Of Sand, Wood and Crossing State Lines: The Quest for a Curvy Fork

Because I like to keep things simple, the bicycle I am making is of course a low trail design. And low trail means a fork with a lot of rake. A very curvy fork, in other words. Not only did I want it to be curvy, but I wanted it to be that special kind of French-curvy where instead of a gradual "banana" bend, there is a dramatic flick toward the tips of the blades (like so).






When you buy supplies for making a fork, what you get is two straight blades that are (hopefully) a bit longer than you need them to be, and a crown which those blades plug into. It is then up to you to rake the blades. The style of bend I wanted requires using blades that are designed to withstand such dramatic manipulation. I went with the Kaisei Toei blades, which were already familiar from other projects I've been involved in.






To get the fork blades bent as desired, we needed a special setup that was not locally available. So we payed a visit to Cirlce A Cycles in Providence RI, about 30 miles from Mike Flanigan's shop. They have a fork bender that was made specifically for the French-style bend and could produce the 73mm of rake I wanted. The furry receptionist granted us permission to use it.






Since 73mm is a pretty dramatic amount of rake, Chris Bull suggested filling the fork blades with sand before bending. This would reduce the possibility of damage during the process.






The blades were taped at both ends to contain the sand.






The fork bending press consists of a wooden block curved according to the French bend design (they have several of these presses, used for different styles of bends). There is a notch along the curve where the fork blade sits, held in place by a vise.






A giant lever is then pushed up, forcing the blade to adhere to the curvature of the wooden block.






The further up you push, the more dramatic the bend.






At first we did not have an idea of exactly when to stop, so Chris eyeballed it and stopped when he thought the rake was around 50mm. Confirming that this was correct and that the bend was forming properly, he then continued the process until we finally had the 73mm rake we wanted.






This is the dropout placement mockup. To determine the rake correctly, you need to know how and where the blade will be connected to the dropout.






One thing that can go wrong during this process, is that the steel can get distorted. When this happens, you can see and feel a rippling on the inside of the bend. Thankfully this did not happen.






For the second blade we now knew exactly when to stop and had a marker in place. I did part of this bend myself and it was pretty cool to feel the blade give under the force of the lever. It is interesting that Circle A's setup makes you push the lever up rather than pull it down; I have never operated this kind of press before.






Thanks to Circle A, I now have two symmetrical, beautifully raked fork blades that are waiting to become a fork. All I have to do is braze it.

Evening Thundercloud

We sure have had a lot of cool clouds filling our skies lately. This one was captured while I was kayaking the Pigeon River recently. I could hear thunder off in the distance but I never did get rained on while I was out there.



Below: Another one that I captured the same evening along the river.

Esmerelda ..

I got to go out with Steve for what seemed like the first time this year. (I wanted to say Summer, but it is no longer, and I doubt I have been in the mountains with Steve since Spring.)

Due to my long hard day the previous day, and Steve bringing his wife's cousin along, we opted for a fairly mellow scramble of Esmerelda Peak in the Teanaway.

To avoid traffic we started a touch late, and arrived at the De Roux camp trail head after 9:30am. We hiked up the trail and took frequent breaks. After consulting the map we ignored the turn off point thinking it was just a cut off a switch back. We went too far and arrived at Gallagher Head Lake. We hung out a bit on some wooden benches taking in the scenery and getting cold. We altered our approach and headed cross country to the ridge to climb.

With some light bushwhacking we were on rocky slopes picking our way up the mostly solid terrain. With a few sections of third class rock, we were on the summit, taking in the views. We hung out for a while and then headed to the next "summit" on the ridge to the east. We continued to the next and then developed our plan to hike down a different way. A few loose third class bits got us down the ridge where we followed game trails down most of the way back to the trail. The slope was steep and loose and only got easier as we descended. I saw a fat garter snake on the way down and then we hit the trail and hiked out.

Scrambling the second summit (photo by Steve Machuga)

This was a fun trip and a good trip to do after the bruiser I had the previous day. It was fun to be out with Steve, and the summit of Esmerelda offers pretty nice views in all directions. It took almost as long to do the round trip drive as it did to climb the peak. Steve and I discussed how the book listed it as a T3, but we found it to be fairly easy with only a few steps of 3rd class. However, I am beginning to think that the technical scramble rating used also increases for navigational difficulty. But who knows. Yet another nice day out in the mountains.

My pics are here.

Soda Damn

This little weird natural damn is called Soda Damn and is just above the town of Jemez Springs, NM. Don't know who the people in the photos are but I thank them for being good photo models.

Stormy

On Saturday it was nice for around here so I took the ponies over to the big pen and let them play followed by a good brushing. Here is Stormy playing and standing to be brushed.

