Archive for September, 2010

We got a new kitten! This is Kika, a marble colored Bengal. I miss Piper, our Siamese a lot. She has yet to come home. I told Louise I didn’t want a new kitten to replace Piper, but she said we could just have two cats if Piper comes home. So, we got Kika.

I recently spent some time powder coating some of my unicycles. Here’s my Kris Holm 26″ Mountain Unicycle with a Schlumpf geared hub, 2.3″ tire, and the KH handlebar: I powder coated the frame translucent purple, which first required a base of mock chrome: The pedals I also did metallic red, taking the bearings out before baking them. The spokes are also done; I taped them to a piece of aluminum that I cut out: and then clamped it to another piece of aluminum with a few c-clamps and wired them (at an angle) to the oven rack. This allowed... [read more]

Coker and Coke From the San Francisco Unicycle Tour, 2010

My rims started out like this, with a bunch of rust on the sides and white painted part: I thought it wouldn’t be too hard to clean them up, but I was wrong! After some rust removing and stripping, I tried cleaning one up and almost decided it was pointless. There was just so much rust and it would take forever. I played around with photoshop dropping in the white wall tires with various rims that I could buy. Here are some EMPI 8 spoke GT wheels, white I like quite a bit, but don’t 100% go with the classic... [read more]

I had an awesome time at the “California” muni weekend, hosted in Vancouver, BC, Canada, by the VanUni unicycling club and dubbed the Vancouver Muni Weekend. It was announced via the Unicyclist forums. Here is a collection of pictures from Nathan Hoover on SmugMug. Here are some of the highlights that include me, and my notes so I can remember what I did and have one place to find all the links I’m interested in. Friday we did an informal ride at the North Shore (Mt Fromme) on a trail called Ladies Only. Tim Lee got a picture of how... [read more]

An electric motor doesn’t need a big flywheel to keep the engine running. It also doesn’t need the starter gear teeth around the edge. In fact, all it really has to do is engage with the clutch disc via the pressure plate. I’m not sure how beefy that needs to be, but I decided to take down a bit of the flywheel size on my old south bend lathe. Here’s the tranny, coupling adapter, and flywheel: I bolted the coupling adapter to the flywheel; it didn’t come with the right bolts, and I had bought some grade 5 bolts that... [read more]

I’ve had a few questions on where I got my zip line stuff. Here’s what I got: 1. Petzl Tandem Speed Pulley 30113 – $ 79.95 from http://karstsports.com/, free shipping. 2. From ZipLineSupplies.com I ordered the following. Note that they appear to be a front for “Fehr” – http://www.fehr.com, and you could probably order directly from them too. 1 1/4″ x 250 ft 7×19 Cable $64.27 12 1/4″ Wire Rope Clip Galvanized $9.60 1 5/8″ x 6″ Eyebolt Galvanized $5.06 1 5/8″ x 15″ Eyebolt Galvanized $11.20 4 1/4″ Thimble Galvanized $0.96 1 3/4″ x 12″ E/J Turnbuckle Galv. $20.00... [read more]