Urbanus Magnus

I'm putting the snow studs to rest (for now) for two reasons: 1. There be no snow/ice on the roads as of late, and its > 5 degrees outside 2. They keep popping inner tubes! Despite my best efforts, and lining each tire with 3-4 layers of duct tape, the occasional screw would be able to wear through the protection and put a cut into the inner tubes. Its quite unfortunate, as they were really quite amazing ice tyres. The only way I can thing of salvaging them is buying a few rolls of Mr. Tuffy or some other tyre liner and completely covering the insides to protect the tubes. They really only seem to pop in hard cornering or trail/ off-road riding. I was caught out the other day up to my ankles in mud, where I had to change a tyre. I was not happy, needless to say, when I ran out of patches from how many punctures there were.

I've done it - the bike is completely finished, and it has been distance-proven; I took it for more than 40 km of wintery riding over the past two days. All the riding and abused has allowed me to 'dial in' all the settings of the bike: the Brooks saddle has been moved foreward, the derailleur cables have stretched/settled and been adjusted, the handlebars have been positioned, the STI levers have been re-positioned, and more than all these other combined, the new brakes have been worn in and re-positioned. Ta daaaah! Hells yeah - 'Standard' That's right; new brakes. Those old Shimano low-profile cantis are gone, and are replaced with one of the widest-of-wide profile brakes; some Tektro 720s. They really have cleaned up the problems, so now there is about 1/2 cm of clearance each side of the rims and more than double the braking power. The quality of workmanship is superb - they come with 6mm allen key fixing bolts, a stainless-steel bushing, both sides ...

Happy New Years everyone! A bit late, yes, but better late than never. Now school is getting busy - exams come in a month, and many final project on the way. But, before all this business started, I managed a few more ice-capades during the last bit of the holidays.  Woke up, and made the best darn breakfast you could hope for - eggs a la over-easy, a few strips of my special cheese-filled pork strips, and an improvised hash-brown-like-thing (involving a few fried onions, potatoes, carrots, and a mushroom or two for good measure). Mmm. It tasted much better than it looks I needed a good load of carbs for the day, if I was to be out, so I complemented the protein from the eggs, cheese and meat with a few slices of toast. Can't be the smell of toast and fried eggs in the morning. Met up with my pal and we biked out to the lake, finding a bay partly frozen. Knowing it wasn't (too) deep, we ventured out on the ice-floes to see what it was like. Not deep enough to make it ove...

Went to visit family in Kingston this past weekend. The Clan is getting larger by the year... I've too many cousins to count. Well, 13. Or is it 14? Oh, and enough aunts and uncles to sink the Titanic as well - which, for all we know, they may very well have. We (my immediate family) who live in Toronto, however, are not that numerous, but still manage to have a very poor track record for being punctual, despite not having to deal with as many bodies to get organized. The plan this Christmas: we get packed Friday to leave by 8:30 AM Saturday for K-town. The actual result: finished packing by 2 AM Saturday, left at 10:00 AM after we dragged ourselves out of bed. And then we got caught in a snow storm: Scary drive up - hit snow squalls in Trenton, the average speed on the 401 dropped to ~50 km/h, but yet a few intrepid drivers (a crazy in a wee hatchback and then a redneck in a hummer) plugged away at high-speed. And with them too went many of the 18-wheelers (...

Went for a few hours' ride today - the first full test of the 'new' tyres; they are actually 16-year-old 'Dual Sport' (i.e., wide as a mountain tire!) Chen Shins which came with the bicycle. They did a real swell job, once I let some air out to run them at ~45 psi, handling the snow, road, gravel and even some ice without slipping. .  My GT has lots of extra room for an even wider tire, despite already having on 42mm ones.  The steep hill down to the buffs is  salted and in use by dump trucks   I headed down to Guild Inn to access the bluffs' lakeside trail, and enjoyed a pleasant photographing and sight-seeing session. The bluffs change so much from their summer appearance!  The bluffs look even more awesome in person. Sadly, they are predicted to gradually turn into steep hills, some as soon as 15 years from now.  Even in the winter, dump-trucks laden with dry-fill keep on tipping their load...

There is going to be a shorter post today - I've homework to get though, and a laser-quest game! Yes, laser-quest; I am a Scouter (well, scouter-in-training) with a scout troop (good for the community hours, and having a few outtings isn't so bad either!), and I'm there supervising tonight. But I get to play too, so I'm not complaining! I'll post some pics of this later... its sure to be fun. Ahead of time, I would like to apologize for my poor pictures - my Sony DSC just doesn't cut the mustard anymore. On friday, my friend and I built some mini-crossbows out of rubber bands and rulers in math class - it was a free period - and perforated apples with 'em. This gave me an idea: what other 'weapons' can I fashion from things lying around my house (or school room)? The result: the humble sling, made from cotton twine and a strip of an orphaned sock for the basket.   My homemade sling. Can you believe Goliath got toasted by one of these? ...