Wordless Wednesday :: Icelandic Church

Near Keflavik, Iceland. Summer of 1973.Copyright © 1973/.. by Rebeckah R. Wiseman

A Year Gone By :: in Review

Well, the year .. is almost history. It's been a great year for me for research, though not so much for blogging. With only 112 posts published, it's been the "worst" year since I started blogging. In fact, this is my first post for December! No excuses, really, but what I've "discovered" is that when I get involved with a project (be it actual research, transcribing documents, or simply standardizing my database) I tend to get really involved - to the point of doing little else until "that project" is completed. I must admit, I have missed the blogging...



January found me traveling westward from Louisiana where I had spent the holidays with extended family. Highlights for the month were a short stop at White Sands National Monument, a meetup with a blog reader who turned out to be a distant cousin, a two-week stay at Lake Havasu City where there was a hot-air balloon festival and where I developed a naming scheme for organizing my digital files.






An Arizona Sunset. January 12th.


February was spent in Salt Lake City where RootsTech was on the agenda. I must admit, I was a little disappointed with the conference but enjoyed seeing old friends again. Of course, there was The Library that was calling my name for the entire month! Among other things while there, I began writing the series on the Hoffman-Huffman family of Ohio and Pennsylvania.



After a few days in Death Valley I made one final stop before heading back to Indiana in March. May came all too quickly along with the NGS Conference in Cincinnati, which was absolutely fantastic. The sessions were (for the most part) outstanding, and being with like-minded friends was priceless.






The Grand Canyon looking north from Desert View. March 15th.


A short sojourn into Kentucky looking for the land of my Bray ancestors, then it was back to Indiana for a few more weeks. In early July I was notified that a seat had opened up in Thomas Jones' class at the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh - I had been put on the waiting list in February when I was unsuccessful in registering - and was asked if I was still interested in attending. Of course, my response was a definite "Yes!" and I was shortly on my way to G.R.I.P. and what a "trip" it was - one of the most challenging yet exhilarating experiences of my genealogy journey!



I had thought that I might spend a week in Pennsylvania doing on-site research but after a week at G.R.I.P. my brain was fried. Instead, I returned to Indiana for a few weeks to assimilate what I had learned and to prepare a bit more to research those Pennsylvania Ancestors.



In August I spent about 10 days in Huntsville, Alabama helping a cousin who was recovering from surgery. While there, plans were made with another cousin for spending a few weeks in Maine. A couple days of research in Pennsylvania on the way there, a few more days afterward, a visit with my aunt and cousin in Maryland, then a few more days in Pennsylvania and I made it back to Indiana just in time for the Midwest Geneabloggers .. Fall Meetup (link to Tina Lyons' post) on October 13th.






Northern Maine. September 25th.


Since then I've been looking for more Hoffman and Switzer and Rupert descendants, and found quite a few of them too! But most of the last month has been spent on "cleaning up" and standardizing my genealogy database in preparation for uploading it to ancestry.com or some other online tree site. It's been somewhat tedious and very time consuming. Sources still require a great deal of work and I'm beginning to think that this "clean-up" work could go on for ever!



It has been an interesting and rather satisfying year. A mixture of travel and research and a little of both combined. What could be better?

Ziva & Tuffee

Pets at Work

Every time I visit Circle A Cycles, I sift through my pictures of the shop afterward only to discover that they are mostly cat portraits. But who can blame me, when they have such a fabulous shop cat. BT's job is mainly reception, customer serviceand PR. When it comes to being petted, she is an equal-opportunity practitioner - diligently making her way from one visitor to another, ensuring that everyone gets their fair share of stroking her silky fur and scratching her velvety ears. When this task is done, she slinks around delicately amidst the machinery, inspecting the quality of her colleagues' work.




I've tried to invite my own cats into my workspace. There was that one time I attempted to have them in the same room while I painted. Minutes later, they'd already managed to dip their little paws into some paint, and were now proceeding to spread it around the entire room while swatting brushes off of shelves and batting at jars of turpentine playfully. Oh how I paid for their visit with hours of cleanup. Oh how they squirmed and squealed as I quarantined them in the bathtub and scrubbed their paws with soap.




On another occasion, I tried to scan negatives around my whiskered friends. Their curiosity in this task made the scanning process unnecessary, since the strip of negatives was quickly rendered unusable.




Working on bikes in the same room is excitingly risky. They are intensely interested and make a show out of being very good, so that I allow them to be there. And they are good, up to a point. Until a particularly attractive part catches their eye and they challenge each other to a soccer match. The speed and elegance with which they can cause damage are admittedly impressive.




