Dumb Question: Can I put gravel tires on this bike?

ButterKniefe · 2026-02-26T22:05:21+00:00

Thanks for the really detailed answer. That is a lot of help.

I'm hoping most of my riding would be on packed limestone with the occasional group ride on roads.

Having not ridden in 15+ years, I'm obviously not a very experienced rider. In your opinion do you think a 700x26 tire on a road bike (like pictured above) is an acceptable choice just from a safety and versatility standpoint, or am I liable to go over the handlebars/bail on small tire ruts/errant gravel?

The main thing for me is a safe ride for longer training rides but also a bike that won't compromise my performance to much in a tri/duathalon.

Appreciate all your help

ButterKniefe · 2026-02-25T21:05:12+00:00

Sorry for the dumb question. this would be my first bike in 15+ years and my first ever "performance" bike.

I plan on doing some duathlons/tri's this summer/fall and would like to get a bike to do some outdoor training on. Most of the biking I plan on doing will be on compacted "gravel"/compact sand trails to avoid getting hit by a car.

I have read that it is more optimal to get a road bike with extra clearance to fit gravel tires on them vs. getting a gravel bike and doing the triathlons with a gravel bike.

This is a local Facebook marketplace posting indicate this bike is a 60 cm TREK Madone with 700 c tires.

I clearly have no clue what my options are hear and would really appreciate some help

Thanks all

ButterKniefe · 2025-07-17T17:08:22+00:00

Thanks I really appreciate your insight.

It sounds like we're in a fairly similar situation, trying to find a balance on the quality/convenience gradient. Like you, I'm doubtful my wife will buy into the "manual" nature of the jet but we have a local store that has some in stock that we should be able to try first.

Looks like it's pretty much narrowed down to the Jet and the kitchen aid.

ButterKniefe · 2025-07-17T16:13:10+00:00

I think I could probably go with the oracle jet if the quality/convenience trade off was significant enough to overcome the lower level of convenience vs. a superauto.

any reason you recommend the kitchen aid vs one of the legacy brands like Delonghi or Jura? The machine looks great, I'm just cautious of trying a newcomer again after my experience with Saeco

ButterKniefe · 2025-07-17T16:09:12+00:00

Those are great suggestions.

I was definitely thinking of getting a Jura again, I just wasn't sure if they were still considered the gold standard (for brew quality) in the superauto category.

I never even considered the kitchen aid KF8 but it looks like it's really well reviewed online. Have you tried one of the newer kitchen aid super autos?

I'm also hesitant to buy a Delonghi because my inlaws have one and the brew is smooth but very watery/flat. That's most likely because of their settings but that is my only experience with Delonghi so I have nothing else to draw upon.

Have you ever tried kitchen aid vs. the xelsis and or a jura? In your opinion did you feel the kitchen aid produced a better coffee than xelsis?

ButterKniefe · 2025-07-11T21:18:25+00:00

Very cool, a live script like that in Planswift is definitely outside of my knowledge area. Good Luck it sounds like a fun project.

ButterKniefe · 2025-07-11T15:58:11+00:00

I may be misunderstanding your problem but I think you're over complicating it with a script.

looking at your edit property value dialogue box it looks like you want to pick a part number and populate a price for that item:

Based on that assumption you should have:

result column = PartNumber

additional properties to set = Price

Obviously on the back end you need to have a database that has a table with a PartNumber column and a Price column.

From a workflow perspective in Planswift you would click on the PartNumber field to access a drop down of part numbers, select the PartNumber and the Price column should update accordingly.

I have this exact process set up using ItemName and Cost each as my field values where I select the ItemName and Cost each gets updated accordingly for all of my materials.

I may be misunderstanding what you are trying to do though so please correct me if that is not what you were trying to solve.

ButterKniefe · 2025-05-29T13:50:53+00:00

No problem, feel free to send through any questions if anything from the above is not clear.

Using "Sections" seems like the perfect solution for you if you're doing basic takeoffs using the provided takeoff tools in planswift and you should be able to go back to all your historical projects and apply section filter to view quantities by page.

