Art in motion

Very cool...

Jerome murat
Uploaded by rockette

winter biking - moving stuff

Last week we got a dump of snow that finally looks like it's going to stay. So winter arrives in mid-January...

And so Kyoto is finally put into hibernation, and I still have to get my drums to gigs. When the weather is unpleasant, or I've got just too far to go (or too much stuff to bring) I have to rely on others with motor vehicles. But for those times when I can do it by bike I use a trailer, which my jazz kit just fits into. This trailer was built by me for my friend Bridget, and since she doesn't use it in winter she has kindy loaned it back to me (in the Spring I'll give the wheels a bearing overhaul as thanks).

Towing a load like this is why I run a 7-speed internal hub on my winter bike, and not a single! And while I can get up to a quick speed on flat terrain, the load is heavy enough that emergency braking gets challenging, and who needs that kind of fun on winter roads? So steady as she goes and I get there eventually...

Like I said, the kit just fits in the box.

Art! Pt. 2

Our family is quite scattered about, so at Xmas time we don't always see each other, and often have a get-together just after New Years. My older bother Jon and his two teenage daughters Marianne and Rebecca came to Ottawa, and since the ongoing warm winter precluded doing the usual fun things like skating on the Rideau Canal, we opted for a visit to the National Gallery. Now, Jon's girls are lucky in having some really cool uncles (according to them!), and being a Cool Uncle I thought they might find a trip to the Gallery to be a bit boring, but they enjoyed it!

The one thing I needed to photograph there was the giant Baby Head. This is one weird piece of work, but very well done. It's mainly made of latex, and the eye lashes and brows are made of stiff wire, and the hairs were all installed piece by piece. I took two photos, one with the flash, one without.



It sits in the room by itself, and is now one of my fave pieces of art. The next one took me a moment to figure out, and then I realized it's a pile of bicycles!


The girls continue the family tradition of making faces:


(Of course, Marianne may kill me for posting this. hehe)

After the gallery it was back to Mike and Jane's for dinner, where I learned how to make sushi! It all came out quite nicely, and tasted great.


And Xmas cookies, ice cream, and sliced nanaimo bars for dessert! (my sweet tooth is genetic).


And I have a new fave photo of moi, taken by Mike after our Xmas day road hockey game:


We'll call this the Curmudgeon Look. Not bad, eh?

Xmas triking

By December 25th the trike is normally in winter storage. The deleterious effects of road salt on the frame, parts, and electricals, not to mention just sliding around on slushy, icy streets, makes me put the machine into hibernation. But not this year! At least, not so far... We've been seeing continuous daily temps above freezing, where they should be 4 or 5C below. So there's been almost no road salt put down, and so with bare roads I thought why not trike over to my brother's place for Xmas? While I had presents and hockey sticks to bring, I didn't really need the trike, but heck, I rode it because I could. ;)

I only had a few presents to bring, but I put them in a spare Blue Box and wrapped that up to resemble one large gift, just so it looked more impressive in the cargo box (the big sheet of paper was later cut up and recycled for future gift-wrapping). Along the way I got some waves and calls of "Merry Christmas". The Santa hat probably helped... And if you want really quiet roads for cycling, Christmas Day is one of the best ones for that.


Hockey sticks were needed for the family's traditional Xmas Day road hockey game. Though it wasn't part of the trike's design, the sticks do fit quite nicely in the cargo box.


By the time I headed back home, snow was falling and the trike got a rare taste of the white stuff. And snow can really pile up on you when you're riding in a reclined position! Below, trike tracks, already getting covered over five minutes after getting home.


And of course Jett was waiting to greet me. The snow slowly accumulating on his back doesn't bother him one bit.

Another legend gone...

Dutch Mason, the Prime Minister of the Blues, and a true Canadian legend, died yesterday at the age of 68. Back '94 I did a summer tour of Ontario and Quebec with Dutchie (as part of the Drew Nelson Band), and he was a great guy to work with. And any time he came to town and I went to say Hi he remembered me and we had some great talks. He always made me laugh...

