News

18^th September 2024: my first experience with hydraulic brakes, revised article about pedals and a report from June mass ride.
4^th November 2023: new pictures from recumbent meeting and results of a statistic experiment with a helmet.
31^st July 2023: after and overhaul of my folder, I had to correct the article about its gear hub. Rickshaw got new mudguards and checked brakes in spring, and I tried P24 marathon in June. Other small fixes are not worth mentioning.
10^th April 2023: another repack of X-RK8 gear hub, evaluation of ongoing test of wax chain lubricant, and a new page in my trip diary.
25^th October 2022: a little update I've been slowly preparing since summer. There are new photos from this year's trips, a little provocative article about bikes being faster than cars, and updated links.
27^th May 2022: my little folder made another level in December: finished its fifteenth megametre, surpassing all my other bikes (and broke its stem again after two more Mm). Out of curiosity, I calculated how much would it cost to replace its super expensive generator with batteries. Today's most useful news is a tutorial on designing LED lights. Next is an update of article about spokes (single and double cross) and several small amendments.
19^th September 2021: added more trip reports and pictures from S2C kickshift hub overhaul.
28^th July 2021: I will remember this June as a month when everything happened :-). New stuff: reports from several events (I briefly tested Pinion gearbox during one of them) and some pictures and other details added here and there.
And the promised change of hosting has finally started: the website now resides on Endora server, and besides nicer ads, there is also much more space for data. The old version on WZ will stay online for several more months, I'll decommission it slowly to give the internet time to redirect all links pointing to it.
29^th April 2021: the new lighting set from last month has entered service, its owner finished it nicely and sent pictures. I measured internal dimensions of two railway cars during the winter and finally updated the list. And, as you must have noticed, our freehosting server changed advertising style from a small strip at the bottom of each page to a huge pop-up banner. That made me start preparing a retreat to another server. If changing the long-established address bothers you more than having to click away ad banners every five minutes, let me know by mail or guestbook, I'm willing to stay here if enough people want it.
11^th March 2021: better late than never: merry Covidmas and happy new year *<:-). On today's menu we have a new lighting set, this time battery-powered; an essay about the proverbial invisibility of recumbents; one reviewed train, and some notes about frayed tyres and greasy brakes. Old article about winter biking was supposed to just get some new pictures, but got completely rewritten instead.
7^th December 2020: added collection of tips for long trips. Another two unsafe situations are also worth mentioning.
15^th October 2020: at last, I finished processing the heap of pictures from this summer.
28^th July 2020: my improvised plastic tarp microtent has been in service so long that it deserves an article.
20^th May 2020: there is a Czech saying: when the spring asks what have you been doing in winter... well, I can simply point and say: this (of course, a gear hub, generator and lights come with it as well). I also had to buy a new speedometer after an old one died. Last but not least is a brief overview of trikes and various small corrections and updates.
28^th February 2020: new article about automated reactions during driving, some small corrections and updates, and a whole new section called Miscellaneous reserved for texts which don't fit the scope of this web, cartoons and so on. Last news is I'm almost done building a new cargo vehicle (detailed report to come next time) and need to get rid of my old trailer to make room in the basement - ~~if you are interested, let me know~~. (no more, it's gone)
27^th November 2019: small updates in articles about chains, brakes and CS-RK3 hub, pictures from two new trains and a revision of spoke length calculation in the article about lacing (now it's definitely complete and accurate, I used it to specify spokes for a trike and the lengths were right on spot).
9^th September 2019: pictures from recumbent meeting and other trips, some new material for the collection of examples not to follow, and report of another train.
19^th July 2019: report from another race and a brief overview of Shimano's 8-speed hub added.
28^th June 2019: added a report from K24 marathon, a long-forgotten translation of the same event from two years back, and an uncertain amount of small updates and fixes.
20^th December 2018: just after I repaired a fatigue crack on my foldy, a car hit me and I had more stuff to fix. It seems that perfect visibility is like speed of light: you can get very close, but you never reach hundred percent :-).
All the best for the new year!
1^st November 2018: added a report from CargobikeFest and some updates to article about gears.
9^th October 2018: a spinning beacon is born.
24^th September 2018: added a report from a recent recumbent meeting.
20^th August 2018: another breakdown of X-RK8 hub reported. I'm definitely labeling it "unrecommendable".
12^th July 2018: added a report from another 24-hour race and updated description of the bike I took part with.
28^th June 2018: preparing for a trip with my recumbent, I measured and took pictures of some trains to find out where it would fit.
8^th May 2018: yet another funny story for my accident log. Beware of sun in your back!
26^th March 2018: another year of trip reports has begun.
18^th December 2017: an article about bicycle geometry was added to the Theory section.
27^th November 2017: ...and one more about its lights. Another article is a review of a smog mask I've been using for about two years. And because the volume of the tech section has grown beyond navigable limits, I split it to reviews of commercial parts and creations from my workshop (only the entry pages are affected, article URLs don't change).
14^th November 2017: I recently finished my second 'bent. Two more articles are about its dynamo and gear hub.
23^rd August 2017: another catastrophic reports about the 8-speed hub, but not from me this time.
14^th June 2017: few days ago, a cast iron lockwasher on my rear axle failed. That can be quite dangerous, so it's worth a more detailed report.
18^th May 2017: some pictures and notes from recumbent championship were added.
3^rd April 2017: this time we test a proper dynamo instead of RC motors. There's also a brief review of a two-speed hub and a report from a 200 km brevet.
21^st February 2017: can a brushless motor for RC aircraft be used as a generator? It can't, but I had to try :-).
26^th January 2017: we got a simple battery light set for Christmas.
After three years of being online, the website has picked up quite a traffic, so I should probably keep writing it :-). Thanks for all your comments and suggestions!
24^th November 2016: recently, samples of all three tyre valves and a camera met in my hands, so I added some illustrations.
22^nd November 2016: some delayed pictures from an event in July
1^st November 2016: I measured one old dynamo. A spreadsheet version of spoke length calculator was added to the spokes page.
16^th August 2016: the chronicle extended to June.
6^th June 2016: I finally caught up with the tide of history and mapped the events since last autumn till today. Brief overviews of locks and speedometers were added.
3^rd March 2016: the translation is complete. Criticism, suggestions, spelling corrections etc. are always welcome :-).
14^th December 2015: I've started translation to English. Articles about internal gear hubs went first, now I'm working on the rest. Please excuse all the "404 not found" errors you may run into, I'm too ~~lazy~~ busy at the moment to seal everything up with proper temporary placeholders.
30^th December 2013: official start of this site. Criticisms and suggestions welcome!