Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Saddlebags

I've never liked riding with a backpack when I'm on the motorcycle. It's small, inconvenient, uncomfortable and it makes for a sweaty back in the summer. Bags can get very expensive, but I didn't feel the need to go overboard, so I ended up ordering some pretty cheap bags.

They arrived yesterday, and I'm quite happy with them so far. The bags are pretty small, but it's as big as I could go without remounting the rear turn signals. Tim and I  added a couple pieces of metal that hang down from the seat bracket. We drilled a hole in the bottom of these new struts and corresponding holes in the bags and ran bolts through to connect them the bag to the strut. This will keep them from flopping around in the wind and from getting caught up in the wheel. Since the bags were not high quality, I didn't feel too bad about drilling a hole in them.

This mini-project is just about done. I have to go get one more bolt to replace the rear bolt that holds the seat to the fender. With the straps going under the seat, the old bolt is too short.

I'm really looking forward to having some storage on the bike where I can keep things like wrenches, duct tape, and a baseball cap.

benmartens April 9, 2008 Motorcycle

Broken Bones

This weekend I purchased a device to break my own bones. Tim finally convinced me to get a mountain bike. With those great trails right down the road from our house, it seemed like a good move.

I headed for REI to make use of their 20% sale for members in March and picked up the Novara Aspen. I didn't do a ton of research because I was buying something on the low end of the scale, but this looks like a pretty nice bike. When did bikes start getting disc brakes? Crazy.

Prepare yourself for low budget, low skill mountain bike movies in the near future.

benmartens March 25, 2008 Outdoors

Beep!

Saturday was the 2008 Hope on the Slopes 24 hour skiing fundraiser at Stevens Pass. Matt and I arrived at 9am for registration where we were given RFID tags to wear on a rubber band around our wrists. Every time you got on a lift, you had to scan the tag at a special reader and wait for the beep. I'm going to be hearing that beep in my sleep for a while.

There were only two lifts that had the scanning device. We spent the entire day on Skyline Express because it had the most vertical of the two available lifts. Can you imagine riding a single lift over and over again for an entire day? We started off strong at 9:30AM and plowed our way through the day. A couple trips back to the car to fuel up with pretzels, peanut butter, bananas, granola, and Gatorade G2 helped to keep us strong.

By 7:30pm we were starting to fade so we headed into the lodge and had some real food. That was the first time that I checked how many vertical feet I had skied. I was right at 50,000 feet! The combination of knowing that I had reached my personal goal and tired muscles started to crush my willpower. Luckily Matt was there to get me back out on the slopes for some more runs.

After a couple of runs, Matt realized how tired he was too, and I knew it was about over when I found him sleeping under a tree. We had been skiing for 12 hours so we were both pretty beat up. I decided to do 5 more runs which would bump me up to 50 total runs and push me over 60,000 vertical feet for the day. That was quickly accomplished and we headed home tired, but happy with our day.

It was very interesting to watch how the snow and weather changed throughout the day. It started off pretty heavy and slushy, but as the sun went down, I could feel the snow getting harder up top. By this point, the other contestants and I had found the fast way down the mountain. A race rack was forming and people were just straight-lining the whole run. If you told me I was going 60mph I wouldn't have been surprised. 70mph wouldn't be a stretch either. It was quite a sight to see packs of 10-15 people in a full race tuck screaming down a sheet of ice at insane speeds.

Last year, the record was 86,000 vertical feet, but I bet that will be beaten this year. After the crowds died down, you could make a lap in 8 minutes (6 minutes up, 1 minute 40 seconds down.) Stamina would be the limiting factor, not time. I'm very proud of my 60,500 vertical feet. To put that in perspective, I have been keeping track of my vertical feet for the last three years. Of the 11 months that I have skied in the last three years, I have skied less than 60,500 feet in 7 of those months.

I thought that this event would be mind-numbing and boredom would be my biggest enemy. It was a big help having Matt sitting on the chair with me. We split up for a couple hours and that part was pretty boring. The MP3 player was also a big bonus. I had a Preston and Steve podcast going for most of the evening which helped keep me entertained.

If I do this again, here are some changes I'll make in my approach:

  • We stocked up on the normal ski food, but I think you need more for this event. It would have been fantastic to have a big crock pot going in the lodge.
  • I talked to the guy who got 3rd place last year. He was popping potassium pills every few hours. I really needed some of those.
  • I don't think you can do the event safely without a little sleep.
  • It's probably not worth pushing too hard during the day. There are a lot of crowds on the slopes and in the lift lines. The real money comes at night when there are no crowds and the hill is clear. Rest more during the day so you don't burn out.
  • It seems silly to buy skis just for this event, but I would have loved some big 215 Atomic race skis. When you're going that fast, the extra length would be very useful.

But yada yada yada, as we all know, this wasn't really about the skiing. It was about raising money for the American Cancer Society. Thanks to everyone who donated to support me. Together we raised $810 and overall the event has raised $85,000! Thank you!

Season ski days: 24
Vertical feet: 60,500
Season vertical feet: 414,650

benmartens March 10, 2008 Skiing

Fancy Burrito

My Sunday motorcycle ride ended at Chipotle. While I was there, a Lamborghini Countach pulled up. It was a flash back to my childhood. The Countach was produced from 1974 to 1990 and it was proudly displayed on the walls in my room in the 80s.

benmartens February 21, 2008 Motorcycle

Sunday Motorcycle Ride

It was so sunny on Sunday that I had to take the motorcycle out for a ride. I decided to strap the helmet cam onto the front fork. That didn't work too well last year, but that was before I put the new exhaust on. My theory was that the quieter exhaust would cause fewer waves in the video. It ended up working, but the video is still pretty boring. Consider this a proof of concept. Maybe I'll get some more interesting video throughout the summer. There are three videos since YouTube only allows 10 minute videos. I have embedded the first one here, but you can find the second and third on YouTube. There's not much point in listening to the sound because it's either completely missing or drowned out by the wind noise.

benmartens February 20, 2008 Motorcycle

The Life and Times of Ben Martens: Vol 1

About two weeks ago, I sent the first volume of my book series to the printer. I'm going to print one book for each year of the website, but I wanted to see one volume in person before paying for all of them. The package arrived today and I'm immensely impressed with the quality. The book only costs $18.50 (plus tax and shipping) which makes it less than a lot of the books you see in the store. I would have expected to pay a lot more for a custom hardcover book of this quality.

