1st July 2025 Carport wheelies?

 ~o~

 Tuesday 1st 53F [4.30] Bright sunshine all day. Reaching 27C/80F. Higher still tomorrow. When it could go over 30C/86F as the record breaking heatwave spreads north. Not only Europe but the USA is suffering from record breaking heat. 

 If this becomes the norm then a few million more people will be dying early. The architecture of most houses and commercial buildings is badly designed for resisting external heat. Most are designed to trap heat for warmth in winter. Using heat pumps for air conditioning is hideously inefficient and therefore expensive. The electrical grids can often not cope. Many Danish homes have been fitted with black roof tiles. The heat in loft conversions will be a killer.  

 Wide awake and up at 4am. My English friend is driving over to my place later.

 I have been lying in bed and working out how to move the carport roof aside. To allow me to dig the holes for the foundation blocks. I was going to move the roof forwards but sideways is much better. To keep the parking space clear. 

 The gravel is so resistant to movement. That I shall lay scrap plywood on top. I still have loads stacked in heaps from the observatory. Then I'll use industrial wheels/rollers to reduce the friction further. These can be temporarily clamped to the carport gutters by their frames. Or fixed to scraps of plywood and then clamped as needed. I have lots of these wheels left over from the dismantled, observatory dome, rotation system. 

 I went back to bed for an hour and then started tidying and cleaning. 

 My friend arrived and we enjoyed a cup of tea with Danish pastries. As we put the world to rights. 

 15.00 81F/27C. After lunch I clamped the industrial wheels/rollers to the carport gutters. I used a simple plank and block as a lever. To lift the roof corners far enough to slide the roller frames underneath. 

 Each needed some packing to reach the bottom of the gutters with the screw clamps. I then easily rolled the carport roof to the left. It is slightly downhill. So I used stop blocks and metal brackets to prevent any risk of overshoot.

 First it required my lifting each end of the roof. To place the rollers onto the scrap, plywood tracks. I can simply add some smaller, scrap plywood sheets to move it further. In order to expose the entire area where the foundation blocks will go. Which will requiring some digging. 

 The sun's heat was fierce and I was soon dripping with sweat. Back indoors now where it a more comfortable 74F/23C. Keep drinking the water! 

 Dinner was an omelette. Consisting of sausages and mushrooms. I flipped it onto the warmed plate from the frying pan.

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30.06.2025 Shoeing the carport.

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  Monday 30th 54F/12C[7.00] Bright sunshine. With four more days promised. Peaking at 31C on Wednesday. The wind had dropped. Making it feel much warmer. After an unusually windy June.

 Up at 6.30 after a night of weird dreams. 

 I keep running away from various projects. The carport has not progressed.  Having completed the construction of the carport roof I needed to move it aside to dig the foundations. Of course it proved far too heavy to move when working alone. 

 I had various ideas of using inverted rollers from the observatory. This would require that I lift the carport roof far enough to slide the rollers under. Though it would require some sort of timber frame for stability. I have a farmer's high lift jack. Which I used to remove the 24 concrete foundation blocks. That will do it.

 My "clever" idea was to use some of these blocks for the carport. It seemed logical. However, the single top fixing screw does not match the square base of the carport feet. A simple square plate, with a central hole would adapt them together quite easily. Finding a strong, square plate eludes me. It would have to be a minimum of 18cm square. With holes on the corners of a 13cm square. I can probably do the drilling.

 Then I have to ask: Would a single foundation block per carport foot meet the anchoring requirements? I could use two blocks per foot. With a rectangular plate joining the two. Easy! Except that I have no suitable plates. Preferably in galvanized steel. Wood won't do. It will rot so close to the ground. Use pressure treated? Hmm. It would have to be thick enough but might still have a fairly short life from rain splashes. 

 Anything borrowed from my heap of scrap aluminium. Intended for telescope and observatory building. Might suffer galvanic corrosion in contact with zinc. It is a variable, but the risk can be much reduced with isolating [spacer] washers. Do I have any suitable aluminum strip 18cm wide? I don't think so. I have 10mm thick strip but it is only 15cm wide. [From distant memory.] 

 I can see a strip buried in the stack but it needs to be dragged out. Before I can measure its width. I cut some of it narrower for my huge telescope mounting. The 10mm strip proved to be long but only 15cm wide. The fixing holes for the carport feet would barely fall within the edges. I am not aware of any readily available products which would match my needs. If only by coincidence. So I'll have to keep searching for a solution. 

 A bit of searching online produced several businesses offering 6mm steel plate cut to order. 6 x 175 x 175mm = 151kr per piece in ordinary steel. [About £17 GB] Five times higher price for stainless steel. I'd have to drill five, rather large holes in each. One company offers drilling to order. I have sent them a sketch to get their price for such work.

 7.45 Time to walk [not run] away from these problems. I am getting slight cramp in my legs. Which is very unusual for me. A walk will probably fix that.

 8.30 60F/15.6C Back from my walk to the lanes. Bright sunshine but the wind was was stronger than promised. Lots of warblers in the hedgerows and trees. A black kite [?] and a red kite were soaring low over the fields.  A series of huge, farm tractors went past. Each towing an earth moving trailer. 

