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AG: Aunt Granny's Advice, or How to become an elderly cyclist:



 
 
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  #371  
Old February 14th 16, 04:51 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Joy Beeson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,638
Default AG: Special Clothes for Cycling


Back in the sixties, schools brought in members of minorities to talk
us out of our prejudices. One was a motorcyclist who went through the
lyrics of a then-popular song about a fool who was the terror of
highway one-oh-one, explaining how "black-denim trousers and
motorcycle boots, and a black leather jacket" were practical safety
equipment -- but not (everyone chuckle) the eagle on the back.

I don't have very many posts in my buffer, so I think I'll do the same
for cycling clothes.

(And now the buffer is empty, so I'll post it.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Shoes and socks are your connection to the power train; they are as
much component as clothing.

Bike shoes need a firm sole to protect your foot from the pedals, and
it helps a lot if the shoe can be attached firmly to the cranks

All my shoes are bike shoes now that I've learned that it's closed-toe
shoes that are causing my corns. How the toe can make a difference
when the corns are on the sides of the foot I don't know, but there it
is. Perhaps it's that sandals are usually adjustable in width; my
lace-to-the-toe Duegis seem to cause less trouble. Or maybe it's just
that I never walk in the Duegis.

So I no longer save new black oxfords to walk to church in, and regard
my oxfords exclusively as "city bike shoes", to wear when I frequently
get off and walk, and have to unclip for a light or stop sign every
block or so.

I have shoes with wooden insoles and slot cleats that I wear whenever
I'm reasonably sure that I won't have to walk and wear off the
irreplaceable cleats. I can ride farther in these, and climb steeper
hills.

Summer or winter, you can't beat pure wool for socks. They allow air
to get at your feet, and don't feel nasty when sweaty. (But feeling
dry when they are wet makes it hard to tell whether or not they are
ready to put back into the drawer after you wash them.) Wool socks,
even partly-wool socks, are hard to find, and when found are more
likely than not to have advertisements knitted in.


Next is the traditional black shorts. These don't come in women's
sizes, and washable wool by the yard is extinct so I can't make my
own, so I wear linen knickers. I sometimes wear jeans, but I have to
pin them at the ankles, I have to take anything large out of the
pockets, and they rub on my knees if I don't tie strings around them
just below the knees -- it's easier to change pants.

Pity I can't wear black shorts. They don't catch on things as my
knickers sometimes do, and tight-fitting pants protect from abrasion
better than loose pants. In the days when bike shorts were made of
wool and lined with real leather, you could glue them on with cold
cream or a special "chamois fat" to guarantee that there would be no
friction between the chamois and your skin. This greatly improves
comfort during a hundred-mile ride, but you really, really want
something to change into at the finish line.


The special shirt:

I missed a question on an Effective Cycling test once. I was supposed
to say that "to prevent wind-flapping" was a reason to wear a jersey.
Since, at that time, I'd see someone wearing no shirt at all every
time I went out, I'd have checked "prevent sunburn", but that wasn't
on the list.

You can prevent wind flapping with any tight-fitting shirt, including
T-shirts and turtlenecks. (Not to mention that my current jerseys do
flap: http://wlweather.net/PAGESEW/BLOG1XV/SLEEVG6h.JPG
http://wlweather.net/PAGESEW/LINJERSY.HTM )
The reason for wearing a jersey instead of a T-shirt is the pockets:
pockets for stuff you want to get at while riding, and pockets for
stuff you want to be sure goes with you when you walk away from the
bike.

I have five pockets in my jerseys instead of the traditional three.
Three are the traditional back pockets: one for my handkerchief and
reading glasses, one for my wallet, one for keys, sunscreen, lipstick,
and so forth. (I used to carry Halt in this pocket too, but then we
moved to Indiana and Hoosiers -- in this county, at least -- don't
encourage their dogs to play in the street.) Two pockets in front
were originally modeled after the pockets on men's shirts, then moved
up to avoid the part of my chest that is sharply curved. The right
one, originally for starlight mints, now holds my cell phone; the left
one holds notebook, pencil, spare handkerchiefs, and shopping list.

