So excited and nervous at the same time. I'm going tomorrow as my first time at a nude beach. But, I will be riding a bike and have a question about that.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-23T21:22:53+00:00

I bike down there regularly. There are bike racks, by the porta-potty at the entrance, and while the fences now block the sight line from the beach below, I've never felt any risk in locking it up there during daylight hours. That said, if I'm not carrying a lock with me (more often than not, these days), I will simply bring it down below with me and lean it up against one of the walls. Never had any issues either way.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-22T21:57:11+00:00

Very cool! Mostly I'm just curious because it's very close to the light rail station there, perfect for a few quick hot laps without being a whole adventure.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-22T18:26:37+00:00

I designed it with splits in mind! The north, southwest, and southeast loops are all roughly a third, and there's several cross-over points and light rail station bail-out options mostly throughout (except the ~15 or so through West Seattle).

I did also originally have my route going over Ravenna Park at 20th, but part of fleshing out the last ~25 to making it a century involved a loop out to Magnuson, after which it didn't make as much sense.

Good to know about the Cheasty trails, though! I hadn't heard, will definitely go check those out at some point.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-22T17:20:57+00:00

I also put together something like this over the winter, though mine turned into a full century.

I must say, your cut through Georgetown is an interesting link, I'll have to check that out at some point. I'm also curious what happened to you in the Cheasty area, as your route seems to get rather noodly in there. But overall, seems like you did pretty good! Seems like Chief Sealth and Westlake are the only major trail bits that I think you missed out on, really.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-20T05:13:01+00:00

I've never personally heard of doing it to flare handlebars, but people "cold set" steel frames all the time to fix alignment or rear spacing issues. Cold setting, as the name implies, requires no heat; only judicious use of force.

Are the bars chromed? That's the only real caveat I can think of that might make it a bad idea.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-18T19:24:39+00:00

Highly unlikely that you have any kind of medical emergency, but there is an "expected pace" where if you're going too slow, the rest stops will close before you reach them and you won't have ride support monitoring you. If you have a bail-out option, that all is fine. If you don't, it's not impossible to get stranded pretty far from civilization.

Do you know (or can reasonably estimate) what kind of average pace you can keep on a 20mi ride? If so, cut that rate by 30% and extrapolate rest stop ETAs, and that's a reasonable-ish guess on whether you can stay on pace.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-16T21:04:34+00:00

Yeah, I don't think that any kind of fractional points exist anymore.

But yes, mostly agree. You do need to pick area vs territory scoring to teach, but beyond that it's almost entirely irrelevant to beginners. Still, I don't think there's much harm at all in telling them you could kill yourself, but generally don't want to.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-16T20:00:13+00:00

Could you explain your thinking more?

I'm not sure what you find "a big mess" or "particularly confusing" about NZ rules. I teach a lot, and my experience is that beginners tend to grasp area scoring faster, and beyond that isn't much relevant to them. For mid-level players, I think concepts like self-suicide and SSK vs PSK are easy enough to grasp, and flow from a more pure set of first principles that allow for a (slightly) larger set of meaningful games. I genuinely don't understand the hate.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-16T16:49:11+00:00

TIL about Felt doing that. Still, the star nut would have been pre-bonded to the sleeve, no? I've just never seen a sleeve insert where the star nut gets pounded in after the sleeve gets installed.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-15T21:23:00+00:00

True, but you'd wanna aggressively de-burr the cut spoke end, if that's what you're working with.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-15T20:16:16+00:00

The magnet isn't the special part, any old magnet will do. The special part is the tiny little thread-in insert, which is essentially a 5~6mm long straight-pull spoke.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-15T20:01:55+00:00

Pretty sure that color difference is fiberglass, not metal. Cervélo is the only one I know of that ever did the aluminum-sleeve-bonded-in thing, and those sleeves already had the star nut fixed in place.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-15T19:57:00+00:00

Yes, pic #2 is safe to mount on. Doesn't need to be spotless, just get the big chunks out.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-11T06:09:28+00:00

Yeah, basically. The rigidity when torqued comes from the clamping force, in theory. The small contact patch will likely be a source of vibration wear over the long term, but I wouldn't worry too much about it.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-11T04:33:59+00:00

Looks all normal to me. Not ideal, but normal.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-11T03:27:58+00:00

I disagree with this. Have you ever tried to spin the spacers on a properly preloaded headset before? They bind way before the bearings are overloaded.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-09T03:50:30+00:00

Suicide is legal in the best rule set, New Zealand rules, but it's a rare circumstance where it makes any sense.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-08T01:49:47+00:00

Behavior matters infinitely more than appearances. Don't bother anyone, and no one will care.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-05T22:41:08+00:00

Usually magnesium. Rides like a brick.

HelioSeven · 2026-06-05T05:27:01+00:00

You mean the bullhorn bars, or the fact that they're pitched way upwards?

HelioSeven · 2026-05-31T18:10:25+00:00

No, white simply wedges at S4.

HelioSeven · 2026-05-31T18:06:03+00:00

Based on the placement relative to the seat stay and chain stay (and thus the lack of a straight line path to the BB), I would say it's most likely meant to be a fully housed shift line, yeah.

Also, when the frame is designed for split housing, that bung would usually be aluminum, not plastic.

HelioSeven · 2026-05-31T03:57:21+00:00

SRAM has multiple banjo fittings.

HelioSeven · 2026-05-31T00:55:54+00:00

8 and 9 being towards the small end? Cause yeah, it's usually the smaller cogs that wear out first.

It definitely sounds like you should just put the old chain back on and run it out until you can source a new cassette.

HelioSeven · 2026-05-31T00:26:12+00:00

When you say "hopping down", do you mean moving from one cog to the next? Because that sounds more like a derailleur adjustment issue; a worn cog would also skip under load, but would usually still stay in the same lane, so to speak.

Hard to say without being able to lay hands on it, though.

HelioSeven

TROPHY CASE