New Farkle for Maria

So, second day of snow, no riding for me or Maria again. Light snow this time, the sun was out during the morning and did a really nice job of melting the snow somewhat. Right now its falling lightly but not sticking, its 1630hrs, so hopefully it'll stop soon.

A minor piece of farkle showed up in the mail from iliumworks. It's an extension metal piece for Maria's rear brake. I've found myself twisting my right foot inwards, sometimes uncomfortably like at stoplights so I decided to try this $20 extension to see if it helps me engage the rear brake comfortably without me accidentally hitting it while riding.


The instructions said to drill a hole into the brake pedal to mount it securely, I chose not to do that. Instead I used some friction tape and its holding it onto the brake pedal quite tightly. I am pretty sure it won't come off, and if it does, it's just $20.

Additionally, I'd been shopping around for a small but cheap air compressor I could carry on the bike in case of a flat tire. One that I could use in lieu of the CO2 cartridges that comes with the Beemer tire repair kit to reinflate a tire after repairs. While googling such a piece of kit, I ran across this article on webbike world.


The article describes how to take apart a plastic encased air compressor and use its "guts" as your "compact" air compressor on a bike.

Dang if I did not have an old Coleman air compressor that once I took apart looked very similar to the one in the article! Got it wired up and tested it by releasing a few pounds of pressure off the front tire on Maria. It worked beautifully, slowly but capably inflating the tire back to the 42 psi recommended by the dealer. Now I have an air compressor with me to help me repair a flat tire and who knows what else!