All my jerseys have high necks to reduce the area that has to be
covered with sunscreen. I don't do anything special to the necks of
winter jerseys, because I always wrap the tails of my scarves around
my neck to prevent wind-flapping.


Headgear:

I used to wear a gilligan hat
http://www.wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/CENT2015/HATS.HTM
and found it the perfect headgear for outdoor activity: the brim can
be turned down on the side where the sun is, and turned up on the side
where it isn't.

But on a bike, there is risk of a hat blowing off. When I first
started riding, I held my hat in place with an antique hatpin. Then
one day I fell off the road and rolled down an embankment, and got up
thinking "I did all that with nine inches of sharp steel on my
head!!!" I went straight home and sewed bonnet strings onto my hat.

That worked very well until we planned a ride from New York to
Indiana, and the group decided that if we were going to be on the
bikes all day every day, we ought to wear those new-fangled hard-shell
helmets.

What a helmet mostly protects you against is getting yelled at by
ignorami -- the latest helmets frankly eschew protection for the back
of the head in favor of exposing the suspension for easier adjustment
-- but once I started wearing a rear-view mirror on my helmet, the
increased range of vision more than compensated for the loss of vision
caused by a helmet's limited and un-adjustable protection from sun
glare. One can, after all, tip one's head and roll one's eyes.

I have one of the special cycling caps -- if I haven't mislaid it --
but never wore it on the bike and can't say how it works. Bicycle
caps are like baseball caps, but have no button on top, come in sizes
instead of having adjustable straps at the back, and the bill is very
short so that it doesn't block your view of the road when you are down
on the drops. The abbreviated bill also fails to catch the wind, so
it shouldn't blow off.


Gloves:

Cycling gloves are a leather pad held to the palm side of your hand by
the barest minimum of glove, originally coarse cotton lace. I saw a
pair of the traditional crocheted gloves for sale recently, but it was
far too large for me. A cycling glove must fit very tightly, so that
your hand can't abrade itself against the inside of the glove.

Weight-lifting gloves are a bit longer in the finger, but work just
fine -- after all, the original purpose of both gloves is to protect
your hand while you are gripping a bar.

Like a helmet, the secondary purpose of a glove is the more-important
purpose. If you fall, you put out a hand to catch yourself. The
doctor who X-rayed my broken clavicle told me that this is a
hard-wired reflex and you can't do anything about it -- and it's just
as well; a broken clavicle or a broken arm can be repaired; brain
damage can't.

So when your palm hits the rough pavement, you want a bit of tough
leather protecting your tendons. Even the mildest road rash is very
inconvenient if it's on your hand, and a small bit of glass could
cripple you for life.

Back in the days when I wore three pairs of hand-knitted gloves, I
dispensed with the cycling gloves -- I knit tight and the yarn was
tough; three layers were at least as good as leather.

Ha! There's a topic for a new post: how to knit winter cycling
gloves.

Now that I wear store-bought gloves, I wear modern all-plastic,
no-ventilation, too-hot-to-wear-in-the-summer cycling gloves under
them. And I stay home when I need three pairs. It doesn't happen
that often now that we live a bit farther south.

I didn't score any new "fifty-cent"[1] gloves this fall, and the last
two pairs that I bought, I had to pay extra for decidedly-undesired
conductive fingertips. This may be the end of an era.

Warm gloves for cycling should be yellow, or at least white, so that
people can see your hand signals. To keep all the dirt on one side,
mark them right and left. I make a small bar tack in red thread on
each cuff to mark the back of the glove.

It's possible to operate the controls of a bike while wearing split
mittens. I think these are called "lobster-claw gloves" when sold in
stores. Mittens are essential in freezing weather because your hands
lead into the wind no matter how you ride, and you can't work your
brakes if your hands are numb.

[1] When these gloves first appeared, they were two pairs for a
dollar. They cost significantly more the following year, but I still
think of them as fifty-cent gloves.


