Where I live now and most places I’ve lived, this is the really scary part of being a vulnerable road user in most of the United States.

But Pike Place Market… between the cobbles, the high density, and the street convolutions to get to the pictured location, vehicular attack by senescence or willful malice would present a serious challenge. There are much softer targets and way “better” areas for confusing elderly drivers.

I use a magic arm originally meant for photography work, e.g. holding a reflector or camera highlight flash. Brand mostly doesn’t matter, but at the weight of a Steam Deck, you don’t want garbage. Specifically, I use a Newer because I’ve had great luck with their stuff has been consistently good over the years. To hold the Deck, I have a Ram Mounts tablet X-Mount, which keeps the vents and buttons juuust accessible. I usually use a Bluetooth game controller. Works great anywhere I can clamp the base.

Not sure what you mean by leading edge here. Those are calipers for a pocket bike, e.g. 50cc motorcycle. If this is for a pocket bike, you might have better luck on a motorcycle forum. That said, each caliper can only fit in one direction when the rotor and wheel are installed. The actuation arm dictates which is front and rear (or left and right for dual front rotors) by where the cable is coming from on the bike. Provided those calipers aren’t seized and the actuation arms are pictured in the neutral position, the cable must pull the arm away from its neutral position, i.e. counter-clockwise and clockwise respectively (L-R, as pictured).

Maybe you know this, but just in case: you’re missing a cable stop on the left caliper and you’ll need cable-fixing bolts. Also, I get that you’re trying not to spend any money, but check the brake pads before installation. Even if the pads have a bunch of material left, looking at those calipers, my guess is that the pads are contaminated or worse glazed. You will never get the squeal out of contaminated pads.

And Bookwyrm too: https://joinbookwyrm.com/

In some of the books I’ve read so far, Asher does okay with backfilling some details if you skipped previous novels. But there is definitely a whole lot of backstory you might be missing on Orlandine, the Jain, the Prador, and the complexities of… everything. There are long-running plots within plots, and more than a couple conspiracies.

FWIW: this is the reading order I’m now using: https://www.readingorders.info/the-neal-ashers-polity-universe-reading-order/

For the Old Man’s War flavor, I recently finished Neal Asher’s Agent Cormac series, which is a subset of his Polity series. The stories are stellar, excellent character development, and deliciously complex moral issues. I’d say it’s interstellar James Bond (Daniel Craig’s version) having a love child with The Culture, early Tom Clancy, and “Heart of Darkness.” My one caution is that Asher’s sentence structure sometimes almost feels like reading Thackeray.

I am now going back and reading the rest of the Polity novels in order. I am quite pleased. I kinda wish I started from the beginning, but it’s also been fun to have that “foresight” on events now that I’m in the earlier novels.

My experience with high desert daily thaw-freeze cycles is that it tends to produce hard ice “sculptures” in the bike lanes. If you get a hard ice base, studded tires are just about the only thing that will keep you upright. If you get crusty ice, studded tires are mostly optional. If the ice sculpture is particularly gnar, consider full suspension. I went full suspension with studded tires. It was overkill except for those ~5 days per year I absolutely needed to get to work, and the ice in the bike lanes was bad enough to be unwalkable.

If you get hardpack snow, aggressive tread blocks might be enough. I’ve played around with smoother center tread with aggressive cornering blocks, Nokian Mount&Ground/Hakkapeliita tires, narrow slicks, hardpan tread patterns… it’s all a matter of matching the tire to the surface. No single solution will cover all possibilities, and it’s critical to match your tires to your most frequently encountered condition. Be mentally prepared for some trial and error.

IMO, a narrower tire is better than wide, within reason. Narrow tires tend to push through snow and crust.

As to why fixies are superlative foul weather bikes:

