimate of the number of exploding tires I've experienced is 400-500. I'm surprised I don't have hearing loss from that. Less than 5 of those were tires I was riding on, and most of them probably failed stitching in patched sewups.

When's the last time you had your hearing checked? If you never have, get a baseline ... because noise exposure DOES lead to hearing loss!

MImi who works in the NOISE LAB.

[KnottedYet]

Today is one of those days where I hate my job. Love my work, but hate my job.

Tired of working on humans. Wanna work on bikes instead. Exploding tires and all.

(of course, I know jack-diddly about bikes, but that can be overcome)

[DebW]

When's the last time you had your hearing checked? If you never have, get a baseline ... because noise exposure DOES lead to hearing loss!

MImi who works in the NOISE LAB.

Thanks Mimi. I probably never have had my hearing checked. So how old will I be when I start going deaf?

Tired of working on humans. Wanna work on bikes instead. Exploding tires and all.

Yeah, bikes are nice. They don't talk back. But sometimes they're a little recalcitrant and don't want to loosen their bolts for you.

[mimitabby]

Thanks Mimi. I probably never have had my hearing checked. So how old will I be when I start going deaf?

without noise induced hearing loss, women don't generally lose much hearing, but most men do in their late 70's or in their 80's. I said generally; lots of women lose hearing...
but even one rock concert can do it. I have a hearing loss from two Jethro Tull concerts that i went to in the early 1970's.

You know you are in trouble when a noise exposure makes your ears ring. the longer they ring, the worse it was...

[Bruno28]

I have a hearing loss from two Jethro Tull concerts that i went to in the early 1970's.

At last - a musical reference I can relate to. People have been trying to explain cadence to me using all these songs by popular beat combos I've never heard of.

Hope your hearing's ok Deb....I SAID I HOPE YOUR HEARING'S OK....NO, NOT YOUR EARINGS.... YOUR HEARING!!!!!

[chickwhorips]

Hope your hearing's ok Deb....I SAID I HOPE YOUR HEARING'S OK....NO, NOT YOUR EARINGS.... YOUR HEARING!!!!!

hu?