CBC obituary

Dutch in '93, with Brian Magner on sax.

Dutchie, with Drew Nelson, at the Ottawa BlueFest in 2005.
(Both photos courtesy of Drew Nelson)

RIP, Dutchie - you showed so many of us how to play the Blues.

Bike funnies

Time to post a few fun bike-related pics.

On a cycling newsgroup there have been posts regarding squirrels getting caught in front wheels and causing accidents. Then the pics of other bike-beast encounters started coming in. The little guys below are quokkas.




Next up, one way to keep your butt warm during cold weather rides:


And if you want to make a tall-bike, this is probably the most basic way to do it. Though it looks like it might be rather flexy...


And finally, because I need to put this somewhere: crazy cats!

ATWAS (all the world's a stage) #3

Well, it WAS winter for a little while, but right now it feels more like early November here in Ottawa, as the temps are above normal. Yesterday it was 8C, well above the average of -3C.

And yesterday the Steve Berndt Quartet had a noon-hour gig downtown at the Clarica Centre. The centre features live music every Wednesday, and I do this gig every couple of months. It's another reason that Kyoto works so well, because I can cycle right up to the door of the building and unload.


(Kyoto gets put away for winter hibernation once the roads get salted, but they received only a light dusting with that freezing rain we had, and regular rain has since washed most of it away.)

The gig takes place in the atrium of the centre that joins the two office towers together. There is a raised area with seating, and we just set up in one corner and play to the folks eating their lunch.


One feature is a waterfall that sensibly turns off right a noon so people can hear the music. It comes on automatically at 1:00pm, so if you're still playing that rippling noise is not the sound of mass applause...


The other feature is the presence of trees on the raised area. One of which is in the middle of where we set up. So this is my view of our bassist:


Just like my summer gig at the Metropolitan, I get leaves dropping on my kit...

Festive Cycling

Last Sunday the weather was above zero C, and since Tanya the crazybikerchick was visiting again we thought it'd be fun to got for a bike ride after HPVOoO's ritual Sunday dinner. RGB had some inverters, so with these new low-current LED Xmas lights and some 12-volt batteries we could dress up our bikes and ride for hours! Tanya and I rode the CCM tandem, outfitted with a string of blue lights, powered by Kyoto's battery. Tanya models the bike...


And here we are (only five of us went riding) at the foot of the Peace Tower of the Parliament Buildings:


Note Charles wearing the bowling pin helmet, created by Mike Watson.

I put my little Canon camera into video mode, and took some footage while we were stopped here, and then Tanya took more after we arrived in front of the Prime Minister's residence at 24 Sussex Drive (which is across the street from the Governor-General's residence at Rideau Hall). A few years ago a roundabout was built there, so we decided to ride in circles and see if we could draw the RCMP out of their gate-house. But they wisely ignored us...

You can see the video here, and Richard took photos as well.

It is winter (Part 2)

Since I was heading to the re-Cycles shop to get my winter bike ready, there were some donations to pick up and deliver to the shop as well. First stop, RGB's place:


As you can see, the bike received a nice helping of winter moisture...


Then on to RealGrouchy's, were a decent old road bike was waiting. This next photo shows Kyoto loaded with these two bikes, plus one I had, some assorted wheels, and my winter bike.



One lesson I learned - when you think you put your winter bike away properly, check again! I thought I had cleaned the chain, etc. last Spring, but the rusty brown coating told me otherwise. But it was still flexible, so I took a wire brush and scrubbed all four sides, then gave a liberal application of motor oil. The chain is now just fine, and given that it operates an internally-geared hub, the chainline stays straight and so no extra wear on it.

It is winter...

... here in Ottawa, on the first day of December. We have a thin layer of snow, topped with a lovely coating freezing rain, and high winds. Yuck. Glad I'm not commuting by bike, but some of my friends have to...

