16th December 2015 Just another day in paradise?

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Wednesday 16th 37-39F, 3-4C, wind suddenly moving the trees, heavy overcast. Another empty promise of sunshine? We shall see.

A parcel, sent from a UK cycle dealer, has been sitting, untouched, for FIVE whole days in Denmark. It is being tracked by the UK Parcel Force service but the cryptic message once it met Danish shores gives no clue as to the new carrier. Nor where in tiny Denmark the parcel may now be resting. Christmas rush? Or mere incompetence? The dealer made it priority/signed for by default and charged for that service. The rest was left to chance. Many online dealers rely on rapid dispatch to attract repeat customers. All their business plans are held to ransom by penny-pinching carriers relying on low wages and rapid staff turnover to maximize competitiveness. It turned up today in a GLS van. 

And, now, in today's breaking news: One in 7 Danish farmers were caught by surprise inspections with illegal pesticides in 2014. Showing a steady increase year on year but resulting in pathetically small fines given the potential seriousness of their crimes. Some farmers don't give a toss about spraying around schools with children out playing in the yard.

Or even around a packed seashore campsite in mid-summer which I noticed on one of my rides. There were dozens of children playing around and in the pool as an octogenarian landman rattled around the campsite fences on a rusting tractor. He was towing an ancient spraying machine with the arms spread at shoulder height and the drift cloud clearly visible for many yards in the onshore breeze. I could smell it too and left the scene as quickly as possible! I was fortunate to have that luxury. The innocent holidaymakers? Better ask the farmer!

A cynic might suggest that this is why they had to close all the Danish, village schools. Not to save money, by centralization, but to protect their own children from the toxic delights of industrial farming. My morning walks along the field tracks resulted in extreme dizziness earlier this year. By coincidence, a highly toxic pesticide, which has never been allowed in Denmark, has been found in watercourses on Fyn. Denmark already has by far the lowest area in the EU of natural countryside-. i.e. That which is not cultivated. Yet the habitual liars politic-ooze have just relaxed the rules against the cultivation of a protective zone beside water courses. They have suggested "unimproved" land should be ploughed and wild flowers planted completely against the advice of the experts. They have also relaxed the rules against development building along the coast. Denmark already has a problem of public access to the shore thanks to chain building and ring fencing by summer house owners. Many existing harbours have been converted to marinas and have blocks of disfiguring flats built right on the water front.

Meanwhile my neighbours to both east and west are competing for the density of their brown chimney smoke from burning illegal, demolition waste as firewood. Including old [lead painted?] and plastic coated plywood, chipboard and old beams. Easterly winds we lose. Westerly winds we lose. Their nearest neighbours have a baby which must live under this constant toxic smog. The moron's smoke is easily seen wrapping itself around their neighbour's house and then crossing the road. The neighbours put their house up for sale but nothing sells in this area. Not until it has had a tour through the compulsory auction system and been given away for peanuts after literally years on the market.

The Odense Council members have just been criticized for holding a lavish feast in their own honour at rate-payer's expense. Obviously modelling themselves on the Chinese Corruption Party, they have been [illegally] cutting services to the bone to save money. Presumably to afford such lavish feasts with a very well stocked bar. Now the same council is having to employ ridiculously expensive temps to handle the huge backlog of social cases which were illegally ignored as cost-cutting measures. But then what are the needs of a few hundred problem families compared with a vitally necessary, well stocked bar?

The Danish tax authorities wrongly gave away literally billions of taxpayer's money to billionaire offshore crooks. Meanwhile they send tax inspectors around at the weekends to flea markets held in private garages, to demand a contribution from their "profits." The habitual liers politic-ooze claim masses of cash allowances on their "secondary jobs" then cut housing allowances for already impoverished pensioners.

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The appended images above and below show how twin pulleys could be used to achieve the 1:1.38 pull ratio to match the Campag Chorus levers to the Shimano XT11 rear changer. At the top are the two raw pulleys and a 34.9mm pulley clamp alongside the Jtek Shiftmate. Which, despite its excellent construction, liked to chew cables. The small pulleys and the bends they force on the cable, are just too tight for the gear cable's limited flexibility. The middle picture shows the [nominal] 35 and 45mm pulleys placed vertically behind the chainwheel. This arrangement needs a cable guide for the final run to reach the cable stop under the chainstay. Or a chainstay cable clamp to move the stop up on top. Which would probably help to reduce friction compared with any likely means used to reroute the cable around the chainstay. There seems to be enough room and the pulleys are well protected in this position.

This final image shows how the pulleys could be arranged to mimic more normal cable runs. The downtube run of bare inner cable meets the smaller pulley and is wrapped around it. Then it will climb a central, but eccentrically fixed pulley, before finally crossing over to the largest pulley. Where the cable will take another turn before exiting to the rear changer via the underside of the bottom bracket.

Both are possible pulley arrangements with their own advantages and disadvantages. The larger diameter pulleys will ensure kinder treatment of the cable without the sharp bends at my present clamps on the lever/arm. If the cable should slip on the pulleys in practice I am thinking a conical bush could be placed on a bolt piercing the middle [ramp] pulley rim to clamp the cable without damage. The alternative would be to turn much deeper and narrow grooves in the pulley rims to achieve a self-jamming effect. I would need to grind a suitable profile tool. Measuring the effective radius would be difficult. None of my calipers or vernier calipers can reach into the grooves on the rims of the pulleys already. Deepening the grooves would make them even more difficult to measure directly. Probably best to wrap a cable around the groove and measure the diameter. Then subtract half the cable diameter to find the true pulley radius.

I walked past the lake/pond on the marsh to disturb lots of Shelducks and Mallards. [Not deliberately I might add.] There just isn't any cover on the shore so the hunters can shoot at the wildlife much like a funfair shooting gallery. The resident herons took their usual tour around and settled gently back down again. A flock of some 200 very restless Greenfinches moved between two trees. Even with my deaf left ear I could hear the whir of wings as they took off en-masse and moved as a tightly packed cloud to the next perch, where they all twittered loudly again. The wind was cold on my hands even in my jacket pockets. I tried the GripGrab winter cycling gloves on a previous walk and my hands were never warm until I took the gloves off! I tried to photograph the huge flock of swirling [mink] gulls in the air but [unusually] the image failed to focus.

Only a short ride, mid afternoon, under a leaden sky with a gusty headwind. Ran the gauntlet of the follow-my-leader commuters on my way home in the dark. All of them terrified that they will lose their place less than a car's length clear of the car in front. 7 miles. I have only a fortnight left to do another 100 miles to reach 6000 for the year.

Click on any image for an enlargement.
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