Falun velodrome visit

My bike club took a road trip up to Falun, in central Sweden to ride the new indoor velodrome built in a former factory space. As the volume of the space prevented construction of a proper 250m regulation 'drome, the group behind the project settled for a smaller 190m oval with relatively long straights and steeply banked (50 degrees) sharp corners. And by filling the space, (which was punctuated by columns) the site has no provision for any type of bleachers or public seating.

All these drawbacks made me somewhat skeptical of the project. But after participating in the weekend-long course, led by club member and local resident Alf, I have to say I am an enthusiastic supporter of the effort, and would love to see a similar development in Göteborg. Riding in ovals is far from boring when you have a fine indoor facility such as this, and it requires a good deal of concentration to avoid spills.

I did take a tumble, or rather ran over a fellow who took a tumble directly in front of me, so have experienced plywood-burns. The experience was nothing to get terribly worried about, and will absolutely not prevent future endeavors on the track.

The visit did cause me to evaluate the total costs associated with having an indoor velodrome, which can be broken down into three broad categories: 1) the space, 2) the velodrome itself and associated costs (showers, bicycle maintenance and storage), 3) maintenance of the facility.

Of course, in the long run, 3 is going to be the biggest cost. The energy required to heat this immense volume is frightening to think about. As for initial costs, 1 vastly outstrips 2, especially if one is considering a vast span (no columns to disrupt views) and seats for a public. There is great architectural potential in an arena project, but the velodrome would most likely have to double up as a handball or basketball court, or ice rink, comprimising the interests of cyclists.

By reusing an existing facility, as they have in Falun, costs for 1 have been eliminated, allowing the much easier financing of 2. As for 3, hopefully the development will be such a great success that those operating costs will be covered by the site itself in a couple years. Time will tell.

One could skip 3 by proposing an outdoor velodrome, or a velodrome in an unheated shed, or simply under a roof, but that may not be such a popular solution. And in our post-industrial society, we are not lacking in vast empty factory buildings...

I've Got a Good Feeling About This

You've probably seen this video clip by now. It's a fairly amazing feat, but as Chris Jones explains, the contestant's reasoning leads to a fairly certain answer. As an experiment, I explained the game and the situation with this puzzle in three separate classes I taught today, with between one and six students each. With a little prodding, (circling the _'__ and _) each group was able to solve the puzzle within a couple minutes. These are groups of non-native English speakers, and certainly not big English-language puzzle fans. All the groups looked at it as an impossible task, but realized it wasn't as difficult as it seemed at first. An interesting reflection on possibility and appearances.

Apple Pie in an Omelette Pan

I've long bemoaned the lack of availability of regular old pie pans here in Sweden. The ceramic one I had here originally broke, and its Pyrex replacement, muled to me by my father on one of his visits, has disappeared. What you normally find in kitchen shops here are sort of broad pans with fluted sides, what I'd call a tart pan. Flea markets, usually such a rich source of kitchen wonders, haven't proven any better.

Anyway, today I had an epiphany while grilling a sandwich in my skillet. Of course! A skillet is basically a pie pan with a handle on it. So I set about trying with an apple pie in my omelette pan.

Shoe-wax lipbalm

It's getting cold and the air is dry here in Sweden, and since we were at a pharmacy last weekend we decided to pick up a tube of a new lip balm. (why is it pictured upside-down on their website?) The cashier sold us on the lanolin content, and reading the Norwegian description I picked up on the beeswax content too. (Oddly, beeswax wasn't mentioned in the Swedish description.) I told the cashier that it sounded a lot like my shoe wax, and there was a good laugh all around.

