One Way to Lower Your Bike's Gearing

overheard in a bike shop



Customer, returning from a test ride: "I love the bike! But it feels like there are not enough low gears? What is the best way to get easier gears?"



Salesperson: "Oh, well you need to ride the bike for several weeks for the gears to wear in. They should feel lower after that than they do now. If not, you can bring the bike back and we'll get you lower gears. But they usually wear in."



I almost laughed out loud, but I have to say I agree. The gearing on all of my bikes feels lower now than it did when I first got them. The gears have worn in so nicely! If you opt for this method though, be mindful that if you neglect the bike and stop riding it for a while, the gears will stiffen up and feel higher again the next time you get in the saddle. The fun facts of bike ownership.

Passing Clouds on Bishop Peak

A Cloud Drifts By, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

The Sun was setting as I hiked down Bishop Peak on Saturday, and the fast-moving storm clouds lit up in bright colors for a few short minutes before twilight began. A long exposure shows some of the motion in these clouds. Those boulders are the summit rocks of Bishop Peak, and the true summit is inaccessible without climbing gear.

Welding and Brazing: a Visual

When I wrote about fillet brazing (a lugless form of brazing) earlier, some wanted to know what was the difference between that process and welding. The quick and simplified answer is like this: welding involves heating up and joining two pieces of metal to one another directly; brazing involves using another material (one with a lower melting point) to join them, sort of like a hot glue. Last week I photographed an unpainted frame made for Josh of Bike Safe Boston that shows the two methods alongside.






Here is a shot of the underside of the frame, by the bottom bracket area. On the right is a welded kickstand plate, and next to it on the left are two little braze-ons that are (I think) cable guides. Notice the pools of golden liquid (melted brass) that surround the braze-ons, but not the welded plate. Instead, the welded plate and the chainstays it is attached to are a sort of rainbow colour, from the weld pool that is formed when joining the two pieces.






Similarly, here you can see that the seat cluster joint is welded (weld pool rainbow), but the little rack attachment point on the chainstay is brazed on (brassy border).






My description is simplistic and leaves a great deal out, but it's an easy visual for a layperson to identify brazing vs welding on a "raw" or unpainted frame. I love the colourful look the juxtaposition of both techniques creates on this one - built by Ted Wojcik and designed by DBC City Bikes. More pictures here.

Another critical look at Ice tools and Umbilicals

Ally Swinton climbing. Photo courtesy of Dave Searle




I get the, "which ice tool and whichumbilical," question at least a couple of timesa week.



My 2 cent on the subject.



It is ridiculous, silly really. As in dumb, dumb and dumber.



Not the question or those asking, but the guys building this stuff.



Like crampons there needs to be a norm in the industry. Best system yet I have seen? An incidentally themost fail proof system to date?



Petzl Nomic (or Ergo) with a Blue Ice Boa leash. And I have climbed on most everything available. From 30+ year old home made umbilicals to the first Grivel clip on versions to the latest versions from Grivel and BD.



Here is why I think the Nomic/ Boa comboshould and could be the norm if the manufactures would simply *think* about the process for a minute. Huge disserviceto us not to IMO.



Hole in handle and full strength? Easy to do in any axe during production. Check

Eliminates any issues with dropped/disconnected biners. Check

Easy and quick on and off the tools. Seconds in fact.Check

As strong andas simple as you want to make the nylon. Check

Cheap to manufacture.Check



Grivel made the first commerical umbilicals I am aware of. At some point early onthey offered a wire gate biner with a really stiff gate as the attachment method. Wire gate biners will not reliably stay attached to a fixed clip in point on a tool Theywill eventually unlatch and lever off. Common occurance now.



Grivel solved the problem quickly by addinga locking screw gate biner instead of the wire gate.

BD simplycopied the earlier and faulty Grivel system. Prone to failure from day one. Stiffening the wire gate is not the answer. Just a band aid actually.



I know of one fatal fall ice climbing last season whereumbilicals were in use. I've been told that on inspection after the fall one tool had disconnected entirely from the tool and bothgates on the umbilicals were on the wrong side of the biner gate opening.