I can work from home on my laptop, but just barely. The cats like to stealthily make their way onto the table and slowly wrap themselves around the keyboard, until both my wrists are resting on some part of cat and my typing is constricted. "At least help me type if you're going to do that," I try to reason with them. They ignore me, purring triumphantly. Later a friend explained that this really is their way of helping me write: The purring functions as a metronome of sorts that helps me keep rhythm and type faster.Shop cats they are not, but perhaps I underestimate their value as office cats.

Hyak Skiing ..

Went up to Snoqualmie Pass with Steve to see what looked like we wanted to ski it. After wallowing around in waist deep snow the previous day I thought skiing would be a better option than chasing ice. We drove around scouting slopes for a bit before settling on Hyak with its easy access, and well covered slopes. Of course, it had been pretty well skied out during the weekend, and probably by dawn patrollers from earlier in the day.

My backside run (photo by Steve Machuga)

We skinned up a well worn track and passed a few guys on the way up. At the top we opted to ski a little to skier's right of the main slope between some trees where there weren't as many tracks. Steve tested a rollover for avalanche danger and then we were off rejoining the main slope about half way down. There were two other skiers coming down and they informed us the backside was less tracked out, so after our first run we opted to head down the back side.

Steve on the backside

There was lots of snow cat activity at Hyak as workers are busy getting the two new lifts ready to open this season. We arrived at the top and had a much nicer run down the less traveled backside in the newly cut run down to the base of the back side chair. We skinned back up the cat track to the top and had a final run down a steeper section further skier's right on the front side before heading back to town.

Hotshot
It was nice to be out skiing, but the skiing was not of great quality. The snow was skied frequently to the point where some sections developed moguls. The back side run was much nicer though. Like I said, I can't complain I was out, but the quality of skiing lacked.

Oh, My!

Heading west on U.S. Hwy 82, near Hope, New Mexico. December 5, ...

Photographing ice at Cutface Creek Wayside

This morning I met up with my friend Bryan Hansel (http://www.bryanhansel.com) near Grand Marais to photograph the sunrise. The shoreline we visited was littered with these large "mountains" of ice, pushed up by wave action from Lake Superior. The temperature was even cold enough to have some nice sea smoke out on the lake. Along with the fascinating ice, we found several otter "slides" in the snow along the shoreline. Otter slides are trails made in the snow by the otters as they slide down slopes on their bellies. It sure was a fun morning!

Microburst

Wednesday's forecast predicted thunderstorms, and after a sunny humid day a rapid downpour descended on our neighbourhood in the afternoon. Later we learned that the next town over had experienced a microburst - an intense storm similar to a tornado, only with wind patterns in the opposite direction. Over 100 full grown trees were uprooted in the storm in the course of very little time. No one was hurt, but property was damaged.



The next morning I went on a ride and found the Minuteman Bikeway impassable, with huge toppled trees in close succession blocking the entire path. As municipal workers in neon vests surveyed the area, confused bicycle commuters wandered around looking for alternative routes without having to ride on the high-traffic main road which the Bikeway parallels.






The side streets were blocked. Municipal vehicles were gathering from all directions - those huge machines where you feed them pieces of tree and they mulch it up. Finally, I went on the main road and competed with a procession of buses in mid-day heat until my nerves had worn raw. Drivers were especially out of sorts that morning, behaving aggressively and honking at cyclists for simply being "in the way" - probably not realising that we had all been displaced from the adjacent bikeway and had nowhere else to be.



Riding under these conditions, I realised how spoiled I've gotten lately - forgetting how stressful cycling can be when drivers behave like this and there is no alternative route. I was getting honked at continuously for trying to take the lane. But as busses kept cutting me off and car doors swung open with abandon, taking the lane was the only safe option. Eventually a few of us formed a cluster: me, a woman in a yellow sundress on a cruiser, a teenager on a mountain bike, and an older man on a time trial bike. The cars went wild, but at least there was safety in numbers.






The pièce de résistance happened on my way home. I was already back in Cambridge and riding on a quiet MUP when around the bend a municipal carcomes charging at me head-on, taking up the entire width of the path. The guy slammed his brakes when he saw me and I slammed mine, feeling a huge surge of adrenaline. We stopped within inches of each other and I had one of those not-quite-but-almost crashes that I am so talented at. I kept the bike from hitting the ground, in the process contorting my body unnaturally and twisting my elbow. Ouch. But who cares about a little ouch; I am just glad he did not run me over. We had words, if you can call it that. Me: "You could have killed me!" He: "Sorry sweetheart, I didn't see you coming!"



