Free parts at South Station Boston, MA
Good to see recycling happening on the streets of Boston
Free parts at Boston’s South Station
April 30th, 2010 by cranky4lifeAMF Roadmaster: and so it begins
April 14th, 2010 by cranky4lifeI finally got some time to start working on bringing this AMF Roadmaster back to life.
I started taking it apart last night. I’m almost done except for removing the seat post which is proving to be one stubborn little post, and taking the crank out of the frame.
The front fender in pretty good shape
The seat is in awesome shape. It is probably not original though
I cleaned some of the grease out just to take a peak. It looks awesome!
I would love to strip the frame and all components and paint them fresh but I think I will simply clean it really well, and make it road worthy.
So far my shopping list looks like:
- New 91mm 36 spoke front hub
- New 36 spoke coaster break rear hub. The distance between the frame is 114mm so I will have to dig something that fits this. I’m not really interesting in bending the frame to make room for a larger hub.
- 2 new 26 x 1.75 tires. Looking at vintage all black or vintage with white sidewall.
- New kickstand
- New rubber handlebars
That’s all for now.
Ice fishing
December 28th, 2009 by cranky4lifeAll the snow is gone. The ice is melting away but still thin enough for some ‘ice fishing’ 
My first winter picture
December 22nd, 2009 by cranky4lifeI got myself one of those camera phones and took my first outdoor picture on my way to work today
City of Boston Bike Survey
December 16th, 2009 by cranky4lifeFirst, what a beautiful morning to ride! I love the clear blue skies winter gives us all.
Second, the City of Boston is conducting a bike survey and is looking for as much feedback as they can get.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N29JKSN
Some of my answers:
Commute 90%, grocery shopping 5%, fitness 5%
Average ~3,400 miles a year
3 accidents over the past 5 years.
1. Passenger getting out of car at red light doors me. No injuries. Pinky cut and bruised leg. The car was a BMW convertible. The window shattered into million pieces. The fact that the door did not have a window frame made a big difference. Thank you car designer.
2. Ice on the Charles river bike path. Front wheel slides under me. No injuries (my ego may not agree with this)
3. Try to go over frozen foot steps at Charles river bike path. Did not make it
In winter I no longer try to ride on the charles river path. I rather use Mass Ave.
Share your stories if you want.
Cheers!
Iron horses
December 15th, 2009 by cranky4lifeHere are a few concept bikes that I’ve come across lately.
“The Dutchess”, a prototype for Cannondale for a city commuter. The attention to detail is just amazing.
MIT’s motorized bicycle (give it a read before you go making wild assumptions).
Cheers!
More traffic infrastructure from Copenhangen
December 11th, 2009 by cranky4lifeAwesome. LED Lights sense bicyclist and warn drivers wanting to make right turns of bicycle traffic priority.
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/12/led-lane-lights-for-cyclists-and.html
How to increase bicycling by John Putcher, Jennifer Dill, and Susan Handy
November 12th, 2009 by cranky4lifeI love the Fall. Perfect operating temperature and beautfiul colors. But I digress…..
John Putcher (Rutgers University), Jennifer Dill(Portland State University), and Susan Handy (University Of California at Davis) have published “Infrastructure, Programs and Policies to Increase Bicycling: An International Review,” prepared for the Active Living Research Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Preventive Medicine, Vol. 48, No. 2, February 2010. [Download paper - pdf]
The 54 pages are worth reading. It describes the wide range of bicycle promotion interventions (infrastructure, program, and/or policies) and their impact on levels of bicycling.
The paper points out what interventions have the biggest impact. First as individual interventions and then when taking into consideration the interventions in an integrated package. An important point this paper makes is that it is risky to generalize about the effectivness of certian measures and that every context brings different challenges. Importing models from abroad without paying attention to local habits could reduce the effectiveness those same programs had elsewhere.
A summary of different bicycle programs around the world can be found at the end of the document. Bogota, Colombia is now in my list of cities to visit.
Happy reading
Cheers!
Inspiring
November 5th, 2009 by cranky4lifeI’m a fan of copenhagenize.com blog. (and of course bostonbiker.org, too 
)
As a cyclist and a driver, the “Drive with your heart” posting was inspiring.
Training wheels? What training wheels?
October 12th, 2009 by cranky4lifeSo simple!!! A spinning wheel to stabilize the bike at low speed. Such a great idea. My 9 month old son is too young for this. For sure when he is ready for this there will be scientific proof that learning with training wheels makes kids really appreciate sacrifice and hard work
Cheers!
