Tootfinder

Whew! Mistakes were made, but I got the dashboard of the Beat Bike put together. I can now pedal to set the tempo while I live program the drum machine. (No video of programming yet because I had to hold the phone up high!)
#bikeTooter #diy

Having not written anything about my #tricycle project in months, I've now written two posts in two days. Here's the first:
#BikeTooter
Rethinking the tricycle drive train

Rethinking the tricycle drive train
I've been rereading my posts on design of a tricycle, and especially this one; and I've been looking again at this picture, of Seventy Seven's removable front subframe which carries its front wheel, steering, and transmission systems; and I've been thinking. This will be a short post documenting my thoughts.

I've seen people attach pool noodles to their bikes in order to ensure that car drivers pass them within a safe (and often legally-required) distance.. But I think I prefer this person's prybar attachment. 🫡
#BikeTooter

#biketooter #ontario #complain

Also... why!?! Well, I like to make weird stuff.
I plan to take this to Maker Faire Milwaukee... and maybe ride it around the neighborhood!?
And I gotta say, pedaling while programming a drum machine is a trip. I used to do it just sitting at a desk but hey, exercise while making beats? It's a win-win!
#bikeTooter

Crazy Rocketman: JET POWERED BIKE vs E-BIKE RACE !
#biketooter

Technically I got this bike last month (August 31st) but I just hit 300 miles during a lunch time ride at work.
I'll add another 6 miles getting home just to make it legit 300 miles this month.
The best thing about this ebike is that I can ride and ride and ride and my 55 year old bum knee doesn't make me pay for it later.
#bikeTooter

my wife made up a bike joke.
Q: "why did [the professor] ride her bike with loose brakes?"
A: "it never stopped her before!"
(so i tightened up her brake cables) #BikeTooter

I helped the local alpine club with some filming today in the mountains. Followed by some trail marking.
Came home and did a nice bike ride.
I'll try to cut the film stuff later.
#cycling #BikeTooter

It's "bring a medium sized box to work day" again...
#bikeTooter #ebikes

Burlington publishes a PDF of both sides of the foldable cycling route map (same one given away at community centres and street events) - it was last updated in 2022.
* #BikeTooter #OnPoli

I started biking to work in August and it's now the end of November and I've done it 50 times in those 4 months.
That's 50 days I rode a bike instead of driving a car... about 650 miles by bike instead of car.
#bikeTooter #cycling

I make videos.... #biketooter #cargobike

Whooo! I should hit 300 miles on the new bike within 30 days of owning it.
#ebike #biking #bikeTooter

That's why we can't have nice things
#biketooter

I just hear a guy talking about his vintage 1987 bike build… I guess I’m vintage too… not sure how I feel about this.
#BikeTooter #vintage #bike

I wrote up another post about trying to map all my bike rides... This time I explored gpx.studio
#bikeTooter

Tired: Everyone should have a cargo bike!
Wired: Everyone should colour coordinate with their cargo bike!
#BikeTooter #Cycling #MastoBikes

I wrote about my (continuing) adventure trying to make a working MIK adapter plate for my bike...
https://rasterweb.net/raster/2025/10/26/aventon-level-3-mik-adapter-plate/

Aventon Level 3 MIK Adapter Plate
DIY quick release for some (but not all) racks...

Wuhu! Nice #afterwork #cycling. But I admit that I underestimated how quickly it is getting dark already.
But it felt sooo good to get on the bike.
#BikeTooter

We broke a pin in a chain link on a bike ride today. Never had that happen before. The chain was getting kinda old so it'll probably be replaced (not patched/shortened).
#BikeTooter

Stop passing me at
The light. I ride faster, you
Know. I'll pass again.
#haiku #BikeTooter

I haven't actually written a new blog post about the #Tricycle project, but I have greatly amended and extended the last one.
#BikeTooter

Pan Yay! Got the Ortleib panniers and wow are they nice. Bonus that my backpack fits nicely in one of them.
#biking #bikeTooter

Drum & Bass on the Bike Barcelona
Very nice
#DrumAndBassOnABike #biketooter #Barcelona

Heading to another ghost ride today, to pay respects to another fallen cyclist.
Today we honour David Alexander Wilson Niblett.
#biketooter #ghostride #ghostbike #memorial #oakville

Part of the bike lane "slalom course" on Hampton Avenue on my ride to work...
The freeway entrance ahead is closed but honestly I don't know what good putting these in the bike lane does besides get in my way.
#biking #bikeTooter

I had to switch to the milk crate on the back of the bike today to deliver a large package at work, so no "bike light box" today, but I also need to not do a long ride after work as sunset is at 5:56pm today.
Maybe I'll rig up a temporary bike light at work... we've got all the parts!
(I did fix the bike light box but it's at home.)
#bikeTooter

