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May 12th, 2004 MnHPVA Meeting |
Notes by Tim Dunsworth and Mark Stonich
Photos & HTML: Mark Stonich |
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It was a beautiful evening (the exact opposite of what the weather clown had predicted!) and there were lots of goodies to look at, so we stayed out in the parking lot until about 7:30 before packing into the small pottery studio again.
Kevin Kinney, owner of Vulpine Adaptive in Duluth, donated several sets of nice lobster claw style cold weather gloves, for use as prizes for the 2004 races. He provided one each in small, medium, and large sizes. They retail for about $80 apiece, so they are a touch fancier than our usual smoked fish prizes! However, Dave said he would prefer to give them away at next years event. Kevin also gave away a homebuilt SWB recumbent frame Judging from the double sets of brake braze ons, it has been run on 20-20 and 26-26 wheel sizes. It is somewhat long and heavy for its configuration, but it seems to be very nicely built of 4130 tubing and a back end from a decent MTB. Mark opined that, with the seat mounts moved further back, it would make a better bike for a longer legged rider than it would be for an average sized rider with the seat in it's original location . So John Reese now has a new frame. Mark Stonich reported that he's finally finished the sidecar rig he built for a mother and her handicapped daughter (not painted, but in running order so they can see how it works for them and come up with any necessary mods before it is finalized). This is fortunate, since Jane was getting more than slightly tired of the project and wouldn't let him work on anything else until it was done (on pain of sleeping on the couch till it was completed!). He took the mom for a ride and then let her try it out, and she is just thrilled about how it turned out. Unfortunately, her daughter is scared of the strange contraption and won't get on it (at least not yet). A news flash was given about a swap meet that will take place at Gene Oberpriller's Studio One bike/coffee shop on N Washington Ave (right next to Sex World, so you can't miss it!) this Saturday, May 16th. Editorial Comment Where are all the junky looking bikes? We seem to have run into a drought of the sort of bikes that are the soul of homebrewed 'bents. I'm concerned that bikes like those shown this month by Chris and Dwight have given people the impression that the bar is set pretty high around here. Perhaps this is why a very interesting machine was ridden to the event, but not presented to the group. The less money, tools, skills and experience a builder has, the more imagination he has to have. One of the most interesting 'bents brought to our meetings was arc welded out of an old Schwinn, a fence post and a kid's swingset. Mark S. |
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