Bikes!
My bikes are my primary means of transportation. I will always choose to bike over driving when it’s an option.
Specialized Stumpjumper
My commuter bike is an old Specialized Stumpjumper that I’ve modified. This was a steal on Craigslist and has been my main bike since 2019.
I put a Brooks C17 saddle on it, swapped out the original moose handlebars for the Nitto Albastache bars, and put a porteur rack from Velo Orange on it (mine is the old porteur, which they no longer sell). I think the inverse brake levers on there are also from Velo Orange, but they do not appear to sell them anymore. The pedals are MKS Grip Monarchs. The fenders are SKS. The bags are all from Road Runner:
- Wedge half frame bag
- Large point n shooter stem bag (for my camera)
- Drafter saddle bag
I use a Sackville ShopSack (again, an older version) strapped to the front rack, or sitting in a Wald basket. (I use some Voile straps to attach the basket to the rack.)
The Trek
The Trek used to belong to my dad; I’ve had it since college, when my mountain bike was stolen. It’s had a few different lives: the stock configuration with drop bars and downtube shifters; a fixed gear; a 1×9 speed; and now a fixed gear again.
This time I built the wheels myself using Velo Orange Enterprise rims, a Velo Orange front hub, and a Phil Wood high flange rear track hub that I got relatively cheaply on eBay. I replaced the dropbars with Velo Orange’s Postino handlebars and some cork grips I can’t find anymore. The saddle is another Brooks C17, the pedals are MKS Grip Monarchs, and the bags are, again, from Road Runner:
The dust caps on my inner tubes are made from a pair of twenty-sided dice (d20s). My brother gave them to me a few years ago, unfortunately I don’t know where he got them.
Bike bells
Both of my bikes have a Crane hammer strike bell on them. Every bike should have a bell and you should use it to let people know when you’re passing. There is no excuse to be zipping around pedestrians and other cyclists without warning.
Camera
I’ve been shooting with a Fujifilm X-T1 (now discontinued) since 2015, I think. My favorite lens is the XF 27mm F2.8 R WR; this thing pretty much lives on the camera body. But I also have a few other lenses which come out on special occasions:
- XF 18mm F2 R
- XF 23mm F1.4 R (the first lens I bought with the camera, I almost never use it any more)
- XF 90mm F2 R LM WR
In addition to the stem bag on my bike, I have a camera cube from Topo Designs (which they appear to have discontinued), which is great because I can just slip it into most bags to bring my camera. Sometimes, if I’m traveling with my camera gear and laptop, I use a Brevitē backpack (the first model they made, which is no longer available).
Boring (computer) stuff
Software
- Operating System
- Pop!_OS 24.04 (Linux)
- Desktop environment
- COSMIC
- Browser
- Zen
- Polypane (for web development)
- Photo editing
- darktable
- Terminal emulator
- COSMIC Terminal
- Text editor
- neovim
- If you’re into this kind of thing
- My configuration files
Hardware
- Laptop
- System76 Lemur Pro
- Desktop (built circa 2018)
- 2.8GHz Intel Core i5
- NVIDIA GeForce 1070 Ti
- 16GB RAM
- Fractal design case
- Corne 42 MX keyboard (my custom keyboard layout is in keyboards/crkbd/keymaps/darthmall)
- Logitech G502 Hero mouse
- Sony MDR-7506 headphones