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The Origami Bicycle Trailer

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The rider of the recumbent trike pulls up at the secluded beach, the site looks promising, the dunes encroach on the park lawns in overlapping zig-zags, there's also a treated pine kiddy fortress, but the ground level is eroded and very uneven. OK for a bivi, but not the bike caravan. A patch of the park lawn, tucked deep between two dune intrusions provides the perfect spot. The rider pedals their Greenspeed in towards the campsite. Behind the trike is a boxy looking trailer, a small cube, about 600mm on every side. The rider finds the flattest piece of lawn, is satisfied he's hidden from the road, so he unhitches the strange trailer, removes its wheels and drawbar, then removes the olive green wrap-around tonneaux cover to reveal a stange "layer-cake" of folded framework and foamboard. He lifts the stack of foamboards from the trailer and places them on the ground. Then, in a blink, he unfolds first the top layer of the trailer, then the bottom layer, to reveal a ...
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On another rant... "Wide Range" Enviolo Bicycle CVT Gearing

Enviolo CVT bicycle "gear" hubs. They're infinitely variable over a claimed 380% gear range. In a mountain bike context, with a 38 tooth chainring and an 11 to 48 tooth cassette, that's infinitely variable between a lowest gear of, say 22 gear inches for climbing, to a highest gear just shy of 86 gear inches... not exactly a sprint downhill gear. A typical mountain bike, running say, a Microshift AdventX 10 speed derailleur system on 11 to 48 teeth, or 480% range will give you a more mountain biking friendly 95 gear inches. Both of these comparative drivetrains are assuming a 38 or 40 tooth cog on the cranks, depending on a 27.5" or 26" wheel, respectively. Derailleur, to me, wins on torque and speed for wide range. However, Enviolo does have a torque sensing option and will select the the ratio automatically, claiming this, especially with eBikes, is more efficient. Possibly so, but is it easier to ride, really? The Enviolo Heavy Duty models and up, have ...
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A Bicycle is a Vehicle

^ This . The subject of this treatise is also the object(ive) of this treaty - that a bicycle is a vehicle. I live in Australia, so your mileage may vary in other parts of the world, but Australian law recognises bicycles as vehicles. It mandates them as vehicles, in fact. Australia's National Road Rules Standards Legislation (2007 plus amendments, the latest last year, I think) states in Part 15... 15. What is a vehicle? a. (cars, motorcycles, busses, trucks 'n' shit, can't remember the exact wording, don't care) b. A Bicycle. ( IS a fucking vehicle. In fucking law! ) Now, some states word their local laws slightly differently but the Australian Constitution says (can't recall chapter and verse) Where an inconsistency arises between Federal and State law, Federal law shall apply, in so far as to the inconsistency. (I'd have to look it up, but I encourage you to look it up, too.) Now, this does not mean I'm exclusively a "vehicula...
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The Star Trek Economy and the _Art_ of Engineering

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Update 08/11/2025: So, the bike this is for, according to some Googling this afternoon, is a 1995 Giant Sedona in their mid 1990s elegant "Green Olive" with gold lettering. I used to have a 1993 Iguana in the same colour but silver lettering. It's gorgeous in the light and so much of the times. I've also redesigned the disk brake bracket for sleeker lines, but I won't be ordering that print that until I'm sure the rough proto fits. Might even do the V. 2 print in titanium if it's not absurdly expensive. As an art project, largely to prove all the things I've been told about cycling are more often than not empty opinions (more on that stuff later) I'm deliberately engineering a classic 90s mountain bike into a modern "flyable" touring bike cum 1 "all terrain" bike. The frame is "too small" for me, at 40cm (16") but this is fixable with a riser bar, a long seatpost and shortish cranks. It has cantilever brake b...
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iOS 26 Has Ruined iPhone

Touch is broken, like seriously broken, touching the button onscreen, square in the middle, will lelect the button to the left. If that weren't trash enough, Liquid Glass toolbars hover over links and obscure stuff which, on short output dynamic pages, often makes progressing through some forms impossible. It's not as bad as Android yeat, but it's definitely #enshitification by Apple standards. Was thinking of a new iPhone 17 in the new year, it might be a new "dumb phone" instead.
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A Pain In The Neck

So, last week, I got the all clear to return to my Greenspeed after spinal surgery 6 weeks ago. Australian winter had begun reducing my riding, then surgery happened (laminectomy and fusion, C# and C4), then a known complication happened on my birthday, and passed the day after. And while I've been walking a lot, I haven't been able to lift the trike out of its storage location... the cycling equivalent of "There's dust on my guitar, you f***..." This week, I get back on the road, with 12 days to build for a 50km social ride with other trikies in and around Trisled's customer base. Not the first one I've wanted to do, but hopefully, the first I can actually get to. Also making Gippsland social rides more accessible, the Lovely Linda has a new car, so I have the old one. I well mannered glow plug turbo deisel Hyundai. Very torquey, very fuel efficient, barely large enough for a folded GT20, but it'll get me to the rides on time. I'd prefer an elec...
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5 Reasons Why (the United States of) America Can't Be Saved

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Yeah, look, sorry, this dude is right, but you can't fight capitalistic/militaristic colonialism with colonial language. It feeds Trump's fanbase. That said, with the bracketed correction to the title, every word this guy speaks is absolute truth. We can't save the world while capitalism has a chokehold. We can't save the world while while "Growth Fetish" fills our lives and nostrils with the fear of poverty. FOMO is a neurosis designed by capitalism. There is a need for all of us of middle class, working class or unemployed class to join the "Millenials" in their uprisings. A young woman, while still a literal child, Greta Thunberg, had more courage than any President or Prime Minister in the world today, and Greta, still, today a young woman, is inspiring her generation in places like Nepal or Morocco or Singapore. It's time to reverse history and follow young women instead of old men * , but yeah, The Capitalist States of the Americas cannot ...
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