NRX Bikes

Today, Saturday, went down to Guy's shop to work on fixture. With many interruptions, we embarked on a novel approach to finish setting the parameters of the fixture/jig using tensional aspects instead of compressional integrity. This is in keeping with our tensegrity design approach of our bike frames. Met a young man named Josh(mechanic) who works there on the weekends and is an ex-worker in the bicycle industry.
It's cold today! This weekend is one of those hunker down times. If you don't have the equipment for the weather, don't play outside.
However, in recounting to Josh about riding in cold weather, it wasn't that many years ago that Seth and I were forced out into minus twenty to thirty weather to bike for groceries. As he was between one to three during those times, I remember being stopped during daylight hours by mothers or just women, to check on the condition of Seth and chide me about having a small child out in cold weather. We learned to go during night hours to bypass the prying eyes of women on patrol for men with young children out in the weather of winter. Women who lived totally removed from the effects of having to survive the cold and dress for winter enjoyment. Once, his mother and I had been biking by the university over in St. Paul during daylight on a winter day with the bike cart behind us off of the beaten path on a quiet side street when a women drove over to us from the main road, lowering her front window and screaming at us, "What is the matter with you crazy people!?" And, what followed was a tirade against us for even being on the roadway at this time of year and how dare we? Get a car!
At her mention of someone acting crazy, we gazed at her behavior and almost burst out laughing. It was even harder holding it in as she gunned her engine and spun her tires of her three thousand pound vehicle and slewed past us turning back to the main road, still screaming out of her window. I wonder now about her political party affiliation. How dare we be on the roads?
Crazy people driving three thousand pound vehicles. What are they thinking?
I tell myself that one day in the not too distant future, I'll be riding in weather as today comfortably without the heavier layers of clothing top to bottom which I used to wear with goggles, face masks and so forth. And, I'll do it with minimal layers on my body using a shell with controlled air entry, with heating for the body and a airflow vent for windshield clearing.
I've thinking about this ever since the very first days of getting back on a bike since those days of being forty-one. How to bike comfortably in winter in Minnesota and Canada?
As the exertion is more, I create more water vapor. The only solution needs controlled airflow with heat applied as it enters a weather proof shell but the shell needs to be a minimal weight. I remember riding behind a clear bubble in a trike during the winter. In the lee of the bubble going into the wind, it was comfortable for those parts of my body inside of the wind shadow. Almost too comfortable. Part of me would be getting cold from the warmer sweat generated by the part warmer and migrating up. I could almost envision a polar tech type of fabric enclosing me with a clear bubble type in front. It would have to be the "wind block" type of polar tech to be able to leech the vapor out of the enclosure else the vapor would build up inside and add to the fog/vapor. The windshield would need to be vented like the one Dave and I worked out for the trike that one winter. It would probably need the new design of the vent from the Chicago site for the intake.
Or, would the wind block material build up ice like the head gear did? Hmm.
Water vapor/ice buildup is going to be a problem to be solved experientially.
Back to the main topic.
The "cage" should allow us to work out measurements for all shapes inside of dimensional measurements of the cage. Being right at ten feet long, this should allow us to construct plugs by "lofting". Or, to take measurements of shapes thrown up and then duplicate them from stations.