Couple of pics from yesterday’s Purbeck ride. Really enjoyed the morning shower dodging. Must get the mountain bike out more often
#cycling #bike #biketooter

I've just bought test materials to evaluate the relative strengths of a flax/balsa sandwich composite versus a carbon/Nomex (aramid) sandwich composite.
Yes, I know the carbon/Nomex will be stronger, but would the flax/balsa be strong enough for my #Tricycle project?
#BikeTooter

Structured training outside is stupid.
#biketooter

Would you ride this?
#BikeTooter #bike #vintage

Did a front-wheel slide on leaves week before last, and DIDN'T FALL DOWN. I think this is what "experience" looks like, and wow, am I grateful for it. Doesn't even look like much on the video. #biketooter #bikes

Um, sir, I think there's something wrong with the way you've laced your wheel spokes?
#BikeTooter

I made some progress modeling a NeoPixel bike light I've been working on...
#3DPrinting #bikeTooter

How do people record images for Mapillary while on a bicycle? GoPro stuck to a helmet? Is that stable enough? Does something in the pipeline do post-processing to correct for camera tilt?
#biketooter #mapillary #camera

SPAIN, DID YOU THINK THAT WAS IT?!
Drum & Bass On The Bike heads to MADRID this SUNDAY 26TH OCTOBER starting at 14:00HRS from PLAZA CIBELES, Centro, 28014 Madrid.
#Madrid #DrumAndBassOnTheBike #biketooter

This looks pretty cool...
"What Rides at Night: Queer, Feminist, Fantastical Bicycle Halloween Stories"
#bikeTooter

What Rides at Night: Queer, Feminist, Fantastical Bicycle Halloween Stories
When the veil thins, the bicycle revolution rises. Thirteen new, original, spooky stories for the thirteenth volume in the series!  Gather ‘round,...

"Young boy cycling alone near traffic in Dundee identified"
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c986ylmjr21o
> Members of the public contacted police after seeing the child riding without a helmet near traffic

One thing I wasn't ready for on the bike commute was the bugs. Riding next to the river in summer is wonderful, but now when I head home the bugs are out, and they are tiny little bastards that fly into my face and my arms and get stuck on me. I do not love it. Hoping this works.
#biking #bikeTooter

The first actual physical part for my #Tricycle project has arrived today. This is an axle — actually a Cannondale Lefty axle — and it's nominally the front axle, although it doesn't really matter which axle it ends up being because they will all be identical.
#BikeTooter

It would have been some great weather for a day in the mountains. But I decided that I wanted a very relaxed day with reading on the couch.
After lunch I thought that I should really utilise this wonderful weather, even though It took me quite some mental effort to get out.
But it was worth riding a little loop in the neighbourhood.
#BikeTooter

Milwaukee County posted this photo of a repaving project with the text:
"The roadway now includes on-street accommodations for bicyclists"
They are getting absolutely roasted by cyclists in the comments.
#cycling #bikeTooter

The landscape here would look super different if people drew cycling highways on the map first, and then tried to fit automobile routes around/over them.
#BikeTooter #bikeon #onpoli

I haven't seen these in person yet but I guess these are at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center.
#bikeTooter #mke #milwaukee

If anyone's been following my progress on the #tricycle project, I'm currently drooling over the very adjustable recumbent ergonomic rig shown in this video. I'm wondering whether I can make myself something even nearly this adjustable!
#BikeTooter

Drum & Bass On The Bike heads to the BARCELONA this SUNDAY 19TH OCTOBER starting at 14:00HRS from ARC DE TRIOMF, Ciutat Vella, 08003 - Barcelona.
#barcelona #biketooter #cycling

I made a pretty terrible video of my bike all lit up on the Oak Leaf Trail last night... This is in a spot down by the river where there is no light at all. By 5pm it's pitch dark out.
#bikeTooter

Today's ride to work... I had to stop and adjust my DIY pannier bag and it's not great. (I forgot to attach the bungee that also locks in the hooks.) I may look at getting some Ortleibs since everyone seems to love those.
#biking #bikeTooter

Well, a little success, a little failure.
The box with a NeoPixel matrix on the back and a USB battery inside (and a microcontroller) works great!
But I did not bungee it to the bike rack so it flew off, hit the road, the lid broke off, and the MIK adapter also broke.
I bungee corded it into place and it's good now... but the box is busted so I'll have to come up with another solution.