Looking into the back yard, with 1-speed bike and trailer getting covered.



Front porch, and hybrid bike:



The front yard cedar and apple trees are getting coated with ice:


I had planned to take my winter bike to the re-Cycles shop on Sunday afternoon (fun when you have your own keys) and make sure it's ready for the seasonal weather. Looks like that idea is a few days late...

trailer failure!

(try saying that title five times quickly!)

So after seven years of 4-season cycling I had the trailer fall apart!

I was on my way to my regular dance class accompaniment gig, which meant the trailer had about $500 worth of gear in it. I was crossing an intersection, heard a noise, and looked back to see the trailer skidding across the road! Looking down I saw that the hitch arm was still attached to the bike, and had snapped off right where it bolts to the other frame tube. I was very lucky, in that no cars were approaching, and the trailer just slid to a halt against the sidewalk. If a car had smashed into it there would have been a real mess, financially and otherwise...

So there I was with a problem!


I still had to get to that class, and had to figure how to get the trailer hooked back up again. I pulled it as close to the bike as I could, and pulled the hitch arm over the end stubs of the frame and wrapped it up with bungee cords. It took four separate tries to get the bungees tight enough to keep that connection from moving, because if it did move then the trailer would pull sideways into the side of the rear wheel. Not fun... But I did finally get it together, and was able to get to the gig, 20 minutes late. Pedaling too quickly or going downhill meant the trailer started to wobble, which was no fun at all, so a steady pace was needed.

Once back home I had to make a proper repair, and this was done by sleeving a section of 1" conduit over the broken 3/4" pieces, and drilling and bolting through. Not pretty, but the only other option was replacing that entire side tube, and that would've also meant having to drill and remount the axle plates, as well as the rear mount for the inner wheel housing tube. No thanks! ;)



One thing I did do was rectify an oversight in the original build. The other tube that parallels the hitch arm crushed a bit when it was first bolted, because its end was open with nothing inside to keep it round. In the larger cargo trailer I built I used a piece of dowel, but having none this time I used a sawed-off piece of drumstick! Not a perfect fit, but it'll keep the pipe from getting worse. And I'll also cover the sleeve openings with electrical tape to help keep moisture out. The trailer now runs as smoothly as it did before.

a pilgrimage to the Guru (of crazybiking)

aka "drumbent visits the crazybikerchick". ;)

Crazybikerchick is the name of a very popular blog written by Tanya, a Toronto-based cyclist. It's so popular that Toronto's Now Magazine recently voted it "Best Personal Blog"! I don't know how many websites and blogs I've come across that link to hers, but suffice to say that she has struck a positive chord with cyclists from all over. She reports on her experiences of biking around the city, challenging herself to do her first century ride, and even a 200km randonneuring event! There are also updates on her knitting projects, as well as tales (tails?) of her two cats, Princess and Abby. I can't recall how I originally found her blog, but after reading a few posts, especially the one about renting a large bike trailer to bring stuff home from Ikea, I knew I had found a kindred spirit!

Turns out the cycling circles she travelled in included my friends Vic and Jen in Toronto, and after some comments made on each other's blog posts, and a few emails back and forth we got to know each other a bit. This past weekend I had to go to Toronto for some family matters, so Tanya and I thought it would be fun to finally meet in person.

The plan was to help her with some bike repair, since she had mentioned that she had been struggling with re-padding the canti brakes on her old hybrid. And if we had time we also hoped to get into creating some Bike Art. Alas, setting up those old post-style brakes is indeed a pain, especially when the only wrench available was a small adjustable one! (I had brought my Topeak multi-tool, but it does not have sockets or wrenches.) So it took far too long, and once done we used those nicely adjusted brakes to act as guides in truing the rear wheel. Well, after much futzing about I realized the rim had taken a hit at some point and was dented a bit, with no way to make it much better than it was. So, time to back off the brakes a tad, and in the end it all worked out OK.

