Ever had a day when it’s storming like crazy, you ran over a nail on the way to work, you forgot to pick up a spare tube the last time you flatted and you worked late so there’s nobody in the parking lot to give you a lift?
FDOT might bail you out
Here’s how it works (in FDOT-speak):
The Emergency Ride Home (ERH) program provides free taxi service in emergency situations for registered commuters in Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and St. Lucie Counties 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Think of it as “commuter insurance.”
Who can participate?
The program is available to commuters who carpool, vanpool, ride transit, bicycle, or walk to work at least three days a week. Eligible “emergency” situations include the sudden illness of the commuter or a member of his/her immediate family; unscheduled overtime or extended work hours; or a carpool/vanpool driver’s inability to make the scheduled trip home due to an unexpected work schedule change of illness.
Each registered ERH program participant is allowed up to six free emergency rides per year. An original voucher must be given to the taxi company to utilize the service. This does not include the tip for the taxi driver.
How Can You Start?
Sign up right now or call Customer Service at 1-800-234-RIDE and a representative will assist you. If you qualify, you will receive vouchers in the mail within seven to ten business days.
I thought the Arbus Ring Lock from Speedy Locksmith would be just the thing for my Surly Long Haul Trucker. It’s a lock that bolts to the seat stays. When you want to secure your bike, you turn a key, pull down on a lever and a metal ring slides out to lock the rear wheel through the spokes.
The only catch is that you have to be smarter than the lock to install it.
They are popular in Europe
Son Matt said he saw lots of them when he was evaluating software in Denmark.
They’re not intended for high-theft areas or for overnight security, but it seemed like just the thing for when you run into the store for a couple of minutes.
I was placing an order with Velo Orange when I saw a listing for the Arbus ring lock. I figured $25 was a small enough investment to risk. If it worked, cool. Either way I’d get a review out of it.
Only four parts
Installation should be a snap. There are only four parts: the lock, two plastic straps and two keys (OK, that’s five parts if you count the keys separately).
I was so confident that it would go smoothly that I used Marine Goop to apply some rubber backing to the lock so it wouldn’t scratch the paint on my LHT and I cut some pieces of innertube for the other places it might rub.
Before I got to the hard work, though, I pulled a spare rim off the Cycle Tree and checked out the theory.
Yep, it makes sense. That bike ain’t going anywhere. I don’t think the bad guy could get up enough speed to damage your spokes, either.
I had a NoMo moment
I worked with a guy we nicknamed NoMo. At some point during every call to the Help Desk, he’d say, “I’m no moron. (Pronounced in his drawl as no mo-ron.)
Here’s a rule of thumb: if you have to go around telling folks that you ain’t a mo-ron, there’s a pretty good chance that you are one.
I started off placing all the innertube cushions where I thought they’d go and then I took the plastic strapping that resembles a pipe clamp and started screwing.
First off, even though the groove for the screw driver was fairly deep, it wasn’t long before I had buggered it up pretty good, particularly since I tried about four different variations of how to put it on.
Wrestling that stiff piece of plastic was NOT a task someone should attempt on the Lord’s Day. I was careful to pad the LHT against scratches, but I’m afraid that I may have scorched the paint in a couple of places.
Here’s kinda what it should look like
But, not exactly. The strapping shouldn’t go around the outside of the lock (I don’t think). But, it’ll give you a r0ugh idea of what it would look like.
No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the thing to look or feel right. The more I changed it around, the more rounded out the plastic strap screw hole got.
I finally decided to bail before I hosed it up completely.
Will I revist the Arbus ring lock?
I may give it another go, but I don’t know if it’s really worth it. The website description says it weighs about 13.5 ounces (385 grams). Even though I’m not overly concerned with weight, I think I could spend those 13.5 ounces better somewhere else.
It might be OK for a commuter bike, but I wouldn’t put it on a tourer.
I’ll send a link to this page to the Velo Orange folks who will probably tell me exactly how I SHOULD have put in on in about three minutes time. If they do, I’ll publish detailed pictures to save someone else my hassles.
My faith in the good folks at Blackburn has been restored. I wrote June 13 about how the hose on my Blackburn TPS-2 floor pump had blown out while helping another rider.
Initially I said that I expected an email reply in minutes to my message to Blackburn because the company had been so responsive in the past. When several days had gone by with no reply from Blackburn, I ended up calling the company, which acknowledged that they were behind in their email.
