First Trip to BMX Track

Bike boys

Arthur without training wheels

2-Wheel Park Ride

First ride to the park and back without training wheels. Pure joy on Henry's face.

Skuut: Brief Product Review

The Skuut is one of the less expensive wooden balance bikes on the market. I'm not sure how the "original" wooden balance bikes were/are built (not interested in that conversation), but the Skuut has two major design flaws. Below is a slideshow, if you click on the photos and open them in a new window, you can see annotations I've added to the four photos.

The first is that the handlebar is attached to the front fork using wood screws. This means that the wood screws screw down between the layers of plywood. Any impact or torque on the handlebar results in the separation of these layers. In the case of my boys, these impacts are often at high speeds resulting in complete separation of the handlebar from the fork. I've attempted to draw the plywood back together by drilling two holes and using long chainring bolts and washers. I've also been reattaching the handlebar with the wood screws by shoving matchsticks down the screw holes to give the screws more wood to bite into. This evening I drilled an additional set of holes so that now four screws hold the handlebar to the fork.

The second design flaw is that the wheel is held in the center of the axel assembly by the combination of compression rings and wooden hub pieces. The wooden hub pieces work themselves loose allowing the compression rings to pop out of their groove. The result is a wobbly wheel. The wooden hub pieces eventually split from being forced back on to the hub, so I've replaced them with hose clamps. The wheel still wobbles, but at least it stays in the center.

The boys love their Skuut. Like any loved toy it is starting to break down. The boys are hard on the Skuut, e.g., deliberately crashing it into walls, riding off of steps and high curbs, dismounting at high speeds and dumping it to the ground. They have occasionally have left it out all night allowing moisture to weaken the plywood and rust the wheels.

If you're in the market for a wooden balance bike, look carefully at how the handlebar and wheels are attached. We're going to keep ours patched up and rolling, but I don't think we'll be handing it down to any friends.

Any repair advice from family carpenters and engineers is appreciated.

Flower Bed Bikin'

Backyard Bikin'

Big Bike Ride

Henry went on an epic ride yesterday: around the block! It's about 1.5 miles and includes side walk, bridge over 16, suspension bridge over Raccoon Creek, and bike path. I wanted to shoot some of his downhill action, but I couldn't operate the camera and spot him (running alongside) while he was bombing down the hills.

Bike racing can be beautiful

I was building my new team bike this week and thinking about bike racing. I had recently read an article about the etiquette of improvisation in jazz jam sessions.

The article gave an insider's perspective wherein "everyone pay[s] close attention to the other players and [is] prepared to alter what they are doing in response to tiny cues that suggest a new direction that might be interesting to take...everyone understands that at every moment everyone (or almost everyone) involved in the improvisation is offering suggestions as to what might be done next, in the form of tentative moves, slight variations that go in one way rather than some of the other possible ways...some of these suggestions begin to converge and others, less congruent with the developing direction, fall by the wayside. The players thus develop a collective direction that characteristically...feels larger than any of them, as though it had a life of its own."
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Most criterium racers could offer a similar account. When you are in tune with your teammates' abilities and limitations and can respond accordingly, bike racing can be as beautiful as jazz.

Just a thought as I'll miss not having much time to jam with teammates this season.

"Clearly, we could identify a whole range of kinds of situations, varying between the two poles of those that work on the basis of an etiquette that recognizes and maintains a formal ideology of equality of status and those whose etiquette requires recognition of differentials in the contribution made to the collective effort."

Becker, H.S. (2000). The etiquette of improvisation. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7(3), 171-176.