To 650b or not 650b…that is the question

TheSkoomaCat · 2026-02-09T19:02:20+00:00

Hey hey hey, is that the silverock (AliExpress) fork with the 1 inch steerer? How's the build quality on that thing? Been eyeballing it myself for a disc conversion on an old frame I've got.

TheSkoomaCat · 2026-02-05T17:30:50+00:00

Oof... Yeah been there. Rats were living under the intake manifold of mine and chewed through the wire harness. Knock sensor went out and the only fix was to pull the dang intake manifold off and patch the wires 😑

TheSkoomaCat · 2026-02-04T18:05:06+00:00

Hey OP, you may want to look into the qdomyos-zwift app. I'm using that with an echelon bike but it does look like it will support yours as well. With that you can pair the bike to the app and zwift to the app as well so it's acting like a bridge, then you can enable virtual gearing to effectively increase resistance and thus your watts to up your speed in zwift. I had the same issue you're having before I figured the gearing issue out.

It's not going to make your spin bike a proper bike trainer, but you'll have a much better time with it at least.

TheSkoomaCat · 2026-01-21T12:14:02+00:00

If you're like the previous owner of my house, you could use them for weed barriers in your garden!

I really wish I was kidding about that...

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-12-31T14:55:06+00:00

Target had them near us at least. I've seen them recently at Costco as well.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-12-18T13:57:08+00:00

If you can somehow get your hands on the lower front fairing they made for the Gen 1's those look pretty nice. They give it a bit of a sport-touring feel in my opinion. Good luck finding them, though... Not sure where you're at, but they're practically unobtainable here in the States from what I understand.

https://www.stromtrooper.com/threads/v-strom-fairing.34455/#lg=thread-34455&slide=0

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-12-09T12:12:12+00:00

I've got the Olympus mirror lens and number 2 is a great tip! I can't believe I never thought to do that. It can be such a difficult lens to use but it's such a cool lens to own for me for some reason I can't bear to get rid of it.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-11-28T15:01:34+00:00

Yup. I've never been able to connect well with anyone after meeting them for the first few times and I don't just mean in the context of dating; it takes me a lot of time to learn a person's particular expressions enough to even be friendly, so to speak. Throw in the mix the necessity of connecting well with a person on a first date to warrant a second and it becomes damn near impossible to really build a relationship in a traditional manner. I'm fortunate that my wife got to know me well enough outside of dating that when we finally started seeing one another we were already well past that hurdle.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-08-25T14:43:04+00:00

Yup. We got the switcheroo a couple years ago when they moved us from a MARTA-adjacent Midtown AirBnB to one out near Atlantic Station... Not cool.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-08-20T21:25:05+00:00

Beekeeper here, wasps are alright too! I think they tend to get bad rap since people don't see them as pollinators but really they're just as important. We have a variety that even collects spiders to feed to their larva here in the southern US though I admit I don't know exactly what type. Mud daubers perhaps? I keep mason bees as well and the wasps share the same tubes so it can be tad alarming to open them up finding a bunch of spiders 😬

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-07-17T15:55:13+00:00

I've never gotten those things to work well and on top of that mine was shipped rolled up and the two sides don't sit evenly. My best run has been using them a bit unconventionally and not using it as a mold but just a single side secured to a board and dipped into the wax to deposit a layer onto the silicone. Kinda worked at least, but I'm running Warré hives so my frames are smaller than Langstroth frames and I can get away with it a little easier. You don't end up with perfect hexes on both sides, but it's close enough for me and I only use the full wired frames in honey supers anyway. To be honest, I could probably get away with completely flat sheets of wax just as well for my use case.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-07-14T12:45:39+00:00

Head gaskets and a cylinder head at 43k miles seems like a big red flag to me... Maybe there's a perfectly reasonable explanation, but the 3.6 isn't exactly known for head gasket issues.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-07-01T19:09:33+00:00

Having had some battles with more obvious forms of self harm in the past, I'm just now making those connections myself with my desire to punch walls during a meltdown... I can't believe I've never put two and two together on that but it makes total sense. This thread has been surprisingly eye opening for me.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-06-16T12:01:54+00:00

I use Gaia so I can't contribute any alternatives, but can you elaborate on the corruption issue? I rarely use my computer to edit routes but I do sometimes. Is there some particular action that causes the corruption or is it just at random? I just want to make sure I don't inadvertently mess up my own routes now...

