DIY bike stand

So after years of making due without, for some reason today was the day I decided that life was no longer bearable without a bike stand.  I was hoping to find/make something that wouldn’t take up any space when not in use, as I’d have to throw something away to make space to store something else.  Cheap/free was also very attractive to me. 

After spending some time cruising the internet in search of a good idea to steal borrow, I decided on this approach.  The DIY solutions I found didn’t seem to meet my criteria above, so after putting this together, I thought I’d share in case this works for someone else. 

In my case, I already had all the parts except for the flange, so it cost me about $5.

Design pros:

• The pipe unscrews from the stud-mounted flange after use, leaving almost no footprint
• The pipe/flange provide a strong, wobble free mount
• The pipe/clamps can be repurposed for a wide variety of other uses

Cons:

• The pipe clamps are a little expensive ($13) compared to other solutions
• A clamp that was curved would be better, although this holds just fine.

Alternatives

• Use a PVC T joint instead of a pipe clamp (cut in half, hinge, and latch).  This is slightly cheaper and gives you a curved clamp.  I suspect the hinges would pull out of the PVC over time.
• Use another pipe clamp, instead of the flange, to secure the pipe to a bench or other available object

The part list

(1) 3/4” flange

(1) 3/4” galvanized steel pipe, threaded both ends

(1) 3/4” pipe clamp

(1) 3” piece of polyethylene pipe insulation (cut from a 6’ piece)

Cairo

24-25 Sep11 This ship made port at Port Said, Egypt at 6AM and we disembarked to meet our private tour guide.  Mustafa lead us to a bright orange van, where we met the driver Ahmed, and discovered shag seat covers matching the exterior – I felt like we were on the set of a Scooby-doo movie.  As we  cleared Port Said’s security check-point, we were chased down by security in a mini-pickup with 3 cops sitting in the bed of the pickup.  After playing a high-speed game of tag/charades for a few minutes we eventually pulled over to the side of the highway.  Apparently, the “tourism police” wanted to bunch up all the cruise tourists and escort us all the way to Cairo – a 3 hour drive.  Mustafa explained that this was to help in case of traffic jams, given the tight schedule the passengers where on to get to Cairo and back before the ship sailed.  I tried to get him to admit that it was really to prevent tourists from being attacked and/or kidnapped.  Eventually he admitted that post 9/11, the tourism police required escorts for all USA tourists.  We talked a bit about the recent revolution and the steep drop-off of tourism since then.  Per Mustafa, tourism is the country’s #2 source of income, second only to the Suez canal. 

Our drive to and in Cairo was interesting – the number of donkey-pulled carts was surprising, along with the whole-hearted commitment of the entire city to complete traffic anarchy.  At one point there was traffic flowing against us on both sides of the van, and I’m 99% certain we were on a one way road going the right way.  We’ve seen some crazy traffic in our travels, but I think Cairo takes the prize.  You’d have to be naïve or driving your mother-in-law’s car to want to drive here.

There were a large number of rug schools along the road as we headed towards the Zoser pyramids.  The schools teach rural children to make rugs as a trade and enable them and their families to use the school to make and/or sell their own rugs.  We got a tour of the site including a detailed walk-thru of how the rugs are made.  In spite of the fact that the tour is mostly done as a sales mechanism, we really enjoyed it.

We managed to see a dozen or so of the 108 pyramids in Egypt. We walked (duck-walked) inside one of the step pyramids, laid inside a sarcophagus, held the Giza pyramids in our hands, and roamed the Egyptian museum containing 250,000 (yes, I counted) pyramid artifacts, including King Tut.  Two days of pyramids left us reflecting on a monarchy that took the wealth of its people and buried it in the ground.  Maybe you can’t take it with you when you go, but with a bit of luck and large stones, you can stop anyone else from having it.