I suppose the take-away lesson here is to stay off the roads after natural disasters? Easy enough for someone doing a training ride, but what about those who commute that way? I don't think the city even announced anywhere that the Minuteway Bikeway was impassable, whereas they certainly would have announced it had a major road become unavailable to drivers. Maybe when there are more of us, things will be different. I hope so.

Achor clipping from Will Gadd..

Most of this stuff is the same ice or rock. Will is known for ice but it is worth a few minutes to read his recent thoughts and the resulting discussion if you haven't already. Loved the reality check and the common sense approach.



http://willgadd.com/anchor-clipping/



http://willgadd.com/anchor-clipping-2/



"Most of the people proposing various strategies have simply not gone out and tested their strategies. I have. Bluntly, until someone experiences the violent forces and speed of high fall-factor falls I just don't think he or she really has an informed opinion on this topic"



My general thought isthis:



"There are very few “absolutes” in climbing systems..."



Understanding the dynamics and the systems we are using is what I think is important and more than a penny of simple common sense added to the problem each time. I can count the number of times I have clipped straightinto the anchor. It aint many.

Shop Bench

This bench was outside one shop door and looked like it was worth taking a picture of.

Joslin Family :: Irwin Visits Grandma

According to this letter, Grandma had scheduled Irwin's visit for August 2nd and 3rd, 1969. There are no letters in her files between the one she wrote on March 30th and the next one that Irwin wrote on Tuesday, July 29th, after his visit. So apparently the date of his visit was changed. I'm guessing that the visit was the previous weekend, July 26th and 27th.

I don't think that I was even aware of the visit. At the time, I was living in Fort Wayne, working for the Lincoln National Life Insurance Company in the accounting department, and busy with my own life. Family History was the furthest thing from my mind, at least until the early 1980s.

From Irwin's visit, we have two photographs commemorating the event:

Irwin Joslin and his wife Alice.

Second cousins. Irwin Laverne Joslin and Hazlette Ferguson.
July 1969 - Irwin was 47 years old and Grandma was 67.

This letter from Irwin, following his visit to grandma, was written on stationary from the Westinghouse Air Brake Company.

7-29-69

Dear Mrs. Ferguson,

We had a real nice morning in Fort Wayne then a nice drive home. It rained a little but cleared up as we got near home.

We really enjoyed our weekend at your house. Thank you so much for having us. Hope that you can come to Peoria sometime.

We feel like we accomplished something in Fort Wayne - that is a fine genealogical section in the Library. First we looked over the Whitley County history in the newer book - it is about the same as your book. I made copies of the Troy Township section.

Then we found something we didn't know in a book of marriage records of Whitley County from 1838-1860. Did you know Lysander's middle name was Price? That is what it shows. It says Lysander Price Joslin married Lydia Robison on Aug 23, 1843. I thought that was interesting. Of course he was named for Price Goodrich but until we came to see you we didn't know who Price Goodrich was.

Then we also suspected that James Joslin might have come from Delaware County, Ohio since we knew the Goodrichs were from there. So we looked at the 1820 census for Delaware County, Ohio & the only Joslin listed was a Jonas Joslin who had 1 boy under 5 years old & one between 20 & 30. Then the 1930 [sic] census of that county lists both Jonas & James in Delaware County. It shows that James had one boy under 5 (probably Lysander) & one boy between 5 & 10 years as well as 2 girls - one under 5 & one between 5 & 10.

Therefore it looks very much like Jonas is James father. We got out a book on Delaware County & we knew the township was Liberty so we read through that section but never found his name. The 1830 census lists 10 other Joslins but only James & Jonas are in Delaware County.

So we think we have found another clue. We will keep working at it. We also looked over Mrs. Wessler's book - "the Josselin -Jocelyn Family". They have it in the library there. She has a lot of Joslins listed & if we go back far enough we may be able to connect on to someone she has. I was glad to see the book - I may buy one sometime.

Well, that is about all for now. Hope you have no ill effects from your fall - is your foot still sore? Take care of yourself.

Sincerely,
Irwin L. Joslin

=+==+= Some Notes Regarding the Letter =+==+=

There were two histories published on Whitley County at the time, both are now available online. The 1882 history by Goodspeed and Blanchard is at the Harold B. Lee Library and the other, in 1907, by Kaler and Maring is at Google Books.

Jonas Joslin is listed in the 1820 census on page 95a in Liberty Township, Delaware County, Ohio. In 1830 he is listed in the same location, on page 85 as is James Joslin. In that census, Lysander (born in May 1825) would have been the male 5-10 years of age, not the one under 5 years.

Click on the images below for a larger, legible version.



