Month: June 2016

Categories
Lights and Electronics Touring Bike Accessories

Minoura Phone Grip Smart Phone Holder

smart phone holder fo bicycle
The Minoura Phone Grip Smart Phone Holder (iH-520-STD) is the best handlebar mount phone holder I have found. The metal bar clamp is hinged and comes with rubber shims to fit various diameter bars. There are two versions, the only difference between the two being the size of the bar clamp. Over Size fits bars 27.2-35mm in diameter and the Standard Size fits bars 22.2-28.6mm in diameter.

A solid handlebar mounted phone holder keeps the phone within easy reach when touring and is nice when using the GPS or map apps. If one has a dynamo hub and converter, it’s a simple matter to plug the phone in while going down the road. Even when not using or charging the phone it is nice to have a secure place to keep it.

A base plate bolts onto the bar clamp and the phone holder itself bolts onto the base plate. The disc shaped base plate and the phone holder interface with each other by means of radial grooves allowing the phone holder to rotate in 9 degree increments for adjustment of the phones angle.

Solid clamp and adjustable base.
Solid clamp and adjustable base.

The side wings grip the phone tightly and release by pulling the red lever on the bottom of the base. Pressing the red lever all the way in locks the wings in place. The holder ships with two sets of interchangeable side wings for different phone thicknesses. The tall wings fit my Droid phone with Otter Box case.
Minoura side wings

phone in holder
Width to spare with the Droid phone and Otter Box case

Adjustable upper and lower arm brackets can be locked in place once adjusted to the phone being used to keep it from slipping up or down. For iPhone 6 a longer lower bracket is included. A silicone band is attached to the bottom of the case and can be used as extra insurance that the phone won’t accidentally fall off.

Standard upper and lower arm brackets
Standard upper and lower arm brackets

The extended lower arm for iPhone 6
The extended lower arm for iPhone 6

This gets the Bike Hermit® approval for a solid and secure attachment of the phone to the bars. This phone holder also has a lower profile than some of the other ones I have seen and is less prone to getting snagged on something and broken. It will fit phones from 55mm to 85mm in width and between 6mm and 18mm thick.

Categories
Adventure Cycling Association 40th Advocacy/Awareness Event Coverage

Somewhere in the Middle of Montana

The 40th anniversary of Adventure Cycling Association.
I will be riding my bike from Bozeman to Missoula, MT for the 40th Anniversary of Adventure Cycling Association, which happens July 15-17, 2016. As it turns out I will be following the route of my very first bike tour. I didn’t know it at the time but as I was doing my first tour Greg and June Siple were halfway through their bike trip from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, a little jaunt they called Hemistour. When they were done with that they went back to Missoula and started working for a concern they helped start called Bikecentennial, which later became Adventure Cycling Association.
ideale leather saddle
Back in those days it was hard to find bicycle touring gear, or any bicycle gear for that matter. I think my sister or my mom made my panniers from a Frostline Kit. My Peugeot bicycle came with sew-up tires. I ordered an Ideale leather saddle from an actual paper catalog and it eventually appeared in the mail. Plastic bike helmets didn’t exist, and LYCRA was not yet being used for shorts. There were no cell phones and “internet” was not a word. I would stop at a pay phone when I could to call home and let them know where I was and that I was OK. That puts Hemistour in perspective and squarely in the category of extreme sport.

TOSRV West
The Tour of the Swan River Valley, or TOSRV West is a 220 mile, fully supported, two day bike ride that begins in Missoula, goes through Seeley Lake and Swan Lake to Big Fork and returns along Flathead Lake back to Missoula. Two other Hemistour riders, Dan and Lys Burden, were inspired by the Tour of the Scioto River Valley in Ohio and they organized the first TOSRV West in 1971. In the late 1970’s and early 80’s riding TOSRV West was a chance to see some exotic, for the time, bicycles. Of course the high end bikes were all lugged steel with full Campagnolo or Zeus kits. There was even a custom builder in Missoula at the time; Dennis Sparrow, who drove along the route with a van full of tools and worked as the mechanic for the riders. If memory serves, Sparrow was not built like a sparrow. I also remember that he smoked cigarettes which did, and does, seem like an anomaly. Then again Dario Pegoretti wouldn’t strike one as a builder of exquisite bike frames either.

These are some of the memories I will be taking with me to Missoula next month. There is a contingent of riders from Idaho who will be converging on Missoula the middle of July. I’m sure they all have there own reasons for going and will have their own stories and memories from the trip. I intend to collect some of those stories over beers in one of Missoula’s brew pubs. Also looking forward to getting a chance to talk to Greg, June, Dan and Lys.

Categories
Crossroads Music

Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart (1941-2010)

Portrait of Don Van Vliet

neon plants swim like green seaweed to a deep rhythm of blues

I listen to the music and try to figure out the structure or the time signature and soon realize it doesn’t matter. What matters is the feeling. The music. It throbs and pulses; staggers and careens; stumbles but doesn’t fall; and is completely original. The poetry too puts words together in certain unexpected ways to create a jagged rhythm and to paint a picture.

you hardly know a day goes by in the cardboard cutout sundown 

A young Don Van Vliet used to sit in his mother’s basement with a young Frank Zappa listening to music and, I imagine, getting weird. Zappa later formed the Mothers of Invention and becomes, arguably, a better known musician.  I think his was a self conscious almost contrived weirdness that gets in the way of the music. Van Vliet was truly, innocently weird and was a demanding bandleader. The lineup of his Magic Band fluctuated but all the musicians were virtuosos who could play the sounds Van Vliet heard in his head. Some players, like Ry Cooder, thought he was too difficult to work for and so they left. Others stayed and continued to play together as the Magic Band after Van Vliet’s death.

Painting by Don V an Vliet

the past sure is tense 

Van Vliet’s creativity came through because he refused to grow up. Like Monk, he was able to maintain a child like simplicity in order to only write or play or paint what was necessary and no more. Monk had Nellie and Pannonica to take care of him and handle the tasks of everyday living. I don’t know who Van Vliet had, if anybody. Also like Monk, he eventually quit playing music entirely. He spent his time painting his impressions of the crows and Joshua Trees and the critters, real and mythical, of the Mojave Desert. Now his paintings are exhibited in galleries all over the world.
His music is not for everybody and neither is his art probably, but I love this man. I love to hear sounds that I’ve heard before sent to me in a new way, in a way that would have never occurred to me. It makes me feel all jangly and adds spice to the bland stew in my brain. Or else it’s the coffee.