This week's car fun

So I'm at home this past Tuesday, and I get a call from Grace. She says the car is riding like it's got a flat tire, but it doesn't feel like it or look like it, so she's not quite sure what to do. Since she's not far from home, I jump in the Integra and head out to check out what the deal is. I get out there, and the tire appears to be fully inflated. Using my light, I look around, and see a bolt head sticking about 3/4" out of the tire. Well, that explains the "thump thump thump" sound she described, thing's pretty big.

So, I swap on the space-saver spare... does anyone routinely check and fill the pressure on their spares? Yeah, well, I don't, do so. It was pretty damn low. Still, it was wickedly cold and only about 2-3 miles to home, so I decided to try it, and just take it slow.

Just as I'm lowering the car, Grace says "is that your car making that noise?" I don't know what she's talking about, all I hear is the motor of the Miata. Then, when I stand up, she asks again -- "is your car smoking, or just steaming?" Oh, shit, indeed, you can see *something* wafting through the headlights. And, now that I'm standing up and the bitterly cold wind has died down just a little, I can also hear what sounds like a cross between a low whistle and a kazoo.

Oh... shit...

I chuck her bad tire in the back of my car, and pop the hood. The whistling is coming from steam escaping from the top of the radiator, apparently where the plastic end tanks are crimped onto the metal. Well, damn. Not much I can do here, though, so I give her the Integra, jump in the Miata, and we drive home slowly with now TWO injured cars.

We get home, and I air up the spare. (Better late than never.) Despite the slow drive in blisteringly cold temperatures, it's warm to the touch. Oops. I bring the damaged tire inside, and check out the bolt. It might be big, but it's stuck in, and no air is leaking out. In fact, the tire's completely holding its pressure. Well, until I pulled the bolt out. Lost it pretty quick, then. (Bolt was surprisingly big, too. Check out the attached picture! Looks like it is a piece of a rusted out exhaust U-clamp.)

Thankfully, I've got a tire patch/plugging kit, and set about doing that. Got the hole plugged and holding air quickly, and just for good measure, I threw in the remainder of a bottle of Stan's Notubes tubeless tire sealant. This stuff does some pretty amazing things on mountain bike tires, and is actually rated for car tire use as well, so figured it couldn't hurt. Got the tire back on the Miata and we're all good to go. Rechecked the pressure the next morning, and it was still where it should be. Sweet.

The Integra, though... not so good. Once, a long while back, damaged the radiator when the car slipped off a jack as I was lowering it. The block of wood I was using as a jacking pad hit the junction between the plastic end tank and the radiator, and broke the seal. That time, I managed to fix it by pushing it back into place, and re-crimping the aluminum over the plastic. This time, trying the same thing, I couldn't tell if it worked. I took it out for a spin, the temperature came up, heat worked, all that, so I'm hopeful. Can't really tell the level without opening the radiator, and I worked with a guy who tried that. OUCH.

Today, Grace was going to take it to the studio, since that's only a couple miles away, it'll heat up but won't strand her if it has problems. Well, I go out to watch when she starts it up, and when she does, a bunch of antifreeze comes out of the area I "fixed". :P So, she takes the Miata, and after a phone call to Jeff Taylor, I'm in touch with a friend of his who has a new radiator on hand in Old Bridge. (still can't hear that town name without thinking "ahhh... hahahahah... raceWAY... PARK!")

Jeff, you rock!

BE the squirrel!

Another tidbit from the "thought of it while riding" file.

One of the "fun" parts of road riding is getting to deal with cars. The most common interaction is when a car passes a slower moving cyclist. My approach to handling this has always been to stay to the side, and ride as smoothly as possible, so the motorist feels comfortable enough to pass safely. A couple months back, though, I read someone saying that a better technique is to swerve a little when you hear the car coming. At first I dismissed it, but the argument was that if you look a little unpredictable, the driver will give you more room.

I was intrigued, so I've been trying it. Now, the key isn't to swerve all over the road and be erratic, but just not keep a perfectly straight line. Having tried it, I've got to say it actually works. If I hear a car coming, I'll let the bike move around a little, usually just exaggerating my pedal stroke, and when the car goes by, they give me a huge amount of room. The driver is going to pass me whether they feel comfortable or not, folks are just too impatient to not pass... but if they aren't sure if I can ride in a straight line, they give me more room. That leaves ME feeling more comfortable... and safer.

It doesn't take much, just a little wobble that is visible to the driver seems to be enough. Heck, they might not even realize they're doing it.

Out riding yesterday, I was focusing on keeping my pedal stroke as smooth as possible as I was riding up a power climb... (1-3% grade) and wouldn't you know it, I was very close to mirror-slapped by the car that passed me. I hadn't heard him so didn't do a little wobble, and I guess he didn't feel the need to move over at all. Most of the other passes - the car will get almost to the other side of the road, leaving me with at least 4 feet of space!

