Titanium Flamingo

"Zoot Katz" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I'm standing around on one leg, like a flamingo. The other

leg has a

Quoted message said:

new titanium rod running through and pinned to the three

piece tibia.

Bummer. Take care of it, heal up soon.
If you are going recumbent, this would be a better idea under
the current circumstances:
http://www.handcycle.com/products.htm

--
Mike Kruger
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is
no path and leave a trail.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writing before the mountain bike was
invented.

Zoot Katz said:

I'm standing around on one leg, like a flamingo. The other leg has a
new titanium rod running through and pinned to the three piece tibia.

Ouch. Sorry to hear that.

Quoted message said:

The two piece fibula is going to knit just fine as long as I don't

put

Quoted message said:

any weight on it, for the next 6-10 wks.

Suffice it to say there was no other vehicle involved. Darkness and
semi-recumbent chopper geometry weirdness contributed to the fall on
the Stanley Park Seawall. I doubt it would have happened that way on
my civilian bike. It has brighter lamp and handles normally.

Was this a borrowed chopper or a familiar friend? I find that once
I've inured myself to the idiosyncrasies of a weird bike, it becomes
manageable. Mostly.

I had to find a new home for my pedal-in-front, drive-in-back chariot,
because it could not be domesticated. Fortunately, the new owner knows
what he's gotten himself into.

Ah, the many joys of choppers. I wonder if you'd have fared better
aboard a tallbike? Hmmm...perhaps worse.

Quoted message said:

I hope to be riding again for my birthday in June.

I hope and expect that you'll meet your schedule.

Chalo Colina

12 Apr 2005 19:15:46 -0700,
<[email hidden]>,

Brian Huntley said:

Take care, and heal straight.

[censored]. I've spent large sums over many years getting this bent and
twisted.
--
zk

12 Apr 2005 23:11:27 -0700,
<[email hidden]>, "Chalo"

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Suffice it to say there was no other vehicle involved. Darkness and
semi-recumbent chopper geometry weirdness contributed to the fall on
the Stanley Park Seawall. I doubt it would have happened that way on
my civilian bike. It has brighter lamp and handles normally.

Was this a borrowed chopper or a familiar friend? I find that once
I've inured myself to the idiosyncrasies of a weird bike, it becomes
manageable. Mostly.

I'd accumulated maybe three hours saddle time when it happened.
Count Chopula is a bike Donald built for Tony who wouldn't ride it.
Donald rode it to Victoria but it hurt his knees. On Thursday we moved
the crank further foward and straightened out the back support. Toe
clearance is a bit sketchy because the BB is so high. Friday I went
over to set up the brakes and derailleurs. It climbed better with some
weight on the forks so I tied a pack out there. The fork tends to flop
back and forth wildly until you get going. We'll try it with a smaller
front wheel. Mounting the headlight lower would've help too.
--
zk

Tue, 12 Apr 2005 19:20:08 -0700,
<[email hidden]>, Ryan Cousineau

Quoted message said:

Damn! Get well soon. Most important questions:

1) do you get to keep the Ti part?

Yep, it's there for the duration unless my body rejects it.

Quoted message said:

2) what's the weight saving?

I'm heavier now

Quoted message said:

3) did you consider carbon fibre?

That stuff sucks.
I didn't want to take chances with it breaking again.
--
zk

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 01:14:04 -0700, [email hidden]
(Tom Keats) wrote this message that hasn't yet made it to Denmark.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I hit the ramped up start of a concrete divider curb where the seawall
path goes split level, a couple hundred meters west of the Lions Gate
Bridge.

That seawall path could well be a textbook example of
bike-hostile 'facilities'. The split level thing
is damnable.

The curbing looks like a painted line when top lighted with a LED.

Quoted message said:

Sue the parks board >:-)

We're not supposed to be in the park after dark so I'd not get far.

Zoot Katz said:

I'm standing around on one leg, like a flamingo. The other leg has a
new titanium rod running through and pinned to the three piece tibia.
The two piece fibula is going to knit just fine as long as I don't put
any weight on it, for the next 6-10 wks.

<snip>

Quoted message said:

I hope to be riding again for my birthday in June.

Ouch.

Here's to hopes you heal quickly and well. Which is of course
leads to one of the more important questions...

The bike is okay, right?

😉

--
Dane Jackson - z u v e m b i @ u n i x b i g o t s . o r g
C Code.
C Code Run.
Run, Code, RUN!
PLEASE!!!!

