I’ve written about my Dahon Folding Bike before. It’s the one that I configured as a city apartment bike (read more here). The Dahon is a fun bike to ride. With its tiny tires you feel like you’re on a kids bike. It has a three speed hub gear system, so it’s easy to use. And it has fenders and chain guards, so you don’t have to be outfitted in bicycling gear to ride it.

While I had previously outfitted it with a lighting system, etc, it was lacking a good way to carry stuff. It has a really nice rear rack — but the wheels are so small that you can’t use regular pannier bags. It needed something like a milk crate.

Trouble with milk crates is that they look like milk crates. And any attempt to make it look nicer simply resulting in a nicer looking milk crate. I’d have to build my own.

So, out come some 1×12 scrap boards, and some knowledge recently gained from a new Super Secret Project. Here is the core:

The front, angled parts, and sides are all 1×12 pine boards. The front is 6″, angled 4″, and sides 8″. These dimensions were chosen because (a) my scrap of wood was only 30″ long and (b) it just happens to be exactly the right size for my rack.

In this shot you can see the angle cuts:

This is where having a gigantic miter saw really paid off. I was able to make those 22.5 degree bevel cuts right on the Makita. You can also use a portable circular saw, a good straight edge, and a steady hand.

Why 22.5 degrees? Because if you cut your lumber equally you’ll make a hexagon. I wanted a hexagon-like shape for my box, since I didn’t want it to look like a cube. The other huge added benefit it that the angled parts allow my feet to clear — if I made a cube my my pedals/feet would have whacked into the box. Luckily, my aesthetic choice was also a good usability choice.

The sides were glued up and allowed to dry using a strap clamp to hold it in place (this was a big pain and the hardest part of the project).

If you look carefully in the above photo you can see that I also used small pieces (cut at 45 degree angles) as braces. Why 45 degrees? Because 45 + 22.5 + 22.5 = 90. Geometry in action. The braces are glued in and then bradded (using 2″ brads — thank goodness for my DeWalt nail gun).

Again, by lucky happenstance, my scrap lumber and it’s dimensions lead me to one very important conclusion: It’s ideally sized to hold a 6 pack of bottled beer. If you are going to build your own, make sure it can accommodate 6″ x 8″ x 10″ tall. Unless you drink from cans, then you can reduce the height.

For the back, I used a piece of scrap 5mm plywood held in place with brads. You can use 1x if you have it (I was out). The bottom is another piece of high-quality 1×12 that I’ve had around. It’s held in place with about eight 1 5/8″ deck screws. Make sure the bottom is fastened well — it’s the primary mounting point to the bike.

Now that I knew this would hold beer, or a picnic lunch, or both, it was important to add some insulation. Two reasons for this: (a) to keep stuff cool in the hot Texas summer and (b) to keep things from rattling around while I’m riding.

I had some spare garage door insulator lying around (it’s like silvered bubble swap) which would work perfectly:

The insulation on the sides is one piece, held in place with construction adhesive. The bottom is more insulation, but is NOT adhered to the bottom. It has to be removable so that you can bolt the box to the bike rack.

This being Austin, I knew that I couldn’t leave the box plain black. That would be too boring. So we finally put to use some of the many, many bottle caps we have collected:

The caps are hot glued to a piece of Kommerling Komacel. Komacel is a plastic material that is weatherproof, cuts like wood, and can be purchased in a variety of colors. It’s a great material to work with. We had a scrap of white, so I spray painted it matte black. The resulting panel is then mounted to the rear 5mm back using 4 machine screws and nuts.

You can see that the top is cut to mirror the shape of the box, has the edges rounded over, and then mounted with a single hinge. Since I was out of larger boards, I biscuited and glued up two 1×6 boards and then cut to shape. Insulation was also glued into place so that the entire box is insulated.

Next up, some designs for the side:

A nighttime test ride:

I’ll try and get some photos of how the box gets mounted to the rack, and some more of the top.

For the final touches, we’ll decorate the sides some more, and probably put a latch (perhaps magnetic) on the lid so it doesn’t bounce around. (I noticed a little movement in the top — mainly because I used a cheap leftover hinge. If you have one, use a piano hinge.)

Our prototype panel is above. We decided that the black background looked better than white.

I realize that there are a bunch of marinates out there, and I’ve tried more than a few. Recently, I’ve cut back on the complex stuff and let the veggies and meat stand on their own more. More of tasting the nicely charred food and less burnt spices.

This is an easy “middle Eastern” one that goes well with a side of couscous.

1/4 cup good olive oil
1/4 cup parsley, minced
2 cloves of garlic, pressed/minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice, sometimes I use Ship Curry Powder instead
1/4 teaspoon cayenne

In a small bowl, mix together above marinate ingredients. Make sure they are well combined. Don’t bother with measuring spoons, just do it by palm & eye.

Cut up a chicken breast into chunks. Cut up red (or white/yellow) onions into quartered chunks. Cut up some peppers (bell, or whatever you have) into quartered chunks. If you have other kebab type veggies, do some of those. Everything should be about the same size, and big enough to put on a wooden skewer.

Put the meat and veggies in a airtight container, pour marinate over, shake around so everything is well coated. Let sit while the grill heats up. (Since there are no acids in here, you can keep overnight without “cold cooking” the chicken).

Alternating veggies and meat, thread onto wooden skewers. Cook on a hot covered grill, turning every couple of minutes, until charred and cooked through. You know your grill best, so just keep an eye on them and keep turning until they look delicious.

Serve with a bed of couscous.

I’ve been doing a good deal of IT work, so nothing exciting to report there. It has kept me out of the shop, but is necessary to get food on the table and rent checks paid.

The coop stuff has tapered off a bit since the pre and post tour rush. This is a good thing, as we have two big projects in the works (non coop related). One is an art-type product which we will be selling through one of the crafty stores (ex. Esty). The other isn’t a product, but a fun thing that might lead to other stuff. It’s all very hush-hush because it’s Halloween related. I’ll leave you with that as a teaser.

Things around the house are pretty everyday. We’re growing a small garden this year (all it pots). Tomatoes (we’ve already harvested 6), bell peppers, Serranos, jalapeños, Anaheim, along with a few flowers. All the peppers have been grown from seed, with two plants surviving from last year, so that’s been fun for Evelyn. This is the first time we’ve raised vegetables. It’s nice having a back yard.

With some prodding from Evelyn, I finally pulled out our two bikes (the nice ones we got in PR — which have been in storage for 4 years). Surprisingly they survived pretty well, only needing air in their very flat tires. I might need to clean up my chain a bit, but otherwise it’s running fine.

We managed to take short rides over the Memorial Day weekend, but the last day or so has been rainy, so no riding. To motivate me I’ve put the bikes inside the house, in the front room. This makes it easier to get them out of the house (we have no service door on our garage) and I have to look at them — meaning I’m more likely to get out and ride. (The guilt factor.) They say that after 21 days you get into a habit, and riding a bike is a habit I need to get back to after all these years.

Boring, but useful for anyone writing Reports in MS Access 2K7.

I found that the Report Builder was VERY slow. Every time you moved a field around, resized, etc it would lock up for a few seconds. Extremely annoying when you are trying to organize a new report.

I found that if I turned off error checking it dramatically improved the situation. Go under Office button, Access Options. Go to Object Designers and scroll down to the bottom. Under Error Checking, uncheck “check for common report errors”.

You may also want to turn off other Error checking if you find them unnecessary. Shutting that stuff off speeds up the designers.