--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.
Ads
  #372  
Old February 14th 16, 10:46 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
John B.[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,202
Default AG: Special Clothes for Cycling

On Sat, 13 Feb 2016 23:51:37 -0400, Joy Beeson
wrote:


Back in the sixties, schools brought in members of minorities to talk
us out of our prejudices. One was a motorcyclist who went through the
lyrics of a then-popular song about a fool who was the terror of
highway one-oh-one, explaining how "black-denim trousers and
motorcycle boots, and a black leather jacket" were practical safety
equipment -- but not (everyone chuckle) the eagle on the back.

I don't have very many posts in my buffer, so I think I'll do the same
for cycling clothes.

(And now the buffer is empty, so I'll post it.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Shoes and socks are your connection to the power train; they are as
much component as clothing.

Bike shoes need a firm sole to protect your foot from the pedals, and
it helps a lot if the shoe can be attached firmly to the cranks

All my shoes are bike shoes now that I've learned that it's closed-toe
shoes that are causing my corns. How the toe can make a difference
when the corns are on the sides of the foot I don't know, but there it
is. Perhaps it's that sandals are usually adjustable in width; my
lace-to-the-toe Duegis seem to cause less trouble. Or maybe it's just
that I never walk in the Duegis.


I would suggest that your corns are caused by shoes that are too
narrow. Once warm weather arrives you might try wearing "flip-flop"
sandals for a week, If the corns get less tender you have found the
problem.

When I received my first issue of clothes in the Air Force they
ignored my explanation of what size shoes I wore and stood me on a
shoe sizing template and told me to hold my hands up by my shoulders
and dropped a 10 lb, sand bag in each hand and then read off my shoe
size. A whole size larger then I had been wearing, but I had no foot
problems for the next 20 years :-)


So I no longer save new black oxfords to walk to church in, and regard
my oxfords exclusively as "city bike shoes", to wear when I frequently
get off and walk, and have to unclip for a light or stop sign every
block or so.

I have shoes with wooden insoles and slot cleats that I wear whenever
I'm reasonably sure that I won't have to walk and wear off the
irreplaceable cleats. I can ride farther in these, and climb steeper
hills.

Summer or winter, you can't beat pure wool for socks. They allow air
to get at your feet, and don't feel nasty when sweaty. (But feeling
dry when they are wet makes it hard to tell whether or not they are
ready to put back into the drawer after you wash them.) Wool socks,
even partly-wool socks, are hard to find, and when found are more
likely than not to have advertisements knitted in.


Next is the traditional black shorts. These don't come in women's
sizes, and washable wool by the yard is extinct so I can't make my
own, so I wear linen knickers. I sometimes wear jeans, but I have to
pin them at the ankles, I have to take anything large out of the
pockets, and they rub on my knees if I don't tie strings around them
just below the knees -- it's easier to change pants.

Pity I can't wear black shorts. They don't catch on things as my
knickers sometimes do, and tight-fitting pants protect from abrasion
better than loose pants. In the days when bike shorts were made of
wool and lined with real leather, you could glue them on with cold
cream or a special "chamois fat" to guarantee that there would be no
friction between the chamois and your skin. This greatly improves
comfort during a hundred-mile ride, but you really, really want
something to change into at the finish line.


The special shirt:

I missed a question on an Effective Cycling test once. I was supposed
to say that "to prevent wind-flapping" was a reason to wear a jersey.
Since, at that time, I'd see someone wearing no shirt at all every
time I went out, I'd have checked "prevent sunburn", but that wasn't
on the list.

You can prevent wind flapping with any tight-fitting shirt, including
T-shirts and turtlenecks. (Not to mention that my current jerseys do
flap: http://wlweather.net/PAGESEW/BLOG1XV/SLEEVG6h.JPG
http://wlweather.net/PAGESEW/LINJERSY.HTM )
The reason for wearing a jersey instead of a T-shirt is the pockets:
pockets for stuff you want to get at while riding, and pockets for
stuff you want to be sure goes with you when you walk away from the
bike.

