building & travel

Building driveways on mountain hills that a goat would find tough! A friend with $300,000 cabins in Gatlinburg, Tn. ask me for help building a driveway. I work with and around concrete a lot but I am not a concrete contractor. Add the hassle of working out of state and very little help and then place the work on hills. Did I forget to mention the black bears from the National Park? But why am I complaining ? I eat a rare steak or lobster every night in a cabin people pay money to rent. A drink or two, I talk to Beck on the phone and then I go to bed. I get paid every Monday. How could life get any better. At least I am not stuck in a office some where!

Red neck Soaking Tub

Three years ago I cut a hole in our deck and built a outside soaking tub. I had worked at a home and had seen what I thought was a hot tub but it was  a soaking tub. Call it what you want I decided that I had to have one at our house. Becky is more refined and polite than me but she suffers from Alabama's summer heat as much as me so this project was not a hard sale. Most people would have bought a hot tub or a above ground pool but because of our small back yard and a small lake a pool would not fit. Hot tubs are nice but not what you want after a long 100 degree day and we have a lot of them. Outdoor soaking tubs can be bought if you are willing to spend several thousand dollars but they often look out of place and don't get used.When I build stuff I try to think out side the box and that often requires using things not as they were intended. If you go to Tractor Supply and look at their stuff in the gated storage area you will water storage tanks used to water livestock. These tanks are built to take the weight of 1500 pound animals standing near or in while they get a drink of water. Built tough of black plastic the oval 300 gallon Rubbermate pool is six by five feet and has a smooth rolled edge. Cost $210.
Three hundred gallons of water can be kept clean using standard hot tub bromide and can be bought any were pool stuff is sold. Cost $50.
Water must be filtered and that required a pump and skimmer box. Bought a spa pump and built a skimmer out of pvc pipe and tub drain. Cost $250. Cool soak total $510.I build stuff!

Grand Prix Fixed

So the Raleigh Grand Prix is now fixed gear! Mavic open sport rims and Surly hubs. I have thought that a crank update might be in order, but I have been turning this crank since the early seventies! I bought a Campy crank several years ago but I would have to buy a Phil bottom bracket and rings. Do I really want to spend $150.00 to put a $90.00 campy crank on my 37 year old bike? I have a birthday in the near future but I really need to start acting like a 55 year old. I ride a Raleigh Talon CX. Surly hubs, Salsa rims, Brooks saddle, Easton handle bar, Oury grips, Shimano free wheel. Fixed and single speed coaster, I have my park rides covered. I have several other road bikes that many people would choose over the two Raleigh's I ride. Centurian, Nishiki, Peugeot, Trek, Univega all great bikes and setting in my storage waiting for me but I rarely ride them. I should save this confession for my next post but guess what? I bought another bike. Surly Instigator from Bikeman's orphan frame dept. Big boy bmx! I have wanted this frame for a long time and the clearance price was too much to resist.

i said i would not do this!

Following the activity of total strangers on the web has become a hobby of mine. Bicycles, caving, travel, construction, and any other passing subject has motivated my search. The lost of Sheldon Brown on the web left a void in my activity. Old bicycles are my passion and have been with me since childhood. Among many bikes in my collection is a Raleigh Grand Prix bought for me by my mother in 1971. Built in Holland for Raleigh by Gazelle, it was my third bike from Europe and the first one I was mature enough to take care of. I moved on to a Raleigh International but the Grand Prix hung around next to my old Schwinn Stingray in our shed. The International became mine in a series of trades that I am still trying to figure out. I had a Fiat 124 Spider in 1975. Traded it for a Pontiac but still wanted a ragtop so I traded some sound gear for an old MGB. A Mountainbrook guy wanted the MG and gave me the International for the car. You may think I don't put a lot of value on things but I really do. I later sold the Pontiac and paid some bills off. Drove a old Gremlin for a while.Got very interested in having a way to haul stuff so I bought a Ford truck! Fast forward past a bunch of personal and work vehicles and a x wife to the year 2002. I had done a lot of caving, taking a lot of risk, rappelling as deep as 1100 feet into sink holes in Alabama,Georgia, Tennessee, and Mexico. I married a librarian who was becoming a empty Nester as her children grew up and out on there own. Little did I know that she would become our state librarian and want me to travel with her. I have had great fun traveling but my old hobby of caving fell by the wayside. One day while sorting my stuff the old Grand Prix called out to me. I had a perfectly good Peugeot serving its purpose catching clothing in my bedroom but the Raleigh and I had history. Ten speed bicycles were all the rage when I was a kid/teen but as I grew up I began to realize that I rarely used more than three gears. Caving was too time consuming but bicycles could be a great hobby for a married man in a all to busy life. Raleigh Grand Prix Google search, lots to read but how do I build a usable bike for a soon to be fifty year old guy, and keep the memories of past rides on my old bike. Sheldon Brown, why does this guy have so many bicycle web pages and what is the obsession with single speeds and fixed gear bikes? So I soon realized that the old bike could be on the road again with a new rear wheel,tires, and a bmx free wheel. I was riding my old bike in the park next to our house but the old road bars were not working for a old guy in a straw hat. Back to Google and I find that I should be riding a hybrid. All I needed was a mountain handle bar and some new brake levers. Bike Nashbar, I got their catalog years ago. I found their web site and of course they know that old guys like me clean out their sheds and want to rebuild their old bicycles. At some point at a yard sale or trip to a thrift store with my collector wife I found another old Raleigh, then a Schwinn, Trek, GT, Centurion, Mongoose,Titian, and many more. I may have lost control but I think my hobby to be a safe and fun thing that I can share with my whole family. I have got to stop but I may post more about bikes maybe even a photo or two. I can tell everyone about going to bicycle shops all over the country from Washington DC to Portland to Boston to Key West. You get the idea.