One has to wonder if a more reliableattachmentsystemmight haveresulted in a shorter,more controlledinitial fall, with less tramaticresults.



The current commercial umbilicals are not designedto hold a leader fall. But everyone knows that is how they are being used. And have been now for decades. Insurance for the leader to avoid apotential fall and security so a tool isn't dropped.



Easy to solve this problem on any tool with a little redesign of the shaft. Easy to up the strength on the umbilicals by ditching the "biner" of any sort and building from a better and stronger webbing. There is a lot of room for improvement here with both the tool attachment point and the umbilicals themselves.



I've climbed on almost every modern tool. And on every commercial umbilical since the early preproduction and production modelsfrom both Grivel and Black Diamond.With the resulting minor failures as the umbilicals snapped off mid route on many of those combos. It is just happen stance that I like the Nomic and have used he Blue Ice Boa leash. I didn't plan this. It was a first time ice climber (thanks Jim) that showed me a better and cleaner way to lash up the Nomic with a BOA leash. Not the techniqueI was originally using



But there are lots of ways to do this and several decadesofhistory behind it:



http://coldthistle.blogspot.com//03/boa-leash-by-blue-ice.html



http://coldthistle.blogspot.com//01/ice-tool-umbilicals-repost.html



http://coldthistle.blogspot.com//01/umbilicalssomething-to-think-about-and.html



http://coldthistle.blogspot.com//02/curious-case-of-commercial-umbilical.html



http://coldthistle.blogspot.com//04/bd-testswarning-on-umbilicals.html



http://www.summitpost.org/phpBB3/tethers-t59130.html



Then there is the "Best" way.



This is not an endorsement of "just" the Nomic or "just" the Boa leash. It is only a statement onan "easy fix". This is the umbilical style that will works well on that particular style attachment point. It is so simple. Why isn't everyone doing it?













the initial loop in the umbilical leash and a full strength hole milled through thehandle of a Nomic







Webbing flattened and threaded through hole, very easy







Same picture different angle, seconds are all that is required here







Pull the loop through and spread it







Turn the loop back and circle the handle just below the hole







Pull the long side of the leash snug...you are done. This tool is set up for a right hand to keep the webbing bulk to a minimum







"Right hand" toolagain, showing the "smooth" side of the Umbilical that the palm of your hand would go in.







This shows the "bulk" side of the tool. Not all that bulky, really.












Easy on and off in just seconds even after being fully weighted.


Blue Ice Boa leash is currently sold out world wide. Check your dealer's shelf in the EU.

None in North America at the moment.



Seriously, Icouldn't make this stuff up! (Thanks Charlie)

Check out the video below:



http://www.youtube.com/embed/pYr1DVtWujM

Bottlebrush buckeye

If I had a totem tree, this would be it.

When had our first glimpse of the land we now live on, it was the Bottlebrush Buckeye (Aesculus parviflora) that made my heart go pitter-patter. The view of the beautiful white blooms cascading over the creek bank was what initially caused me to think, "We should live here."

The Bottlebrush (technically more of a totem shrub, I suppose) is one of those plants that are "rare but locally abundant". And yet it will grow almost anywhere. It's not that picky about soil type, sun/shade considerations, etc.

Weather conditions have not been ideal for the garden this year, but the Buckeyes sure have loved it... though now past their peak, the blooms have been amazing.



They're not known for setting a lot of seed. But with the profusion of blooms this year, I'm hopeful.

Solstice!

Soon the longest day of the year will be upon us. For climbers this is significant not only because there are a lot of festivals, parties and music happenings throughout the area, but also because this is the time of the year when the long daylight hours allow us to climb headlamp free for many, many hours.



This year the actual Solstice is on June 20 at 23:09, however its effects will be noticed for a much longer period of time and are in fact currently being observed. Since the 20th is a weekday you can actually make it to the Fremont Fair and the associated parties going on this weekend, get down, recover and STILL get out in the wilderness or wherever else you enjoy being for the actual day of Solstice. (Just assuming wilderness is your thing since this is a blog about climbing Mount Rainier.)