When Agent Courtney heard which model I had, she said that replacement parts were no longer available and that they would send me a comparable pump in “seven to 10 days.”
To my pleasant surprise, a big box showed up today – four days later – with a brand new Blackburn AirTower 2 in it. That’s good customer service: under promise and over deliver.
The Blackburn Air Tower 2 has some nice features
Here’s the official feature description from the Blackburn website:
Redesigned from the ground up for 2008 for improved performance and reliability. A stout steel barrel and welded steel base provides unsurpassed stiffness and stability, and the ergonomic T-handle now features storage drawers on the ends. The presta/Schrader head is now more durable and rebuildable.
Available in Blood Red and Silver Max Pressure: 140 psi / 9.75 bar Barrel Material: Steel Weight: 3.8 lbs / 1.7 kg
Head has been redesigned
The old TPS-2 head was T-shaped, with a Presta fitting on one side and a Schrader on the other. You turned a selector knob to determine which way the air would flow. I wore out one head and Blackburn provided me a rebuild kit.
The new model has a single head with two holes in it. The smaller is for Presta valves. You lock it in by pulling up on a handle, which seems counter-intuitive. It seems more natural to press the handle down, in the direction of the valve, when you are trying to attach it.
In real life, it’s not bad. I tried it on both types of valves and it worked the first time on both. Snapping the handle down when you’re done causes the valve to blow off with little loss of air.
Some Amazon reviewers complained that it didn’t work properly with Presta valves, but I didn’t have a problem. Either the head problem has been fixed or it was pilot error. I’ll let you know if something changes.
I wish the gauge was on the top
I wish the pressure gauge was at the top of the pump instead of the bottom, but the numbers are bright and there’s a handy-dandy indicator you can set to help you find the right pressure while you’re pumping.
I can’t compare the two pumps directly since the hose doesn’t work on my old one, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the TPS-2 as I remember it seemed to fill the tire slightly faster. Maybe this one is designed to pump less air, but at a higher pressure.
The website description says the maximum pressure is 140 psi, but the gauge goes to 160 psi and the instruction sheet attached to the pump says 160 psi / 11 bar.
Extra inflators a nice touch
If you have kids, you know how many things there are to blow up: balls, rafts, pool toys, etc.
The Air tower 2’s handle comes with two slide-out inserts. One of them is empty for whatever you want to put in it; the other contains a raft inflator and a ball needle inflator. To sweeten the deal, they clip into the holder so they won’t get lost (as easily).
Reader Mark Hoagy was interested in buying something, but he was curious about how loud the speakers were and how they sounded.
I explained to Mark that I wasn’t sure how to quantify “loud” nor “good,” since I’m going deaf and I’ve spent most of my life listening to police radios, not high fidelity sound.
He suggested doing a video
When I told him I didn’t want to run afoul of the Music Police by using copyrighted music, he offered to send me a sample of home-brew music.
Mark is a very persistent guy. (Sounds a lot like my Bro Mark, now that I think of it.)
A vacation and home repairs got in the way, but I finally got around to producing the Great MP3 Speaker Shootout.
First, I had to collect the i-RIDE Classic from Son Matt and the SanDisk Sansa Shaker from Grandson Malcolm. They wanted them right back, so I had to shoot the test on the dining room table under less than optimum lighting conditions.
The Great MP3 Speaker Shootout
Take this comparison with a whole shaker of salt.
It wasn’t under anything resembling controlled circumstances.
I suspect the video camera has some kind of auto volume control that tries to make everything sound the same.
Here’s what my ears tell me
Best and loudest sound: i-Ride Pro
Active Tunes i-RIDE PRO
Second place sound and volume: i-Ride Classic
Third favorite: Byco WRX1 (not available as far as I know)
Distant fourth: SanDisk Sansa Shaker, just cause it’s cute.
Not even dug out of the junk box: Boostaroo.
How do teenage girls do it?
I took a ride along the Palm Beach Lake Trail Saturday and got the bright idea of trying to hold the video camera pointing back at me while the iPod was hooked up to the i-RIDE PRO. That would give an idea of what the speaker sounded like on the road and how I have it mounted to my CamelBak M.U.L.E. (Note: the i-RIDE PRO is the device at the top of the CamelBak strap, right under my ear. The object below it is my Verizon cell phone.)
