A Perfect Mini

If anyone at BMW cares to hear my opinion (and I doubt they do), here's an addition I'd love to see in the Mini line-up.

Not:
Some stupid faux sport utility like the Countryman
Some silly and less useful coupe
Something even smaller like the Rocketman concept

Rather, something along the lines of the BMW 1600/2002.  Or the Lotus/Ford Cortina.  Or the Datsun 510.  Or the Alfa Romeo Giulia.  In short, a Mini Cooper with a trunk!  In two or four doors, too.

Here's what I'd like:
A skosh more wheelbase/legroom like the Clubman, but no more than those two inches or so
Equipment levels consistent with the Cooper
Regular, supple tires, rather than wooden run-flats
A weight target 2500 lbs for the base model
The chassis rigidity and suspension tuning of the Cooper
The general shape of the Cooper greenhouse
Some interesting lines to the trunk and rear fenders
The four from the R56, in N/A and turbocharged guises (I hear they're going to a triple for the next mini, which kind of sucks, IMO)
Base and S forms offered

Nothing original about taking a hatch and adding a trunk/boot to it, of course -- Jetta, anyone? (Actually the Jetta GLI should be on the list above, too.)  But the Mini doesn't have to be as practical as the VW, because the line-up is about character.

My main point, here, is that some of us need our car to be useful, but don't want or need it to be large or dull.  I'm sure car companies tire of hearing this, but I'd so totally buy one.  As I said, I'd love to pick Allyson's mini up, but I just can't make it work.  And though there seems to be little appetite for a stripped and fun sedan in the BMW model range, there should be plenty of room for that kind of car in the Mini line-up.

Maybe I don't get the product strategy, but it seems like they want the line to have more reach by adding useless coupes and (does anyone really care?) micro-SUV things.  Blech.  How about adding a model that keeps the fun, makes it more useful, and doesn't bloat it up or dumb it down?

All for now,

J

Mini

I've always been a car guy.  I've been fascinated/obsessed with cars since I was a young boy, and that hasn't ever really eased up.  My love for bikes and riding is actually possibly less than that for cars and driving, at least when we're talking about material things.  I'll admit I don't seem to have as much to say about cars, though.

I've owned a bunch of cars.  The first one I bought new was a 1989 VW Golf.  It cost me $8680, if I recall correctly, and was a fun car within its limits, which were not all that high.  It had good steering, a loud stereo and the best air conditioning a car ever had, but tiny little brakes, narrow tires and low limits.  It wasn't what you might call a spirited beast, lacking all of the great suspension tuning its sibling the GTI benefitted from, and certainly these days, the power was nothing to write home about.

Though they've gotten nicer since, none of my other cars have been much more inspiring, really.  Despite my penchant for having fun behiond the wheel, the Golf was followed by long stints in an Accord and my current ride, a Mazda3 sedan.  Sprinkled in there were a pristine-but-dull 1986 Toyota MR2; a ratty, terrifying and yet thrilling Suzuki Swift GT; a Mazda Protege with the Miata engine, and my least favorite (despite being the most expensive), a 2000 VW Passat GLX with leather, wood and all kinds of (fragile) electronics.

The Accord benefitted greatly from aftermarket brake pads, a strut tower brace to stiffen up the unibody, fat aftermarket sway bars, Koni Sport adjustable shocks, as well as sticky summer tires.  It actually wasn't a bad driver after all of that work, which I introduced over time as I replaced worn out parts.  And the Mazda has similarly benefitted from better brake pads, shocks and tires.

The Mazda is actually a pretty fun car to drive, despite being prematurely rusty.  It doesn't mind being driven hard, and is fun to throw around, with steering that's way more responsive than most cars out there.  And it's rarely broken, though at the moment it needs a few thousand dollars worth of replacement parts, or will before the end of the year.  Actually, let me be more honest -- for the price, the Mazda is a shockingly competent driver.  I get into a sport utility and am forced to wonder what people are thinking when they choose something like that over something like the Mazda.

With this car, I had something of a revelation about cars.  Unlike the custodial obligation I felt toward that pricey Passat, I immediately washed my hands of any concern for the Mazda's well-being.  I bought this car to drive the hell out of it (both in intensity and miles), and not worry about it.  That's what I've been doing, and it's been very liberating, really.  I don't care where I park it, I don't worry about dents and dings, and it doesn't bother me when I do something stupid with it, like clip a boulder mid-corner, blowing a shock and bubbling a tire.  Except for the cash out.