So, while being a squirrel can be a very bad thing for drivers, it can be an excellent thing for cyclists!

Do, or do not... there is no squirrel.

Heading out for a ride this morning, I'm coming up to an intersection. The light's green, and three cars are coming the other way, all three have their left turn signals on. The first two go, no worries, I wasn't to the intersection yet... but the third one, this older Buick, can't figure out if he wants to go or not. He slows, then starts to go, then slows, then starts to go, then slows... then finally decides he'll stop. But see, the problem is he's now come to a full stop directly in front of me, and I'm doing about 17mph straight at his door. I hit the brakes, and yell something about "make up your mind!" and ride around the back of the car. I did get the entertainment of seeing that he was an older guy, and his wife in the passenger's seat was totally freaking out. That was funny.

Anyone who has driven and seen a squirrel on the road knows that they are totally unpredictable. Even if they are mostly across the road, nothing says they won't suddenly turn around and run right back in front of your car. There's no predicting what they'll do, so you can't prepare. So now, imagine a squirrel driving a Buick... scary, huh? When it comes time to do something or not do something... make your choice, and STICK WITH IT. If the old guy had just gone when he first considered it, okay, it would have been close, but I was prepared for that. If he had just stopped and waited, that would have been just fine as well. The start/stop/start/stop/start/stop that wound up putting him directly in my path? I couldn't figure out what he was going to do and he wound up doing the very worst thing he could have.

Well, okay, running me over would have been the worst... but you know what I mean.

A shift in priority...

Back in 1995, I purchased my first brand new car, a shiny red Acura Integra GS-R. That car became my pride and joy. I washed it carefully, and often. I kept it clean. I drove it hard. I loved it, and even made a website which at the time was pretty popular, with well over 1000 hits a day. I've met many folks who said they got into Integras because of my website. My 15 minutes, I guess. :)

Even back then, though, I knew that I would be keeping the car for a good long time, and most likely running it until it fell apart. Unfortunately, I gave it some assistance in that in the form of several accidents, most of which (I'm not too proud to say) were my fault. (me and those damned deer)

So, now, going on 13 years down the road, that same car has over 208,000 miles, most of the "go-fast" parts I put on it have been removed, and with me taking the SEPTA train to work, it barely even gets driven anymore. That's probably good, too, since as I mentioned in a previous post, it recently failed inspection for some rust holes. Back in the day, I might have brought it to a body shop -- if I even let the rust happen in the first place -- but now, I used whatever materials I had on hand to slap together a repair so that it would pass inspection and that would be that.

In some ways, it's sad to see how my priorities have shifted away from the car which used to be such a valuable thing for me. In other ways, though, I've owned no car for longer, and considering how I treated this car, the fact that it has MADE it to over 200k miles and to an age where it could be the neglected beater car is very telling as to the car's durability and quality. Matter of fact, when it looked like it might be time to start looking for our next car, to replace this one, one of the first searches I did was for another Integra in the same year range. I'd lose the sunroof (tall guy needs his headroom) and wouldn't bother with the VTEC engine, but the Integra just works so well for us... our next car very likely could be another Integra.

Rode the Monkey

My Karate Monkey is currently set up as a commuter, and with the weather getting nice, I'm wanting to get back into doing the 33 mile commute once or twice a week, so yesterday I pulled it down and took it for a ride. Not much of a ride, just out and around Lake Galena, probably about 10-12 miles total.

Interestingly enough, even though this was a road ride, my back was killing me. I didn't double check my setup on the bike, but the saddle felt like it could have been higher, and as you can see from the picture, the handlebars are significantly higher than I have on the Giant road bike. (because of the riser stem sourced from Dmitri's old Trek MTB) I guess that geometry is contributing to the problem.

This doesn't solve any problems, but it is an interesting datapoint. Interesting to me, at least. The unfortunate downside is I won't be commuting in -- at least on that bike -- for the foreseeable future. I haven't ruled out riding the Giant in, instead.

Speaking of the Giant, I've heard the saying "steel is real" which speaks to the wonderful ride of a steel bike over all others. The Karate Monkey is steel, and I couldn't help but notice how, even with fatter tires, I could feel far more surface irregularities on the road than I could with my carbon fiber Giant with skinnier tires.


In the meantime, I've been pop-riveting flashing onto my car to close up a rust hole so the car can pass inspection. I'll have to post some pictures of that mess when it's done. Kinda funny, how this car was bought new and was my pride and joy at the time... now it's just something to carry bikes around in. When I bought the car, I was pretty sure I would be the first and last owner, and I would get every last bit of usefulness out of it before I was done... and that prediction seems to be coming true!