I have five pockets in my jerseys instead of the traditional three.
Three are the traditional back pockets: one for my handkerchief and
reading glasses, one for my wallet, one for keys, sunscreen, lipstick,
and so forth. (I used to carry Halt in this pocket too, but then we
moved to Indiana and Hoosiers -- in this county, at least -- don't
encourage their dogs to play in the street.) Two pockets in front
were originally modeled after the pockets on men's shirts, then moved
up to avoid the part of my chest that is sharply curved. The right
one, originally for starlight mints, now holds my cell phone; the left
one holds notebook, pencil, spare handkerchiefs, and shopping list.

All my jerseys have high necks to reduce the area that has to be
covered with sunscreen. I don't do anything special to the necks of
winter jerseys, because I always wrap the tails of my scarves around
my neck to prevent wind-flapping.


Headgear:

I used to wear a gilligan hat
http://www.wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/CENT2015/HATS.HTM
and found it the perfect headgear for outdoor activity: the brim can
be turned down on the side where the sun is, and turned up on the side
where it isn't.

But on a bike, there is risk of a hat blowing off. When I first
started riding, I held my hat in place with an antique hatpin. Then
one day I fell off the road and rolled down an embankment, and got up
thinking "I did all that with nine inches of sharp steel on my
head!!!" I went straight home and sewed bonnet strings onto my hat.

That worked very well until we planned a ride from New York to
Indiana, and the group decided that if we were going to be on the
bikes all day every day, we ought to wear those new-fangled hard-shell
helmets.

What a helmet mostly protects you against is getting yelled at by
ignorami -- the latest helmets frankly eschew protection for the back
of the head in favor of exposing the suspension for easier adjustment
-- but once I started wearing a rear-view mirror on my helmet, the
increased range of vision more than compensated for the loss of vision
caused by a helmet's limited and un-adjustable protection from sun
glare. One can, after all, tip one's head and roll one's eyes.

I have one of the special cycling caps -- if I haven't mislaid it --
but never wore it on the bike and can't say how it works. Bicycle
caps are like baseball caps, but have no button on top, come in sizes
instead of having adjustable straps at the back, and the bill is very
short so that it doesn't block your view of the road when you are down
on the drops. The abbreviated bill also fails to catch the wind, so
it shouldn't blow off.


Gloves:

Cycling gloves are a leather pad held to the palm side of your hand by
the barest minimum of glove, originally coarse cotton lace. I saw a
pair of the traditional crocheted gloves for sale recently, but it was
far too large for me. A cycling glove must fit very tightly, so that
your hand can't abrade itself against the inside of the glove.

Weight-lifting gloves are a bit longer in the finger, but work just
fine -- after all, the original purpose of both gloves is to protect
your hand while you are gripping a bar.

Like a helmet, the secondary purpose of a glove is the more-important
purpose. If you fall, you put out a hand to catch yourself. The
doctor who X-rayed my broken clavicle told me that this is a
hard-wired reflex and you can't do anything about it -- and it's just
as well; a broken clavicle or a broken arm can be repaired; brain
damage can't.

So when your palm hits the rough pavement, you want a bit of tough
leather protecting your tendons. Even the mildest road rash is very
inconvenient if it's on your hand, and a small bit of glass could
cripple you for life.

Back in the days when I wore three pairs of hand-knitted gloves, I
dispensed with the cycling gloves -- I knit tight and the yarn was
tough; three layers were at least as good as leather.

Ha! There's a topic for a new post: how to knit winter cycling
gloves.

Now that I wear store-bought gloves, I wear modern all-plastic,
no-ventilation, too-hot-to-wear-in-the-summer cycling gloves under
them. And I stay home when I need three pairs. It doesn't happen
that often now that we live a bit farther south.

I didn't score any new "fifty-cent"[1] gloves this fall, and the last
two pairs that I bought, I had to pay extra for decidedly-undesired
conductive fingertips. This may be the end of an era.