Haifa

22Sep11 We made port today in Haifa, Israel.  One of the reasons we choose to cruise is that the ship does the visa/immigration paperwork for us.  This not only prevents us from having to get visas prior to the trip, but also saves the immigration and custom queues when entering and exiting the country.  Israel is one of the few countries in the world that require a face-to-face immigration process prior to disembarking.  This set the tone for the day and we encountered heavy security everywhere we went.  We couldn’t walk out of the port but had to take a secure shuttle.  Once off the shuttle, we had to walk up a flight of stairs and clear security again to pass the 15’ security wall.  We were inspected and scanned when entering an outdoor garden.  During our 4 hour walk thru the city, we saw lots of heavy bars on windows and barbed wire.  This, in combination with deteriorated buildings (broken windows, crumbling exteriors), made us feel like we were in a war zone.

The port is not a major tourist stop but more of a gateway to Jerusalem.  For the religious, Haifa has Mt. Caramel, Elijah’s cave, the sea of Galilee.  The Bahai’s shrine is the most striking sight in the city – a golden dome and green swath of gardens on Mt. Caramel cutting top to bottom thru the landscape of condominiums.  The rocket-shaped office building just near port caught our eye as well.

As we pulled into the port we noted an incredible number of what appeared to be satellite dishes on the numerous apartments in town.  They turned out to be a mix of satellites and what appear to be  hot water heaters.

Patmos

20Sep11 Patmos is  one of the many small Greek islands.  On a previous trip we’d stopped at Mikonos, another beach island, so we were curious to compare the two.  The island is also known as place where John of Patmos received the visions that he recorded in the Book of Revelation.

The island has a cave where John is said to have received his visions.  We opted not to stop and check out the cave as we made our way past the cave and up the mountain to checkout the castle on top, which turned out to be a monastery.  Apparently the monastery takes a siesta from noon to 3, so we were fortunate to have shown up late.  A large number of fellow cruisers signed up for tours that showed up during siesta.  There were some hard feelings when the tour operators explained that they did not control the (random?) monastery hours and were thus not responsible.  We find this fairly amusing as one of the major selling points of an expensive tour ($100 versus free) is that someone else worries about the details and makes sure you don’t do something silly – like show up when the site is closed.  This was a pretty cool site, even considering it’s the 9 gazillionth stone church we’ve seen.  Lots of small rooms and stairs built for people sized 5’ and under.  The walls and stairs all had an uneven feel to them, as if a large group of people with limited tools (not including levels or tape measures) just got to work and left the details to God.  Pirates appear to have been a major problem as most of the older building and cities in this area are heavily fortified.  The walls of the chapel were covered in gold and gilded murals, and dimly lit – as if the monks couldn’t be bothered with earthly matters like light – just gold for the walls if you please.  Despite the lack of lighting, and the numerous signs prohibiting photography, Niem managed to snap these awesome shots.

We spent the afternoon exploring the island on a quad.  We’d tried to rent one in the morning, but couldn’t find anyone who’d rent without a driver’s license.  Odd because we’d had no such problems in Mikonos, but that was a couple of years ago.  The roads on the island wind their way atop the ridges making for some interesting and scenic driving.  Niem was delighted to spot this curly-horned goat near the beach.  He managed to escape and we were forced to return to the ship for dinner.

Edible Art

19Sep11 After last years cruise with NCL, we are impressed anew with the food on-board Princess.  The food is truly 5 star, and yet oft times the decor outdoes the food – ice sculptures, fruit and pastry art.  What’s amazing is that they do this for a single meal.

Dubrovnik

18Sep11 This was our first visit to Croatia and we weren’t really sure what to expect.  The country conjures images of war in my head for some reason.  We pulled into a picturesque port around noon – blue green water and rocky beaches.  The city still has a 30’ tall fortified wall in its center that encircles what is now a collection of tourist shops and restaurants.  We considered walking the walls but the 10€ fee dissuaded us – we’re horribly cheap tourists.

In spite of the tourist trappings, the center was still enjoyable – great weather, and  green water lapping up against the walls and rocky cliffs.  Dubrovnik is known as the “Pearl of the Adriatic” – at least that’s what the cruise itinerary says, apparently for the “brilliant white marble” of the city walls. There was not much white left to be seen on the walls, I suspect they are covered by a few centuries of life.  They’ll either need to start scrubbing or consider getting a new slogan for the city.  The whole wall and interior has a system of drainage built right into the stones that I found fascinating – the amount of planning and effort required to build something this detailed (and massive) makes me feel like modern buildings come up short by comparison.

