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Aargh, I hate winter
Forces of nature are conspiring to keep me off my bike lately. I managed to bike to work twice last week in spite of the big ice storm that hit the Baltimore/Washington area. Then I went out for a quick 20-miler this past Sunday, and promptly broke a spoke on my back wheel. This was…
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Back on the bike after ice storm
I rode my bike to work today for the first time since the ice storm that hit the Baltimore/Washington area this past Tuesday and Wednesday. My usual commute takes me through Elkridge, Relay, and Arbutus, MD, including a short trip through the Patapsco State Park Avalon Area. Today, the roads were fine for the most…
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Snowblower
It’s actually snowing here in the mid-atlantic, although I’m predicting another non-event similar to so many others we’ve had in the past 3 winters. I think that when all is said and done, we’ll end up with maybe an inch and a half of snow, not quite enough to cover the grass, topped with a…
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The Joys of Winter Biking
Took my first fall of 2009 yesterday. We were coming off two straight days of rain, it was 7:45am and the temperature was right around freezing. All of that adds up to (you guessed it) ice on the road. Most of the roads were treated and in pretty good shape, but in my infinite wisdom…
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Fenders on a Road Bike, Part 2
This is part 2 of my story about how I put fenders on my road bike. Read about my motivation for doing this in the first installment. There are a couple types of fenders made for road bikes. “Full” fenders cover the back wheel all the way down to the bottom bracket, and the…
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Fenders on a Road Bike, Part 1
I’ve been an occasional bike commuter for a little over three years. My commuter bike is a 2001 Giant OCR-1, a road bike with an aluminum frame and a carbon fork. Back in the big 1980s, I spent my teen years delivering newspapers, and went through a seemingly-endless string of cheap 10-speed beater bikes. I…
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New road bike tires
Last Friday I broke a spoke on the back wheel of my road bike. Murphy’s Law #1 of broken spokes says that they will always happen on the back wheel, so you have the extra fun of removing the gear cassette to replace the spoke. But that’s not really my point.. Since I had to…
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Sony Universal Remotes
I just bought a pair of Sony Model RM-VL600 universal remote controls (or “remote commanders” as Sony likes to call them), and figured I’d post my first impressions. First, a little bit of background. All of our TV comes over the air — no cable, sattelite, or FiOS. Upstairs we have an old analog TV…
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More fun with digital TV
The great digital TV antenna project continues. I found out that the cheapie UHF antennas I built are known as “4 bay bowtie dipoles,” and they are very similar to the Model 4221 by Channel Master. Based on my reading, I’ve decided not to try using a combiner to join the antenna signals. Instead I…
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Mortgage Escrow Follies
A year or so back, the mortgage on our primary house was sold to CitiMortgage. Prior to this happening, I was aware of quite a number of horror stories about CitiMortgage, so when the sale was announced, I was a little apprehensive. However, one thing I’ve learned over the years is to always look at…