After coming home, I decided to compare the labels more closely. Indeed, both my "universal lederbalsam" and Decubal Dry Spots Balm share almost their entire ingredients list:

Beeswax (cera alba), lanolin, paraffinum liquidum (petroleum jelly), petrolatum, and castor oil (ricinus communis oil) are the basic components in both the shoe wax, selling for €80 per liter (note the price tag on mine was in Swedish kronor, making it actually significantly cheaper than the suggested retail price), and the lip balm, which at 65 kr for 30ml makes it about €230 per liter. It's hard to say what the exact proportions of the two compounds are, but they have a similar texture and odor. I suppose the Decubal has more lanolin, which can't be cheap. (Unrelated: In Sweden there's a whole ad campaign based on the premise that "cheap" sounds like "sheep" in English. Ridiculous.)

Anyway, something to ponder.

Product review: Sugru part 2

Most of the photos on this site are taken with a Sigma DP1 camera. This camera has its quirks, and despite its form-factor is certainly not your typical user-friendly point-and-shoot. It has a very large, unusual sensor and a very sharp lens which make for fine image quality at the expense of speed and ease-of-use.

One of the accessories sold for this camera is an external optical virefinder, an overpriced little plastic thing. I made my own from a flea market camera with the same field of view, a dead flash, hobby store brass, leather, and Sugru.



By this time I had learned a little bit about the material, and feel that this was a better success than my sauce pan repair. By letting the Sugru cure just a few minutes after opening the package it becomes much easier to mold. Most shapes are best created from a base sausage-type form, which can then be formed as it hardens over the next ten or fifteen minutes. Sugru also acts as an excellent putty for filling cracks and imperfections. The grip I added to the camera was smoothed and shaped with a stainless steel ruler, and looks like a commercial product. The viewfinder is more clumsy, but with the Sugru is now well-protected.

The material hardened quickly and the camera and viewfinder are now ready for use.

Pear clafoutis

I had a pile of pears that were ripe, so I figured I'd better do something with them. A classic quick treat for a coffee or desert here is a clafoutis made with whatever fruit is in season, so today: pear clafoutis.

Above: a buttered skillet, with ten smallish pear halves fanned out. Peel the pears, and use the end of the peeler to remove the core once halved.

In the blender I've got 1 1/4 C of dairy: in this case half buttermilk and half whole milk. Crack in three eggs, then add 1/3 C of sugar and 1/3 C of flour, and a bit of vanilla. Blend!

Pour the mixture over the pears, and bake 30 min at 200 deg C (400 deg F).

Cyclocross in Slottskogen

Product review: Sugru part 1

Somehow I stumbled upon Sugru a couple of months ago whilst perusing the interwebs. The stuff seemed to have potential, so I ordered a small starter pack. I was surprised upon receiving the parcel how little one gets for one's money: the kit I got contained six small packets, each containing less in volume than those little ketchup packs from Dairy Queen. They also have expiration dates, which is somewhat intimidating: better think of something to do with my remaining five, at least before April next year.

Fortunately, I had a project waiting. This is a really nice 2L saucepan I picked up at a flea market here in town. Thick, robust stainless, possibly a sandwich bottom (one fellow I showed it to suggested it may have a layer of copper in the bottom), and a cracking bakelite plastic handle:

Normally I avoid any type of plastic handle on my pots and pans, since I like to be able to pop them from stove top to oven and back again at will. Since Sugru claims to be heat resistant to 180 deg C, I figured it was worth giving it a go to repair the handle.

My first impression of the material upon opening the package was that it was really too sticky and fluid to work with. It most certainly wouldn't support itself for any type of larger piece, at least in the state is is upon opening. I also realized that the volume of the little packet, while seemingly tiny, was really too much for my project.

I tried two different methods for this repair. First, I rubbed a small volume of Sugru in some of the smaller cracks near the handle, putty-like. Then I took a much larger volume and coated the handle around the larger cracks near the hole in the handle.

The Sugru was much harder to form and smooth than I had been expecting. It really is a fairly fluid consistency straight out of the packet. The final result is therefore kind of choppy, and not at all as professional-looking as I had hoped. But the cracks are indeed filled, and the handle has taken machine washings without any trouble so far. The Sugru-as-putty experiment was perhaps more successful, and I may attempt to re-do the handle entirely with this method in the future.