Shapeways

Well it has been a bit since I have posted anything but I recently took possession of the parts that I designed for 3D prototyping. The first is shot is of a line up of the three different mounts that I designed. Hopefully I can start testing them out soon. From left to right they are the bar mount, head mount, and helmet mount.


This next shot is of the head mount with the light attached. All of these pictures are quite crappy and out of focus. I'll get better ones sometime in the future. There will be a velcro and elastic harness that will go around your head.


This is the helmet mount which will also have a velcro attachment.


The next two are of the bar mount that will be fixed with a couple o-rings going around the bar and hooking on the saddle horn looking tabs. The second also shows the two ends of the connectors that I got from deal extreme. They close and separate with a nice sealing pop sound.



There are a few small changes that I will make to the mounts but overall I am super happy with how they came out. Time and testing will reveal what other changes if any will need to be made for reliability purposes.

Helmet Mount v1.0

Here are a couple shots of the helmet mount so far. Again I'm not sure how the rigidity will be with these dim's until I see it for real. Now I just need to do the bar mount and then send away to get them. So far these are around $10 bucks a piece. Not too bad for 3D prototyping it seems to me.


I am hoping to be able to apply a silicone or urethane layer on the underside of the flattish area so that it won't slip in use. We'll see how well that works.

Head Mount v1.0

I am finding a bit of time to put into the light project and am working on various mounts for the lighting unit shown in the previous post. It is mostly just some time on Solidworks.

Here is a picture of the 3D model as it stands for now. The thin connecting parts are designed to flex and allow the mount to conform to the shape of ones cranium while still providing a solid and stable support for the light. We will see how well my guesses at thicknesses turn out and most likely need at least a version 2.0. I have uploaded it to Shapeways and will order once I have made a helmet and bar mount as well so I can save on shipping charges. The other mounts shouldn't take as much effort or time.


Here is another screen grab from the assembly model in Solidworks. All the detail has not been modelled on the light as it has so far not been necessary.


I will continue to post more as progress allows. I need to get out and ride my bike a bit more too before the snow flies.

Manufacturing Project

Here are a few shots of my current project where I get to exercise my brain. It is going to be a lighting system for biking and skiing. It will be completed in collaboration with brother Cam who is working on the electronics end.

The first shot shows the cooling area at the back and the LED cluster mounted in the recess without any optics other than just the clear acrylic cover for protection. All of the circumferential holes are just for lightening and hopefully they don't slow down heat transfer too much.


This next view shows the back with the lightening holes in the cooling fins and the front with the 18 deg. spread lens in place behind the acrylic cover. The screw sticking radially out the side will be for mounting the unit to a helmet or bar mount.


The overall dimensions are 30 mm in diameter and a little less than that in length. In operation so far it gets too hot to hold but not too hot to touch. I think that it is not yet working at full power as the voltage of my packs is a little less than ideal for the buck puck regulator that I am using. Anyway further updates will come as advances warrant...

Lookout Bambi!

This is just to show a few photos of the mountain bike transporter (my car) after an early morning run in with a deer.

Tuesday morning last week under the growing glow in the eastern sky on a dark country road south of Barrie, I had a deer run out in front of the car from the left. I managed to slow before an unavoidable impact that sent the deer off to the right towards the ditch. It was a real surprise that initially left me wondering if it had indeed occurred. After a couple hundred metres, my buckled hood confirmed my suspicions and I pulled over in the darkness. While the damage was extensive, there was no rad fluid leaking so I carried on to school and then later drove the car back to Barrie to a local body shop. There was no sign of the deer other than the hair left on my license plate holder so it's fate remains unknown.

$5600 later I am due to get the car back tomorrow. That will be great as I surely miss the hatch back and bike rack. The Hyundai Sonata that I got as a rental was okay but not to my bike related tastes. The trunk would barely hold a fully dissambled hard tail. - Weak sauce...

Below are a couple pictures showing the front end damage.



At least it enabled nice easy access to fill the wiper fluid.


