Tag: puzzle

December 6th – Something today I noticed on a couple of bikes in a communal bike shed whilst locking mine up – what is it with quick release seat clamps?

For me, you find your ideal seat heat for a bike, and stick with it. Once you’ve dialled it in, there’s no need to fiddle. Unless you’re riding a folder, or a serious off road bike that requires a remote dropper that can be adjusted on the fly, I don’t understand why you’d use something so insecure, non tamperproof and pointlessly complicated on such a seldom adjusted clamp.

Can anyone enlighten me please?

November 21st – In a familiar bike shed at a client’s premises, a neat illustration that the common or garden bicycle, whilst being a marvel of engineering in many ways, is still riddled with design conflicts and the whiff of mechanical compromise.

Here, a well-used and muddy mountain bike, not a cheap one by any stretch. The lack of mud and water shielding means and mud and detritus carried on the back tyre ends up not just as a skunk-stripe on the rider’s back, but also on the front gear mechanism and transmission.

In areas of hard grit like the Peak District, this continual spray works like grinding paste, gradually eating your wearing surfaces.

All for the want of some shielding.

Still, if you were a designer today, and proposed the derailleur system of gears – relying on forcing a flimsy roller chain between gears using side play as a conformal drag factor – you’d be laughed out of industry.

Except there’s nothing much better.

August 30th – Posting letters at Darlaston Post Office, I spotted this very old metal plaque fixed to the wall above the postbox.

Think about this. Dig through the archaic legal language, and consider it. What on earth were the circumstances that were so severe this notice was required to be made in metal and fixed so prominently?

Answers on a postcard, placed in a postbox in full accordance with the bylaws please, to…

March 11th – Unusually for a Saturday, I was at work all day, and returned on a pleasant ride that started in daylight, and finished in darkness after a trip to the supermarket.

Hopping on the canal at Bentley Bridge in Darlaston Green, I noted the resurfacing of this section of towpath was well underway, and a nice job it is too – although more beneficial than the previous stretch, the towpath wasn’t that bad here and I don’t really see the point – but it is nice and I’ll use it more. 

The sweep over the derelict arm bridge near the Anson Branch rolls wonderfully and will be fun at speed.

At Pleck I was puzzled by the graffiti sprayed on the wall behind the wine warehouse – anyone any idea what this is about? I feel it’s genuinely historical rather than just being the work of some addled stoner but can’t put my finger on it.

February 26th – The water level at Chasewater is lower than I’ve seen it for a while. Interestingly, rather than open the valves fully, there’s a good flow into the canal, and the balancing culvert between the Nine-Foot pool and Spillway has been opened, allowing a steady stream of water to flow into the Crane Brook via the drain system under the canal.

I understand why the level is being dropped – with the dam being permeable, if installing drains you want the installation to be as dry as possible – but I’m puzzled by the method. It has, however, been convention since the original dam works to allow the reservoir to overflow every spring, so perhaps this is to irrigate the spillway marsh as it would be normally.

Interesting too to see the white scale around the lowered waterline. It that salt, or something else?

February 9th – A puzzle, for sure. Shimano metal sintered disc brake pads for hydraulic brakes: what happens to them that renders them useless beyond recovery?

Usually the rear set, all of a sudden they loose stopping power,  and often become screechy. They are not contaminated with oil, although it feels like it. Deep cleaning in the dishwasher doesn’t work. Ultrasonic cleaner with solvent doesn’t, either. Neither does surface grinding as much as .75mm off the surface.

It’s like they just glaze, and some structural or metallurgical change takes place, and that’s it. Only thing to recover stopping power is new pads. Or using them in the rain; when wet, and only then, do they stop better.

At £20 a set, this is not fun. Anyone any ideas please?

November 7th – I’m still not happy with the low light performance of the TZ-80. In lichfield I’d been using the Nikon, which seems to love the night, but this particular incarnation of the Panasonic compact seems very middling.

When you can get it right, as above, it’s not too bad, but the reflection of the street light is better than the light itself. 

On the TZ70 if I munged with the aperture, I could get the hard sharpness I liked, but not on this one.

Something is obstructing me, but what? This was the best of 20 odd shots, most unusable mush. I suppose if it comes down to it, I could always read the manual…

I’ll crack it.

September 5th – For the first time in ages, I had to visit Redditch, and passing through a wet, very grey Arrow Valley Park I came across a mystery: two five-foot long, narrow but heavy wooden boxes with hinged lids. Well made, they were just lying on the grass under a ticket. The boxes were sturdily constructed, with an internal lengthways divider and strong hinges.

The boxes were covered in what seemed like cement or masonry marks.

Then I spotted how they got here: a freshly disturbed patch of soil in the grass suggested someone had been drilling or undertaking some similar operation here. The cases would be tool or sleeve holders, their contents used, but forgotten by their owners.

I returned 3 houses later and they’d gone; I’d imagine these are quite costly items, so maybe their owner recovered them.

June 25th – Swans are inscrutable, they really are. On the Nine-Foot Pool at Chasewater, with the level still just about overflowing, a pair of birds sleep on the concrete spillway weir, seemingly oblivious to the natural plant detritus around them.

To me, the spot they doze in looks uncomfortable, chilly and precarious, but to them, it’s clearly just the right place to get some shut-eye.

Occasionally, I realise how much I don’t know about wildlife.