• drivetrain components wear together: run it until the everything is worn to a nub (if you aren’t into maintenance); replace everything together maybe every 7 years; clean and lube the chain when it gets noisy
• way fewer fragile moving parts
• dead simple drivetrain that performs perfectly even when neglected, always works regardless of sand, ice, snow, salt, foul language, or bad hair days
• gravel gets into the drivetrain with the snow and ice? fixie DGAF, unlike belt drive and cassettes
• on rim brakes, less road grit abuse of your braking surfaces because can stop with the rear wheel
• fixies are generally a much lower cost bike to start and you can have yourself a winter beater that will take all the abuse and keep going; tons of choices on the used market
• cheap chains, chainring, and cogs
• changing gear ratio is cheap
• direct connection to the rear wheel acts like traction control: easy to start and stop when slippery; when your front brake becomes useless because of low traction, you can still control speed through the pedals; inertia in the drivetrain carries your stroke through TDC/BDC, making it easier to maintain a smooth stroke in slippery conditions (helps keep you moving and upright); easy to feel when the rear wheel is losing traction, if your rims get iced over (and they will), you still have some braking capability
• you’ll feel like a kid again doing massive skids down huge snowy hills
• easy trackstanding at stops: no unclipping/clipping back in (less chance to clog up the pedal and cleat), no putting your foot down into car snot, no putting your foot down in an ice patch and slipping
• the time and money you save on maintenance adds up quickly; get yourself a couple sets of wheels and keep them ready for various conditions; use the same rims for rim-brake bikes to keep your sanity intact
• disc brake fixies are a bit more rare, e.g. Salsa Stormchaser 1x with a White Industries ENO hub; disc brakes expand your capabilities, ease wheel swaps when using different rims, and improve all-conditions braking
• ^that said, I only ever owned a rim brake fixie and never missed my discs even in the gnarliest snow and ice; unlike all my other geared bikes, I’ve never fallen when winter riding my fixie; actually, I’ve never fallen on my fixie, period, and I credit that fixed connection to what the rear wheel is doing
• climbing hills is like being on an escalator: because the inertia of the drivetrain carries the pedals over TDC, a fixie just rips up hills; on a 25 mile one-way work commute, my top speed was down 3.5 MPH, but overall average speed was up ~1.8 MPH, with 1400 feet of climb each way

I resisted fixies for a long time despite hearing all the benefits. The story of that fixie pictured in my previous post is here: https://lemmy.world/post/27619326/16157725. VT, OR, UT, WA, MA, and CO winters have never given me any troubles on my fixie with the correct tires for the conditions.

There are a lot of factors that will affect the details of your selection:

• snow type, high desert fluffy, northeast boilerplate and snot, PNW icy wet slop…
• daily thaw/freeze cycle
• salt and/or sand used on the roads
• how much car snot will you be hitting on your commute routes

Without details of your snow conditions, all of the details of any commentor’s suggestion will be guessing.

I can offer these generalities; IMO, fat bikes confer no advantage when it comes to snow. They sound great on paper, but if you’re floating on top of snow, that’s a recipe for garbage traction. For the broadest range of winter road conditions, nothing beats a fixie. I could write you a novella why, but I’ll spare you.

Notice that I’m riding road slicks in that pic (25 mile commute one-way).

The next best choice in my experience is a rigid 26” disc brake mountain bike. With a 26" winter wheelset, you can have snow tires, studded ice & snow tires, plus tires for summer trails. Most 26" disc mountain bikes can also fit 700c with clearance for as much as 32C. With fenders! Get yourself a decent 700c wheelset, and you have some summer zippyness. That’s a lot of use case in one bike. Tons of choices for this style, but my all time fave was the Trek SU200, same frame as the 4300.

I can’t find my pictures of this in winter configuration. But here it is in ultralight touring mode. Winter tires were Nokian on the stock 26" wheels.

I’m also running a Frankenstein’s Monster drivetrain: 105 shifters, Deore XT rear, Deore (XT? can’t recall at the moment) 11-48 cassette. To make things even dicier, I’m using a Wolftooth Roadlink to fit that cassette. When I first set up this drivetrain, it worked flawlessly (shockingly :D). I share that context as empathy for your shifting woes, and I apologize in advance if the following is obvious/already been tried.

Quite suddenly, rear shifter started exhibiting the exact behavior your describe; I suspect someone messed with my barrel adjuster as a prank because all of my riding group suddenly had shifting issues after that bar stop. I couldn’t get the shifting solid again until I loosened the pinch bolt and performed the cable pull adjustment as if it was first install. And with my sketchy setup, I have to follow the steps very strictly.

This Park Tools video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkZxPIZ1ngY) will be old hat for you, but I include it for anyone else trying to dial in their rear derailleur.

Absolutely. I do this all the time for lighter camping trips. I still can make hot smashburgers without packing a flattop and propane tank. Separate them with parchment or wax paper for easy portioning.

I also do this with bacon. Cook off five pounds at a time, freeze, and have bacon ready to go anytime. Added bonus: you get a bunch of bacon fat.

I’m starting to think comedians are top of the food chain.

This is also becoming my perception. In Ty Franck and Wes Chatham’s podcast, Chatham’s general role is that of describing the craftsmanship of acting which is one of his obsessions since childhood. In one episode, Chatham goes into some detail on the challenge of comedy acting. Basically, it’s Jedi Master acting to do it well, and from there all other acting is just a matter of desire to do it.

