Hello dear friends. It’s time for my annual post! Haha. I bought a bike last week and immediately was faced with a conundrum – should I get a bike computer?

I was thinking about my Samsung Epic 4g and figured there surely had to be an app out there that would serve the same function as a bike computer, and would have the added benefit of GPS and route tracking. Well, there is. There are actually several apps, but the one I went with is Google’s My Tracks. It’s free, and it gives you some great info.

There are three screens – the first looks like a fairly normal bike computer giving you speed, average speed, average moving speed, altitude (plus gain, min and max), time, moving time, etc etc etc. The second shows you a graph of your speed over distance and your elevation over distance. The third is the map – which shows you a highlight of your elapsed route. When you’re done with your ride, hit the stop button and you can send the ride to your Google Docs and Google Maps. Pretty nifty.

So, the obvious question was, how I I mount my phone on my bike? I found a few mounts online, but they all looked like those dopey car mounts that grip your phone around the sides with little plastic/foam arms. Not exactly what I would consider the safest option (though correct me if I am wrong if you’ve used one). So, instead, I bought a hard shell case for the phone and took a handlebar mount for a headlamp and super glued the two together.

And presto. A bike computer that cost pretty much nothing – assuming you’ve got the phone already.

As for the bike? Well, Julie thought we should finally just go out and buy some bikes, and we found this thing last Saturday. It’s a 1983 Fuji Supreme that is, apparently, in pretty mint condition. Turns out I got a bit of a good deal on this thing. So, I’m excited to have a good road bike again and am looking forward to a good summer of rides.

While checking out Google Books for the first time today, I came across a 1967 edition of LIFE magazine. Of course, I had the most fun with the ads. This one reads:

- Do you know General Electric high intensity bulbs are now available everywhere?

- No, but if you hum a few bars I’ll fake it.

Classic. Why don’t ‘they’ make advertising like that anymore (whoever ‘they’ are)?

So, I’ve finally got off my duff and brewed myself an IPA. I followed, but slightly tweaked, a recipe I found on TastyBrew in the vain of my belovedly favorite Bridgeport IPA. First, I converted it to extract and changed the hop bill a bit to get to my desired IBU mark of roughly 50. Here’s what I got:

• 7lb 8oz Pale LME
• 10oz Crystal 40L
• 1.25oz Chinook (60min)
• .75oz East Kent Goldings (though I substituted NZ Styrians due to availability) (15min)
• .75oz Cascade (15min)
• 1/4 tsp Irish Moss (15min)
• 1/4 tsp Yeast Nutrient (I believe this is what got me into trouble later) (15min)
• .5oz Crystal (these were loose leaf) (1min)
• .5oz Cascade (1min)
• .5oz East Kent Goldings (though I substituted Slovenian Styrians due to availability) (1min)
• .5oz Cascade (7-day Dry)
• Wyeast 1056

The trouble? Yet another blow out. I’ve had three now. Not that big of a deal. I always keep a jug of my sanitizing solution handy in case I need to drop a blow off tube in it. I had originally had issues with my fermentations taking ages to start, or feeling like they never quite finished – which is where the nutrient came in. But, I have a feeling it’s totally unnecessary to have at this point. Not sure if it’s the nutrient, the 1056 or something completely different which has been causing the blow outs.

This should be a fun one. Can’t wait for it to be done. I’ll transfer to secondary this weekend and bottle the weekend after that – should be done just in time for the July 4th weekend.

So, I’ve decided to go crazy and grow my own hops. I’ve already acquired a Galena and a Mt. Hood rhizome. All I need now are a couple of Cascades. Oh, yeah, and a trellis or two. I’ve been scouring the Internet, and have found little that I think would work for me. I saw a few mentions of using PVC pipe as the material, but I’ve yet to find any good detailed plans. So, I thought I’d throw some ideas of my own down onto paper. I was thinking of using 4in schedule 40 pipe for hopefully enough strength and secure it with larger sleeves set in buckets o’ concrete buried two feet down. Two large bolts, arranged vertically, passing through the sleeve and the vertical poles would secure the structure and hopefully give it enough rigidity. I wanted to do it that way, partly, so I could take it down easily in the winter, and also so i could upgrade the structure to wood at some point down the road. I’ll put eyebolts along the cross bar and attach the line with a lobster claw, so that I can unclasp the whole bine and bring it to the ground for harvest. I’m not sure what type of line to use yet, and so I need to do some further reading on what hops prefer to cling to. I’d read some folks use those ground screws used to chain a dog in the yard as an anchor for the lines, but I was thinking ground stakes would probably do the trick.

I don’t know, I’m sorta still in the discovery phase of this whole project. If you have had any experience, ideas or luck with hop trellises, please drop me a line. I’m stabbing this in the dark, otherwise.

As soon as I get going, I’ll be sure to post photos. The spring blizzards we’ve had this past week here in Denver have set me back a bit. More time to research, I guess.

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