Yesterday was new tire day on the road bike.

[George-CT]

Spent most of the day putting on 2 new Whitewall Dunlops. I think they look sharp with the older style spoke rims. Had them off the bike,
off the rims, and the new ones on with new tubes and balanced in 3 hours. I cheated on gettng them off and on by hanging it off the backhoe bucket with 2 nylon slings so it was all at waist high. Sure makes it a lot easier as they need to drop way down below the rear pipes.

The tire changing unit is one I bought about 2 years ago for cars and motorcycles. The top section will clamp right on the rims so they are rock steady and do your thing... I don't use it that often so I just bolt it to the back porch of the house and do it there. Clean, dry and sunny. I turn it into a project with coffee and crumpets along the way. Whats the point in being retired if you can be a slug once in awhile.
I think I'm on the edge of turning pro in this retirement stuff. What where I found time to work with all the fun stuff to do...still no free time....

Grabbed a few quick shots just for kicks to have something new to post.. Today I went out for a cruise to break in the new tires. New road tires are slick for a bit if your pushing on them, so I spend the afternoon on back roads scuffing them up. I took a few shots at spots I stopped at also....

Geo-CT

 

[Wayne in BC]

i never did tires so good on ya! How many trees did you have to sacrifice for your satellite?

 

[George-CT]

For mine at a shop they wanted $750. $360 for tires, $80 bucks for tubes, $20 bucks each tire to balance, static like I do, or $30 bucks for spin balance. The rest was labor and to realign the rear for the drive belt. Thats when I bought the tire changer 2.5 years ago. $229 bucks for same tires, shipped from Oregon to here with tubes and balance weights. $79.00 for the tire changer unit complete. So for $320 bucks I got it all and did it. Since then I've done a lot of them for other people. My sons race bikes we do almost weekly on the rear, sometimes two times a day at a race if its the wrong tire for the ground. Those we do with the small spoons... Saves money, and I get a chance to check the spokes and wheel bearings and keep them in good shape. The big twins are not cheap to maintain if you have it all done at a shop. Some shops are better than others but here in CT.......bring $$$$$$$ Anything thats seasonal, they get greedy in the short season.

Oh yeah, the dish...Thats Dishnetwork. From here it has to be aimed pretty low on the horizon..So I had to drop a lot of big trees back then, which is fine, just more fire wood. But a lot of them have grown up now, so I need to drop some more. No problem in winter, no leaves, but summer, if they are wet and blowing, it will take it out. I have about 5 big oaks I'm eyeing. They should be down now but perhaps this weekend or next week. I have a few on the ground now I need to cut up into 18 inch lengths. Be easier to move around as these will all go about where those are now. Ha, last year some of the branches were in the way and I could not reach them with anything I had. So Out came the shotgun. I got under them and blasted them with bird shot.....1 or 2 shots and the weight would drop them down, even hanging they were out of the way. As they dried the wind would blow them and they would come the rest of the way down. My wife said I looked like Elmer Fud out there with my double barrel shooting limbs down.... Hey, what ever it takes to keep the satilite working..... I used to have the RCA dish and it was higher up so most of the trees were out of the way, but dish, is much lower and to the SW. They claim they are adding 2 more in much higher orbit, but I havn't heard anything more on it. I would assume its the same for everyone up north trying to hit that bird.

They activated a live webcam on it now also, so you can see the earth from 22,000 miles out in space. The daytime shots are really nice. Night times ones only show the earth half light and its more of a reflective light....so can't see the continents.... anything to keep the mind busy...

George-CT

George

 

[Wayne in BC]

good on ya!
I also had to shoot some branches off the Firs across the road from me (public land) when nosy neighbors were gone to work Luckily nobody lives in that direction for many miles, cause i used the 7MM! I also have a low satellite problem and the new growth is starting to cause a problem the past month or so. Branches are over 100 ft up so the shotgun won't work. Fir branches are really brittle fortunately and any hit on even a 5 inch branch drops it right off.

 

[Micheal_R]

When I first saw the tyre changer, I kinda did a double take. I thought that your satellite was mounted to the changer... then a closer look corrected my error.

Now that looks to be a very sweet ride. I am envious. However, only a couple more days and the rover will be on the road. So, we all have our challenges to take care of.

Looking good there, bud!!

Fair winds

Mikie

 

[Ron J]

n/t