Zoot Katz said:

12 Apr 2005 19:15:46 -0700,
<[email hidden]>,

Brian Huntley said:

Take care, and heal straight.

[censored]. I've spent large sums over many years getting this bent and
twisted.

I meant your leg, Zoot. It'd take more than a bike-as-hammer,
earth-as-anvil pounding to straighten the rest of you out.

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 09:33:59 -0700,
<[email hidden]>,

Dane Jackson said:

Here's to hopes you heal quickly and well. Which is of course
leads to one of the more important questions...

The bike is okay, right?

I suppose it suffered the ignominy of being hauled home in a truck
after having been locked overnight in the park while the rest of the
bikes got to race the ambulance to hospital. I don't think there's any
damage that can't be fixed with a torch or spray bomb. It's home now
but my bike is still at Donald's house.

It took almost an hour for the ambulance to arrive and almost as long
again to load, stabilise and cart my gibbled self away.
The worst part was waiting outside triage while the cleaning staff
eradicated the ants infesting the bed where they'd almost placed me.
That would have been horrible . . .until the morphine came.
--
zk

"Leonard Migliore" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:ora-

Quoted message said:

I got 4" steel pins in my femur 2 years ago so it's not all Ti out
there.

You must have Kaiser.

Quoted message said:

And mine seem to be permanent. At least they don't set off
airport metal detectors.

I know that they tried using aluminum pins, but they failed due to metal
fatigue, and it was very expensive to replace them every few years.

"Zoot Katz" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Suffice it to say there was no other vehicle involved. Darkness and
semi-recumbent chopper geometry weirdness contributed to the fall on
the Stanley Park Seawall. I doubt it would have happened that way on
my civilian bike. It has brighter lamp and handles normally.

Did you have dynamo powered lights or battery powered lights?

Zoot Katz said:

It climbed better with some weight on the forks so I tied a pack
out there. The fork tends to flop back and forth wildly until you
get going. We'll try it with a smaller front wheel. Mounting the
headlight lower would've help too.

It's worth noting that I've been able to moderate a chopper's tendency
to flop by adding more than a prudent-looking amount of fork offset
(like 5" perpendicular offset for a 45" head angle and 20" front
wheel). Beware, there's a relatively fine line between an amount of
offset that addresses flop problems and a larger amount that causes
negative trail. If you can get decent angular measurements off of the
bike, you may want to make yourself a diagram.

Some extended front forks flex enough to oscillate between too little
offset (excessive flop) and too much (reverse caster). That makes for
an adventuresome ride.

One of my clubmates has a long chopper with a bottle generator and
headlight mounted on the lower left fork leg. It's great for exposing
surface contours, but the tire throws a large shadow on the right.

Chalo Colina

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 20:22:24 GMT,
<[email hidden]>, "Steven M.

Scharf said:

"Zoot Katz" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Suffice it to say there was no other vehicle involved. Darkness and
semi-recumbent chopper geometry weirdness contributed to the fall on
the Stanley Park Seawall. I doubt it would have happened that way on
my civilian bike. It has brighter lamp and handles normally.

Did you have dynamo powered lights or battery powered lights?

On joe-bike, there is a 2.6W dynamo powered lamp and a 3 LED
blinky/lamp for a stand light. The bike I was riding had only a 3 LED
blinky/lamp that needed stronger batteries.

The curb didn't cast a shadow, it was level with the surface as it
ramped up to height. So, it looked like a painted line starting out of
nowhere. The approach was level black asphalt and then silt covered
immediately where the curb emerged.
--
zk

Chalo said:

Zoot Katz said:

It climbed better with some weight on the forks so I tied a pack
out there. The fork tends to flop back and forth wildly until you
get going. We'll try it with a smaller front wheel. Mounting the
headlight lower would've help too.

It's worth noting that I've been able to moderate a chopper's tendency
to flop by adding more than a prudent-looking amount of fork offset
(like 5" perpendicular offset for a 45" head angle and 20" front
wheel). Beware, there's a relatively fine line between an amount of
offset that addresses flop problems and a larger amount that causes
negative trail. If you can get decent angular measurements off of the
bike, you may want to make yourself a diagram.

Some extended front forks flex enough to oscillate between too little
offset (excessive flop) and too much (reverse caster). That makes for
an adventuresome ride.

One of my clubmates has a long chopper with a bottle generator and
headlight mounted on the lower left fork leg. It's great for exposing
surface contours, but the tire throws a large shadow on the right.