And since so much time had been spent we realized it was getting way past dinnertime, and so we headed out for a fabbo Indian buffet. Upon returning we had a look at her Raleigh Twenty folding bike, and very nice touring bike. The Twenty is in great original shape, given its age, and just needed the headset adjusted. The touring bike was a little off in the shifting department, but I believe we got it all dialed back in OK. As soon as I got back to Ottawa I got a note from Tanya saying the hybrid's brakes worked very well indeed, and had already been put to an emergency test! After the hours of bike repair fun we decided to just sit and yak, instead of getting caught up in the Bike Art idea.

Here's Tanya, trying to stuff Abby into the handlebar bag of her tourer:

And here's Abby, getting her revenge by clawing on the tires:

and chewing on the derailer cable:

It was funny to watch Abby scratch at the tires, since Tanya had posted a comment about finding small punctures in her tubes and figuring out the culprit...

So it was very nice visit, and it looks like Tanya will be coming to Ottawa this weekend to join HPVOoO for its annual appearance in the local Santa Toy Parade, where she'll get to experience Ottawa's own crazybikerpeople! ;)

ATWAS (all the world's a stage) #2

This series would have more entries if I'd remember to bring my camera with me to the gigs!

Friday night saw the Jivewires performing across the river at La Maison de la Culture in Gatineau, Que. It's a very nice theatre, we were well received, and hope to appear there again. But yeah, no photos from moi.

Last night (Sat.) the band was at the National Arts Centre, where the Governor-General's Performing Arts Awards were taking place. Celebrities included Lorne Michaels (creator of Saturday Night Live), Robbie Roberstson (the Band), Buffy Ste. Marie, and Paul Schaffer (musical director for David Letterman) - all Canadian-born. For the fourth year in a row we played the after-show reception, when everyone comes out of the hall and into the lobby, where champagne and snacks are served. Quite a few of them feel like dancing after sitting on their butts for a few hours.


Since we had to set up in the lobby, I parked Kyoto right at the main door, beside the Red Carpet. Gotta love how the reflecto bits respond to the flash!


The friendly doorman was quite happy to hold the door for me as I made my trips, after we determined that security would probably not like me rolling the trike right inside. ;)

Setting up.

Food and drinks are put in place, and waiting musicians descend upon them. Above, Sandy, Rick, and Chris are thrilled with their morsels. We make sure to leave some for the patrons, of course!

Steve echoes my sentiments regarding the plates of pure chocolate cookies (a few of which made their way home with me. No whole plates of course, but certainly whole cookies).

At the end of the evening, Kyoto, having being locked to the nearby bike stand, is pulled over to the main doors. Straggling patrons are making their way to the waiting limos, while the drummer loads out.

I didn't take any crowd action photos, but you can get an idea of the fun from last year's pictures.

All the World's a Stage

As a working musician I find myself setting up my drums in some interesting spaces. Anywhere from jammed into a tight corner of a restaurant, to a festival stage where my drum riser is the size of my living room, and the nearest musician is 25 feet away! I thought it would be fun to take some photos of such places, so this is the first installment of "where I work", aka "all the world's a stage".

This past Saturday saw the Custums playing a fundraiser at the Aviation Musuem. This was our third year in a row for this event, and this year was special because they actually had a stage for us (last year we set up under the wing of one of the planes!). So the actual performance area was quite ordinary, but the setting was interesting with all the aircraft in close proximity. I took a few photos...

setting up the stage

a cool gyrocopter

An experimental plane. The outline on the left arm of the 'A' reads "cut here in an emergency"

a much larger 'copter, with rear view into the interior

This was on a smaller one. I'll bet you learn to duck... :P

Speaking of ducking, this is the wing we played under last year.

This tiny thing was the first production rocket-powered plane. Apparently they had a nasty tendency of blowing up upon take-off or landing.

Happy to set up in front of a Canadian classic