2Q26

Dang. Still lagging on getting things written. So here's a flurry of updates that I cranked out in one sitting. It got a little long, so some sections got split out to post separately, and those will get posted as I finish editing them and get the images ready.

Housekeeping

Skip if you don't care about computers!

The little Chromebook I was writing this blog on was giving me update errors. Turns out these units are hardcoded to EOL on a given date. This is based on the hardware, not when you bought it or which software is installed. All of these Dell 1130s stopped updating on the same day and effectively turned into e-waste.

My desktop running Pop! OS has been pretty dang good, so I just copied the blog, including the Zola executable, over. And it works here too. Nothing to install. Nice.

Meanwhile, what to do with the Chromebook? It's actually two Chromebooks, because the first one I received had a dead speaker jack, and the seller just sent me a new one and didn't want the bad one back. I bought a new speaker jack card and it was an easy swap. So what to do with two orphaned Chromebooks?

Poking around I found a project called Nixbook, which uses NixOS Linux to breathe new life into old Chromebooks. Since they're NixOS, if anything goes wrong you can roll them back, and the creator added some Chromebook-like features like automatic updates by just restarting the machine, and the "powerwash" feature that resets the machine back to zero. I've been hearing a lot of enthusiasm about NixOS so it seemed like a nice way to check it out and do something with the Chromebooks. If I didn't like it, it would make them easy to give away, just powerwash them and it's like a brand new clean laptop and not a sulky Chromebroke.

I installed it on both (one in "Lite" mode and one regular) and was pretty impressed with how it ran and how nice KDE Plasma looks (and functions). Unfortunately, I didn't read the directions that noted Nixbook (and Nix in general) really needs 32 GB of disc space because NixOS stores its configuration and build artifacts for the "rollback" functionality. These Dells only have 16GB of storage, so after one update cycle the disk ran out of space and the Nixbook concept was dead in the water.

NixOS was intriguing enough that I tried Nixbook on a Lenovo T420 that had lots of disc space and it was much happier. But for the Chromebooks I'd have to try something else, so I spend a Sunday hiding from the heat holding a distro-hop-athon. I tried the following:

The Chromebooks are funky little beasts and about half of the installations didn't work out because they would not see the NVME disc, or sometimes the keyboard would only work with the Live CD. I really liked the side-scrolling tiling of Niri in the Kaos Live CD but couldn't get it to work once installed. I looked into running Niri on other distros but wasn't patient enough to set it up. It's neat to see some newer window management and desktop concepts but I don't want to spend a bunch of time ricing together something potentially fragile, though NixOS might the right way to proceed there since I expect I would eventually start breaking things and could at least revert instead of starting over.

But in looking at Niri, I found out about PaperWM for Gnome, a desktop extension that also does side-scrolling tiling. I was already impressed with how the latest Gnome looks and installing the PaperWM extension was super easy to boot. On a tiny laptop you can really only look at one window at a time and this seems more elegant than just alt-tabbing through windows. In fact, really compelling, if not exciting. So one Chromebook stayed with Fedora Trixie, Gnome, and PaperWM.

Since I liked KDE Plasma on the Nixbooks, and KDE also has a side-scrolling extension called Karousel, the other Chromebook ended up with OpenSUSE, Plasma, and Karousel. It's not bad either, but feels a tad slower than Gnome with PaperWM. Then for learning more about NixOS, I switched the T420 to a fresh NixOS install with Gnome and PaperWM too.Nix is interesting so far but I haven't even gotten to Home Manager and whatever Flakes are yet. I'll keep the desktop running Pop! and Cosmic for now.

Bikes

I haven't been doing a ton of riding or bike futzing, because this year I started doing trail work with Muscle Powered, our local trails advocacy group. I really enjoyed building trail, and ended up taking a series of classes on trail construction and trail crew leadership and am now a certified Trail Technician through NOCTI.

Between the endless Watt Weenie-ing and the 32" Changes Everything Watch I've been kind of burned out on bikes-as-objects and have been concentrating more on Just Pedaling. Building trail has meant less pedaling, but has turned out to be even more satisfying that I imagined. It's so rewarding to see your labor turn into trail that you, and everyone else, can ride.

I'm tempted to write down all my thoughts on the 32" wheel situation, but I don't know if there's any real benefit.

The End of Drops

I decommissioned my gravel bike. I wasn't really riding it. It really came down to drop bars. Not that I don't like them, but somehow they just didn't seem like me any more. I tried a lot of setups and alternates and learned some interesting things. Writing it all got too long so it's going to be its own post.

