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Category: making things

River Bends Park Trail Map

Published October 5, 2010

After getting the second phase of trails at River Bends open this weekend I set to work creating a map of the trails in the park. Well, here it is. This map lists all of the two track, official single track, and asphalt along with showing the parking lot and the nearest intersection for reference.

To download a PDF of the map, click the image above or here: River_Bends_03-Oct-2010.pdf

UPDATE: The 17-Nov-2010 update of the map can be found here: River_Bends_17-Nov-2010.pdf

UPDATE 2: The 13-Mar-2011 version of the map can be found here: River_Bends_13-Mar-2011.pdf

UPDATE 3: The latest version of all maps of the trails at River Bends can be found at: http://mmba.org/library/maps/riverbends/latest.pdf

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VBScript Function to Check Active Directory Domain Access

Published October 4, 2010

The following VBScript function can be used to check if a given username and password has access to the specified domain. It will return true or false depending on whether or not access was granted.

function fnCheckAccess(strDomain, strUserID, strUserPWD)
 
    const ADS_SECURE_AUTHENTICATION = &H01
    const ADS_CHASE_REFERRALS_ALWAYS = &H60
 
    dim objDSO
    dim objUser
    dim strPath
 
    strPath = "LDAP://" & strDomain
 
    On Error Resume Next
    set objDSO = GetObject("LDAP:")
    set objUser = objDSO.OpenDSObject(strPath, strUserID, strUserPWD, ADS_SECURE_AUTHENTICATION OR ADS_CHASE_REFERRALS_ALWAYS)
    if Err.Number <> 0 then
        fnCheckAccess = False
    else
        fnCheckAccess = True
    end if
    Err.Clear
    On Error Goto 0
 
    set objDSO = Nothing
    set objUser = Nothing
 
end function

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Phase II of River Bends is Open!

Published October 3, 2010

With a total of 39.5 volunteer hours spent during a rainy trail day of bench cutting, installing a new bridge, (which Pete designed specifically for the space), raking, trimming, and generally finishing off the trail, Phase II of the single track trails at River Bends are now open. While the trails are still a bit slippery from the last couple days of rain, they should be quite nice to ride.

Once I was done taking a break after the trail day I then headed back to River Bends and walked the new part of the trail with My Tracks recording the route. This data, combined with stuff gathered on previous mapping trips, allowed me to make this map showing all the park-recognized paths within the park. While just the first revision, I’m still quite happy with how it’s all coming along. There’s now a ridable, cohesive loop of multiple miles of single track.

Now to get to finishing the other loops that hang off of it. They already exist, but need both some cleanup and trimming before they’ll be properly ridable. Right now getting through some parts of them is akin to riding down a corn row.

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Phase II of River Bends is In Progress

Published September 26, 2010

Phase II of the multi-use single track trail at River Bends that I’ve been facilitating the construction of is moving along nicely. Since completing Phase I back in June I’d written up this proposal (PDF, page 3 contains a map) for two more phaes of trail, gotten it approved by the township, and gone to work so that it can be completed by winter.

All of the Existing Segment of Phase II was trimmed back (it was quite overgrown) to a nicely rideable / hikeable state at the beginning of September, and throughout the past week I’ve begun work on the New Segment. In River Bends I’ve found that when getting started I like to clear deadfall and rake in the route. (Another photographic example.) After this then a line trimmer can be brought in to remove any small plant growth and scour the ground, and then bench cutting can be done as-needed on off-camber sections of land to provide a flat place to ride. All but ~1000′ of this new segment of trail is now raked, so I’m quite happy with how things are going. Plans are in place to do more work tomorrow starting at 3pm, so with any luck there’s only another week or two until this whole segment is ready to ride.

It was quite satisfying to be taking a break today, standing on freshly raked ground, and seeing trail rolling across the hills as far as the terrain allowed me to see. I think I’m liking this trail building thing. Not only do I get to build something fun but it costs nothing save for labor, supports another interest of mine, and being on public land it benefits anyone in the area who chooses to use it. It’s almost like open source taken to public works.

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Sliding Dropout Issues

Published July 25, 2010

After washing off the remainder of the mud from yesterday’s race I set about trying to fix the problem with the rear wheel rubbing on a chain stay. This appeared to be due to one of the sliding dropouts sliding, but after looking into it more I think what’s actually happening is that the dropout is rotating slightly while braking due the the bolts being slightly smaller than the slots they go through. So, as can be seen above (when contrasted to this picture) I added some ground down wingnuts to the dropout adjustment screws and changed the outer plates to a set of flat and split lock washers.

The original outer plates appear to have raised ridges in them to alleviate this shifting, but the ones I have are so squished and worn that I don’t think they fit quite right and thus were having the same issue. I’ve tried emailing VooDoo Cycles on Wednesday to buy replacement sliding dropouts, but they haven’t replied, so I think I’ll have to take other steps.

