Bamboo Bike Lives!

So the bike is finished, and has about 15 miles wonderful, happy, smooth, quiet riding on it. To summarize what we've done, my friends Nick Frey, Tom Yersak, Doug Wolf and I built this bike as a project for our engineering design class at Princeton University. The bamboo was sourced locally, torched then baked in an oven to remove the moisture from the poles. They were then mitered to fit snugly to the ajoining tubes and then wrapped in single strands of resin soaked carbon fiber to create the joints. The dropouts were designed in ProEngineer and CNC'd in a 3 axis machine. The head tube and bottom bracket were hand machined from aluminum stock, as was the seatpost adjuster. It rides very very smoothly and is quite strong. Enjoy, I know I do.





in the jig



the joints




finished



first ride

Psych Paper

So for my second paper in my abnormal Psychology class I need to write a short story about someone with some sort of psychological disorder. My paper is proving relatively easy to write because I am creating nothing, but rather remembering some of the antics of one of my ex-friends from newark, Kevin. Kevin was a wild kid who got me into all sorts of trouble. Here is the first of many short memories which will be included in the short story. A bit depressing for a second post, but you get the idea.


One of my first memories of Kevin and the most vivid of my 4th grade year was took place on our block, in the street in front of our houses. A pigeon had been struck by a car and was alive, but unable to fly. Seeing the hurt animal, we rushed over to it as it hopped towards the sidewalk.
“Damn, man. You see that?” I said to Kevin, looking down at the pigeon.
“Yeah. I don’t think it can fly.” Kevin said, nudging it with his foot.
“We should bring it to my house and try to fix it.”
“Fuck that!” Kevin yelled, kicking the bird into a neighbor’s yard.
Kevin proceeded to grab a large tree branch that had fallen in the storm the night before and beat the bird death with it. I will never forget the image of him laughing as the grey, white and speckled red feathers settled around him.

Nearly all of my more dramatic stories from newark tend to include Kevin. This should be an interesting paper to write....

To Begin...

This will be where I chronicle the work and thoughts of my life, as well as share some of the better curiosities I come across in my travels. Enjoy