Creating Unique Experiences

Shimano's CUES has always been a puzzle for me. There are so many BUT WHY? questions about it. And recent releases (the Tiagra drop bar shifter that pairs with a CUES derailleur to shift Hyperglide??? The even weirder not-sure-what-to-call-it special ratio rear derailleur???) made it even weirder. But I've always wanted to try at least the cassette. I finally did, and in writing it down this section also got lengthy and will be a separate post.

In short: I tried some CUES parts, and they seem at least fine. Or at least the Linkglide part of it is.

Single Speedery

The single speed has not changed much. The only thing I have done is swap out the DHR and Cushcore in the front for just a Duro Crux tire. I love this tire. The XR-4 in the back is getting worn out. With the extra traction of the Crux in the front I'll swap it out for a Martello with the enduro casing and take out the other Cushcore. The Martello was too sticky in the back for the DHR, but hopefully will be more balanced with the Crux.

It also got showcased on Andrew Major's blog.

The bike has been riding well, but I'd like to build a newer version with a higher bottom bracket, and a steeper head angle so I can take out the angleset and run a Viscoset. Maybe later this year.

Not-so-fat Bike

Winter was a total bust. We had barely any snow down in town. So little that I questioned whether I should bother with a fat bike any more, if winters are going to be like this. This too got too lengthy so I split it off. The short version is that the Duro Crux might be enough to keep me happy all winter.

I'll probably wait to see if next winter is also a dud before liquidating the 4s and 5s.

Bodies

I'm still really interested in what Lawrence van Lingen is talking about, and from there I learned about Kadour Ziani and Doc Smith. While experimenting with their exercises (I'm not sure exactly which one), something crazy happened.

About 20 years ago, my right knee started to hurt. No swelling or anything, just a burning pain around my knee. I saw an ortho, and he couldn't discern anything wrong with it. MRI was normal. He suggested stretching and Ibufprofen.

My right hip was tight, and it turned out going at it with a foam roller helped. The problem mostly went away.

Then once in a while my neck/shoulder on the right side would go into spasm and lock up. Tried rolling it out with a tennis ball and it would eventually relax and feel normal.

One day I noticed I had extremely tender trigger points up high on the inside of my thigh, somewhere around the rectus femoris or sartorius muscles. Whatever it was, when I dug hard into it with an elbow there was a sharp electric tingle down my whole quad to the inside of my knee where the pain would show up. This was interesting - maybe I was only treating one side of the hip and ignoring what was going on with the muscles opposing it. This helped more. My neck didn't seize up any more, but my shoulder still felt like it had a giant burning knot in it.

On one of the podcasts interviewing Lawrence Van Lingen he said something like "If you keep working on the same thing with a foam roller, then that thing isn't the problem. The real problem is your movement." While doing more and more of his exercises that emphasize pelvic mobility, I began to get some awareness that something was up higher up on my hip, almost in my lower back. My best guess was something related to my right sacroiliac joint? I had tried SIJ releases which didn't do anything, but there was something still there, not pain, but just an awareness. It wasn't a spot or a muscle that I could massage, but there was something...

One night I did the Doc Smith "Jing Palace" ball exercise, and some Kadour Ziani postures, and for some reason I tried a move where I stood on one foot and did circles with the other. Maybe this was in a Kadour video, or did it just come to me? Circles on the left side felt good, got my hip moving. Then I switched to the right, and as my pelvis came around the first revolution it popped a couple times, spasmed and writhed, and I guess demons and imps fled their 20 year hiding spot. Laying it bed that night the mystery spot sighed and relaxed, tingling every so slightly.

The next day the tight spot in my shoulder was gone. The trigger points outside my hip in my glutes: also gone. I don't know if my SI joint was locked up and finally freed, or it was some kind of neurological thing, but somehow something around my SIJ was pissed and everything on either side of the fascial chain had been dealing with it.

It's still not perfect - I still have some trigger points and tension in the front of my leg, but I don't expect twenty years of compensation to disappear overnight.

Other Stuff

I have started a new frame to fill a different niche, one I have wanted to fill for a while. Adding this bike is a little contrary to my stable simplification plans, but maybe it will get used more than I think. Expect a write-up when it's finished.

There's one other N+1 project going on, but it's really niche. I've always wanted a flatland bike, and I got a free older Haro freestyle frame as a starting point. I'm trying not to buy a single new thing for it so it's slowly getting scrounged together.