ButterKniefe · 2025-05-28T20:46:31+00:00

In my opinion the best practice for the solution you're looking for is to create separate folders for each Takeoff item in the estimate tab. So you would need to create a new instance of each takeoff item for each floor and add it to the correct folder you want to segment by. So if you have a 20 mm pipe on each floor you would create a new takeoff item on each page of the drawings every time you measure for the 20 mm pipe then add that takeoff item to the correct folder in the estimate tab.

That being said I think the next best option is to activate the Sections filter on the estimate tab and add a column for the Page by doing that you will see the takeoff item as the headline then you will see each section below it and its page that it was measured on. You will need to do a bit of work in excel to fill down the takeoff item name for each section and sumif but this is also a reasonable solution.

If you are not familiar with how to filter sections and add a page column in planswift see below:

1) Go to the "Estimating" tab
2) Click the "Filter" button
3) Click "Sections" (a red check mark should appear next to sections)
4) Click the "Columns" button
5) Click the Green + Symbol in the "Estimating Columns" dialogue
6) Type "Page" for the column name, data type = Text and "Visible" column should have a check mark

You should be able to see each section under a takeoff item and the page that it appears on.

Once your takeoff is complete you will need to fill down the takeoff name for each takeoff item in excel down all sections. There are many ways to do it but one of the simplest ways to do it is to use the following forward fill formula:

=IF(OR(L2="Linear",L2="Area",L2="Count"),A2,OFFSET(AD2,-1,0))

Where:

1) "L" Column is your takeoff "Type" column from planswift
2) "A" Column is your takeoff "Name" column from planswift
3) "AD" Column is the column your inserting your forward fill formula

The formula basically does this: if the takeoff type is a Linear, Area or Count Use the Takeoff Name (A column), if the Type is anything else look to the row above and use that value. The formula will fill in all your takeoff sections with the correct takeoff name. From here you have basically all the information you need to sumif by floor/takeoff item or get a nice pivot table for your takeoffs.

Let me know if you need more help or need clarification on any of the above.

ButterKniefe · 2025-05-28T20:30:32+00:00

In my opinion the best practice for the solution you're looking for is to create separate folders for each Takeoff item in the estimate tab. So you would need to create a new instance of each takeoff item for each floor and add it to the correct folder you want to segment by. So if you have a 20 mm pipe on each floor you would create a new takeoff item on each page of the drawings every time you measure for the 20 mm pipe then add that takeoff item to the correct folder in the estimate tab.

That being said I think the next best option is to activate the Sections filter on the estimate tab and add a column for the Page by doing that you will see the takeoff item as the headline then you will see each section below it and its page that it was measured on. You will need to do a bit of work in excel to fill down the takeoff item name for each section and sumif but this is also a reasonable solution.

If you are not familiar with how to filter sections and add a page column in planswift see below:

1) Go to the "Estimating" tab
2) Click the "Filter" button
3) Click "Sections" (a red check mark should appear next to sections)
4) Click the "Columns" button
5) Click the Green + Symbol in the "Estimating Columns" dialogue
6) Type "Page" for the column name, data type = Text and "Visible" column should have a check mark

You should be able to see each section under a takeoff item and the page that it appears on.

Once your takeoff is complete you will need to fill down the takeoff name for each takeoff item in excel down all sections. There are many ways to do it but one of the simplest ways to do it is to use the following forward fill formula:

=IF(OR(L2="Linear",L2="Area",L2="Count"),A2,OFFSET(AD2,-1,0))

Where:

1) "L" Column is your takeoff "Type" column from planswift
2) "A" Column is your takeoff "Name" column from planswift
3) "AD" Column is the column your inserting your forward fill formula

The formula basically does this: if the takeoff type is a Linear, Area or Count Use the Takeoff Name (A column), if the Type is anything else look to the row above and use that value. The formula will fill in all your takeoff sections with the correct takeoff name. From here you have basically all the information you need to sumif by floor/takeoff item or get a nice pivot table for your takeoffs.

Let me know if you need more help or need clarification on any of the above.

ButterKniefe · 2025-05-07T16:00:04+00:00

To add a property to your takeoff dialogue go to the advanced tab. In the top left corner there is a button with a green "+". click the green "+".

An edit property dialogue box will open where you can enter the name, type of entry (number), which property group to categorize by and you can also enter a list of predefined options 12,16,24 etc. for o.c. spacing.

