It's About Time...

Omega. James Bond wears one. Cindy Crawford wears one too. I reckon I got Seamaster prior to seeing 007 or the former supermodel sporting theirs. It was a graduation present to myself after completing grad school with honors no less!

I saw the retail price of the Omega Seamaster is now $2,000, though it appears they are frequently on sale for $1,500ish. I damned sure didn’t pay that in 2000 when I got mine; I guess I spent a little less than a grand on it at the time. It seems to have been a wise investment on my part–that is, as long as someone would be willing to give me more than I paid for it.

Timex. My original Iron Man died about a year and a half ago. I bought a new one in Singapore. I think I paid about $70 for it. And the old one didn’t really die, the Velcro just stopped Velcro-ing, and the watch would fall off my arm if I wasn’t careful. By default, I am not careful.

I got to thinking… $1,500 vs. $70. The Omega is over 21 times the price of the Timex. And for what? Well, let’s see…

My Omega tells time. It’s pretty. It’s heavy. I get complimented on it a couple of times a year. It tells me the day of the month as long as I advance it on the months when there are less than 31 days…and as long as the minute hand is not covering the spot at the three o’clock position where the date shows.

My Timex tells time. If I want (and I do), I can have it beep on the hour. It also displays the time in military time. It has a 100-hour chronograph with lap or split option. It has a very bright light so I can tell the time in the dark. It’s water resistant to 330 feet. It has five alarms and keeps time in two time zones. It has a reminder thing that allows me to plug in birthdays and such. It automatically knows if there are less than 31 days in a month. It also tells me the day of the week and year.

I’m scratching my head wondering why I needed to pay 21 times more for the Omega.

Anyone want to buy an Omega Seamaster? It really is pretty...

DIY: Yakima Bike Rack Mod

I did a lot of research before buying a bike rack for my car.  I looked at sevaral brands.  I looked at on-top-of-the-car versions.  I looked at hitch-mounted racks.  At the end of the day I went with a Yakima hitch-mounted rack for several reasons:

• It didn't touch the car
• It wouldn't scratch the paint
• I wouldn't scratch the car loading bikes
• Better aerodynamics
• No bug funk on my bike
• And Yakima has served me well for nearly 20 years.

Anyway, this is how it looked on the car...

It hauls two bikes, yada, yada... But the reality is that it's usually just me.  So in the interest of saving a little weight, I took off one of the bike holders.  This is how that looked...

When I am going cycling with a friend, I simply bolt the other bike holder on with two bolts.  Obviously it works, but it's ugly.  More importantly, I could not open the hatch without lowering the rack, because the hatch would hit the rack...

Obviously that's a pain in the ass having to lower the rack every time I wanted to get into the back... I thought of just cutting off the top, but then I could only haul one bike.  So I thought about it for a little longer and came up with a solution... I purchased the following spare parts from Yakima:

• RPL, SPINE ASSY, HOLDUP part number 8890201.  $60.
• RPL, MTG HDW HOLDUP +2. $5

These are part of Yakima's Holdup Plus 2... an extension that allows you to add two additional bikes to the rack using the 2" receiver.

It slides into the spine of my rack and secures tightly using the bolt shown above. Basically my plan was to convert my rack to a single-bike rack and use the spine from the Plus 2 to add the second bike holder for a two-bike configuration. The first thing was to measure where to cut my rack.  I cut it in such a way to stop the arm from flopping all the way over and still allow me to open my hatch without lowering the rack...

The next thing I did was design it in such a way to increase the distance between two bikes by about 2".  The reason is that when my teammate and I load our mountain bikes, the handlebars and seats interfere with one another.  The additional 2" between the bikes will stop this problem...

So after a whole lot of measuring, cutting and drilling, the following is the completed product... The first set of pictures show the single bike version of the rack...

Note how I can now open the hatch without lowering the rack?  WOO HOO!!!

Here's the rack with a bike loaded on it...

This is the other bike holder mounted to the Holdup Plus spine I modified...

When I want to add the ability to carry a second bike, I just pop out the red cap...

... and slide the smaller spine inside the larger one and use the bolt to secure them together like so...

And it folds up just as it did before...

Hope you find this useful.

DIY: PVC Bike Holder

When Dr. Josh and I are out running, paddling, whatever, the bikes stay in the transition area. We usually lean them up against a chair or tree. I figured I could make a little something out of PVC that would hold the bikes. I came up with the following...

It’s made from 3/4” PVC. It holds two bikes (though I only had one bike to show… the other bike simply faces the other direction)…

I created it in such a way that when the bike is not in use, you can pull up the vertical pieces (wheel holders) and store them horizontally like so…

This makes it easier to transport to the races, carry, etc.

(Looking directly down on it in the collapsed state)...

You need the following if you want to make one:

• ~20' - 3/4” PVC. I used thin-walled pipe to make it as light as possible. If you want to use the thicker-walled stuff, you certainly can.
• 12 - 90s
• 16 - Ts
• PVC glue

The cut list is as follows:

• 2 - 3" pieces
• 8 - 2-1/2" pieces
• 2 - 9" pieces
• 12 - 1-3/4" pieces
• 4 - 14" pieces
• 2 - 11-3/4" pieces
• 4 - 22-1/2" pieces

Below is where the pieces go...

Now I didn't call out the 90s and Ts, but you can obviously see them.

All connections are glued EXCEPT the bottoms of the vertical pieces (wheel holders). They are to remain dry. In other words, the holes for holding the wheel holders vertical, and the holes used to store the wheel holders are NOT glued.

I reckon there are more uses and other variations, but this one met our needs. Feel free to experiment.Total cost... $11.01.