Bicycle Tinkerer

Grit from grit's day mentioned that her daughters got new bicycles recently.  She home schools them.  The combination of those two facts got me thinking.  The earliest memory of my dad teaching me something mechanical in nature was how to work on my own bike.

Since then my interest in bicycles has waxed and waned but never has gone altogether.  I find the easy to understand mechanics appealing.  I've read Bicycling Science and I really like that a seemingly simple device could also be potentially the most efficient method of travel and most efficient conversion of human power into mechanical movement.  The Wright Brothers were bicycle mechanics before they built their plane.  Once you know how to work on a bike, you can expand that knowledge in so many different ways.

I've become a tinkerer and do-it-yourselfer.  I like to work with tools, in my shop, on our vehicles or fixing broken toys.  I have a basic understanding of how to make things and even went to college for industrial design.  I feel being allowed to pull out some of my dad's tools and work on fixing a flat tire or modding the bike somehow contributed to what I have become.

My bikes are in the garage.  They have a layer of dust on them because they haven't been ridden in a while.  I've worked on my daughter's bike and a couple of other similar projects.  I've even considered holding the occasional bike workshop for the kids in our condo complex.  This way I can get their bikes running better and maybe teach a few how to work on their own.

After we move, I would like to use our bikes more.  This means a little adjustment to our current living style but I think a move to a new area would be an opportunity to do so.  If we are using our bikes more, my kids will soon get their first lesson on how to do maintenance on their own bikes.

Personal Vehicles

I look at other people's cars especially when something different catches my eye.  Being a "car guy", I like it when people customize their vehicle in some way.  It makes the car more personal, and lets people know that it is your car.  People used to do this to the things they owned, especially the things they valued.  Society doesn't do it much anymore and I think we are blending in too much.  Next time you go to a parking lot look at all the cars.  Most will look alike and the ones that stick out are usually the ones that have been customized.

Personalized license plates are a great way to make sure your vehicle is unique.  This first one is great because SFX is short for "specail effects", something I've liked since high school.  As a side note, license plates with less than four letters are rare.  One reason is just the statistics.  There aren't as many combinations possible with only three characters.  Second, some states actually reserve plates with less than four characters for special vehicles, government, etc.

I'm a big fan of Randall Munroe and his webcomic xkcd so this one make me laugh.  Only way it would have been cooler is if it had "1I1-III1"!

Bumper stickers are a cheap and easy way to add a personal touch to a car.  The only down side being that other people may have the same sticker.  (Which could be a good thing.)  One way to make the stickers less common is using them in combination with others.  This combination of bumper stickers confuses me though.  I can understand the Christian fish and the sticker that reads "Are you following JESUS this close?" but I don't quite understand the addition of the "Coexist" sticker along with those.  The sticker itself is a contradiction that when you get down to fundamentals, many of those religions/beliefs don't agree with the others.  If your the owner of this vehicle or someone who understands this, please explain it to me.

Our truck is a vehicle we bought used and it wasn't in the best of shape.  When we got it, my wife actually told me that I could do just about anything to it.  This is big news because she wouldn't let me do anything with the other vehicles because they were in too good of condition.  That being said, there will be some posts about the customizing that I have in mind for it in the future!