The car has also been a good reminder that while cars benefit from some stuff, they don't need a ton of stuff to be satisfying.  Meaning, I don't need leather, power seats, traction control, heated seats, and heated power-retracting mirrors to have a good time.  On the contrary -- I have more fun without all that fragile stuff on board!  I'll take the decent stereo, the power windows, steering, brakes, ABS and keyless entry, though, for sure.  I'm not one to suffer.

The thing is, though, the Mazda lacks a little something called cachet.  It's a totally anonymous little car that nobody looks at or gets excited about -- it doesn't pull the ladies, as they say, and it doesn't say much about me!  And though I've told myself those things don't really matter, the car guy in me has often let his eyes wander over nicer hardware with more than a touch of envy.

So when my friend Allyson told me she was going to sell her Mini, I asked if I could borrow it for a week or so, to see if I could make it make some sense for me.  Minis have plenty of cachet, despite being priced in the reach of regular people, and they're really very cute, if small.  I'll get to the punch line first, so I can concentrate on the good stuff -- the car makes no sense for me right now.  But man, what a fun car!

It's a 2008 Mini Cooper.  Not a lot of power, but it has the sports package and the premium package, plus a few other bits in the mix.  So it has enough stuff in it to make it really liveable, and it has some goodies bolted to it that make it more of a driver's car than the base Cooper would otherwise be.  It's been sitting in a storage garage for the last 14 months undriven, and was driven only a couple of times in the 6 months prior to that.

Dynamically, it's a fantastic ride.  The steering has much more heft than my Mazda, and it guides the car with more precision than anything I've ever driven.  The chassis lets me place the car wherever I want, without anything untoward happening -- even in mid-corner corrections.  And the thing is just so nimble!  A quick flick lets me blast around potholes and other obstacles without slowing up the pace.  On/off-ramps are nothing short of thrilling, because the car exhibits little roll and lets me carry ridiculous speed through to the tollbooth.  It's really a joy to drive, even with modest power levels, and it's built like a tank -- much more substantial than my Mazda.

It's too small, though.  I need a car with four doors to accommodate the girls (watching poor Ava struggle with the heavy doors to extricate herself from the back seat is enough to make me rule the car out), and though I can pack a week's worth of our groceries in the trunk, a trip to BJs with the girls isn't going to work.  Which is a pity, really, because I can't think of anything else wrong with it.

Well, that's not true.  BMW let the Mini team go a little off the deep end with the dash design and switchgear. And really, who decided the turn signal stalk needed to be reinvented?  Any of those kinds of annoyances disappear on a drive, though, replaced by a giant grin and praise to anyone who will listen.  Or if I'm on my bluetooth, a play-by-play of the car's awesomeness.

Unfortunately, I can't adopt it, but I am going to help send it of into its next life.  Anyone want to buy a Mini?

All for now,

J

Back on the Road

I'm sorta back on the road.

The weather hasn't been cooperating, much, but three weekends ago, I got out with my daughters for our first ride of the season.  Then two weeks ago, I managed a 48 mile weekend.  Last weekend I did nothing (well, not on the bike - was busy doing other stuff), but then this weekend I got a quick ride in to retrieve my car from the office.  It was cool and wet this morning, so I didn't get another ride in today, but 17 is better than none for this weekend.  With any luck, the rain will thin out a bit, and the temps will climb a bit, so I can get busy training for the PMC!  Even so, it feels good to be back out there, and I'm feeling pretty strong, despite the shortage of miles.

This week, I'm going to install my new toe clips onto the Motobecane.  They should help keep my feet on the pedals, a bit, which will be a help.  I've mentioned before that I'm getting tired of my feet flopping off the pedals at opportune moments.  Actually, there's really no good time for that to happen.

The toe clips were a gift from a friend whose wife's bike I worked on a few weeks ago.  It needed new bearings and grease in the headset, bottom bracket and hubs, and a good dose of oil for the freewhel internals.  Took me all of 2 hours to tackle, one Friday night, while the girls slept -- no big deal at all.

A day or so after I finished it, I took it for a quick spin around the driveway while getting Juli's bike ready for its inaugral ride.  Apart from not fitting me, I was really surprised and how good the bike felt.  This is a mid-1980's basic steel Fuji 12-speed, fitted with a basic Suntour groupset.  The derailleurs are mostly steel, the seatpost is steel, it has a derailleur adapter claw on it, the wheels are 27" -- you get the picture.

But despite what should be handicaps, the bike rode really nicely.  It desperately needs a humane saddle, it could use new brake pads and cables, and a 7-speed freewheel with a narrower range would give its fly-weight athlete owner better gearing for her needs than she has today.  Maybe a set of bar-end shifters and a better set of brake levers, too -- but really, not much more.  It's a great example of how a well-done bike can feel really good, even if it's not overly complex or sophisticated.

