Mike, I'm dropping off the bike today at CT right now!

I win at commuting today:
- The weather was gorgeous to/from Humber. None of the geese managed to **** me, though they're out in full force these days.
- Coming back east along Bloor I hit the downhill past Wheels of Bloor at a pretty good clip to make the green at the bottom. There was a cop driving in the lane next to me as I was riding and he held pace with me on the downhill. As it flattened out I figured "what the hell" and tucked in behind his bumper ... yay, the cop decided to play along and gave me a perfect high-speed pull back up the other side of the hill. I can't say I've drafted a cop car before, let alone experience it lead-out-train-styles. Anyway, I gave him a wave at the top and that's my story. ;)

I owe you 1 (one) mighty favour.

*cough*ho-jo*cough*

Mike: probably gonna drop by the shop after work and harass you guys. That is all.

Looking for a way to easily (Os-x specifically) convert .avi files to .mov to burn to DVD via Toast .. Tired of getting DVD's with no sound...

As well, I like bikes.

ffmpegx: http://homepage.mac.com/major4/

transcoding ftw.

thanks, the .avi format is from hell I tell ya

http://handbrake.fr/

A little easier to use. Will also convert to mp4 to play in itunes / appletv

wohoo I'll try em all. Software is the new baseball cards.

I had toast 8 converting and burning right and proper, then it simply stopped working.... Can't get toast 9 to do it with sound, no to mention the conversion takes forever. ffmpeg is currently 40% in so jury is still out, though was hoping for some zippiness, but I imagine seeing that I am dealing with video as opposed to my comfort level of graphics the speed is somewhat normal considering the math involved.

I convert a lot of .avi's to mp4 so I can watch them on my Appletv, and handbrake is pretty quick depending upon the quality level.

how do you get it to go ... It keeps asking for a source it can grok... TS Folder or a DVD

You're right. I actually use http://www.techspansion.com/visualhub/, which I thought was from the same people as Handbrake. If you can find a SN, VisualHub does everything (including the happy ending)

The commute to Humber was freaking sweet for me this morning. Right around Ester Lorie park, I hook up with two fast roadies, one riding a Norco and the other on a Specialized. So I hang on the back, riding my capo, for a few minutes until we strike up a conversation, then turned into a pace line through the MUP. It was a pretty sweet ride to school :D

The answer I got from a friend about Goose-**** was to kick it in the head and show it who's the superior species. My answer to that was "I didn't want to make it look bad in front of its kids"...:lol:

some POS stole the non-drive pedal and crank arm of my co-workers FSA Gossamer crankset off her Aquila Roadie, in the executive parking lot.

Ouch. A replacement can be ordered from Cycles Lambert if no local shops have one on hand.

Okay, dude riding the grey GT (who smoked my front wheel tonight) ... if you're on here, fess up. I checked my wheel and it's got a nice you-shaped gouge in the rim but it doesn't look like the rim is bent - it's just out of true and I'll fix it up this weekend. No harm, no foul.

Tip: Make sure no one's already riding the line you want to be on before you cut left!

what the hell?

Meh?

How did this happen?

i hear the market is huge for non-drive side cranks! i'm suprised there are thieves out there with crank pullers. why would someone take the time to steal that?

saw a guy riding a swobo fixed today on college. nice and simple frame, looked like good quality dtopouts but didn't get a good look at it. any idea who makes those frames for them?

Because they can. I had a guy in this morning who'd had his barrel adjusters stolen from his brake levers. Cheapo brake levers at that. The funny thing is that it wasn't the first time someone had come in with that particular problem.

Keith-thanks for the help this morning. A trip to crappytire, 2 m10 nuts, a tube of super glue gel and some ingenuity has solved the problem until the americans finish their holiday and get back to the warranty dept. :)

One guy came in and said that someobody had bolt cuttered his rear wheel spokes to get at the hub + cranks.

Meaning the theif had to be carrying

1) 15mm wrench
2) 8 mm hex
3) Crank puller
4) bolt cutter

Really sucked to be that guy. Even proper lockup technique sometimes just isn't enough.

no kidding - good thief there; way to ruin the most expensive component on a bike to steal a cheap one!

It was really nothing spectacular. I think a cab or something was pulling over to let people out. Once it started to pull over I moved over to the left side of the moving cars because I figured people would get out and block the road. Dude in front of me kept going and then skidded (brakeless)/cut left between cars when people did in fact block the road on their way to the curb. I wasn't willing to go into the oncoming lane so I just hit the brakes and hoped for the best. Almost stopped in time and caught his rear wheel across my front.

When I see someone riding brakeless, one thing goes through my head: "Trouble"
Sorry to hear about your wheel.

**** happens. I can fix it so it's no biggie.

Oddly enough it was my second mishap of the day - I completely bailed as I arrived at Humber. There's a dirt service road leading from the Humber trail up to the back end of one of the parking lots on campus ... I was riding up it w/ slicks and sitting down to keep the rear wheel from going. I picked a ****ty line at one point and dropped in and out of a big erroded rut. That was all it took to pop my front wheel right up into the air and send me toppling over sideways, at which point I got a nice bloody "bear claw" wound from my chainring. Of course I ended up walking into class (guest speaker day) late, filthy and bleeding. ;)

Edit: Hahaha, I just stabbed myself in the ass with a cactus. That's it, I'm done for the day. Someone put me in my protective bubble.

Wasn't me on the GT, I was riding around on an old Eaton's Glider today. It's olive-green with a 3-speed Sturmey Archer hub (from 1972!), chrome fenders, neato book-rack-claw-thingy on the back, and it is fun to ride but noisy and slow. And I am addicted to ringing the bell...I am going too slow for anyone to be in my way but it is fun to ring.

On that note, I overheard a guy saying he had his QR skewers stolen while his bike was locked up. :wtf:

Really?

To all the "fixie" newbies (and this means those who have not been riding track bikes in an urban environment for 10+ years) keep your un-experienced, knee-jerk comments to yourselves. When I see sketchy, hipster, trend followers on their off the peg bikes, I think the same thing. Some of us have been doing quite well, enjoying safely riding our bikes, before most of you even knew what a fixed gear is. If you want to be judgmental, go to the safety thread with this crap......really.