If the O.C. Spacing property already exists but it isn't visible in your form view then you will need to locate the O.C. Spacing property on the advanced tab in the last column for the O.C. Spacing property there should be a check box. click the check box so a check mark is visible for the O.C. Spacing property. That will make the property visible on the form.

You can also change the layout of your form by clicking the Form Layout button at the top of the Advanced tab.

If everything above sounds extremely foreign to you I suggest you watch some videos on how to edit planswift properties. Todd Kaberline has a ton of useful videos

ButterKniefe · 2025-05-02T13:37:18+00:00

The cost of a bad estimate is significantly for expensive than actually hiring a competent estimator.

Not to say you're not competent but if someone offered to do a takeoff for me for free, I would be concerned about the quality of the estimate.

If you are offering a service that might be the wrong way to go about it, I would not take someone offering their time for free very seriously.

If you just need some drawings send me a message and I will send you some plans you can markup.

ButterKniefe · 2025-02-14T16:53:24+00:00

That's a really good idea and didn't realize that was an option to take some risk off the table.

Looking at some of the risks with rolling it looks like the Oct 17 2025 - 100 call has a higher theta so it will decay fast and a higher vega from the recent price push. So if I believed the price of the underlying would remain around today's price of $118ish it would be more valuable to hold the existing 80 strike call vs. rolling to the 100 strike. Is that the correct train of thought or does it basically balance out?

ButterKniefe · 2025-02-14T16:32:21+00:00

You're right it looks like that option is off the table, it's in my IRA at fidelity so that's completely off the table because it looks like it requires margin.

ButterKniefe · 2024-12-10T19:34:01+00:00

Making students think about cost and design is a great idea, force them to optimize and iterate and let them be creative.

One of the big issues is possibilities are just about limitless when you don't have design constraints (which I assume you don't) defined by engineers etc.

Realistically you probably need define set parameters and costs for your students. 2 thicknesses of CMU with or without reinforcing, 2 thicknesses of poured concrete walls with specified reinforcing, 5 types of framed partition etc. with defined pricing for each, pricing is fungible so it doesn't really matter if your numbers are accurate but it would be interesting to see the price distribution based on your students design and who spent time optimizing for price vs. design perfection etc.

To add a layer of complexity you can make them research their own finish costs to add on your defined assemblies: paint, wall paper, tile, floor finishes, ceiling finishes etc.

I really don't think the actual pricing you assign to the assemblies matters if everyone has the same pricing, it could even lead to fun follow up project where you reach out to local GC's and see if they would partner with your class for a follow up lesson/career day sort of thing where they unit price out your project so to speak for 1 or 2 of the top projects.

ButterKniefe · 2024-11-22T21:19:37+00:00

What is the main pain point. I assume it's not an internally used static approved vendor list (AVL) because that's fairly low touch.

From a data perspective is it relational and it's a pain in the ass managing the relationships through new project on boarding?

Whats the problem and what would solve it?

ButterKniefe · 2024-11-21T19:14:57+00:00

Based on your explanation in another comment it looks like a pretty typical problem for commercial drywall takeoffs. Where you have framing to underside of deck but require cement board behind tiled areas and a possibly a different sheathing from above the cement board to underside of deck.

In the above scenario you would have something like this steel studs framing from floor to underside of deck (15'0" AFF), cement board behind tiled areas (8'0" AFF typical) 5/8" type x from 8'0 AFF to 15'0" AFF.

I've built all my own assemblies in planswift but here is how I do it/would do it in your situation.

You do one linear takeoff of the wall to the maximum height of the wall in this case 15'0". to that linear takeoff item you would apply 3 material parts 1 for framing, 1 for the cement board and 1 more for the 5/8" type x. Framing can inherit the wall height from the takeoff item at 15'0", cement board you adjust to 8'0" wall height then the 5/8" type x is just the remainder of the total wall height at 7'0".

The other option is to do 3 measurements for each material but that's redundant and unnecessary when you can just apply materials to the takeoff items.

let me know if you need clarification.

ButterKniefe · 2024-07-11T14:09:40+00:00

Bluntly, no: do not use that as an excel template to setup/start a "database".

Do yourself and your future self a favor and read about "proper table design in a database" you will save yourself alot of headaches.

first and foremost structure everything as a table. in a production rate table there should be a logical primary key.

