Notices by Emily Velasco (mle_online@social.afront.org), page 20

It's a law that cats are required to help you when you're sewing

Trouble has become double

I found a Heathkit kit radio at the thrift store today. It's got tubes. They want $26 though so I'm not buying it

A US army record player

Huh. This is a very old kit that someone never assembled. All the insides are missing

What was up with prog rock anyway? Why was it always being so odd?

Jeans-brand jeans

I don't know if this is old or pretending to be old

@thomasfuchs I've succeeded, like, maybe once, I think.

People who sell stuff on offerup are even flakier than people who sell stuff on craigslist, and being flakier than craiglist people is a real achievement

I often think about how much free water there is in the form of air conditioner condensate and how it is basically always just wasted

I think I'm going to try something a bit extreme to salvage this bike build. The steering geometry is all wrong, but if the fork had more offset, it would fix that. It's a steel fork and I have an angle grinder and a welder. So, I think it's time to try crossing the Rubicon here.

Before I go cutting this bike up willy nilly, I'm trying to get a good understanding of bike steering geometry. It's more confusing than I expected it would be. You have to consider the head tube angle, the offset/rake, and the wheel diameter. The combination of those give you the trail, which is the distance between the where the steering axis would touch the ground if it were projected and the patch where the tire actually touches the ground. They also create wheel flop, which is the tendency for the wheel to flop to one side or the other (which this bike currently has way too much of)

From these ugly diagrams I mocked up, I think that straightening the forks out (reducing the offset/rake) would both increase the trail and reduce the wheel flop, which would be good for me! But I'm not yet confident in my understanding of all this.

on the other hand, if i give the fork more rake, it will decrease the trail and increase the wheel flop, but it would also force the bike to rise when turning, which the bike will resist because of gravity.

It's all very complicated!

There's no turning back now!

Welded

Grinded

Filed and sanded. I think it's gonna work!

I want to ride it, but i had to take the chain off yesterday and I don't remember where I put the chain tool, so I can only use it like a dandy horse for now