Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/28/2020 in all areas

  1. I'll go one further: We need more public lands in TX. 3-5% is not enough!
    3 points
  2. my daughter has this one and really likes it.
    3 points
  3. No doubt, we should have more public lands, but I also have the admittedly optimistic view that I would rather private enterprise be the solution to problems than relying on the government to be the solution. Role of government type of stuff. And yeah, I realize how idealistic that value sounds as it's getting proven over an over to me how neither government or private enterprise gives a s*@! about me or any good will in general.
    1 point
  4. I had a saddle with almost imperceptibly bent rails that creaked no matter what until I solved the problem by throwing it away.
    1 point
  5. We need the central TX version of the Walton's. And/or some uber wealthy mountain bikers willing to throw significant money at acquiring land for the purposes of development...of bike trails. It'd be awesome if someone just bought all that land up and said, nope...only nature and trails here.
    1 point
  6. I'm really liking Revelate Designs Feed Bags handlebar bags. Various companies make something similar. They can hold a liter bottle of water and have these little net bags around the periphery for misc items. When you don't need them for water, they have a cavernous amount of storage, because, well, there's a liter's worth of space in there. I have the Revelate Designs Gas Tank. It's well made but holds very little and it's expensive. Revelate does make a larger one, but again, $$$$. Roswheel makes very inexpensive top-tube bags. I have one that AB brought to an R & I bike gear exchange and still use it on my road bike. It's spacious and holds a cell phone on top. I had to modify it a bit, because it tends to flop side to side. It works a bit better if your top tube is flattish. Roswheel Cell Phone Top Tube Bag on Amazon for ~ $10.
    1 point
  7. Here's an article from the Bangor Daily News about deer flies. Could be helpful for mountain bikers (wear light clothes and a hat!), and has some information about the behavior of the wee beasts. 9 ways to repel deer flies Another article claimed that treating clothes and hats with permethrin was a useful repellent.
    1 point
  8. I realize this is in the MTB discussion forum, but just can't resist. In these trying times, people like this really come out of the wood work. Just a reminder that SOMEONE YOU MAY KNOW (or know OF) thinks just like this: Dated an interesting woman once, that would probably hunt this guy down and shove a stuffed-toy penguin down his throat for disparaging penguins like this.
    1 point
  9. I got the wolf-tooth bag, super high-quality, very tough, but ultimately too small for what I wanted to put in it (cell phone) so now my 4yo uses it to store sunglasses, stickynotes and barbie shoes. https://www.wolftoothcomponents.com/products/barbag
    1 point
  10. We're actually talking about deer flies! Well, we were.
    1 point
  11. Don't thank me, thank @crazyt he's the genius behind this. I just do what world HQ tells me to do. And I file a lot of TPS reports.
    1 point
  12. More detail than I expected. Very interesting! https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/217509-saxon-prussian-and-bavarian-attitudes-to-the-war/
    1 point
  13. Thanks for the input - that is his data, it draws from the same source. The reason I put it on my site is because he asked me to put it on the site. A lot of people from out of town hit my site when deciding to come here (in addition to all of the people in Austin). With 2-300 visitors per day, it's good exposure. Not everyone has Facebook. I'm not trying to over-ride other people's efforts, jut trying to tie them together.
    1 point
  14. That is indeed a cool find. What are you gonna start the bidding at cause you know I want it. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
    1 point
  15. OK, the folks at AB World Headquarters finally figured this out. I won't get into the technical details, but let me just say that I hate my publishing engine most days. Anyway, there is not a main menu link to trail conditions and this page will pull from the Google docs. I also added the Facebook link at the bottom. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to chime in. http://www.austinbike.com/index.php/austin/375-trail-conditions Thanks to @crazyt for putting this together and maintaining it.
