Breezy: Air Scared

One of the perks of working at 88NV is the chance to get to go up on a flight.  Most pilots don't fly into Burning Man with the intention of parking their plane for the week.  No, their plan is to be up in the sky as much as possible in order to see the city in action.  And also because they love flying.  Why become a pilot if you don't love to fly?  And unless a pilot has a single-seater, they're willing to take people up with them.  Because of this, the airport is clamoring with festival attendees trying desperately to get up into the air with a pilot sporting an empty seat.  Since I worked at the airport, I wasn't going to have to try, all I'd have to do was ask.  Enter the Breezy.  

Do you know what a Breezy is?  I'm assuming you looked at the picture below already, so yes, you know.  Prior to this year, I had no idea that such a thing existed, so I'll describe it for those of you that are the me from last year.  It's a cockpitless plane that is somewhere between an airplane and a horrifying psychological torture device.  It's a flying floorboard.  Paul, one of the pilots and airport crew members, had a Breezy, and while parked innocently in the parking lot so carefully staked out the week before, I had an interest in going up for a flight.

Photo Courtesy of Paul the Pilot

I don't know if I've ever had so much fun being so terrified in my life.  I've gone sky diving and scrambled down rocksliding mountain sides, and neither compared.  The rush was exhilarating, the view spectacular, the experience overwhelming, and the whole time I was convinced I was going to die.  I was letting loose a mix of "holy shits" covering every possible intention of the phrase.  Even though my first impulse was cling as desperately to worst case scenarios as I was to the bottom of my seat, there was a bit of me that was pretty sure that we weren't going to crash.  For starters, Paul was a professional pilot.  On top of that he had a primary interest in not crashing for his own sake, regardless of mine.  My survivalist brain was convinced that I would go flying off the little platform seat, something that really wasn't possible with how tightly I was strapped in.  Maybe the whole seat would just go flying off?  Also not likely since Paul's wife usually occupied that seat on their flights.  Each gust of wind further reinforced the fact that this was going to be the last thing I did on this Earth.  It wasn't until after we landed and rolled to a stop that I finally accepted the fact that I was not going to die.  How ironic would it have been if I had an unrelated aneurysm later that day?  I would've felt like such an idiot for being afraid of the Breezy in the moments preceding my sudden death.

In any case, thank you, Paul!  If ever I get the chance to fly with you again, I can guarantee that I will be just as terrified the second, third, fourth, and n-th time we go up into the sky.  That's probably half the reason I want to go.  Just ask anyone who's watched a horror film with me.

The Parable of the Three Water Filters

I was recently on the phone (talking, like, using my voice) with a friend of mine from Moab, and during our conversation, she reminded me of the famous local fable of the three water filters.  I couldn't remember the tale in its entirety, so I called the Grand Country Public Library and had a librarian track down the ancient, sun bleached scroll on which it was written.  From there in the Artifacts and Relics room in the basement, she read these words:

One summer day, under the sweltering desert sun, three weary travelers came upon the same hidden spring.  As they sat down upon the large rock covering the tiny oasis, they discussed the virtues of each of their water filtration systems.

The first traveler was a young man in his 20's, and he carried a gravity based water filtration system.  He stated that his water filter was the best because it required the least amount of effort.  All he needed to do was fill the dirty water bag with one mighty scoop and then hang the filtration system from a nearby rock, allowing gravity to handle passing the water through the filter to the clean bag.

The second traveler was a bearded man in his 50's, and he carried a standard, hand operated, backpacking filter. He claimed that the young man was wrong, and that his water filter was the best because it was the fastest.  Sure, it required more effort with all of the pumping, but the work was worth it, as his filter was 10x faster than the gravity filter.

The third traveler, a man by the name of Troy, also carried a standard, hand operated, backpacking filter.  His filter was different from the old man's, though.  Not in model, as they were the exact same, but in operation speed, as Troy's was only 2x faster than the gravity filter.  He said that he wasn't sure if his water filter was best, but he at least knew it was better than that slow-ass gravity filter.  He also had his suspicions that it might be better than the old man's due to some basic knowledge of how filtration through dense, semi-porous rock worked.

The first traveler died of dehydration on that rock while waiting for his clean bag to fill.  The second traveler (also) died of dehydration a few days later when he succumb to Giardia induced diarrhea, as his filter was missing a gasket and was not really filtering anything, hence the speed of which he was so boastful.  The third traveler, hydrated and in good health, eventually found his way back to civilization and lived happily ever after.

