Recent content by spokewrench

Spoken as a highly judgmental outsider. It was my fate to be the only one in the squad bay who liked the music on my albums. If what you think were true, why didn't the 59 others, many of whom outranked me, demand that I accept my fate and not upset people with my music? When a corporal made a...

It comes from the classroom experience. Sit still, shut up. The only way anyone knows you is by what the teacher says about you. You have no input. Of course you take it personally. When ordered to speak, you do your best to be impeccable with your words so nobody will find any cause for...

I had to bleed my front a second time, two days after the first time. Because the line was short and mostly vertical, a top bleed worked. The first time, it was a lot of little bubbles. The second, It was a bubble about 75mm long in the clear vinyl tube. I'd noticed that one piston extended...

I shopped at Amazon for a set of Phillips bits, and some advertised altered shapes to avoid camout (the reason factories adopted Phillips). So screwdriver manufactures are taking liberties with the Phillips name, and maybe screw manufacturers are, too. Where camout would be bad, why not use...

I'm thinking of dew points. When I run my AC, it's often because of dew point more than temperature. Without significantly cooling a room, a 65 F block could reduce the dew point to 65. You could vary the formula for a higher or lower melting point, and maybe refreeze it in a hole in the ground.

A couple of days ago as I prepared a favorite summertime recipe, I turned the handle on the faucet and nothing came out. I didn't know how long the water would be off. For decades, I'd kept half a gallon of water in a bottle on a shelf, but I'd thrown the bottle away in case the water was past...

That happened to me in 1964, on a gravel road with a load of camping gear. Every few minutes, I'd hear a pop like a small bore rifle. Fortunately, patching took me only a few minutes. The classmate with me, on a similar bike with a similar load, had no trouble. It's only recently that I learned...

This was 1 of 2 T-30 screws that hold the halves of the caliper together. Tektro really didn't want me to remove it. I showed them!

Weatherbug says an air quality index of 301 or above is hazardous. Here, it's 27. I got back from riding and found that Duke Power had shut off my AC so others could be cool. Who cares! As long as I have fans, I know I'm popular!

I also needed a T-30 for a bolt that, it turned out, held the caliper together. I was trying to follow the generic instructions that came with the kit. These bits will allow me to ruin more equipment than ever before.

Through this forum I discovered that JIS screws are really Phillips. If I don't know in advance which #2 crosshead screwdriver will best fit a screw, maybe Phillips screws and drivers are easy to damage, and a little damage can make a big difference. Maybe I should stick with easy-to-replace...

He probably doesn't have to find his ass with his hands. He probably has a bidet. It would be a great accessory for an e-bike because it would allow me to keep both hands on the bar for safe riding. I hesitated to install one on my Abound for fear of being considered a snob, but now that I have...

Uh-oh, I misinformed you. The pads on the front of my Abound, that didn't have much bite and sounded scratchy, were the OE Tektro E10.11s, different from the E10.11s on my Rad bikes. The pads on the back, that were quiet and had done most of the work for a year, were the Corki ones with black...

Now I remember. I bought semi-metallic because I the Tektro pads on my Abound seemed different from those on my 2 Rad bikes, even though they were all marked E10.11, like yours. For one thing, the E10.11 pads on the Rads could soften in prolonged high humidity. They lost braking power, wore very...

That reminds me... A year ago, I had to replace my front pads. IIRC, they'd worn out in under 2 years because the caliper had come from the factory out of alignment. The OE were resin. I had some on hand but forgot. I ordered semi-metalic to see if I liked them. The OE in back were fine, so I...