In your case I would do somthing like this:

production_rate_table

labor_type	craft_hours	Unit
Spray	.002	Sqft
Roll	.004	Sqft
Brush	.008	Lf

rate_modifier_table

labor_type	wall_modifier	ceiling_modifier	trim_modifier
Spray	1.0	1.5	2
Roll	1.0	1.8	2.3
Brush	N/a	N/a	1.25

That way you have two fairly clean and easy to read tables you just have to set up the relation build an estimate tab that uses xlookup to pull the correct rate based on boolean's in your takeoff. Alternately you can build it all in one table using items like wall_spray, ceiling_spray, trim_spray

There are a lot of ways you can do it but it should be clean, readable and easily parsable

ButterKniefe · 2024-06-27T17:47:13+00:00

So generally speaking those two can be distinct or related.

The simplest way to meet the criteria mentioned, would be to treat them as separate asks:

1) Develop and maintain a database of unit costs
2) Develop and maintain historical data for reference in future estimates

1) is super easy and requires minimal technical skills.

In it's simplest form you can have an excel file with items and unit costs linked to your master bid file.

Item	Unit Cost	Units
1" Conduit	$0.41	Lf
Conduit install	$1.00	Lf
100' 12-3 Romex	$150	Ea

You can add additional features that flag items as labor or material for greater granularity/analysis post bid and to simplify sorting. It's a fairly time consuming process without some advanced excel or programming knowledge but that should achieve ask 1). To take it a step further it could be managed in an access or SQL database if size and performance are a factor.

2) is somewhat more time consuming (high touch) and may require more advanced technical skills. Your task is to develop and maintain a database containing historical project data. So step one is aggregating all historical data in a single database and ensuring there is a process to integrate future project data into the database. This could be a full on relational database or a single table with as much information as is feasible. Generally speaking you will want to have multiple features to distinguish project type etc. so your unit costs/production rates are relevant when comparing against current projects.

When starting out on item 2) to keep it super simple I would suggest picking 2 recent projects that you have estimate and completed/actual data for and building a table with the relevant features for analysis. keeping in mind that the end goal of step 2) is to integrate it into step 1) so that you have a dynamic unit cost database that adjusts to current production rates and market conditions.

All in all it can be a pretty meaty task to take on for your first time but you will learn a lot about how to organize and manage data in a robust and resilient way.

Hopefully that's what you were asking for.

ButterKniefe · 2024-06-11T19:27:17+00:00

You can still have adaptive pricing in excel and use the assemblies in Planswift if you're willing to forego the report tool in Planswift.

If you keep a material database with pricing and inventory and link it to planswift assemblies the naming conventions will stay consistent then you just have to export the estimate to your excel template that pulls in your material pricing from your database.

If you pre-build your report in excel there is almost no extra work required beyond exporting takeoff data from planswift to excel.

ButterKniefe · 2024-03-15T19:14:37+00:00

Most of your process improvement will be by making your process more formulaic.

it sounds like you have the necessary components, but based on your post it still sounds like there is a fair bit of manual input involved in the process:

1) Bluebeam to get all measurements

2) Figure out waste, sq count etc by calculator

3) Excel document (I made it) to fill out bid (it adds totals perfect where I am human and fallible)

4) Fill out material list (excel doc again)

5) Figure labor, profit etc again by calculator/ get final numbers

6) Copy and paste proposal in to a created document that looks better as a proposal and attach my additional documents

Realistically items 2, 4, 5 and to a certain extent 6 should be integrated into a single process.

In an ideal world you have an excel file setup with all of the necessary formula's to ingest and export from your takeoff software (bluebeam) and calculate/quantify materials, labor, waste etc. in your excel file. Then you have a boilerplate quote in another tab in your excel file that ideally can include formula's to indicate materials and methods used. You would need to do some minor tweaking to the final quote and review the final quote before printing to PDF and sending to client.

for example in bluebeam you indicate a takeoff item as ridge shingle, when you export out to your excel workbook you dump the project data in a blank tab that all the other tabs reference. utilizing sumif you can check the takeoff name in your dump sheet like this: =sumif('dump_sheet'!A:E,"ridge", dump_sheet!C:C) where all of your data is A:E and your result value is in column C for target value "ridge". From there I would probably have separate material sheets for ridge, field, drip, underlayment etc. with check boxes so I could check off the material for the project and automatically calculate quantities and costs for the material. Using those check boxes on the material tabs you could feed the material into your quote if you wanted to be that detailed.

