Welcome to Gotshoo?, proudly serving the inter-tubes since 2000. Gotshoo? is the personal of Chris Scheufele, that's me. I live in Springfield, Illinois with my wife and two dogs, Buddy and Clancy. I work during the day as an IT consultant and play at night with a freelance company called After Hours Development, and put together cool projects like Spfldbloggers.com
When I am not tinkering with computers and code, I am taking pictures trying to keep up with my daily photo, or riding my bike, or playing with the dogs.
Cranked out a 65 mile ride this weekend with my buddies @bluegilllover and KLee. This was a modified route that I did solo a few years ago. The road between Mt. Pulaski and Elkart is 100% pure concrete without a crack. It is a heavenly highway. Going to try to include it in next weekend’s ride as well.
We kicked out some killer speeds while heading north, but of course hit the nasty head wind back south.
View 65 Mile Ride in a larger map
Mrs. Shoo got me new beer glasses for my birthday. They have bikes. I like them.
(Pictured: Mrs. Shoo and her friend Sarah barely breaking a sweat and crossing the finish line)
Today Sarah and I completed our first ever 10K. I will give my wife all the credit for the hard work. She’s been putting in some mileage this summer. Early morning week runs, weekend runs… multiple Sonic rewards. I’ve been taking the easier route and riding on two wheels for the majority of the summer. It wasn’t till last week that I did my first 6 mile run.
It was a really cool event. Over a 1000 people ran in the event. I saw a ton of people that I knew and for the most part didn’t realize that they were runners. Had no idea the guy across the cubicle wall was going to be there.
Shoo: 1:09:03
Mrs. Shoo: 1:22:24
With the torrential rains that came through Springfield last night, that of course meant we got a stream in the basement. Saturday has been the day to dry everything out.
Mrs. Shoo and I are back out in Colorado on vacation. It was kind of a last minute unplanned by chance of circumstances vacation. If that makes any sense. Last time we were out here was three years ago where we took a whirl-wind tour of the state. This time we’re staying centralized in Winter Park, Co but still checking out the major cities around us.
So far we’ve been through Rocky Mountain National Park, climbed Bottle Peak, and ate some really good food. The rest of the week we’re looking at rafting, doing downhill mountain biking, and… visiting yarn stores (This is totally a Sarah thing).
Check my flickr account for updates.
This weekend I did the Tour De Cure with the infamous Mike R., say his name anywhere in the city of Grafton and be blessed with gifts and free bike tubes, and Kristin. It was Mike’s and Kristin’s first 50. Although they referred to me as “champ” and “yellow jersey”, I’m was not the professional, but I had a job to do. I had to get these two past the 50 mile mark.
To do this ride, everyone raised $150 in donations. If you notice an influx in e-how articles about toilet repair, look to the man with the beard.
General rules when migrating off of the bike path of short distances to longer ones.
1. Eat and drink. Your body needs fuel.
2. Keep a good pace, but remember this is not a race.
3. Keep pedaling.
2 out of 3 people just got laid.
The course was great. It started with a fast pace down the Great River Road, then hit us with a huge climb up a 1000 feet over a 3 mile span. Then the rest of the course was over rolling prairie. We finished with a fast descent back to the Great River road (I hit 36mph on the way down).
These were some of the best rest stops I’ve experienced at any ride. Volunteers cheering you on as you rolled in. Plenty of food and drink. The BEST peanut butter cookies and brownies. Just really a great experience.
Overall, a great experience.
When I first started this project, I thought I had a cassette, but after getting the tool to remove the gears I found out that I had a free wheel. So that meant that I wouldn’t have to deal with spacers and the gear.
The BMX gear screwed right on. And it lined up perfectly with the inner chain ring on the crank.
Already ridden it a couple of miles. Rides great, just need to fix the brakes.
Okay, lessons learned… the wheel on this project bike is a freewheel. The other type of rear hub is a cassette. The difference between the two is that a freewheel the set of cogs is integrated with the coasting mechanism. A cassette system, the cogs slide on the coasting mechanism and the coasting mechanism is attached directly to the hub of the wheel.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/free-k7.html
The single speed conversion that I bought is meant for a cassette. So I’m going to have to go a different route.
Left, the cogs for the single speed conversion. Right, what I took off the bike.
I’ve got to take some measurements to find out what kind of cog I need for a single speed freewheel.
You can see the “Ross” name and serial number.
Above view. Still need to take off the rear derailer.
Got my parts today. I love YouTube. It’s been my how-to DIY.
We went out to Siloam Springs State Park for some fishing, knitting, and camping this week. Got rained on but had a great time and ate some great food.
I say knitting because that’s all the girls did. Ohh and eat peanut-butter M&M’s
Fire toasted grilled cheese. The chef in action.
Mike spent most of the weekend blowing up the air mattress that deflated on him in the middle of the night.
Mrs Shoo is serious.
Camping is 90% fire. I don’t care what you do, but you’ve got to have a good fire going. And name the really big logs like ’supper log’ and ‘breakfast log.’
Thinking of bluegill heaven.
The fish weren’t hitting like they were suppose to and we got rained out a little early on our trip, but it was a great time.
I inherited, or agreed, to take my dad’s old bike. Depends who you talk to. This bike was the bike that my brother and I would sneak out and ride when dad wasn’t home. It was the fast bike. We weren’t suppose to ride it because us kids could never keep anything ‘nice.’
It’s a Ross 10 speed from sometime in the 80’s. They stopped making Ross‘ around 89′ when the company went into bankruptcy. It’s a case of an American company being beat out by cheaper overseas labor costs. The bikes were made in Allentown, Pennsylvania. This bike is a real American hero.
It’s a steel frame, a heavy frame, with aluminum rims, brakes, crank shafts, and handle bars. The frame is still in great shape. Haven’t found any rust yet.
So why revitalize an American hero? I want a commuter bike but I also want to get my hands dirty on the bike. I’ve been too afraid to make adjustments to my good bikes. I need something to learn on and this baby is a classic that still has some miles left in it.
I didn’t realize how wide the rims were on this bike. 27 1 1/4.
This is a random number generator. Kidding. This an odometer before computers. Really, I’m not kidding
Look at that huge pie plate! I’ll be removing it with the rear derailer.
Tonight I bought new tires and ordered a single speed conversion kit with a new chain from Nashbar. I hope to get parts next week.
Tonight was my first attempt with beer brats. I’ve grilled brats before but I’ve never done the boil-grill process.
I used a 50-50 Bud Light Fat Tire mixture.
I started the charcoal and the boil mixture about the same time.
Asparagus with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic salt.
Boiled the brats for about twenty minutes.
Grilled the brats till they had a nice grilled texture on both sides.