The guys at Lulu are really onto something. I can't wait to get the next five years sent off to them for printing!

benmartens February 19, 2008 Projects

Mundane

This weekend wrap up isn't terribly exciting. I had hoped to go skiing on Saturday, but that fell through. I-90 was still having issues, the ski resort didn't have power, and my back was still feeling a bit sketchy. I decided to sleep in which apparently now means that I get up at 8am. What happened to the days of yore when I could sleep nigh unto 2pm? Aching backs and waking up early: I'm getting old.

Tim and I discovered a great 30 acre park (Soaring Eagle Park) about half a mile from the house. It is filled with fairly easy mountain bike trails and Tim is convincing me to buy a bike. That might just happen, but not until ski season is over. One sport at a time please. The moral of this story is that you should sometimes turn left out of your driveway instead of always turning right. There may be a huge park there and you didn't even know it.

I did publish the book this weekend and ordered a hard cover version. The book itself is $18.95 and shipping was $9. All in all, having a hard cover book custom printed and shipped to your door for less than $30 is very impressive. The PDF version of the book is a free download. You can see the storefront here: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=1932288 No, I don't really want anyone to buy this. It's just a hobby project, but who knows, maybe seeing the storefront will spark some creativity in you and get you to publish that book you've always thought about. I'll have a full review of the print quality once it arrives (~2 weeks for printing + ship time.) If it looks good then I'll go through with the rest of the books.

And finally: the Superbowl. Who'd a thunk it? 19-1. I've never been a big Eli fan. It disappoints me to see him with a ring when there are so many other fantastic QB's without a ring (ie. Favre.)  But kudos to the Giants for doing what no one else could do. My favorite commercials were the talking baby and Will Ferrell/Bud Light. "A lot of sweat goes into every bottle, but not literally. That would be gross."

[UPDATE] Thanks to everyone who has pointed out the error in my sports knowledge (Favre in 1997.) Please replace Favre with some other popular player who doesn't have a ring like… Michael Vick! I kid I kid.

benmartens February 4, 2008 Commentary, Projects

Studio711 – The Book

I've hinted at my newest project a couple times since last fall, but the first stage is finally nearing conclusion. As the title of the post implies, I'm writing a book. More accurately, it will be a series of six volumes – one for each year of the blog.

I have no illusions that anyone else will purchase this. It's purely a project that sounded interesting to me, and I think it will be interesting to see all those books lined up on my bookshelf. But how do you publish a book without spending thousands of dollars?

That's where lulu.com steps in. They are a printing/publishing company that makes it super easy for you to create your own books with professional printing and binding. You can choose from paper back, hard cover, coffee table books, and a large number of other formats. Each format has a bunch of different binding and printing options. You can even pay $50 and get a real ISBN number. I'll be skipping the ISBN number, but the books I'm getting printed are standard 6"x9" hardcover books with a color dust jacket and black and white pages.

For the past few months, I have been scrubbing old posts. The first 1000 or so posts didn't have titles or categories so that took a lot of time. I also had to write a program that pulled each post out of the database and stuck it into a word document while preserving the images and formatting.

It has been very tempting to edit the content of some posts. While I am ok with correcting spelling, I'm holding back from removing posts entirely. I disagree with some posts I wrote in the past, but that's part of what makes this an interesting project.

I'm getting close to sending year 2002 to the printer. Once I get that back and make sure everything looks as expected, I'll print off volumes for 2003-2007. It all depends on how I format the books, but I'm expecting to have well over 2000 pages in the complete set.

And now for the part that you can participate in. I'm trying to mimic an actual published book, and books that you buy in the stores always have quotes from reviewers. If you leave comments or send me an email with a review of the book, I'll consider using it. I realize I'm opening myself up for a lot of jokes, but that will make the book better. Don't worry, you're not going to hurt my feelings. If you don't make fun of the book, I will.

[Update] Fixed typo. Thanks JimW.

benmartens January 31, 2008 Projects

Photo Frame Update

On Sunday I took the shelves down from above the fireplace. I removed the fish tank about 6 weeks ago and the large gap has remained unfilled. I decided to rotate the shelves 180 degrees to move the hole up to the top left corner. It's not so bad up there because it's higher and you can't see through the shelves to the mess of wires behind. I'll fill it with big books or a plant or something like that.

The trick to this rotation was that I had to remove and rotate the LCD. That worked fine but I couldn't get the laptop to display on the LCD. I figured a reboot would solve it. Wrong. The laptop shut off and then refused to turn back on. I think the hard drive is dead but I'm not going to spend time fixing a free junk laptop. I quickly found a replacement on expo.live.com and picked it up on Tuesday. The new laptop got installed last night and everything is back to normal.

The laptop is a P2 400 with 128MB of RAM, a 12GB hard drive and a DVD drive. My first computer in 1998 was a P2 350 with 128MB of RAM, a 10GB hard drive and a CD drive and it cost me $2400. This laptop cost me $40.

benmartens January 25, 2008 Gadgets, Projects