Warm gloves for cycling should be yellow, or at least white, so that
people can see your hand signals. To keep all the dirt on one side,
mark them right and left. I make a small bar tack in red thread on
each cuff to mark the back of the glove.

It's possible to operate the controls of a bike while wearing split
mittens. I think these are called "lobster-claw gloves" when sold in
stores. Mittens are essential in freezing weather because your hands
lead into the wind no matter how you ride, and you can't work your
brakes if your hands are numb.

[1] When these gloves first appeared, they were two pairs for a
dollar. They cost significantly more the following year, but I still
think of them as fifty-cent gloves.

--
cheers,

John B.

  #373  
Old February 21st 16, 04:04 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Joy Beeson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,638
Default AG: Hand-knit bicycle gloves.


The last time I tried to write this pattern I intended to sell it to a
magazine that might give me a whole half page to explain it. It grew
into a tome on knitted-glove theory so huge that I still haven't
finished it. I think I've got an off-site backup of the abandoned
manuscript posted on the Web somewhere.
Ah, here it is:
http://wlweather.net/joybackup/ZGLOVES/MITTSEA1.95
There are eight files in all, numbered 1 through 8.

So I'll assume that you've read the section on pants in Barbara
Walker's _Knitting From the Top_, the chapter "Gloves" in _Mary
Thomas's Knitting Book_, and everything Elizabeth Zimmerman ever
wrote. (I think Schoolhouse Press keeps most of Zimmermann's work in
print, and they had _Knitting from the Top_ the last time I looked.
Dover reprinted "Mary Thomas's Knitting Book", and now has it in
e-book too.

And I'll assume that having absorbed all this data, you can knit a
pair of gloves with no more pre-planning than figuring out how many
stitches to cast on.

Having found the back-up files, these paragraphs from the introduction
are a good summary:

"If I wear mittens in cold weather, I can't work my brake levers --
but if I wear gloves, my hands get so cold that I can't _find_ my
brake levers. Two-fingered mittens let me work my controls and still
keep my hands warm enough to function.
"I made the mittens in two parts: thin embroidery-wool liners
fitted over cycling gloves, and heavier outer mittens. The liners can
be worn alone in cool weather, and they are thin enough that the outer
mittens can be worn alone in intermediate weather. When the weather
gets downright bitter, I replace the cycling gloves with wool gloves;
three layers of springy wool make an adequate substitute for the
padding in my leather gloves."

Work gloves in the usual way until you get to the place where you
split for the fingers, then split into two fingers instead of four.

I like two or three inches of K2 P2 ribbed cuff for the liners, and
for the outer mitten, K2 P2 ribbing starting in the middle of the
forearm and tapered to the wrist. K2 P2 is elastic enough that you
can make the outer cuff to fit over bare skin and still pull it on
over the sleeves of your jersey and sweater and undershirt.

Plain stocking stitch is best for the liners, in a very tight gauge. A
slip-stitch pattern for the outer mittens will turn the wind -- I like
linen stitch.

I sewed a patch of reflective tape on the backs of the outer mittens;
this helps with hand signals and also turns the wind.

From the wrist to the knuckles of the liners, I worked back and forth
in the round so as to put a yellow patch in intarsia on the back.
There is a boundary stitch on each side of the yellow patch.

One boundary stitch is the turning stitch: work it with the yarn in
your hand, turn the work, slip the first stitch (which was the last
stitch of the previous row) and continue with the yarn in your hand,
purling or knitting as appropriate to the side you are on. When you
get back to the turning stitch, you will have the other yarn in your
hand. Work the turning stitch with it, turn, slip, and work back as
before.

The other boundary stitch is the yarn-changing stitch. Each time you
come to it, work it with the yarn in your hand, then drop that yarn
WITHOUT WRAPPING OR TWISTING THE YARNS TOGETHER IN ANY WAY and
continue with the other yarn, which you dropped there the last time
you passed this stitch. When you pick it up, be careful not to loop
it around the yarn that you just dropped.