    1 point
  16. Back when Shimano released their first set of Saint breaks, they shipped with some pretty low quality seals in the calipers. It wasn't a problem for the vast majority of users, but if you rode with them in temperatures below about 25 degrees, the calipers would leak and push mineral oil all over the pads. I tried baking them, and that didn't do anything. So I just put their little metal tab in a vice and heated them for a couple of minutes with a propane torch, until they would stop smoking and glow bright orange. Then a little more still. I had those brakes for about 3 or 4 years, and got myself into and out of that situation several times per year. I never bothered sanding them or anything. I just reinstalled them and they performed exactly like new pads, in that they needed a short break-in period. After that, they were back to normal. The only risk, other than it not working, is that conceivably you could heat the pad enough to delaminate from the backing. But I never had that problem.
    1 point
  17. Pic from yesterday mornings ride. Long climb but nice cool temps.
    1 point
  18. It keeps falling out of his jersey pocket.
    1 point
  19. Everyday we put ourselves at risk of injury or death. We've learned to live this way throughout our evolution that's why we are still here on this planet. Most of us have learned to make calculated decisions to ensure our survival. This goes for many things we do day to day. For some just going to work is an injury or death risk but we learn how to deal with these risks and eventually share this information with others around us. I've been in more than a dozen car accidents almost half of them totaled cars. I still ride in cars and drive cars but I have a certain amount of control when driving a car and I try to be as careful as possible not just for me but for the other drivers as well. As mountain bikers we understand the risk of injury or death and take steps to reduce the possibility of those things happening. As far as COVID is concerned we should be doing the same. Herd immunity IS THE ONLY WAY we can get through this and at some point we will have that. The issue is in the way it happens. Ideally any vaccine that helps is probably the safest way to get there. I'd prefer getting immunity from a vaccine as opposed to getting it from some selfish fuck that doesn't care about themselves or anyone around them. I personally don't think wearing a mask and keeping your distance as well as avoiding crowded poorly ventilated buildings is asking too much to try and ensure our survival. Just because our leaders are making poor decisions doesn't mean we should too.
    1 point
  20. Some wisdom and common sense from Mike Rowe. Worth the read. Mike. In a recent post, you said you’ve been to Tennessee and Georgia, giving speeches and filming for your new show. Before that, you were on the road shooting for Dirty Jobs. Is it really so important to film a television show in the midst of pandemic? Is it responsible of you to encourage this kind of behavior when infection rates are spiking? Don’t you watch the news? More and more cases every day – aren’t you concerned? Darlene Gabon Hi Darlene Of course, I’m concerned. I’m just not petrified. On March 15th, the day after my part of the country was locked down, I posted a link to an interview with Dr. Michael Osterholm. I’m posting it again, because I believe you and everyone else in the country would benefit from listening carefully to what he has to say. https://bit.ly/2WLOM6o Dr. Osterholm is the Director of Infectious Disease Research and Policy. This is the same epidemiologist who ten years ago, predicted a coronavirus would come from China and turn our country upside down. In his book “Deadliest Enemies,” he anticipated the utterly irresponsible way in which the media would report on the situation, the completely opportunistic and shamelessly political way our leaders would likely react, and the unprecedented chaos and confusion that would arise from all the mixed messages from the medical community. His resume is unexampled, https://bit.ly/3jvzQTW, and his analysis of the situation is the most logical and persuasive of any I’d heard so far. He’s also the only expert I know of who hasn’t walked back his numbers, reconsidered his position, or moved the goalposts with regard to what we must do, what we can do, and what he expects to happen next. I say all of this because Dr. Osterholm publicly predicted - in early MArch - that we could conservatively see over 100 million COVID cases in this country, with a very strong possibility of 480,000 fatalities – even if we successfully “flattened the curve.” It took me a few weeks to accept this scenario, because 480,000 fatalities is a frightening number, and lot of other experts were saying lots of conflicting things. But eventually, I came to the conclusion that Dr. Osterholm was probably correct, and quickly navigated the four stages of grief that usually precede acceptance – denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. By