Heather Bikes

Taliah Lempert is an amazing artist and really awesome lady.

I’ve admired her work for years and it was such an honor when she asked to paint my Squarebuilt.

I absolutely love the way it came out! 

Thank you Taliah!!!

Last week, Jack and Lance helped me get my seatpost out from my IRO.  I am really horrible at maintaining my bikes, so it was no surprise when one day I tried to change out my seatpost and saddle from my IRO and found that the seatpost had seized to the bike frame.  I think I rode it like this for over a year, but recently started having knee pain and attributed this to my saddle being too low.

So I brought my bike over to Squarebuilt and Lance and I tried to get it out.  After it wouldn’t come out with brute force, we decided to soak it overnight with hopes that the liquid would break the corrosion.  He took out the cranks and bottom bracket, we turned it upside down, and poured some Coke and toilet bowl cleaner down the seat tube.  When that didn’t work, the next day we tried PB Blaster, a stronger anti-corrosive we got at Home Depot.  Two days later, it still would not budge.

I had heard that Jack had just gotten his seatpost out, and he agreed to come over to work on mine.

Jack torched the frame for a while.  I’m not sure if it’s the heat that breaks the corrosion, or if aluminum and steel expand at different rates, and that’s what allows the metals to separate.

After it was heated up, Jack started twisting and pulling.  When we first saw it move, we knew he had done it!

Jack cleaned up the inside of the frame with some sandpaper and I am set.

Thanks to Jack and Lance for your help, and I promise I will grease my seatposts now!

My friend Alice is a wonder in the kitchen.  She is incredibly knowledgeable and is always cooking something delicious and healthy.  So when my mom’s doctor told her she needed to lower her cholesterol, I went to Alice for recipe advice.

Alice suggested my mom start juicing, and sure, everyone knows about juicing, but what makes this so blog-worthy is what Alice does with the pulp.  If you’ve ever juiced before, you know there is a lot of fruit and vegetable waste.  What do you do with it?  You can throw it away, you can compost it, or you can cook with it.  Alice came up with a great way to use the leftover pulp in Quinoa patties.

We went to the farmer’s market and Trader Joe’s to buy all the ingredients.  Alice only uses organic fruits and vegetables when she juices.  We bought:

- 4 bundles of kale

- a bunch of beets

- a bag of lemons

- ginger

- 2 bags of apples

- 2 cucumbers

- celery

First, we juiced the vegetables, including the beet greens

Cucumbers and celery yield a lot of liquid so it’s good to mix that in between other vegetables to help flush out your juicer.

All the vegetables juiced yielded this pulp

We juiced the lemons and the ginger separately, since we wouldn’t be using that pulp for the quinoa patties.  Then we cored the apples and Alice kept that pulp to make applesauce with later.  I didn’t realize that apple seeds are poisonous to humans, so make sure you core them first if you plan on using the pulp.

This is our end result of juicing -the pulp we will use for the quinoa patties, the pulp that will be composted, the pulp that will be turned into applesauce, and of course, the amazing juice itself.

Next, Alice cooked quinoa in her own homemade vegetable broth.

She mixed the quinoa with the vegetable pulp and added some egg replacer (to keep the recipe vegan) to help the patties stick together.  You can also add avocado to help the patties stick together.

Then she formed them into patties and baked in a 450 degree oven for 20 minutes.  The patties can be frozen for later, and the mixture can be used for other things.  I used mine in a stir fry and it was really good.  It’s a very filling meal, it’s all protein and fiber, so it completely fills you up but you don’t feel sluggish after eating it.

Thank you Alice for this awesome recipe!

I lost my wallet 2 Fridays ago at Erik’s going away party.  Mess Kollective was buying people drinks, so I had my wallet out a lot more than I usually do, and when I got to the second bar, I saw that my wallet was gone. 

Well, today my mom received a very nice letter in the mail that said, ‘Don’t worry, your wallet is safe.’  Someone from Aden Food Market at 351 Bedford Ave. found my wallet in the street and they kept it for me!  Everything was still in my wallet, from my cash to my 2 recent summonses from the police.  I tried to give them some money to thank them, but they wouldn’t accept. 

Thanks so much to the Aden Food Market for finding my wallet and keeping it safe!!!

I have gotten really used to using my iPhone in NYC for work and life.  Having a phone, the internet, your music, and a camera all right there has become seemingly indispensable.  I realized that it would be way too expensive to use it in Poland, but after a little research found out that I could put it in Airplane mode which would disable all phone capabilities, turn WiFi on, and then use it basically as a tiny computer with absolutely no extra charges.  I found a really awesome App, TextFree, that would allow me to make free phone calls to the states and send text messages whenever I was on a WiFi network.

I decided to bring my road bike instead of my touring bike, because even though I planned to do some touring and would be carrying everything on my bike, I wanted to bring what I thought would be the best bike for the race.  I found a really awesome seatpost rack, the TransIt, that was rated to 25 pounds.  It attached really easily, with only 4 bolts, and Billy at Bushwick Bike Shop said it could probably handle a lot more weight.  Billy hooked my bike up with new handlebar tape, cross lever brakes, a new chain, and fit me to the bike.  It felt so awesome to ride away from the shop that day with everything running smoothly on the bike.  I was ready to go to Poland!

On July 2nd, I competed in Squid’s Velo City Tour at the Kissena Velodrome.

Photo by Jose Morales

It was an awesome day of racing and bbq’ing, and Brean and I won tickets to compete in the Cycle Messenger World Championships (CMWCs) in Warsaw, Poland!

Photo by Jose Morales

Continental Tires sponsored my ticket to Poland, and when I found out I was going, I was so excited, I decided to stay for a month!  I had never been to Eastern Europe before and didn’t know when I would get a chance to go back, so I decided to make the most out of it and stay for a while.

I have to give an enormous thank you to Squid and Continental for making the trip possible for me!  It’s incredible to have support like this.

Thanks to Squid and Continental, I’m in Warsaw to compete in the 19th annual Cycle Messenger World Championships (CMWCs)

I flew into Warsaw this afternoon, put my bike together in the airport, and rode into the center of the city. It felt really good to ride out of the airport on my own power after having been in that plane for the last 9 hours.

Warsaw is awesome.  On the ride from the airport, no one beeped at me.  I don’t think I’ve heard a car beep at all yet.  The city seems very laid back but vibrant at the same time, with a bunch of people out on the street walking around and eating outside.

The qualifying race is this Saturday and the main race is Sunday. I’m expecting it to be between 3-5 hours each day.

This is my first video in a series of messenger profiles I am working on.  I hope to have one posted every week.  I was going to wait to put this one up, but it’s Hiromi’s birthday today!

Happy Birthday Hiromi!