The forecast for the upcoming week looks like a mixed bag with some sun and clouds, but no major storm events are on the horizon. Hopefully we are done with those for a while. Climbers have recently been summitting via all the standard routes, so check out the updates for the DC, Emmons, and Liberty Ridge among others. Don't forget your sunblock and stay hydrated out there!

Ed Cooper on Deltaform!

Many of the current generation of climbers may not know the name. But you should! Ed Cooper was climbing things years ago that many of us still aspire to today. He was likely there first either taking pictures or climbing some thing that most have not seen in North America yet unless you have gotten off the beaten track. FromDenali andEl Cap in the 50s to the "black hole" on the other side of the Canadian Icefields in the '60s. I am honored to present Ed's commentsand photos of Deltaform here on the blog. What a treasure, enjoy!





Interview with Ed here:

http://www.7photographyquestions.com//01/p35-show-notes-for-mountain-photography----an-interview-with.html

His website is here:http://www.edcooper.com/mountains1.html

Make sure you dbl click on the wonderful photos!

Ed's comments,

"I wouldn't describe Deltaform Mountain as an especially beautiful or aesthetic peak, but it is certainly an awesome mountain with a raw savage feel to it. It makes a great photographic study. Attached are several views of it, some with nearby peaks.They were all taken with a 4x5 view camera except for the view from the top of Mt. Lefroy, which was taken with a 2 ¼ x2 ¼ square folding camera. Low-res images are

included here, but the original scans are close to 300 megabytes each, enough to blow the images up to 30x40 inches and still maintain 300 dpi. Considerable restorative work was required on all the images, as over time the colors had faded, and fungal spots had appeared on the film emulsion."





"The north face has made my anti-bucket list; that is, I've added it to places I would rather not be. I have recalled two interesting anecdotes about this area."







"About the time the images taken in 1971, there was a fatal accident in the couloirs between Peaks 2 & 3 of the Valley of Ten Peaks. A climber was killed by a falling rock careening down the couloirs while he was ascending toward the Neil Cogan Hut located between Peaks 2 & 3. Sometime later, I happened to run across a climber that I knew, and he was very surprised to see me. He said, "I thought you were killed in the Valley of Ten Peaks area". It turns out that the climber that was killed had the last name of Cooper."







"The photo taken from the top of Mt. Lefroy has an interesting history behind it. It was the only time in my life that I have had a powerful premonition about a climb. This was a period in my life where I was exploring my inner self, with periods of intense meditation. In Augustof 1971, I met up with and joined a group of 5 other climbers to climb Mt. Lefroy.



We approached the Abbot Pass Hut via the "Death Trap". The next morning we headed out and traversed out below Mt. Lefroy, The unofficial leader of the group pointed up a snow slope that led directly to the summit with no interruption by rocks. He indicated that that was the route.



One look at it and I had an immediate foreboding and knew that I couldn't go that way. I expressed my feeling to the group, and one of them agreed to go with me up another route, close to rocks, to the right of the other climbers.



As we proceeded upward, we noticed snow conditions deteriorating rapidly due to the warm sun. Snow was starting to slough off and slide. We stayed as close to the rocks as possible and actually climbed on them where feasible. It was during this time that we heard some commotion and shouts off to our left, where the other climbers were. Once we had reached a perch where we could look to the left, we saw the other

four climbers near the base of the climb. It was obvious they had been caught in an avalanche.



There was nothing we could do at this point, as it was too dangerous to descend even the route we were ascending. At least two of the climbers were moving around, so we knew that they, at least, would be able to get back to the hut at Abbot Pass and call for help.



To make a long story short, we reached the summit (where I took the picture) and then proceeded eastward over unknown terrain to find our way down. We weren't prepared to follow a new route, and we wound up traversing many ledges below cliff faces in an attempt to get back to the hut. We had to rappel a few times. At some point we were aware of helicopter noise, which came in to rescue the most severely injured of the climbers.



We arrived back at the hut just as darkness was closing in, thankful that we had chosen a different route!"