That there be deer hair...


Maybe through some miracle the deer made it out alright but I suspect otherwise. In any case my advice would be to avoid large mammals when piloting a motor vehicle as they can do some real damage.

One by Nine

This is just a short blurb to show my handy work from the summer when I converted my bike to a 1 x 9 setup. I had been thinking about it for a while and I had a worn out drive train and XT chainrings are expensive so it was the perfect opportunity.

The setup is based on an e-13 / mrp BB mount type with a guide like I saw on the Specialized website. It has a plate that clamps between the out board bearing cup of the bottom bracket and the bottom bracket shell of the frame. It allows for vertical adjustment of the actual guide to accommodate different size chainrings and a couple spacers to allow for different offsets of the chain line depending on the model of ring. Right now I am using either a 32 or 34 tooth Salsa ring for MTB and a 36 tooth Black Spire for 'cross. The whole thing weighs around 45 gms and allowed me to drop at least a pound of derailleur, shifter, and cable off my bike and I swear it is slightly noticeable.

It functions like a dream and I have never dropped my chain once so this would now definitely be my preferred setup. It cleans up the bar and simplifies shifting while still providing all the gearing range I need for 99% of my riding.

I made the whole thing with only a hack saw, drill, files, and a router. Not bad I dare say. I like to imagine what I could do with a milling machine. Actually I suppose I did use my lathe to get the spacers to an accurate size. Anyway there is not much I could think of changing other than to make it prettier and shorten the screws so they don't stick out the back so far.

The pictures below were taken at the end of my last bike race so there is a little mud but not too bad. The photos themselves are horrendously out of focus so I evidently need to learn how to manually focus my compact camera. The ground is in lovely sharp focus but the actual subject matter is at least 6 beers blurry. This was not identifiable on the camera's screen so I didn't realize when I took the shot. I will try to take another that looks better later.



One interesting thing to note about this setup is that now when I am on my road bike, I always forget to use my front shifter and regularly find myself cross chained from rings to cassette. This is of course not ideal but I imagine it is just an adjustment to ride two different ways.

Final MTB Event for 2011

The end of last week and the start of the weekend held a lot of precipitation for the Barrie area but Sunday dawned with some sun in the sky and a stout wind drying the trails.

It was the day for what would be the final competitive mountain bike event on the OCA calendar and it looked to be a good one. Despite a lousy sleep Saturday night due to wakeful children, I felt pretty awake myself once I got going. I left the house around 8:30am and the shot below shows the car loaded and heading up the road. Rechecking the straps on the bike rack afforded the opportunity for this shot as I don't typically stop on the side of the road to take pictures of the car.


When I got to Hardwood Hills it looked wet but drying, without any standing water in sight. I made my way up to the chalet and transition / start / finish area to see where I could stow my cooler with refreshments. The fall colours were looking good and there was lots of blue sky broken up with clouds being shredded in the the wind.


There was also a Specialized demo day on but my focus was on the race at hand instead of worrying about 29'ers and full suspension as earlier in the year.


While I was up there I was able to exchange the event shirt that I picked up with the race kit the day before. Apparently size small doesn't fit too well even if it IS in the pile that says 'large'. I headed back to the car with a good amount of time to prepare and got all the tire pressures sorted and adjusted the seat post and gears. These are a couple shots of the parking / pit area and the inside of my cooler with a bunch of pre-mixed bottles, 'food' and some emergency supplies - zip ties, 3-way, chain breaker, and a tube.



I got my cooler of stuff and a floor pump stashed just past the start / transition area so I could access it easily mid-race and did a bit of warm up just to make sure my shoes were adjusted and feeling good.

We lined up for the 10:00am start and then were off at a rather leisurely pace. 50 km is a long way to sort out the finishing order so there is no sense in tearing off the start and blowing up after 20 km or so. I took it really easy for the first course which is called 'Serious' and is about a 10 km loop with a bit of moderate climbing and no technical challenge. It is a fun track to race on and I passed when ever it was easy and didn't require any serious efforts. As I said there is a long way yet to go. The picture below was from the end of this lap as I ditched the arm warmers at the cooler before lap #2.