Other posts in this series:

• Joslin Family :: Heritage Tour and Research Trip
• Joslin Family :: First Contact
• Joslin Family :: Grandma Responds to Irwin's Letter
• Joslin Family :: Irwin's Letter of March 25th
• Joslin Family :: Grandma Invites Irwin to Visit

Yosemite National Park

After a six day visit, I departed Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks on the morning of June 23rd. It was late afternoon when I checked into the Forks campground in the Sierra National Forest at Bass Lake (18 miles south of the southern entrance to Yosemite) and a few miles east of the town of Oakhurst.

I had been having a problem with vibration on the front end of the van when braking on steep downhill grades and it had gotten worse on the way to Yosemite. So on Thursday morning (June 24th) instead of going into the park, I stopped at an auto parts store in Oakhurst to get a recommendation for a repair shop. They gave me the names of two “highly reputable” shops saying that one of them would probably be able to get me in today or tomorrow.

Immediately, I went to the first one, told them the situation and the symptoms and they agreed to work on it later that day! Amazing!! Without examining it first they could only say that the brake rotors likely needed to be turned and the brake pads replaced. Worse case scenario was that the brake rotors would be too far gone and would also have to be replaced, which would double the cost of the estimate.

With four hours until the appointment, I went to the library. They didn't have wifi but I was able to use one of their computers for an hour then worked on the netbook writing blog posts. Surprisingly, the time passed quickly and I went to the repair shop for the appointment at 3 o'clock. The rotors had to be replaced and it took them much longer than they thought it would. Five hours later, I left the repair shop! The only “good” thing about the wait was that the repair shop had wifi so I was able to schedule a few blog posts and even catch up with reading other blogs!

Now though, my two days at Yosemite were down to one. (The campground where I was staying was fully booked for the weekend and all of the campgrounds in Yosemite were also filled.) Friday morning (June 25th) I was up early and on my way to Yosemite at 7 o'clock. The sun was out but clouds filled the sky, it looked like it could rain.

My first destination was Glacier Point. I'd been told that the views from there were fantastic. Though it wasn't all that far (about 45 miles) it took nearly two hours to get to Glacier Point! But the views, Oh Yeah, they were worth it...

Half Dome and Vernal Falls as seen from Washburn Point (on the way to Glacier Point). The gray and gloomy skies give it a rather forbidding appearance.

Yosemite Valley and Half Dome from Glacier Point.

A close-up view of Half Dome, also from Glacier Point.

Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls, from Glacier Point. The sun came out for a few minutes, highlighting the granite walls and mountain tops.

When I had arrived at Glacier Point there weren't very many people there. An hour later, the buses began to arrive. That's when I left Glacier Point and went down into the valley. The traffic was horrible. I was able to find a parking spot at the short trail to Bridalveil Falls.

Bridalveil Falls as seen from the bottom of the falls. Yeah, ya can't see much! And I got drenched. And it was fun! The force of the wind-blown water was incredible.

Then it was back to the car and the traffic. It can be confusing driving in the valley. They have a shuttle bus available for some parts of the valley but the day-use parking lots were full. Some of the roads in the village area are closed to vehicular traffic. I wanted to go to the visitor center, the Ansel Adams Gallery, and the Ahwahnee Lodge but couldn't find a place to park. By this time it was mid-afternoon and I was getting frustrated. On the bright side though, the gloomy clouds had departed and blue sky was showing between the white clouds. The sun was shining. It was a beautiful day!

Driving out of the valley, along the Merced River were several parking areas. I stopped at one of them to eat lunch and take a few photos.

Yosemite Valley with El Capitan on the left and Bridalveil Falls on the right.

Bridalveil Falls.

I drove north toward the Tioga Road, which, if followed all the way, would take you to Tuolumne Meadows and the eastern end of the park. Realizing that it would be at least a three-hour drive back to the campground south of the park, I turned around about halfway but it was a beautiful drive. Somehow, I missed a turn and ended up back in Yosemite Valley.

Yosemite Falls from the meadow in the Valley. Cars and people line the road.

I found a parking spot along Northside Drive and walked in the meadow for a while. Further down the road I stopped in front of El Capitan where people were standing around looking through binoculars. Eventually I saw several climbers on the cliff wall, their helmets glinting in the sunlight. They looked so small.

Yosemite Valley from the tunnel overlook at the entrance into the valley. El Capitan is on the left, Half Dome is off in the distance in the center, and Bridalveil Falls on the right.

Even with the crowds of people, the congested traffic, and the lack of parking, I enjoyed my whirlwind tour of Yosemite. One short day (or even two days) is not enough time. Yosemite is on my lengthening list of places I'd like to return to someday. I'll be back!