Thursday, July 16, 2015

Robi Comes To Town 4

It's that time of the month again!  Robi came to town yesterday for more tattoo work.  This time he drove in early, spent the whole day getting tattooed and stayed overnight.

This morning we went to Dryer and rode muni.  Robi's good like that.  Just because he was tortured with needles the previous day doesn't mean he can't ride.

Jim met us there.  Diane couldn't make it this time.

It was a great ride.  We rode some of the good trails I usually ride there and a number of harder trails I had never ventured down, like Black Widow and The Den.  They're mostly rideable but with a number of more difficult drops or log obstacles.  Jim managed most of the obstacles.  Robi was surprisingly strong despite being tortured the previous day.  I did well too, even though I hadn't ridden since the Empire State Muni Fest... and entire month ago.  Yikes.  Life has been busy.

Here's a good picture for a caption contest:

Here's some of Robi's tat coming together:

Monday, July 6, 2015

Railing and Welding

With Kessa learning to ride I wanted to rebuild the railing I once had in the driveway for Sydney.  That one rotted and is long gone.  I decided to use my skinny as the base, some old trampoline poles for supports, and some spare railing mounts that were once sent to me in error.  The railing is number two of two that was once in the basement stairway.  I might cut down the poles at some point.

One of the unicycles Kyle has been riding on occasion is the Barracuda I bought on craigslist over 3 years ago.  Unfortunately one of the cranks was loose tonight.  I went to tighten it and found the bolt spun.  The threads on the spindle were stripped.  I think I recall tightening this bolt years ago and feeling it start to give just at the end.  So now with no way to tighten the crank and with it being a cheap uni, I decided to fix it by welding the crank to the spindle.  I did both while I was at it.  With no training, I've "successfully" welded about 4 or 5 items at this point using an arc welder.  My welds are embarrassing, but I expect that will hold for driveway riding.  If not, I'll hit then with the welder again.