We continued walking on past the center and discovered what may have been the cities only beach.  Either nature was very kind and put a 100 yard beach just outside of downtown or someone had a bag of dynamite handy.  The beach was crowded with what appeared to be mostly locals and we spent a hour of so walking the beach, people watching, and enjoying the cool water.  For those of you that haven’t had the opportunity to walk a crushed rock beach, I highly recommend shoes.

Ravenna

17Sept11 Our first port of call was to Ravenna, Italy, a small town known for it’s mosaics. We spent a half-day roaming around town before stumbling upon what was clearly a resting place for vampires. Matt, totally oblivious, chose to rest there on the marble stairs just in front of the crypts, somehow thinking he’d be safe with the sun shinning on him I suppose. How he’d managed to miss both book and movie documenting the vampires’ alarming evolutionary jump from burn to shimmer, is quite beyond me.  I somehow managed to guide the clueless man thru the doors of a nearby church under the pretext of taking photos – as if!  I’m finally beginning to understand the previously inexplicable number of churches throughout Europe. 

Later on, we discovered a large flea-market area with both food and clothing items for sale. We were impressed to see nearly all of the vendors in vans that were specifically designed for a farm-to-market set-up, with pop-out display cases and shade awnings.

On our way to the Mosaic Museum, we discovered a park with several cool looking mosaics. My favorite one is of a pirate ship chasing a peaceful sailboat. The mosaics in the park managed to sate our thirst to view mosaics so we skipped the museum and headed back to the ship.

Jamón

16 Sep 11 We hadn’t really known much about ham until this trip. That’s still mostly true, but we did learn that a) the Spanish really really like ham and cheese b) ham in Spain means dry-cured – just like Italian prosciutto. I even learned that prosciutto is ham – this before we’d even made it to Italy!  We did manage to sneak in a couple of non-ham & cheese meals during our stay in Madrid, but for the most part we yielded to the local preferences – both for reasons of cost and convenience.  This ham & cheese flavored bag ‘o chips is proof that there’s just no bad way to get your ham & cheese on!

 

We saw lots of stores selling this sour candy “super acidas”.  Not sure if it’s a fad or just really popular, but we saw it everywhere and some of the ropes were enormous.  I felt obligated to try a piece, strictly for purposes of culinary research – om nom nom nom.

For precisely the same reasons I felt compelled to sample the local pastries as well.  For some reason they all had chocolate in the middle…

 

Toledo

13Sep11 After sleeping in yesterday and getting a late start to Segovia, we decided to get up early and head out at 8AM for our day trip to Toledo. To our surprise our favorite sandwich shop was not yet open! So, off to Toledo (€10, 30mins train ride) we went without our traditional meal of prosciutto and cheese on a croissant.

Upon arriving in Toledo, we took a short walk from the train station into town. We spent the day exploring the once capital city of Spain, full of its narrow, cobbled, winding roads and small shops. We walked thru the Catholic, Jewish, and Islamic sections of the city and stopped to look at various sword shops. We found a market in one of the many plazas in the city where we could buy some ham, cheese, and fresh bread to make our very own ham and cheese sandwich for lunch! With our bellies and minds full of culture, we headed back for a little siesta.

Segovia

12Sep11 We took the high-speed (€10, 30mins, 140mph) train from Madrid to Segovia – famous for its Roman aqueducts.  The public transportation in Europe continues to impress us.  With few exceptions, the buses/trains are modern, clean, and affordable. 

Oddly enough, many of the stop signs in Spain said “stop”.  While its true that the various Spanish speaking countries can’t seem to agree on which word to use for stop signs, I find it interesting that an English word appears to have entered into the competition for no go reason I can think of.

Trash collection was being done by hand-pushed cart – we’re guessing due to the narrowness of the streets in this neighborhood, but this may be part of the austerity measures required by the EU in response to Spain’s debt ratio.

The amount of effort required to build the aqueduct seems staggering. The aqueduct currently pours out to the street at in intersection, but we’re guessing in days of yore, there would have been a line of people with bars of soap and shower caps waiting their turn.