Who is this “BikeTinker?”

Hi, my name is Philip, and I’m a bike tinker.

I prefer to ride my bike than drive my car – it’s more fun, I don’t have to find parking, and in many towns it’s actually faster. I like to be able to carry groceries home, or half-racks of beer, or take my lunch and kung fu outfit to work. I like baskets, bags, racks and fenders. I never could get a messenger bag to work for me.

I like to fool with my bike setup, at least until I have it dialed. I pretty much can’t leave well enough alone, and sometimes I try something for a few months only to find I liked it better the first way. I’ve broken parts, put parts on backwards, and used the wrong cables. I’ve forgotten there are (more than) three sizes of three-speed wheels, and spent half an hour trying to mount a 26 x 1 3/8″ (590mm EA3) tire to a Schwinn 26 x 1 3/8″ (597mm S6) rim. All the soapy water in the world won’t make that work.

I’ve wasted (I mean spent) so much time running gear-inch calculations on fixed gear drivetrains, double-fixed and internal gear hubs that I should have Sheldon’s gear calculator as my Firefox Home page.

I’ve invented weird things that make my bike-riding life a little better, and set up my bikes to look their best (to me), and work their best (for me).

My workshop is a disaster area. I take pictures of bicycles, and my dog, and put them on flickr. In my job and life, I’m an artist.

This site is dedicated to Sheldon Brown. What a cool guy he was!