Cody a film star? Yes!

To say we were delighted when Springfield's Healthy Living Alliance approached us to help them film an informational video about the rules of city cycling would be a massive understatement.

HLA teamed up with local improv comic Jeff Houghton, Brandon of Goodwin Films and us to film the first in their four-part series about healthy living in Springfield. The topic? Basic rules of the road tips for cyclists. Bike to Work Week is just two weeks away so the timing is perfect.

We contributed the Cody and the bike. The idea was to mount a few GoPro cameras onto the tandem, have Cody take the pilot's seat with Jeff on the back. The camera mounting proved to be the most challenging part of the whole endeavor.

Brandon Goodwin, the filmmaker and coworker Doug came over a couple times this week to figure out the logistics and take the rigged up rig out for a spin. For the record, there's a camera on each set of handlebars with sort of a tripod over on the side. Crazy. Cool.

Anyway, we showed up for the shoot this morning, got Cody and Jeff microphoned up...

And sent them on their way.

We are so excited to see the finished product. Everyone involved was so incredibly nice and talented and enthusiastic and easy to work with. We know the finished product will be very awesome.

We'll let you know when the final product is, um, finalized.

Tinkernation: The Finished Product

The final installment of my Tinkernation series of posts detailing the restoration of an old Columbia Twosome tandem went live today.  You can find the final post here.  In the final post, I really just wanted to showcase the finished bike.  It looks great.  And it rides great too.  Ginger and I got it out on the MKT trail over the weekend and had a great time.  Since I don't have much to add beyond what's already in the Tinkernation post, I'll just leave you with a few additional images:

Tinkernation: In Pieces

My second Tinkernation installment was posted this morning.  Again, it's somewhat short.  The tandem came apart quite easily and it didn't take me long at all to rid the parts of rust and clean everything up.  For as daunting as the project seemed at first, it's been surprisingly straightforward.  The cleaning and rust removal took a little longer than it would have if this had been a single bicycle, but it wasn't overly tedious.  So I didn't really have much to say in my Tinkernation post, except to give a brief update on how things were coming along.

As I mentioned in the main post, I was really unhappy with how the wheels turned out after treating them with oxalic acid.  To remove the rust from the rim surface, I dropped them into a cooler full of oxalic acid solution.  I let them sit overnight and then turned the wheels the next day so that a fresh portion of rim was in the acid solution.  I did this until the entire wheel was rust-free.  Unfortunately, after each turn of the wheel, I didn't rinse off residual oxalic acid, instead leaving the rinse step for the very end.  And I think the exposure of the acid solution to air on the metal surface caused the steel to end up with a tarnished appearance.  There doesn't seem to be much I can do to fix this except replace the wheels, which is next to impossible since 26" fractional wheelsets with threads for a freewheel AND drum brake are exceedingly difficult to find.

My third Tinkernation post will likely be going live in a couple of months and will detail reassembly of the bike and showcase the finished machine.  As always, I'll be posting an addendum here with some additional pictures and information that didn't make it into the final draft of the main post.

Tinkernation: Let the Fun Begin

My first Tinkernation post is online!  I'm pretty stoked about it.  Also, now that the cat's out of the bag, I can unveil the project that I'll be working on for this 3-part series:  rehabbing an old Columbia Twosome tandem.  My first post is pretty short and sweet; I just wanted to introduce the project bike and say a few things about my humble background as an amateur bicycle mechanic and blogger.  Though I think all of my posts will be pretty brief.  I don't want to seem long-winded, and I'm not a very skilled photographer, so I'll only be including the images necessary to illustrate the main points of each post.

For loyal readers of this blog, here's a little inside scoop to accompany the Tinkernation post.  First off, when I started searching out a tandem, an upright, cruiser-style bike is not what I had in mind.  I was more interested in finding an old Burley mountain tandem or something along those lines.  But one thing I learned very quickly is that tandems are expensive.  Plus, I was working on a bit of a deadline with the launch of Tinkernation looming.  I found this Columbia Twosome on CraigsList, and after exchanging a few emails with the owner, decided that I was getting a good deal on a great-looking bike.

Astute observers may have noticed that the tandem has a rear fender, but is missing the front fender.  Funny story; I tore that front fender off trying to get the bike loaded onto my car to bring it home.  I decided to take the front wheel off before throwing the bike on top of my car.  But the washer that should've been between the axle nut and the fender strut, which allows the axle nut to turn freely, was instead between the fender strut and the hub.  So when I turned the axle nut, the fender strut turned as well, bending it until the axle nut finally broke free.  By that time, the fender struts were ruined.  So when I got the bike home, I just threw the damn thing in the trash.  Inevitably, this was the case with the rear fender was well, so it took a trip to curb on trash day too.

My next Tinkernation post should be posted in about a month or so.  Again, I'll be sure and link to the post on this blog when it goes up.  Until then, I'll be continuing with regular updates of the non-tandem-related variety.

Tinkernation is Live

As I mentioned previously, I've been selected to contribute to the inaugural edition of Tinkernation.  It turns out that, as of yesterday, the site went live.  And if you navigate to the 'About' page, you'll find that yours truly is the very first in their list of featured authors.  Booyah!

My content won't start making its way onto the site until later this month, but I'll make sure and drop another update here when that happens.  In the meantime, definitely check out their 'Welcome' page, which includes a pretty cool feature and interview with Joe Nocella from 718 Cyclery in Brooklyn.  Joe may be considered my contemporary just from the fact that we're both contributing bicycle-related material to Tinkernation, but he's got a hell of a lot more experience and expertise, a way better shop, and a much more creative design sense than I do.  I'm really looking forward to seeing what he puts forward for his series of Tinkernation posts.  He's bound to put me to shame, but I plan to take it as a valuable lesson from an unwitting teacher.