Chalo Colina

I was going to stay out of the motorcycle related stuff but have one
question regarding long choppers. A lot of the guys I rode with in the
60's and 70's had medium choppers that were a bit much to handle. There
was one story about a guy who had an outrageously long chopper who had
to make right turns from the left side of the lane due to the limited
turning ability of the bike with that length. I never actually saw the
bike so I am wondering if this is just one of those biker legends that
never really happened. I was a speed/wheelie freak so never rode a long
chopper.
Comments????
Bill Baka

bbaka said:

I was going to stay out of the motorcycle related stuff but have one
question regarding long choppers. A lot of the guys I rode with in the
60's and 70's had medium choppers that were a bit much to handle. There
was one story about a guy who had an outrageously long chopper who had
to make right turns from the left side of the lane due to the limited
turning ability of the bike with that length. I never actually saw the
bike so I am wondering if this is just one of those biker legends that
never really happened. I was a speed/wheelie freak so never rode a long
chopper.
Comments????

Just watch all the motorcycle shows on Discovery Channel... the
choppers look cool, but then you see them trying to ride them at a
slow speed, with both feet kinda duck-walking to keep it upright.
Doesn't look like fun to me, but I suppose they're fine on the open
road (other than an engine that can drain those puny little custom
tanks in about 25 miles...

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

Just read about your injury. Get well and leave the weird handling
semi-recumbent chopper for daytime rides. (That's assuming you still
are enamored of those ugly things. <g>😉

Regards,
Bob Hunt

Just read about your injury. Get well and leave the weird handling
semi-recumbent chopper for daytime rides. (That's assuming you still
are enamored of those ugly things. <g>😉

Regards,
Bob Hunt

17 Apr 2005 15:05:46 -0700,
<[email hidden]>,

Bob said:

Just read about your injury. Get well and leave the weird handling
semi-recumbent chopper for daytime rides. (That's assuming you still
are enamored of those ugly things. <g>😉

Riding in the daytime makes for better optics but optics are so much
better on a tall-bike I'll leave the chopper riding for night.

These days, when anybody and their duck can buy a *mart chopper or
ready-made niche filler, tall bikes are the way to go unless your
chopper is plug ugly and weird too. Wouldn't want to be confused with
that glitzy tasteless off-the-shelf low-rider [censored].
--
zk

Mark Hickey said:

Just watch all the motorcycle shows on Discovery Channel... the
choppers look cool, but then you see them trying to ride them at a
slow speed, with both feet kinda duck-walking to keep it upright.
Doesn't look like fun to me, but I suppose they're fine on the open
road (other than an engine that can drain those puny little custom
tanks in about 25 miles...

Agreed. Many of the same qualities that make a chopper bicycle
capricious and entertaining are the ones that make a moto-chopper
tiresome and pointlessly dangerous to ride. I'm certain that they are
both crafted in service of the same artistic impulses, but to me it
seems that moto-choppers yield smaller benefits (playtime options),
bigger costs (both monetary and functional), and bigger risks. I
expect that their high costs and risks are part of the appeal for those
who ride them.

But if you have to ask the question, as they say, you wouldn't
understand the answer.

Chalo Colina

Chalo said:

Mark Hickey said:

Just watch all the motorcycle shows on Discovery Channel... the
choppers look cool, but then you see them trying to ride them at a
slow speed, with both feet kinda duck-walking to keep it upright.
Doesn't look like fun to me, but I suppose they're fine on the open
road (other than an engine that can drain those puny little custom
tanks in about 25 miles...

Agreed. Many of the same qualities that make a chopper bicycle
capricious and entertaining are the ones that make a moto-chopper
tiresome and pointlessly dangerous to ride. I'm certain that they are
both crafted in service of the same artistic impulses, but to me it
seems that moto-choppers yield smaller benefits (playtime options),
bigger costs (both monetary and functional), and bigger risks. I
expect that their high costs and risks are part of the appeal for those
who ride them.

But if you have to ask the question, as they say, you wouldn't
understand the answer.

Dead on! FWIW, I never miss 'American Chopper'... some of the best
television on television. I truly DO appreciate the art, but also
appreciate my bike that's faster, quieter (a LOT quieter), handles
MUCH better, goes 250-300 miles on a tank and carries two and some
luggage in comfort. That said, it would be fun to have a "sick bike"
in the stable as well... I just wouldn't pretend to want to ride it
anywhere. ;-)

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame