Elliot's Bicycle Service & Piano Bar

[Roundabout]

It must be the seeming picture of a dust storm, that is really a picture of your ass crack.

[Elliot]

....
Aaaaaaaaand we have a winner!
The visual gimmick is that for the last couple weeks you have been mooned -- the whole background image on the Photos page is a closeup of my back.

indeed!

The image comes from a photo by unjonharley last year.

Now you get to vote on whether I should keep that as the background, or grow up and use something less... assinine.

[Jovankat]

Oh you have to keep it!

[Tiahaar]

lol! Elliot the joke around the shop here is folks Have to comment about the mechanic's 'big tool' whenever a large wrench is being carried about. Great website!

[Elliot]

Yeah, but it is sort'a an Al-Bundy-grade joke. So maybe I ought to replace that photo, to spare some people the temptation. Trouble is, there are so few photos from camp -- something I am arranging to correct this year.
Glad you like the site! Makes me feel... so... modern.

[Navi_Keef]

So what kind of race/s should we host?

Tomorrow I leave for our Florida Regional and plan on having a drunkathalon bike race on Saturday where they will do 3 laps around the property stopping for a beer and a shot of tequila each lap. I however feel that at the big man there is easily too much interest to supply enough booze for that.

[Elliot]

Well, there is already the Naked Pub Crawl Ride. It draws a few hundred participants, and they are served refreshments at each stop along the way. So there is successful precedent – the trick being to spread the cost among a number of camps.
This ride draws almost exclusively men.

For the ladies, there is the Critical Tits Ride, which probably draws thousands. They don’t stop along the way, but they have an after-party, and then they must necessarily ride back to their respective camps, which might be amusing.

So… what may be perceived as missing… is a ride for couples. They would be expected to stay next to each other throughout the race.

And I’m thinking Triathlon, or more. While there is no water in BRC, they could first push the bicycles, then ride, and finally carry the bikes across the finish line.
The two slow stages would be amusing for observers, specially the carrying to the finish line, so I’m thinking the race would start and end at the same location.

Who wants to invent additional stages for this race?

Here’s one possibility: In 2010, Kinetic Cab Company held a treasure hunt. The organizer went around to 20 or 30 camps and signed them up as checkpoints. At the start of the race, participants were handed a list of the checkpoints, in alphabetical order, with clues to their locations.
So the first step was to look over the clues and decide on a route that offered the best chance of finding and reaching a maximum number of checkpoints within the allotted time.

Each checkpoint gave participants something to show they had been to that checkpoint – mostly a trinket, but my favorite was the application of a rubber stamp (to the body part of one’s choice). Of course, many checkpoints also served refreshments.
I used a four-seat pedal-car, and we carried our own refreshments as well.

It was my most fun Burning Man event yet. (And I have no idea who won, or how we placed.)

So a smaller treasure hunt could perhaps be incorporated in the race.

And of course it ought to be a naked race. But you all knew that. And this would allow us to incorporate body painting, or mud wrestling, or whatnot such.

So… Navi… you volunteered, which is a great thing for a new Camp Member to do. “Should you accept the assignment, this tape will self-destruct…. “

[southern crone]

Elliot, if you received the e-mail picture I sent you, maybe you could do something like it and make a stamp to do t-shirts for the race.

[Canoe]

Elliot's-Bicycle-Service-&-Piano-Bar.gif

[Navi_Keef]

I like the idea of a buddy race, we actually have pub rides here in Orlando and one of the last ones I went on we had a race to the next bar like that. they used wrapping paper ribbon tied around our wrist and we couldnt tear or break it as we rode.

[Elliot]

See.... We are onto The Next Big Thing!

[FIGJAM]

"That's what she said."

[southern crone]

Do big tires ride that much better???

[Navi_Keef]

Do big tires ride that much better???

they ride much smoother that's for sure, goto your lbs and ride one!

*mugshot btw in case you didnt get my email*

[lucky420]

"That's what she said."

Actually she said "oh my god, it's HUGE!".

[mooserider]

Swerving the topic slightly,....

Elliot, do you have any Ray Stevens sheet music for your piano bar? Seeing your photos reminded me of one of his old hit songs that seems mightily appropriate.

"Boogity, boogity..."

(Man, am I showing my age...)

[Elliot]

Ah.... Ray "Don't look, Ethel!" Stevens. Had to look him up on Wikipedia to remember. I would be more likely to have sheet music of... say... Christine McVie's compositions.
Sheet music may be slightly impractical in BRC, what with the near-constant winds. But I do have a few pieces. Billie Holiday comes to mind -- purchased for a specific singer, but I doubt she is going this year.

The piano has no device for holding paper. There is only a flat almost-vertical surface with a ledge at the bottom. Suggestions?

Boogity, boogity... is an expression used in NASCAR automobile racing, where it represents steady and rapid progress around the track, lap after lap, advancing relentlessly toward (possible) victory.

Good question about tires. Two factors are important in loose terrain like Playa Dust dunes:

A wider tire distributes the weight over a larger surface, so the tire does not sink into the soil so deeply as a narrower tire. When a tire sinks into the surface, it is in a sense always rolling uphill -- trying to climb out of the depression. So rolling resistance increases dramatically. (If the wheel sinks to the axle, forward progress becomes mechanically impossible (unless the tire-tread digs its way forward).) So, the wider the better, though I suppose there is a practical limit.

The second factor is tire height. For starters, the concept is the same -- this time, the contact patch becomes longer instead of wider. In addition, the "uphill slope" becomes shallower, for a given depth of depression in the soil. Think back to geometry... and the angle, relative to the ground, of a tangent on the circumference of the tire.

With the double advantage of tallness, this is my first choice for reducing rolling resistance.

And now my new avatar:

[Blueschaser]

And thus arrived the 29er of recent years, in mountain bike categories....except most women, and shorter-legged men, couldn't get over the top tube. Bike industry responded with 27.5" recently. Didn't help yesterday when young teen needed new bike---26" would have been perfect fit; except the company dropped the last existing model we had for this season. Makes ya wonder who makes these design decisions>>>surely they've never worked a sales floor!

[Elliot]

Blueschaser -- a certified Elliot's Bicycle Service Technician, by the way -- makes a great point. Bicycles are not one-size-fits-all. And many Burners ride bikes that are too low for them -- youth-sized bikes -- causing unnecessary fatigue in the legs. This happens, naturally enough, because youth-sized bikes are the most readily available in the yard sale market. Do watch out for this trap. You will be riding a lot of miles on Playa.

It is the frame height that matters most. But we rarely hear the numbers. Advertising of (inexpensive) new bikes rarely mention it -- all they list is tire height. Frame height is measured from the crank (center) to the top of the Seat Tube. The Seat Tube is the almost-vertical part of the frame that the usually-shiny seat post fits into -- with the saddle on top of that. (And your seat on top of that! Such is the formal terminology.) A proportionally short-legged person of 5' might fit nothing taller than a 14" frame, with the saddle all the way down. A long-legged-shaped person of 6' 6" might need at least a 22" frame, and still need to extend the saddle quite a bit higher. The average Playa bike frame-height I see is probably less than 18". This is all about leg length, which varies a great deal on people, and the numbers I just mentioned are for illustration purposes only.

You should be able to extend your knee all the way with the ball of the foot on the pedal by dropping the heel lower than while pedaling. In other words, when pedaling, you should be extending your knees as far as practical without any risk of inadvertently locking a knee straight.
Pedaling with "your knees in your ears" is torture on the leg muscles.

The currently fashionable "29'er" tires actually fit the trusty old 700-C-series road bike rims. That is, the Bead Seat Diameter is the same at 622 millimeters. I used to hunt far and wide for a wider tire for such a rim, and the widest I found was 700 x 42 C. Now it may be possible to remove a skinny 700 x something C and install a 29 x 2.125. That is if -- IF -- there is room for it. Won't do any good if the tire rubs on the frame or the fork.

The "standard" modern mountain and cruiser 26" tires go on a 559 millimeter rim.

And Lord... do I go on sometimes!

[Captain Goddammit]

Ah fooey with seat height... I say lower is cooler, it's all about frame length. If your cranks are far enough forward, you can still stretch out just fine, yet have a much more bitchin cruising altitude!

[Elliot]

When you walk by later, you will be Captain Hairpin, after the new shape of your spine.

[Captain Goddammit]

That's actually the most comfortable bike I've ever been on. The handlebars are long enough that you don't have to lean forward to reach them at all, and it's really hard to crash it when you're already down that low.