Every teenage girl has managed to master taking a picture of herself and her 42 closest friends while holding her cellphone camera at arms length.
After trying to ride a bike and duplicate that feat with my video camera, I am convinced that the current generation of teenage girl has some genetic mutation that gives them arms that are six feet long and fold in at least three places that mine won’t.
Photographers live in the NOW. If you don’t have just the right camera loaded with just the right kind of film with just the right lens on it, then you are likely to come up with memories, not pictures.
Three generations of Domke bags
A photographer named Jim Domke was given the assignment to come up with a camera bag that would suit his fellow photographers at the Philadelphia Inquirer in the middle 70s. He had a prototype ready for the 76 Republican Convention.
Domke bag became the defacto standard
The Domke F-2 Camera Bag became an instant hit with not only his staff, but photographers all over the country. We needed something that would hold multiple lenses that could be grabbed in an instant; plenty of pockets for film, filters and junk. It needed a wide strap that would hold onto your shoulder without digging in or sliding off. It needed to be water resistant and it had to be able to stand up to the abuse of travel and spot news.
When I traveled, I might check my clean underwear, but my Domke bag went carry-on. After all, if my equipment didn’t get there, it didn’t matter if I did.
Three generations of bags
The foreground, frayed bag was my first, bought shortly after it went on the market in 1976; the top bag is probably 20 years old and the middle bag, owned by Son Matt, is about five years old.
There are a few subtle differences among them. The new version, for example, comes with a padded insert that Matt didn’t like. Somehow or another, I ended up with it, and he has the canvas one that was in the original bag.
I didn’t like working from a bag
The Domke bag was the best of the bunch, but I didn’t really like using a bag.
It put a lot of weight on one arm.
It interfered with the camera strap if you were working with cameras on both shoulders and around your neck.
It made it hard to work your way through a crowd.
I bought fishing vests
They had lots of pockets, they were fairly inexpensive and they distributed the load more evenly than a camera bag.
I owned several of them over the years.
The darned thing must have shrunk
When Wife Lila and I headed out to New Mexico, I dug out my old fishing / shooting vest from the back of the closet. It probably hadn’t been used in about 20 years.
I don’t know exactly how it could have happened, but the thing managed to get smaller while hanging up. It certainly didn’t fit that tight when I was on the street.
It was time to check out the Domke Vest
Matt in Domke vest
The Domke PhoTOGS Vest was everything the cheap fishing vest was and more. It claims to be khaki, but I think it’s more of a greenish gray. Not a bad color, just not khaki as I know it.
The fishing vest had lots of pockets, but they tended to be a bit shallow. After they got some wear on them, the pockets started to get a little thin and I worried about a lens popping through the material at the worst possible time.
The Domke vest is made out of fairly heavy cotton. I think it’ll take a lot of abuse before I’d get concerned about fraying.
Heavy, but cool
Domke mesh back
The heavier material is offset by cotton mesh on the front and back to let out heat. I don’t think I’m going to need the hand warmer pockets anytime soon, but it’s nice to know they are there.
It fits a little longer than a fishing vest, but I think it looks better.
A large fit Son Matt and me. (If it’s a little too big, it has waist adjustment tabs to pull it in a bit.)
Pockets on the inside, too
Not only does it have pockets on the front and back, it has large, usable pockets on the inside, too.
OK, it doesn’t have a soft pad to stick my fishing flies in, but it DOES have little loops for wire holders near the top. It has a raised collar to keep the camera strap from rubbing your neck, and the tops of the shoulders have rough stitching that will keep the strap from sliding off.
Because photographers carry more weight than fishermen, the overall cut of the garment is designed to distribute it over a wider area. It even has a clear plastic window held on with Velcro that can hold press ID. (If you don’t need to display an ID, then it comes right off.)
The only thing that’s lacking is a hook on the back to hang it up.
It’s obvious that the person, who came up with the specs, had spent a lot of time on the street shooting pictures.
The Domke Vest lives up to the Domke name
I paid $64.95 for my Domke PhoTOGS Vest on Amazon (plus shipping), but I don’t regret the amount. It’s a piece of equipment that will outlast me. (If I can keep the shrinking closet from attacking it or one of my sons from “borrowing” it.
Who can participate?