Moral: Water filters should pump slowly, as proper filtration takes time.  But seriously, gravity?  That's soooooo slow!

Some say that isn't a fable at all. That it's a true story you can still hear faintly echoing off canyon walls if you listen closely enough.  Still others say, "Yeah, that's a lie.  No one died.  The slow filter part was spot on, and the guy with the missing gasket is lucky he never got sick drinking that filthy, standing water, but other than that, this story was parabolic at best and braggartly at worst."  As it's an ancient fable, I guess we'll never know the truth...

This is the filter I use.  I love this filter and have used it all over, never once getting sick.  Please notice the red gasket that's faintly visible near the bottom of the main filter cylinder, just above the widened threaded bottom.  You need that.
(Photo courtesy of MSR)

Shutter Precision - Round 2

My replacement Shutter Precision PV-8 hub (💩) came in about two weeks ago, and Kyler graciously rebuilt my wheel for me.  Same rim, same spokes, new nips, new hub.  It's a solid build, but I am genuinely concerned about the durability of this hub.  The last one made it fewer than 100 miles before it crapped out, so I'm not sure how many miles I'll have to put on it before I trust it enough to head out on tour.  At least 1,000?

When I told a Shutter Precision sales rep about the issue, they told me that the issue I experienced had a 1 in 10,000 chance of happening, so if their numbers are to be trusted, the chances of two complete breakdowns in a row should be 1 in 100,000,000.  I really wish I could say a 0.00000001 chance of breakdown is reassuring, but it's not.

Here's what I think is going to happen, I think it's going to breakdown in the middle of nowhere and it's going to be a disaster.  I'm going to be a week into a three week tour, somewhere in the Kootenai National Forest, no bicycle shops for miles, riding just after sunset when my hub gives out.

• Scenario 1: Outside of civilization; only the electrics fail. - Fine, I can still ride, I just won't be lit up any more.  No worries, what's the worst that could happen?  Oh, right, I could be flattened by a tractor trailer hauling ass down Route 2 on their way to drop a bunch of grass fed, free range, angus steaks off at a resort hotel inside Glacier National Park.  Maybe I don't get flattened.  Maybe the trucks see me because of all the reflectors on my panniers (very possible, as Ortliebs panniers have high night visibility) and they don't run me over.  Great, but now that I'm no longer lit up, I no longer appear to be a vehicle to the mountain lions that litter the mountainside.  That's right, the only thing that had been differentiating me from a potential woodland meal was my super bright LED headlight.  Now that it's disabled, I'm just a funny shaped, oddly moving mule deer that is potentially more delicious.  Only one way to find out.  Outcome: Death

The mountain lions are hiding in the trees.

• Scenario 2: Outside of civilization; the hub stops spinning. - Now what?  Walk my way to the Troy Bike Shop?  This is as bad as Scenario 1 for both trucks and lions.  That means I'll have to hitch a ride with someone nice enough to pick me up in the middle of the night.  Oh, here's a nice person driving up in a rusty, old truck.  Well, hello sir.  Why yes, I am heading to Troy.  Thank you for the ride!  And then maybe the authorities will find what's left of my body a month later, buried in a shallow grave along the Kootenay River or maybe the rocks will slip loose and I'll float up to the top of Flathead Lake.  In either case, that nice old man is going to be extra warm next winter when he's wearing his me-skin jacket.  Same outcome: Death


• Scenario 3: In civilization - With this scenario, if either the electrics fail or the hub stops spinning, the hub will need to be replaced (if the electrics go, the rest of the hub is on its way out soon).  I have a few options here.  If I'm not in a hurry I could overpay a shop to order a new hub and rebuild using my existing rim.  Another other option is to have them build one from what they have in stock, also expensive, but not as nice.  The worst option would be to buy a pre-built wheel that would be good enough to get me to civilization but would have to be replaced once I made it home.  Outcome: Bank Death or a Junk Wheel

Shutter Precision has already let me know that they don't care about bank death, but will they care about real death?  Would anyone boycott them if Shutter Precision is the reason I end up eaten by a family of mountain lions?  How am I supposed to trust a company that doesn't care if I'm eaten by lions?

If this hub fails and I don't die, I'm going to put a bad product review on every website that let's me.  I'll be leaving Shutter Precision reviews everywhere from the bottom of YouTube videos about LARPing to Yelp pages for Mexican restaurants in Philly.  I have free time.