Just… don’t do that?

This is part of Common Sense

Kinda. For people like you and me, sure this sense is common. How many normies do you know that have your level of technical paranoia?

Here’s an outlier example: I recently bought a carded, new micro SD card from the local brick and mortar because urgent reasons that don’t matter for this story. I went to load up the card, and its capacity was only 8MB, rather than 256GB. More than that, it was also loaded with 3 different auto-run malware. I was prepared for something like this (well, not the inconvenience of a counterfeit card). How many here are genuinely prepared to deal with brand new card that came from a trusted retailer with malware? Do YOU genuinely expect malware in this context?

I think a little empathy and education can go much further than “I’m smarter, just git gud.”

I have a boat… I feel attacked. :D

China didn’t invade vietnam in the 1970s, the US did. This is the easiest history question how did you get it wrong.

This is confidently incorrect. China absolutely invaded and attacked Vietnam in the 70s, specifically starting in 1979. You also got the incorrect decade for US invasion of Vietnam.

But you could break a few sets of legs!

Beautiful build, glad you’re still with us AND still riding, fellow Cascadian.

What is that crankset? How challenging is it to get chainrings?

Adding onto that, there are only something like 7 general plot lines and 12 character archetypes. Don’t quote me on those numbers; I might have them backward or off-by-one. Read enough books (or watch enough movies) and before long, you’ve seen it all.

And to extend the above comment to music, there is a finite number of acoustically “acceptable” chord progressions. There are even fewer pleasing chord progressions. Basically, there’s no such thing as “new” Western music. The most popular chord progression goes by a bunch of names, but I learned it as the “Heart and Soul chords,” I-vi-IV-V. There is a comedy music act that I can’t recall who demonstrates this beautifully and humorously.

Edit: Found it! Axis of Awesome, “4 Chords” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ

The Reuben at Greenburg’s Deli in NYNY is always on my must-have list. Pretty much anything at Block 16, China Poblano (Mexican-Chinese cuisine), and Momofuku in The Cosmopolitan. If you like tasting menus, Partage is excellent. And if you like tiki bars, Frankie’s (classic, divey) and Golden Tiki (next to Partage) are both great experiences.

This is an enormous topic that cannot be discussed in any meaningful detail in this format. So, very briefly…

We can’t possibly beat oligarchical power on their playing field. But that is where principles of asymmetric warfare apply; Afghanistan managed to beat the shit out of two superpowers, both of whom just quietly backed away. Asymmetric techniques, and hopefully with a lot less physical violence* than what happened in Afghanistan. There is no silver bullet and definitely nothing that is one-size-fits-all. There is a very large array of resistances from which to choose; it’s up to you to find what works best for you.

*The economic and ecological violence are already being perpetrated on us.

There is the obvious form of resistance: unionization. It is a very effective hedge against power when deployed in significant enough numbers. I also threw out some examples in my comment to which you replied. [Extremely broad generalization warning] effective resistances are not going to happen from our keyboards; memes and quips on social media are not going to win over any hearts and minds to our cause.

I don’t know where you are in your resistance journey, so I can only make very general, abstract suggestions. I apologize in advance if any of these are obvious or already in your quiver. Resistance could be anything that stems the tide (off the top of my head and in no particular order or priority):

• contribute to open source software
• contribute to the FULU knowledgebase
• setup a local mesh network
• repair, reuse, donate directly (e.g. Freecycle)
• learn to repair and tailor your clothes, then do it for others or teach them
• tutor or mentor in your field(s) of expertise
• join your local or regional timebank
• start a tool library if your area lacks one; take a volunteer shift if it already exists
• get physically out and about in your community and actually talk to people
• go for a walk and clean up all the trash you see on your walk (bring a bucket and picker-grabber)
• bicycle
• drive less or not at all
• attend city council meetings and make sure your concerns are being addressed
• volunteer at your local foodbank
• start a food garden, bucket garden, hydroponics, or window planter
• have your neighbors over for dinner
• organize work parties - bike moves, barn raising, beach cleanup, etc.; many hands make short work plus connections get forged
• learn about the history of resistances

Some of these may seem meaningless, and to be sure, they do not all apply to every person’s context. But anything that shores up and strengthens the connections within your community, gets you out into the community, shows your neighbors that you’re making stone soup… is a net win. Small things add up and pretty soon make big piles. Basically, light a candle rather than just curse the darkness.

Gee, I wonder how everything got so fucked up.