Each boundary stitch is worked with each yarn in alternation, and each
yarn turns at the boundary and goes back. This sounds as though the
boundary should be checkered -- one expects the two colors to
interdigitate -- and that is the way you would draw it if you graphed
the pattern. In practice, the two colors link together sort of like
warp knitting, and you get a vertical line of black next to a vertical
line of yellow.

The joins are impalpable, and you can't tell the turning seam from the
color-changing seam.


--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGESEW/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.



  #374  
Old February 21st 16, 04:25 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Andrew Chaplin
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 206
Default AG: Hand-knit bicycle gloves.

Joy Beeson wrote in
:

snip
And I'll assume that having absorbed all this data, you can knit a
pair of gloves with no more pre-planning than figuring out how many
stitches to cast on.

snip

Time is too valuable to spend it knitting like Madame Defarge. I can knick
down to my LBS and be away in minutes with something that is adequate,
water-repellent and reflective.

In very cold weather I wear woolen poacher's mitts inside nylon shells.
They're good down to -15C (3F). I suspect the size of my hands may be why I
do not find myself challenged operating my brakes.

If the bottom truly falls out of the thermometer, I still have two pairs of
these:
http://www.aasurplus.ca/surplus/prod...litary-arctic-
mitt.
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)
  #375  
Old February 21st 16, 09:02 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Frank Krygowski[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,538
Default AG: Hand-knit bicycle gloves.

On 2/21/2016 10:25 AM, Andrew Chaplin wrote:
Joy Beeson wrote in
:

snip
And I'll assume that having absorbed all this data, you can knit a
pair of gloves with no more pre-planning than figuring out how many
stitches to cast on.

snip

Time is too valuable to spend it knitting like Madame Defarge. I can knick
down to my LBS and be away in minutes with something that is adequate,
water-repellent and reflective.


I don't think the motivation for most knitters (or other clothing
crafters) is time efficiency. There is art, there is joy in the
challenge of producing exactly what you (or someone else) wants to wear,
there is intellectual stimulation and, I suppose, more.

(I know a very intelligent woman who is a qualified restoration
architect and who is very active in the community, on multiple boards,
committees, etc. In many meetings, she has knitting needles clicking away.)

As for myself, I don't knit. But I have constructed my own handlebar
bags, and some other special purpose bags. I designed and made them
because nothing on the market met my quirky criteria.

If I were to design and make an item of clothing, I think it would be a
lightweight windbreaker. I'd like an array of certain special pockets
opening in certain ways, a built-in concealable hood, hidden sleeve
extensions to act as sort-of-mittens when needed, some reflectivity,
plenty of sweat vents, self-storage in a built-in pocket or pouch, etc.
I've never found one on the market that provides exactly what I'd like.

--
- Frank Krygowski
  #376  
Old February 24th 16, 06:53 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
W. Wesley Groleau
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 372
Default AG: Retraction

On 12-12-2015 22:03, Joy Beeson wrote:
I recently discovered that now that Chuck Harris is dead, it is no
longer possible to buy a helmet mirror.


It's rare that I can't afford to look back, but I used to have a
hand-sized mirror in a pocket that I could pull out and look at. It was
salvaged from the glove compartment of a Volvo that I scrapped.

--
Wes Groleau
  #377  
Old February 24th 16, 06:56 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
W. Wesley Groleau
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 372
Default AG: Faster than a speeding turtle

On 12-19-2015 21:18, Joy Beeson wrote:
Wear what's comfortable and ignore the fashion critics.


I wear the same things I wear anywhere else. For me, cycling is
transportation, not sport, and though I might be a little uncomfortable
riding, I'd be a lot more uncomfortable looking like a dork when I get
to my destination. To each his own!

--
Wes Groleau
  #378  
Old February 28th 16, 04:48 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Joy Beeson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,638
Default AG: Ride Report


Tol'ya the buffer was empty. But while riding, I realized that I'd
never told you how to wear a scarf, so that essay might be ready for
next week.