I cannot tell you how many squirrels have run out in front of me while biking this week, but the number is greater than 3 and it's only Wednesday.
Have you ever hit a squirrel or other animal on your bike?
#bikeTooter #biking

Bike Stats for mid-October... It's starting to get a little dark out when I bike home from work... may need to up my lighting game a bit.
#bikeTooter

I left a little early this morning and took a more relaxed ride to work and still had time to get an extra mile.
I may try to get in a few extra miles on the way home as well.
#bikeTooter

Do you ride your bike outdoors in the winter?
#bikeTooter #cycling

Burlington's no-drop all-ages community bike rides with city councillors are back! Next one is November 8th; @…
#BurlOn #BikeTooter

Ohh, bikerouter.de is super cool!
#biking #bikeTooter

bikerouter.de
▶ Der wahrscheinlich beste Fahrrad-Routenplaner der Welt! Kostenlos und datenschutzfreundlich. Gravel, Rennrad, MTB, City, Long Distance, Trekking uvm.

I rode the acoustic Trek today, over in the cemetery. It was warm at 65°F but super windy! 17mph wind with gusts up to 22mph made it a challenge… got just over 5 miles before calling it quits.
#bikeTooter

Today's "how not to lock up your bike" photo... (And yes, the seat got stolen, though the bike did not!)
#bikeTooter

When is your (outdoor) cycling / biking season?
#cycling #bikeTooter

My bike to work route...
#bikeTooter

Bike Commute to Work
How did I get here?

I’m not saying I’m the first person to ride the entire length of the new protected bike lane on Lisbon but there’s a good chance I am… (I had to carry my bike across a dozen gaps because it’s not all connected yet!)
#biking #bikeTooter

I wrote up a post about swapping the handlebars on my Aventon Level 3 ebike...
#bikeTooter

Aventon Level 3 Handlebar Upgrade
Getting a better grip on things...

I did a two mile bike ride this morning on this old sküle fixed gear(?) cruiser which was all I felt like doing. Pedal was wonky, not a smooth ride. Nice to get out though… the place we are staying has a bunch of bikes for use.
#bikeTooter

I got this bike 12 days ago and just hit 100 miles. If I can keep commuting to work that's about 13 miles each day of riding a bike instead of driving a car.
#biking #bikeTooter #ebike

I biked over to the giant hole in the road (caused by the flooding last month) during lunch yesterday. Still a hole.
#bikeTooter #hole

I did not make any good progress on my project to read GPX data with Python today. (Trying to read speed.) May need to just read it as XML.
There are a bunch of nerds who do Python and bikes though, so someone might have the code example I need.
#biking #bikeTooter

In today's episode of "How Not To Lock Up Your Bike"...
#bikeTooter

Since it was raining I spent some time in the garage doing a handlebar upgrade. Went with a bars that are slightly more swept back than the stock Aventon Level 3 bars. I just wanted a little more upright riding position. Pretty easy swap, took about an hour, may have lost one little tiny screw.
#bikeTooter #aventon

I am using Strava now, but only because it's a way to get my data from Apple Health to flow to other places. Right now Wandrer and Squadrats pull data from Strava, and Strava gets the original data from Apple Health. The world is complex and silly sometimes.
#bikeTooter #biking

It's crude, but I separated all my bike ride GPX files from the huge pile of files and loaded them all into gpx.studio to show where I've rode my bike in the last 20-ish months.
#biking #bikeTooter #geo

I just submitted my first request to the city to clean up a bike lane. I chose "Miscellaneous Street Maintenance" because I could not find anything that was a better fit.
#bikeTooter #mke #milwaukee

I guess I should have got a cargo bike. (Kidding!) I had to bring a few packages to work today so my DIY pannier got a test... seemed to work fine.
#biking #bikeTooter #ebike

I watched a video where someone talked about a huge snowstorm and how people started calling the city to clear the bike path and the city was like "Um, we don't clear the bike path" and I guess a bunch of cyclists were doing in on their own because the city wasn't doing it.
And then after all the requests from people, the city started doing it. 😜
#bikeTooter

Probably not news to urban cyclists but parking lots are a game changer! Places I thought I could not bike to are accessible where parking lots are all connected, or right next to each other with a bit of grass between them.
#bikeTooter #biking

I did a 21 mile bike ride today. Along the way I saw a turkey, found a good pair of scissors, discovered Hidden Lake, and stopped to see Mama Rosa at Firefly Grove Park in Wauwatosa.
#bikeTooter #biking #mke

I did a 21 mile bike ride today. Along the way I saw a turkey, found a good pair of scissors, discovered Hidden Lake, and stopped to see Mama Rosa at Firefly Grove Park in Wauwatosa.
#bikeTooter #biking #mke

Gosh, can you tell when I switched to an ebike and started riding to work?
#biking #bikeTooter #ebike