late April, I had come to accept Dr. Osterholm’s predictions as a matter of fact. Since then, I’ve had three full months to come to terms with the fact that, a) I am probably going to get COVID-19 at some point, b), I am almost certainly going to survive it, and c), I might very well give it to someone else. I hope that doesn’t sound blasé, or glib, or fatalistic, or selfish. Four-hundred eighty thousand deaths is an obvious tragedy, and I’m deeply sympathetic to all who have been impacted thus far. I’m also very concerned for my parents, and everyone else in a high risk category. But when Dr. Osterholm says that COVID can be slowed but not stopped, I believe him. When he says a vaccine will not necessarily hasten herd immunity, I believe him. And when he says that people have confused “flattening the curve” with "eliminating the virus," I believe him. Thus, for the last three months, I’ve been operating from the assumption that this is a year-round virus that’s eventually going to infect 100 million people and kill roughly 1/2 of one percent of those infected, conservatively. I’ve accepted those numbers. Unfortunately, millions of others have not. Many people have no sense of where this is headed, and I understand why. They've been betrayed by a hysterical media that insists on covering each new reported case as if it were the first case. Every headline today drips with dread, as the next doomed hotspot approaches the next "grim milestone." And so, for a lot of people, everyday is Groundhogs Day. They're paralyzed by the rising numbers because the numbers have no context. They don't know where it will end. But Dr. Osterholm says he does, and I'm persuaded that he's correct. He might be wrong, and frankly, I hope he is, but either way, he's presented us with a set of projections based on a logical analysis, and accepting those projections has allowed me to move past denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, and get on with my life with a better understanding of what the risks really are. Fact is, we the people can accept almost anything if we’re given the facts, and enough time to get evaluate the risk and make our own decisions. Last year in this country, there were six million traffic accidents and 36,000 fatalities. Tragic, for sure. But imagine for a moment if no one had ever died from a car accident. Imagine if this year, America endured six million traffic accidents and 36,000 fatalities...for the first time ever. Now, imagine if these accidents and fatalities - over 16,000 and 90 per day respectively - imagine if they were reported upon like every new incidence of COVID. What would that do to our willingness to drive? For a while, I suspect it would keep us all off the roads, right? I mean, six million accidents out of the blue is a lot to process, and 36,000 deaths is scary – especially if you don’t know how high that number could get. It would take us a while to access the risk, before we blindly hopped into our cars again. Eventually though - after getting some context and perspective - we'd be able to evaluate the relative danger of operating a motor vehicle. Then, we could decide for ourselves when to drive, where to drive, and how much to drive. And so we do. Again, don’t misunderstand. I’m not ignoring COVID, or downplaying COVID, or pretending the risks at hand aren’t real. Nor am I comparing COVID cases to car accidents - I'm simply comparing the fear of each to the other, and the fear that always accompanies uncertainty. I don’t want to get this disease or give it to someone else, any more than I want to be in a car car wreck that injures someone else. But I've accepted certain things about the pandemic, and now, I've gotten used to the risk as I understand it. I take precautions. I get tested as often as I can, and if I can't physically distance, I wear a mask – especially around higher risk people. Likewise, I wear a seatbelt, obey the speed limits, and check my mirrors before changing lanes. Yes - I’m aware that we’d all be a lot safer if we kept our cars in the garage. I’m also aware we’d be a lot safer if we all kept ourselves in the house. But that’s not why cars, or people, exist. Anyway Darlene, that’s a long way of saying that I have accepted Dr. Osterholm’s numbers, and now, after three months of acceptance, I’ve made a decision on how I wish to live my life. Sooner or later, you will too. We all will. Mike
    1 point
  21. Brushy Creek Regional Trail Phase V (virtual) Ribbon Cutting I was ready for this video to be over about halfway through and *somebody* does not hit her note at the end, but whatevs. Apparently, it adds on a mile near Round Rock.
    1 point
  22. I made this yesterday. Random stuff from Brushy Creek. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    1 point
  23. Thanks all. 7am ride. 11am float. 12pm drunk.
    1 point
  24. This part doesn't sound positive: By extending the road, the city will open inaccessible land to future development.
    0 points
×
×
  • Create New...