Lovely day, and going to Pierceton would have let me wear cleats for
the first time this spring, but I've *seen* Pierceton. It's a good
place to go for lunch with a few friends, but not a good place to dine
alone. There are lots of antique shops, and most of them would have
been open on a Saturday, but I *am* an antique. I do enjoy going into
the shops, particularly the one where I have to put my hands on the
steps to get up the stairs (the buildings are antiques too), but only
when I'm already there.

So I settled for a loop around Sprawlmart. Pleasant shopping, but it
didn't increase my miles.

I think I'll go punch the details into
http://www.wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/CENT2016/INDEX.HTM


--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.
  #379  
Old March 6th 16, 05:48 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Joy Beeson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,638
Default AG: Carrying paper


When you are carrying reproduction copies, cut two sheets of
corrugated cardboard a little larger than the sheets of paper, with
the corrugations in one sheet at right angles to the corrugations in
the other. Put the paper between the cardboards and secure them with
rubber bands or a tight envelope.

Wrap the package in a plastic bag, then put that package into a second
bag, and put that package into a third bag. It doesn't matter whether
it looks like rain; the less likely you are to get rained on, the more
likely you are to get sprinklered or puddled.

If the third bag is wet, you are definitely going to get water on the
second bag, but so little that you can probably get it off without
getting water on the first bag, therefore the first bag can't get your
paper wet.

If you are careful.

It always struck me that the copies were priceless on the way to the
print shop, and worthless on the way home.


--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

  #380  
Old March 10th 16, 03:01 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Joy Beeson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,638
Default AG: Hand-knit bicycle gloves.

On Sun, 21 Feb 2016 15:02:19 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

If I were to design and make an item of clothing, I think it would be a
lightweight windbreaker. I'd like an array of certain special pockets
opening in certain ways, a built-in concealable hood, hidden sleeve
extensions to act as sort-of-mittens when needed, some reflectivity,
plenty of sweat vents, self-storage in a built-in pocket or pouch, etc.
I've never found one on the market that provides exactly what I'd like.


All I wanted in a windbreaker was pockets that opened by pulling the
zipper down, so that I wouldn't have to use both hands to open the
pocket, and so the inevitable leak would be at the top of the pocket
where a pencil couldn't worm its way out. I'd have also liked to be
able to stuff the windbreaker into one of the pockets, but that wasn't
a dealbreaker the way preventing me from getting at my handkerchief
was.

The market refused to provide.

When it came time to design my own windbreaker, I had the additional
problem of allowing access to my jersey pockets.

When my ratty old wind shell got too small around the hips -- it was,
of course, designed to fit a man, and in addition didn't allow for
carrying stuff in jersey pockets, so it was pretty tight to begin with
and getting too small to use didn't take much weight gain -- I opened
the side seams and hemmed them. The slits in the sides didn't harm
the function in the least, and when I wanted my Halt or my
handkerchief, I could just slide the appropriate hand back and it
would slide under the back apron straight into the pocket.

So I figured that when I got around to making a new windbreaker, I'd
design it with side slits. This took so long that I bought yellow
nylon for it twice, having forgotten that I had already bought some
the second time that I stumbled across suitable fabric. Which meant
that twenty or thirty years ago, after I catered a night fire dressed
all in black, I could make myself a yellow poncho without giving up
hope of making a windbreaker. I've long since left the Auxiliary, but
still carry the yellow poncho, which folds down to nothing, among the
emergency supplies in the back seat of the car.

But when I finally got around to making the windbreaker, I had a
better idea:

http://wlweather.net/PAGESEW/BLOG2XVI/BAC93_6h.JPG
same shot at absurd resolution:
http://wlweather.net/PAGESEW/BLOG2XVI/BACK_93.JPG

This was partly because it was a beta for my wool overjersey.

http://wlweather.net/PAGESEW/BLOG1XVI/SL9VE_6h.JPG

The beta failed to reveal that the waist was three inches too low. So
now I'm keeping an eye out for yellow flannel; I could use a second
overjersey of lighter weight.

--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.
 




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