Secure bike parking at work… the ride in today was the fastest yet, despite the terrible winds! I attribute the short time to good luck in crossing busy roads and not having to wait multiple minutes to cross.
#biking #bikeTooter

I wasn’t feeling well this morning so I went into work late… still didn’t feel good after an hour so I went home. I biked both ways.
I’ve wondered how I might handle having to bike home from work if I wasn’t feeling well, but it was fine.
Did I feel great riding? No, but it wasn’t terrible either. Just gonna lie down the rest of the day.
#bikeTooter

This is every route I've take to/from work on my bike in the past three months...
Sometimes I make an effort to find roads I have not biked down and then try to hit them up so I can get more red lines on the map.
#bikeTooter #mke

I really gotta get around to installing Fittrackee one of these days...
https://docs.fittrackee.org
@…

Blah. Rain today so I did not bike to work. Not quite ready for that... I have to take the car tomorrow as well due to a doctor appointment. Hopefully I can bike on Friday!
#biking #bikeTooter

The three things that make bicycle route planning most difficult where I live is freeways, railroad tracks, and rivers.
#biking #bikeTooter

I love finding weird stuff while out cycling… this pry bar isn’t as good as the bag of cash I found once but it’s a close second!
#bikeTooter

After 15 minutes of messing around with maps I've gone from "It's impossible to get there by bike!" to "Hmm, if I avoid the super-busy roads, cut through these parking lots, take a two mile detour... I think I can get there!"
#biking #bikeTooter

First (real) ride on the new bike. So chuffed! Also, found a dollar on the way home so yeah, biking really pays off!
#biking #bikeTooter #mke

I switched to heavier shoes for the bike ride into work today... also added a hi-vis vest with a Circuit Playground Express (and lithium battery) in the pocket.
I want to try riding next Monday but it's gonna be dark and probably cold on the way home. Adding more bike lights, so we'll see how it goes.
#bikeTooter

Today’s ride for Scrappy Hour was 7 miles out and then 7 miles back! The hills killed me. 😢
#scrappyHour #biking #bikeTooter

Another win for the Ortlieb panniers. This 8"x8"x8" box is one of the things I thought might be difficult to bring to work via bike but one box just fits.
It's rare I need to transport two boxes this size but worse case I've still got the rack and could zip tie the crate onto it again.
(The other pannier holds my backpack.)
#bikeTooter

Great bike ride today! We do a group ride the last Sunday of each month. Three different groups start from different places around the city and converge on a spot and we hang out for a bit then all ride back from whence we came...
#BikeTooter #ScrappyHour

I never thought I’d be a person who wore hi-vis clothing but biking home after 5pm has me contemplating it…
#bikeTooter

Over the weekend I came close to joining these two sections of where I've ridden my bike! The square on the bottom is where the bike shop is where I got my new bike a month ago. Might be a project for next weekend.
#biking #bikeTooter

Bikes with tiny wheels always look so weird to me. (I mean weird as a 6 foot tall adult. I rode 20" BMX bikes when I was a kid.)
Do these 20" bikes feel like riding a "normal" bike? Is it weird? Is it just me?
#biking #bikeTooter

My new favorite response to "I never see anyone using the bike lane" comments:
"That's because bikes don't get stuck in traffic."
#bikeTooter

I met a guy on last weekend’s ride that said “That’s my HSA bike” and when asked what that is he said “My doctor said I’ve got pre-diabetes and needed to get more exercise so I was able to use HSA funds to get this bike” and damn that’s a heck of a hack.
#bikeTooter #cycling

I just learned about rain ponchos for cycling and... what?
#biking #bikeTooter

The view on the way to work along the Oak Leaf Trail is lovely at some spots...
(Though stopping for the photo I got attacked by bugs, which is not great.)
#biking #bikeTooter #mke

I made some progress on mapping all the GPX files of my bikes rides for 2025... though it looks like I am still getting some walking data mixed in, so I'll need to fix that.
The cemetery paths are interesting! There are two paths I guess I never rode down in 2025. Weird.
#biking #bikeTooter

No bike today because I needed the car to get to a dentists appointment so I maximized for car travel and made a bunch of stops at shops that can be a challenge to bike to...
Might make another stop or two on the way home. Basically getting all my driving done in one day so I can bike the rest of the week.
(Sadly there may be no biking this weekend either due to an out of town wedding I am attending.)

Okay! I have my cold weather gear sorted. I got clear OTG goggles, and I can remove them with one hand without my glasses going with them. Balaclava I can pull over nose and tuck under goggles. Haven’t fogged up yet. (It’s been really windy this week, but not bitterly cold yet.)
As a bonus my daughter said she’d be absolutely terrified if she saw this coming towards her on the trail at night.
#bikeTooter