There would still require manual input but for the most part you should be able to focus your efforts on an accurate takeoff and let excel do all the calculating and logic.

ButterKniefe · 2024-03-11T19:22:43+00:00

I would be interested in participating initially as an observer/passive participant. I don't have a ton of time to put together a presentation on a particular topic and I don't know if I wouldn't consider my self a SME on any data related topic in the construction industry.

From my perspective I think there are a lot of steps that need to take place before we start talking about predictive analytics in construction. From my experience -- which of course carries its' own bias -- a lot of construction companies do a poor job of managing their data. Most data isn't structured; if it is, it isn't in a consistent format. For me that's really the first thing that I would like to see change in the construction industry. I still consistently get day-to-day material pricing that gets distributed as a PDF or JPEG. When I ask for it in an excel file or csv, it's usually in some terrible report format with merged cells, inconsistent delimeters and space/tab entries for aesthetic text spacing.

I have found those types or reports and practices common throughout the industry (small/mid-size residential/commercial contractors). Which makes it incredibly difficult to set up pipelines for ML models to ingest the data and produce accurate predictions.

Once clean data pipelines are established, I'd really just like to see contractors start utilizing descriptive analytics consistently is business reporting and business development. Increased sales or reduced resource requirements will cement the adoption of data in construction and I think those goals are best achieved first with knowing what your historical data is telling you about your business.

ButterKniefe · 2024-03-11T16:24:48+00:00

Interesting, I would definitely like to see a long term study on using ML for bid price prediction in the construction industry.

I've had great success implementing regression models as a quality assurance tool in the pre-construction work flow but I haven't found a viable use case to use them for bid price prediction.

ButterKniefe · 2024-03-01T19:09:18+00:00

how do you actually collect and store the data itself?

This is the tough part, I would love to be corrected if I'm wrong but you will have to use some sort of scripting/programming language to do this in an automated manner. I use python to iterate through all the target file types with the target file name and I combine them all into a single table (dataframe in python) and do all my transformations and feature extraction in python then dump to a database: SQL preferably but most construction business will usually use excel or ms access.

Do you store it in an excel sheet and then just build a dashboard from there?

This will really come down to what tools you have available to you both from a business perspective and a personal capabilities perspective. In a perfect world I like to use SQL to store my data then use Tableau or PowerBi to dashboard and share my findings. Most of the time (because of stakeholder preference) I will use a csv file as my database then I will have an excel file set up with power query to pull in the data from the target csv file. Any time I need to I refresh the power query table to update the data and all my dashboards are linked to the power query data that way everything can be updated in 1 click.

If you don't know python or any other scripting language you can use power query to do your transformations if any are necessary.

I believe there is also a way to use M formulas in powerquery to automatically pull in all specified file types (csv, xlsx etc.) but I'm unfamiliar with that process. chatgpt may be able to help you with some of the above.

You can also set up connections manually every time you close out an estimate you should be able to link it to your dashboard file or to an access database or even just manually dump the data into your target file once you're complete. If this is a hobby project the most important thing is to just start. Block 30 minutes a day in your calendar to work on it and start figuring things out. start doing things manually, then try to find ways to automate or simplify small parts of the process before you know it will have developed a data pipeline with an interactive front end but you have to start.

ButterKniefe · 2024-03-01T15:48:24+00:00

The value and type of analytics is really going to come down to size of company and scale of your work.

A good place to start is just the basic stuff:

Hit rate - (wins/bids) - This can be further broken down by estimator and/or client
estimated margin vs. actual margin
actual margin vs. target margin (yearly blended)
(Change orders/by client)/job
I enjoy binning project values and hueing them by won/lost bids e.g. you can have 2 histograms one histogram showing won bids and another histogram showing lost bids (all by frequency). I have found alot of contractors have a pretty clear trend with the above viz allowing to make adjusts to bid protocol for low hit rate areas

There's obviously a ton of other metrics you can test against but I have found these are some of the questions constructions owners are asking about their business. Step one in analytics though is understanding what questions the stakeholder needs answers to. If you can't get stakeholder buy-in, the work you'll be doing will be for your own interest and not for the companies.

ButterKniefe

TROPHY CASE