Next we were on to the trail called 'Radical' which is super challenging and technical for a race course. It is 15 km of short, steep ups and downs which are littered with slippery roots punctuated with deep erosion holes. It is very hard to carry any momentum and within the first 800m your heart is pounding. Remembering how I blew up on this trail last year in this event, I made a conscious effort to pace myself and save my legs as I knew it would matter later on in the race. I caught and passed a few people including one guy who fell at least three times while I was behind him. He was all over the place and while he was fit enough, his skills made him look like it was his first time on a mountain bike. The funny thing is how long it took me to go around him, as most of the time the trail was so constricted it was easier for me to dismount and run up behind him than try to ride some of the climbs. Anyway towards the end, he wiped out again and I jumped off my bike to save myself. I felt that familiar vice tighten on my one hamstring but it didn't result in a lasting cramp so that was good. I realized he was a serious detriment to my progress and passed by in a rare open bit and made it stick with a short effort. As I got to the end of that trail it was nice to realize that the hardest terrain and half the total distance were behind me.

Next we did a super easy trail called 'Cranked'. It is 8 km of flowing single track that people often ride on cross bikes. There is nothing hard or technical but it is amazing how the previous two trails can make it feel like there is. This course is pretty much just recovery and on my way through the transition I restocked my gels and bottle. This trail passed with out incident and it was interesting to note how few people I was seeing at this point. Right near the end another rider caught me and we finished the lap together. Here is a shot from near the end of the loop going down a fun little roller before the finish straight.


Onto the second last lap on the trail called 'Gnarly', and yes I pronounce that with an accentuated, hard 'G'. The course is 12 km with only a few modestly technical sections but some really extended climbing (for Hardwood anyway). I was feeling recovered a bit but this is where you learn how well you paced yourself on the previous challenging terrain. It can all go wrong quickly as I learned last year while spending numerous occasions at the side of the trail waiting for my legs to uncramp. I rode with that other guy for the first two thirds of the loop until I left him on a couple of the climbs. I think he was hurting worse than I now was but so far the legs were still working and I continued to try to stay out of the red. One other rider passed both of us but I was able to keep him mostly in sight towards the end of the lap.

One last one to go called 'Fun'. It is a short 5 km that is single track for sure but you might get through on a road bike on a dry day. Super fast when you are fresh and a fun trail to try to ride without using your brakes unless absolutely necessary. Despite the easy nature of the loop it can feel pretty deadly at the end of a 50 km race as I found out last year. This year I was feeling better so I tried to push the pace up the long gradual climb at the start. After a while I felt that adductor thing start to tighten so I backed off a bit. About this time the guy who had passed me previously and who I was now catching literally dove off his bike with a howl and landed bent over with his legs spread and his feet about 5 ft apart. As I got close I asked if he was okay and he just said "Cramping .... so much fun". He was okay so I carried on for the rest of the lap alone and put in a pretty good effort to finish it off. This is a shot right at the end of the lap in the same spot as the previous photo.


I ended up finishing one and a half minutes slower than last year but I actually did better as the conditions were a lot more challenging. My time was about 3 hours 35 minutes and I finished with 80 % of the leaders speed which was up from 77% last year. That put me at 17th of 51 starters in my age category. It was a decent race overall although I have felt sort of fat and slow this fall which may have something to do with no races for a 2 month stretch through the summer. Here is a shot of the finish area in front of the chalet. You can see the wind blowing the covers on the speakers in the foreground.


Here is one last shot showing how nice a day it turned out to be with some blue sky and that amazing clarity you sometimes get when there is not even a hint of haze. It is like you can see a new horizon when you stand somewhere high and the distances seem closer and clearer.


So that is it for MTB races and with only a hand full of 'cross engagements left it may be time to start thinking about skiing - (shiver).