Not a lot more to say today about bikes.  I do have a couple of car posts that I'm churning over, though, and I have a project that I really need to get to with Juliana's Schwinn, that I'll have to come back to.

All for now,

J

"Eh, it's more purply."

That was the reply I got when I asked Juli, "Not so bad for a pink bike, eh?"

Hopefully that'll be the end of the arguments about the frame color.

As you can see, Juli and I finished (sort of) her bike last night before she went off to bed.  I spent a bit more time thinking about what to do about the rack that I'd butchered, rendering it useless for the time being, and scheming solutions for my own carelessness.  But first, the bike.

I've talked about Juli's little Schwinn before, and in truth, the bike has been rideable for a couple of months, now.  Missing until last night were a trio of accessories, and a day warm enough to coax Juli outside for a spin.  It wasn't warm today, but it was warm enough for coaxing.  The water bottle cage and holder went onto the handlebars in mere minutes, as did the bell.  And so equipped, Juli swung a leg over it and made a single lap of the driveway before scampering back into the warmth of the house.  She paused long enough before setting off to smile for the camera.  Note the dandy cycling shoes, and the frame-matching piping on her fleece jacket.

Most of the work last night went into trying to fit a Pletscher CS rack to the rear of the Schwinn, in much the same way that I'd fit one to the Fuji -- by shortening the struts so that the rack would sit level on the small frame.  Unfortunately, I didn't test the brakes while positioning the rack and marking the struts for cutting, because while the location of the rack with the short struts is low and level, the straddle cable doesn't clear the rack in that position, rendering the rear brake both stiff and weak.  Not good.

The bike doesn't need a rack to be ridden, of course, so it's now out in the barn, ready for warmer days.  But Juli wants a rack, and I found it handy for her to have one on rides to the state park for a kayak or swim last year, so I do, too.

I tried splicing ends back onto the struts, sweating the strut and the severed end inside of a quarter-inch copper pipe.  Sadly, my pipe-sweating skills are nearly as feeble as my dancing skills, and it didn't work.  So I ground off the pivot rivets, and removed the struts from the rack altogether.  I'm going to pick up some long struts for a Nitto rack, plus their hardware, and use those instead.  That retrofit will definitely work, and I won't have to throw the rack away.  I'd have felt badly about wasting a classic (even if I recycled it), though the cost to replace the rack is roughy comparable to the cost of the struts.  Oh, well...

I have only a few bike purchases planned for myself this year.  The rear tire on my Motobecane is looking perfectly serviceable for the coming season, so I'm not going to swap it like I'd initially planned.  That leaves me with a need for just some toe clips and straps for my Moto and Schwinn, and a new helmet.  Easy!

Next up is my friend Carol's bike.  It needs a repack of all of its bearings, and today I picked up the balls I need for that job.  It feels good to be wrenching again, after a few months' hiatus, as did the 15 miles on the rollers this morning (21 average), after a weekend off at the canyon.

All for now.

J

Canyon

I'm not really what you'd call an outdoorsman.  It's not that I don't like the outdoors, mind you -- cycling, hiking, kayaking, canoeing, sailing, tree climbing, exploring... there are tons of things I like to do out there.  But as I said in my last post, I don't have one of those hiking goals you sometimes find among people you know, and back when I was a scout (I was a Cub Scout of the various grades, and a Webelo, but punched out of the Boy Scouts after one meeting), I never really went for the whole camping thing.  I enjoy an occasional night in a tent and with a camp stove, but you won't catch me out there every weekend or anything like that.  I don't like having stuff stuck to my feet, maybe -- sand, evergreen needles, etc.  Think what you will. 

That aside, as I was discussing (virtually) with a friend of mine, today, I do appreciate the diversity of the landscapes of our planet -- or even just the continent I call home.  Coming from New England, I've found the dry hills of northern California, the flatness of Florida, the glaciers of the Canadian Rockies and the deserts, buttes and canyons of the American southwest just fascinating.  And I've had the chance to see some amazing stuff out west -- Bryce and Zion, Moab and Sedona, Yosemite and the Columbia River Gorge.  And twice, now, the Grand Canyon.

It's an incredible place, if you haven't been.  I've posted a few pictures, here, rather than try to describe it.  Its vastness is impossible to comprehend through photographs.  Most of the big features in any of these pictures are miles away.  Even stuff up close is out of snowball's reach (I checked that).  And a hike to the bottom on the Bright Angel trail you can see in these shots is something like 17 miles.