[Elliot]

Ah, yes, good bike for riding drunk. Not so far to fall. Been there, done that, enjoyed it.

In actual Camp business, the Member Contributions Fund for inner-tubes and other parts stands at $540.-, from just two Camp Members! Reckon I will order the first batch of tubes this week. And today seven boxes of parts, mostly tubes, arrived from another Camp Member! There are 28 names on the roster, so if we can keep this up, we should have plenty supplies by the time we need them.

[BoyScoutGirl]

As things get closer, please let those of us outside of camp know what's most needed in terms of parts. I imagine tubes are always good, but I might be able to find bike locks in bulk this year, for example.

[Ratty]

Yea Elliott. I just striped the pedals, wheels and seat off a bike. Then I tried to get the chain off. Nope. Without a chin tool the U-Tube videos lied to me. They can't even do it on camera so I should have known better. That bike is gone from the curb now but I wondered. What should I have salvaged? Derailer, brakes, cables who's-its and whats-its. None of it seemed particularly valuable.

[Navi_Keef]

Ah, yes, good bike for riding drunk. Not so far to fall. Been there, done that, enjoyed it.

In actual Camp business, the Member Contributions Fund for inner-tubes and other parts stands at $540.-, from just two Camp Members! Reckon I will order the first batch of tubes this week. And today seven boxes of parts, mostly tubes, arrived from another Camp Member! There are 28 names on the roster, so if we can keep this up, we should have plenty supplies by the time we need them.

wait, so we can send you parts? i actually have a parts bucket that im going to be filtering through. if you have a list of parts needed i will keep those aside to send out to you.

Ah fooey with seat height... I say lower is cooler, it's all about frame length. If your cranks are far enough forward, you can still stretch out just fine, yet have a much more bitchin cruising altitude!

for the first 3 miles it may be comfy but for extensive riding i couldnt do it, i finally got to ride one of these and yeah it was comfortable to cruise around on and rode straight pretty easy. just after about 30 minutes it was hard to keep sitting. i would definitely have to really fine tune my seat and add a backrest as i felt i was pushing myself back off the seat as i pedaled harder.

[Captain Goddammit]

So what? You sat low and looked cool, what else matters? Your priorities are not properly screwed up, that's all.
I did put on a nice leather seat though.

[Elliot]

The seven boxes I mentioned arriving were all new parts. That camper works in the industry and buys them at wholesale.

Not much need for used parts such as brakes, brake levers, derailers and chains. I have drawers full of them. (Re-purposed file cabinets, free!)
The used parts that are in demand are primarily good pedals made of metal, and cushy saddles.

Last year we had a rush on wheels, both front and rear, but mostly we need rear ones. I probably have enough, and they are awful bulky to ship or transport.

Tires... I have quite a few of the common 24 and 26. But we will probably soon need some of the new sizes like 29, and the "Beast" size of 26 x 4.0. But decent tires are bulky to ship. Some tires are packed wadded up in a little ball, but I have never dared buy one.

New inner-tubes, indeed.
If we are talking about one or a handful, practically any of the wider sizes that are well represented on store shelves will be used sooner or later, from 24" up. As always, I recommend springing for the Thorn Resistant ones (but without liquid sealant). Of course, regular thickness ones are just as welcome.
If we are talking about cases of them, money may be best, as I get hecka deal when I order several cases at the time from the store where I am a regular customer.

Back to the miscellaneous used parts.... There is one thing I am always looking for, and that it the shift lever on the right-hand side of the handlebar, which controls the rear derailer. I'm talking about the old-fashioned lever, as opposed to the twist-grips. The twist grips are constantly breaking, and the only sensible thing is to replace them with levers. And the older they are, the better they usually are!

Locks are always needed. I gave up buying them because of the cost. Same with lights.

Did I answer everything?

[Ratty]

Yes thanks Elliott. Right hand levers and all metal pedals. The cushy seats we do at our camp. Thanks elliott I'll keep my eyes peeled. Eeeew.

[Elliot]

Only some of our projected 28 campers are on ePlaya, but I will start hawking this idea here: An other bicycle-related camp is holding a "Grand Fondo", which apparently takes the form of riders stopping for cocktails at participating checkpoints, on several days. Check out their thread on the subject, and go to Grand Fondo on their web site. Who is volunteering to take charge of this for us?

https://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic ... 9#p1070269