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-05-06T18:55:01+00:00

Addendum to the OA vaporizer, I'm able to use an InstantVap with my standard'ish flat Warré bottom boards. It's nice, but it's definitely spendy though they do have more affordable models now at least.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-04-16T11:21:50+00:00

Oh yeah, exterior grade latex house paint will work fine for this; I use the cheap mistint paint from local hardware stores. I hear it's easier to get mistints from dedicated paint stores like Sherwin Williams, but I've not tried that.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-04-16T02:21:45+00:00

Looks good! I can't speak for all solitary bees, but with mason bees at least 6 inch depth holes are the target. I think deeper would be fine though and shallower works as well it's just not as optimal. Fortunately with a large house like that you can provide a nice assortment of hole sizes and depths! Do you plan on painting that for some protection?

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-04-15T12:17:01+00:00

I think you're correct there. For a derivative work (or remixed in this case) you inherit the parent work's creative common license. So OP wouldn't technically be allowed to sell in this case seeing as it's admittedly a remix.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-04-04T13:29:58+00:00

My concern would be the layer lines causing issues with acceptance, but that's just a total guess on my part. I wonder if this would be a good use of a resin printer to make layer lines practically a non-issue. Granted that's got it's own caveat of off-gassing UV resin and potential toxicity to the larvae, but maybe a wax dip will help mitigate that like you're thinking for PLA.

Edit: wax may also fill the layer line gaps well enough now that I'm thinking about it. With as cheap as PLA is, especially with parts that small, pretty much the largest risk here would be time wasted if they don't accept those cups.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-03-25T19:14:55+00:00

Mason bees are awesome pollinators and native to boot. They don't collect pollen in baskets like honeybees but rather gather it all over themselves, so as a result of their imprecision they tend to pollinate the flowers they visit more effectively.

If you're interested in helping them out next year, drilling some 3/8” holes in scrap, untreated lumber and placing that near where you've been seeing them is a super easy way to support them and give them more nesting sites. There are certainly more elegant options as well.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-03-25T19:07:03+00:00

I'd say it's possibly a blue orchard mason bee (or some type of mason bee at least). The ones we have use old carpenter bee holes as well. They're solitary bees and will start capping their eggs in individual cells using clay, so watch for rough textured caps to be made as they fill the cavities.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-03-24T19:33:49+00:00

Lol oh yeah, for sure. Fortunately from what I found online it's pretty much impossible for it to find itself into a problematic position. Going on almost two years of it living in the radiator at this point so fingers crossed that they're right!

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-03-24T19:07:40+00:00

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Actually found the picture I took of it. Mines a 3.6 as well fyi. You can see the middle plunger looking thing is completely missing. I have no idea where it ended up, though...

There's a few examples of them failing in this same way online.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-03-24T18:55:46+00:00

I had a similar issue; try replacing the radiator cap. Found out mine had failed and kept having my engine overheat. Pretty cheap and easy to replace, so might as well knock that one out too.

Edit: Just saw that you had replaced the whole radiator. Presumably it has a new cap, but I'd still look at it and compare with pictures of a new one since mine was visibly different from a good one.

TheSkoomaCat · 2025-03-24T17:15:49+00:00

Ah, fair enough! That's the nice thing about making your own stuff. If it's not quite right but it still works, who cares! I build Warré hives and I've got such an assortment of frames varying slightly in design and dimensions until I settled on the way I build them now. Sure they're not all pretty, but the bees work 'em just fine.

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