This week I spent a fair bit of time thinking through some letting go I need to do -- really painful stuff that I've tried hard to avoid for a year.  And I've got more coming in the next few months, which I mostly haven't been trying to avoid.  All of it necessary to getting on with life, none of it easy, and some of it impossibly hard.  I'd like to be able to tell you that the trip to the canyon made everything easier -- that the vastness of the place and the geologic time scale made all of the hard stuff I've been wrestling with seem unimportant.  But I can't lie like that.  It's an incredible place that inspired awe over and over again, simply by shifting my location or casting my gaze in a different direction.  But it's just a place.  It doesn't make things go away, and it doesn't make them easier or hurt less.  Even so, it's good to get a dose of awe, and a pair of 3-hour hikes equals six useful hours of thinking time.

The last time I was at the canyon, I hiked to the bottom with my ex, and it was a good and memorable experience.  This time, the canyon received snow just before my arrival, which lent the south rim a different feel than it had the last time.  I didn't have the right gear to hike down in, or enough time to get very far, so I just hiked the rim, in both directions from the Bright Angel lodge -- one per day.  It would have been nice to get down in there, but my only real regret is that I didn't have someone to share the experience with.  Rather than swapping impressions, I spent last night reading Hemingway.  Good, but not as uplifting.  Maybe next time.

Back to bikes next week -- I promise.  I'll be finishing the fitting work on Juli's Schwinn, and doing the overhauling work on my friend Carol's Fuji (possibly with her husband and son), and hopefully(!) getting in some outdoor miles on the Motobecane.  Maybe Juli will even get to test out her new bike?  Time will tell.

All for now,

J

Living in Service

The kitchen will be done today, and the roof wires will be back on the roof where they belong.  The kitchen looks fantastic, by the way, in red and white.  Then the house will go on the market, again, next week.  I'll still have to do the pantry, and replace and prime/paint a few rotten boards on a fence gate.  And if I were to get started on a list of "shoulds" for the house, the list starts getting pretty long.  And that's just indoor stuff -- by May I'm going to have to start cutting the grass again.

I'd kind of lost sight of how home ownership essentially means living in service to a building.  That's no way to live, and it's something I have to be more vigilant about.  I grew up working and watching my parents work around their place rather than getting out and exploring, and that experience is definitely part of my core.  Just look at my last post:  It's about painting and finding the bright side of something that that I know full well is devoring time I should be spending doing other stuff.  Bad habits.

While I was priming molding this morning, I realized that I've never really had a lifestyle "dream".  There are things I like to do, yeah, but I don't have a "climb all 10 peaks higher than X feet in North America" sort of thing that's guided my path.  Most of my goals have been centered around stuff, or work.  Apart from my kids, cycling is probably the closest thing I have to a lifestyle locus.  It's a good one, but it's not clear to me that there's a path to personal exploration and growth that stems from bicycles.

So what do I do about all of this?  Getting out of this house will be a great start, and with any luck I'll be moving this summer.  From there, I'll need to make time to explore new places and spaces, both with and without the girls, to see what feels right.  The potential for fun is tremendous, of course, but the challenge feels strangely daunting, too.  Habits are hard to change, after all.  But it seems really important that I focus on this one.

I had 7 resolutions this year, and I'm doing pretty well against them.  They weren't unimportant or minor things at all, but given the realization this little post is wrapped around, it feels like I missed a pretty important one.  I guess it's never too late to add -- or maybe just reaffirm -- an eighth.

All for now,

J

Color

The kitchen project is moving along.  Slowly, but moving.  The walls have come out smoother than I'd any right to expect them to, and the gray primer on the walls right now makes the kitchen look very different than it has in the 12 years I've (mostly) lived in the house.  The stained and polyurethaned wainscotting, trim and doors will be painted white to match the rest of the house, and the walls will be red.

Every time I paint a room, I ask myself why I don't paint rooms more often.  A room with a fresh change of color remains a little treat to the eyes long after the color should cease to surprise.  That compounded treat is well worth the time spent painting, and the process of emptying and refilling offers a great opportunity to purge crap, as well.

12 years in this house, and I've painted 4 rooms, the front hall, and the three secondary stairwells. Also, both bathrooms have been re-papered and otherwise redecorated.  Now the kitchen and pantry.  And that leaves the dining room, parlor and master bedroom untouched.  Anyway, that's not so bad, numerically, but it's still a third of the rooms unchanged since I moved in.  Seems odd, when I look at it that way.

Note to self:  Paint my next place more often.  A little change of color can be a very good thing.

Still no progress on finishing Juli's bike -- or starting Carol's.  The weather is changing fast (I've no snow at all in my yard, now), and I need to set some time aside for that work.  But I think I'll be busy with paint for a few weekends, yet.

Happy spring everyone.

All for now,

J