Knowing what forces are in play on the dropouts will hopefully allow me to set things in proper place so they don’t shift any while riding. An initial test around the neighborhoods seemed to help, but not being on trails there was very little braking to be done. If this doesn’t work I’ll also try Fiber Grip to increase friction in the frame vs. dropout area, making larger outer washers/plates, and adding bushings around the screws. I’m also considering adding a link to the chain to both get a quick link in place and allow the wheel to be moved backwards putting the edge of the tire at a wider part of the stay to alleviate/offset the tire rubbing giving it more room to flex/move to the side if it does slip.

Here’s a couple photos of the bike with the new suspension fork, brakes, and Lagunitas Brewing Company cap (on a Niner YAWYD) on it: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4.

Save for the slipping dropout issue I rather like this setup. The fork isn’t the greatest, but it’s a good squishy fork that fits the bike well and is comfortable to ride on.

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Hash Browns for Dinner

Published May 30, 2010

After a nice bike ride I couldn’t think of what to have for dinner, and this is what resulted: hash browns, fried up in butter, with onion, roasted garlic, rosemary, spicy chicken sausage, and sweet corn, topped with mild cheddar. I’m eating this with a glass of Bell’s Kalamazoo Stout, a very nice, malty, licorice-y stout that goes wonderfully with savory food.

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PC Engines alix2d13 and Netgate Enclosure

Published May 21, 2010

This week I received a PC Engines alix2d13 board and Netgate NET-CASE1C2REDU-ANT enclosure which will replace the venerable Trashwall. While Trashwall served its purpose for a while, I was getting tired of its noise (a slight but present hard disk whine) and power consumption and the need to manually set up utilization graphs and such.

After giving pfSense, a FreeBSD / pf-based firewall distribution which works nicely on embedded devices, a try I decided to move to it. I’ve now got pfSense v1.2.3 embedded (current stable release) installed on a 4GB SanDisk Ultra II compact flash card which the ALIX board boots to run the OS. Console output (when needed) is via serial port, but after the initial configuration, practically everything can be done via the web.

I’m running into a couple quirky problems with port forwards, but it’s otherwise doing a fine job of running my home network. DHCP with reservations, DNS, DynamicDNS (for DHCP clients to be resolvable), and NTP are all working as they should. Once I get the port forward issue sorted I’ll likely backup the config and give one of the pfSense v2.0 beta snapshots a go. If whatever beta snapshot happens to fail or doesn’t work out I can then just reimage the CF card back to v1.2.3 and reload the exported config. pfSense configs are simply XML files that can be backed up and restored at will, which is particularly convenient.

If you’d like to see more photos of my PC Engines alix2d13 setup, click here.

If you’d like to buy one, check out Netgate. The specific items I purchased for this are as follows, for a total of US$183.85:

· ALIX.2D3+B System Board: (3/1/256/LX800) with battery [ALIX.2D3+Battery]: US$140
· LIX.2D3 3 LAN Indoor Enclosure Red with USB & ANT [case1c2redu-ant]: US$24
· AC/DC 15V 1.25A 18W Switching Adapter only [PS-15V-1.25A-18W]: US$9.95
· SMA Dust Cap / Rubber Antenna Hole Plug [SMA Dust Cap Plug]: US$0.14/ea (2x)
· Postage via FedEx: US$9.62

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Pelican 1015 as Nexus One Case for the Outdoors

Published May 17, 2010

When biking I tend to stay fairly dry, but there are the occasional times when I’ll end up a bit more wet or banged up than desired. Since a phone can be a lifesaver in such a situation I wanted to ruggadize my Nexus One a bit. Stopping by REI in Northville yesterday on my way to the bike shop I picked up a Pelican 1015 in solid black.

This nice case fits my Nexus One almost perfectly in two dimensions, but is a little deeper than needed. Thankfully with the addition of some extra foam in the lid and the cushioned rubber liner the phone now doesn’t move around, even when fairly strongly jostled. With the rainproofness and extra shock protection afforded by this cases it should now be perfect whenever I care to take it; biking, hiking, or whatever.

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Battery Charging Paranoia

Published March 23, 2010

This is my setup for the first charge of the Li-Poly battery used in the a Bicycle Video Recorder. I had the battery sitting in a partially covered ammo can, my multimeter and thermocouple monitoring the battery’s temperature, and the charger connected to a Kill-A-Watt to show current flow. While charging occurred I’d periodically check in on this to be sure the temp isn’t way up, current draw isn’t unexpectedly high, or the battery hadn’t exploded. Not pictured is the fire extinguisher which was located ten feet away from this setup towards the stairs.

As the green light on the charger shows, the battery is now charged, and everything sitting in place without a coating of extinguisher dust shows that nothing exploded. Now it’s time to grab an 8GB or 16GB SD card and do a runtime test. That sounds like a job for tomorrow, though.

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