Recent Comments

1. about 5 hours ago on Frazz

   May not be that bad? Our city collects all organics in the green bin. It really depends if their system can handle a relatively heterogeneous set of wastes for composting (that’s the local fate for organics). You need a pretty sturdy crusher/grinder to make sure the particle size is small enough.

   So that’s pretty good. In contrast, the city rejects many plastics that could be reused/recycled. So much more to do!

2. about 5 hours ago on Frazz

   worst one I ever had where the garment was generally good but the pad bad was an old Garneau bibshort. They were supposed to be “spring” shorts so the pad was water repellant. I have no idea if the product designer ever wore cycling shorts – the accursed thing had a texture like sandpaper.

3. 3 days ago on Frazz

   Hey! I am a lifecycle analyst and used to design landfills for a living. It is a dirty job but someone has to do it :)

   What goes into the waste bin varies widely by region, but in almost any developed country I’ve checked grass clippings make less than 10% of the municipal solid waste streams. Food waste, paper and plastics make up the bulk. US EPA reports about 7.2% of the MSW is yard waste in 2018 – and curiously the number for textiles is about the same, 7.7%

   That’s not to say it can’t happen – I can see that a region with a lot of golf courses or similar green areas would produce a lot of yard waste and not much else. I worked in a landfill in Barbados and one of their pressing concerns was what to do with all the coconut husks!

4. 3 days ago on Frazz

   Agreed. It’s not fast fashion. Word down here is that the only people cheaper than cyclist with their clothes is skiers that would still wear a jacket from the 90’s.

   I have a hard time getting rid of any reasonable cycling clothes. Bad ones (bad fit, chafing, etc.) get thrown away immediately because no one really is going to endure that. But it really is a very small amount of bad clothes I’ve gotten in the last 10-15 years. A couple of poorly designed gloves and maybe something with a really awkward pad.

   I’d say that “fashion leisure” attire gets discarded a lot quicker. Yoga clothes and gym wear.

5. 19 days ago on Frazz

   That’s the thing with global issues… easy to forget that one’s backyard doesn’t reflect the conditions of the planet!

6. about 1 month ago on Frazz

   Hm. I did plenty of all-nighters, especially in my undergrad. Course load was very heavy and I was starting to work part-time so I guess I kinda learned the limit by going over it.

   Interestingly, my workload and habits were a lot more relaxed getting a graduate degree (environmental engineering) because the institution didn’t expect you to have 75 weekly hours of availability.

   Interestingly, while not needing to pull an “all-nighter” recently, I have had to do it in a professional capacity because in the real world you don’t always own your deadlines for deliverables – sometimes they get assigned to you and good luck with that. More power to you if you’ve never had to do that, but I wouldn’t say that people that do haven’t “learned much of anything”.

7. about 2 months ago on Frazz

   Definitely didn’t use them in warm temperatures. The rubber was quite soft and squirmy at anything over 10-15 C and it lead to very vague cornering. These were Hakkapeliitas and quite narrow – 30 mm – because that’s what fits in the commuter.

   I normally got 2-3 winters out of them, using them 5 days a week. They really don’t like dry pavement but you get what you get and I wasn’t keen on taking them off for a couple of dry days.

   I did not rotate them. Yes, the rear wears faster but the front is more important to keep upright – you can manage some fishtailing in the back with a bit of skill. And sometimes the wear wasn’t in the tread but the casing/bead – salt, grates and curb hops will all do some damage. Quite a few of the retired tires had some life in the tread but had other issues like a sidewall scuff that made it unreliable.

   For what is worth, I never lost a stud – rode them gently on snow/ice at first to seat the studs and tried to avoid hard accelerations or braking.

8. about 2 months ago on Frazz

   Been using studded tires for bike commuting (Ottawa, ON) for more than a decade now. Commuting less to the office nowadays since I’m mostly working from home but about to start again. They are a game changer, although not they did not quite allow me to ride on the frozen canal over here.

9. about 2 months ago on Frazz

   “Be funny! I’m not interested in learning about an endurance athlete’s obsessions.”

   I don’t know how much you like the non-endurance athlete content in Frazz or if it makes up for the occasional references to that, but you’re going to get pretty irked with those because they are part of the strip – may the balance of things work for you! [I assume you read this for recreation and not as an obligation. If it’s the later, I hope it’s reasonably remunerated].

10. 2 months ago on Frazz

    Might be 17:00. We’re not in Michigan, but not that far. There’s basically no difference between 5 pm and 5 am at this point – or midnight, for that matter.