 Perhaps they are contracted to the gas pipeline. Or even the new, high speed, railway route. Though that is further away. There is a lot of field leveling going on. Thanks to all the "waste" soil available from these huge projects. There is also the district heating expansion between various villages. 

 The excavated soil all has to be disposed of. There have been news headlines in Denmark. When mountains of soil were stacked on farmland. To the consternation of neighbours. 

 12.30 Back from the shops. In time for lunch.

 18.30 I have threaded a new cord through the second shade net and hung it over the first. It has been getting too warm in the greenhouse with only one layer. The weather forecast is adding a couple of degrees per day. With Wednesday a proper heat wave at over 30C/86F. One forecast was for 34C/94F for Fyn! We'll be the hottest part of Denmark. 

 Dinner had better be salad. I didn't have any eggs for salad yesterday. I cannot tell a lie. I forgot I had salad cream again. Until I sat down. So I added extra after the photo session.

 I had left the doors and windows open in the greenhouse. To more quickly shed the heat that builds up during the day. It matched the indoor temperature just now. At 73F/22.8C. The pond water rose to 76F/24.4C earlier. Which is why I finally added the second shade net. I had been putting it off. Until we had a run of warm and sunny weather.

 

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29.06.2025 Range anxiety! 😱

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  Sunday 29th 63F/17C. Full sun all day after earlier cloud. Without the heatwave. A high of 20C/68F after lunch. Come to sunny Denmark. 😎 With a pleasant westerly breeze. 

 Like it hot? Denmark could see 30C/86F on Wednesday. That will make some [Danish] headlines. The media ignores the vast numbers of real people. Who die unpleasantly from heatstroke, every year. Estimated at 175,000, per year on average, for Europe alone. According to $oogle. Thank the assorted 10.000 [current] gods it's only "weather" and nothing to do with "Climate." You can't have climate AND Defense against a handful of tyrants. Does not compute. 

 Up at 6.30 after several earlier failures to lift off. I ought to have another ride. If I can get past the road closures for the new railway. I haven't been to that big weekend flea market for a while. Gorgeous, undulating countryside. Going both ways. 😊 

 Whoops! Both batteries are only half charged. I have put the better of the two on charge. Currently 73%. Oh dear. It might be useful by the time I have had a leisurely morning coffee. It would be silly to take two heavy batteries just to get home safely. Bosch claim the 625Wh weighs 3.5kg. It feels like 10! 

 I can feel my bike wagging its tail sometimes. When I put the spare on the rear rack. It feels too heavy to keep in one of the Ortlieb Classic panniers. Even if I spread the load with padding underneath. As I do with my ABUS Dreadnought U-lock. So I strap the spare battery to the rack inside an Ortlieb top tube bag. Though I never leave it out of my sight. 

 Bosch keep releasing new motors. Simply because these make the sales headlines for the EMTB crowd. What they really need is new chemistry batteries. With twice the range for half the weight. The 625Wh battery is limited to around 70km in warm weather. That's only 35km each way on an out and back ride. 

 Barely 44 miles round trip. That's not remotely a serious touring ride! Then what? If you don't carry a spare battery? Do you book into B&B? With the battery on charge overnight! This  is not serious cycling by any stretch of the imagination! 

 This range is using my Bosch Performance Speed motor in Sport Mode on a 40kg bike weight + 70kg rider. I'd like at least 100km range [in Sport Mode] to avoid carrying the spare battery. Tour or Eco Modes would give me more range but then I'd be slower than a manual bike. [Or trike!] 

 Sport Mode only raises the performance to that of a fit rider on a very ordinary, lightweight bike. The electric motor has to overcome the serious weight disadvantage of dragging a very heavy e-bike uphill. Including the battery! You could only sell a 40kg manual bike to an ignorant fool. Even if it was fully suspended and carrying panniers. 

 I really think that we are still in the drooling infancy of e-Bike technology. Fancy websites and annual motor cosmetic upgrade marketing. Don't make up for the piss poor, battery capacity! Remember that a noisy IC "moped" can be fully recharged at ANY petrol station. The equivalent of infinite range! More importantly, the noisy IC "moped" doesn't need to be pedaled furiously. Just to keep going forwards! Moreover, you can get a 45kmh IC moped [scooter] for much less than an e-bike.  

 9.30 68F/20C. The 73% battery is still charging! 

 10.15 Just finished charging to 100%. I have been weighing my Moustache FS27 Friday "45" 'Speed' e-bike. 35kg + spare battery [4kg] plus anything going onto the panniers. Food, drinks, spare clothing, etc. 

 10.30 I had better get changed and go. It's 25km each way. I might just make it. 

 13.30 Back from a 55km ride in the strong wind.  The flea market had closed down. I had left at 11am. Stopping for a sub-micro, Corny bar and an apple juice at 12.00 and 1pm. I wore my best bibs. Hardly any saddle discomfort. 

 Dinner was a salmon pasty, peas, pasta and tinned tomatoes.

 

  ~o~