Click here to download the models, or get them from Printables or MakerWorld.| Posts on Tegowerk
Click the links to download the models listed on this page:| Posts on Tegowerk
Click here to download the models, or get them from Printables or MakerWorld.| Posts on Tegowerk
Erika Modell 10, 1957 I’ve been working on my second novel these past couple of months, and I’ve decided to write the first draft on a manual typewriter. Besides the coolness factor–I’ll get to that in a moment–there is a practical reason for this: When I type on the computer, it’s hard for me to abstain from editing at the same time I’m writing. I’ll go back and fix typos, rephrase sentences, and generally obsess about getting everything as perfect as possible. But that appro...| Posts on Tegowerk
Adventure Journal is a printed quarterly dedicated to the thrill of exploration and the joy of motion in the great outdoors. Each issue is printed on heavyweight 70lb uncoated body stock and 130lb soft-touch cover stock. Our operations are powered by solar, we use certified-sustainable paper, and we plant a tree for every copy sold, replacing more trees than we use.| Posts on Tegowerk
My wife mentioned that she’d like one of those makeup mirrors with lights around it (which are apparently called Hollywood mirrors), and it just so happened that she was about to go away for a few days, so her absence made for the perfect opportunity to build her a nice surprise for when she got back.| Posts on Tegowerk
Back in January, I set two New Year’s biking resolutions for myself: Ride at least 2024 kilometers until December 31st. Do at least one 100-kilometer ride. I still have a ways to go on the first one, but I am pleased to report that I’ve finally completed my first metric century. I know it’s not much for some of you out there, but it was a big milestone for me. Looking back now, I think the barrier was mostly mental; I didn’t think I could do it, so I didn’t do it. But in reality it ...| Posts on Tegowerk
Our family has grown by 50%! About two months ago my wife and I adopted this lovely little bundle of energy and joy. Her name is Mimi, she is six months old, and she is half Chihuahua and half who-knows-what (the people at the shelter we adopted her from didn’t know). She likes treats, belly rubs, and napping in my arms in the mornings before work.| Posts on Tegowerk
I’ve been thinking lately of ways I could shave some grams off my new bike, especially around the wheels, but without spending too much money. I’m no weight weenie by any means—my kickstand attests to that—but I’m also not above reaching for some low-hanging fruit if I can. Enter TPU tubes. If tube manufacturers and the Internet are to be believed, TPU is the material of the future, and the next best thing after going tubeless—which is honestly too messy for my taste. After all, w...| Posts on Tegowerk
I still love these colors! That is all.| Posts on Tegowerk
I love these colors! That is all. Before After| Posts on Tegowerk
If this post’s title sounds a little familiar, it’s because this is the second time I rebuild one of these K2 bikes. The bike itself is nothing special–though these entry-level MTBs from the ’90s never cease to amaze me with how well they hold up and how versatile they are–but it does have the distinction of being the first project I do in my very own workshop–which is really just a tiny room in an annex to our house, but it’s mine and I’m absolutely in love with it.| Posts on Tegowerk
I don’t have much to say about this bike other than, boy, what an interesting life it must have had. The ceramic wheels can’t have been part of the original equipment, and the AMP Research linkage fork sure wasn’t. The fork looks cool, but feels weird as hell to ride, so I can understand why the design didn’t catch on, but I can still appreciate it as a reminder of a time when manufacturers still experimented with wild ideas.| Posts on Tegowerk
Oh boy was this bike a lot of work! By far the hardest out of all my projects so far. I went into this build highly determined to avoid all the mistakes I did last time, so I spent an ungodly amount of time wet-sanding the old paint down to the bare metal. The hard to reach areas I assaulted chemically with a paint stripper, which actually did a pretty good job of softening the old paint enough for me to get in there with a wire brush1. I made plenty of mistakes this time around too, of cours...| Posts on Tegowerk
I painted a bike! For a long time I’ve wanted to introduce painting to my restoration process, but I was always held back by not having a well-ventilated area to do it in. I kept putting it off until later this year when I’ll move into a proper house with a yard, but then this bike came along, with its cracked and peeling layers of clear coat, so I decided to screw self-imposed limitations and just go for it. So I took the frame and fork to an area in town that’s very popular with graff...| Posts on Tegowerk
This bike was in a very sorry state when I picked it up. The rear derailleur had gotten caught into the wheel at some point in the past, ripping the derailleur body in half and severely damaging some of the spokes on that side of the wheel. The tires were dry and brittle, the saddle was torn to shreds, and most of the parts were either rusty or caked in old grease that had hardened to cement. To top it off, it was missing a brake lever, and the shifters were so gummed up with gunk that they d...| Posts on Tegowerk
This bike is as old as I am! In a time when everything is made to be disposable, and half-obsolete by the time it leaves the factory door, bicycles are truly one of the last bastions of future-proof design that we can still rely on. This particular model also happens to be a small piece of Austrian history; it was one of the very last bikes made by Puch here in Austria. It marked the end of an era, and the end of almost one hundred years of local production. Puch bicycles have been revived in...| Posts on Tegowerk
Ah, my trusty steed. This bike will forever hold a special place in my heart as the first bike I built for myself. I bought it last year off the local marketplace for €50, which was a steal at that price for how well the frame had been kept (I uploaded some “before” photos here). Only the frameset is left of that initial bike; everything else I built up just the way I wanted it, and even though it looks a bit awkward with the tall steerer tube and tiny stem, it fits me perfectly and is ...| Posts on Tegowerk
A user of /r/bicla (a Romanian cycling subreddit) generously gave me this bike for free after they saw one of my previous projects and enjoyed it. I gave the bike a complete overhaul and a well-deserved facelift. The word “singlespeed” is in quotes in the title because the bike technically has two speeds. It’s equipped with a cool SRAM Automatix internally-geared hub about which I’ve written earlier.| Posts on Tegowerk
Most of the times when I build a bike, I have a pretty good idea of what I want the end result to look like before I even start. Sometimes, however, the bike will tell me what it wants to be instead. This vintage Bottecchia used to be a pretty boring city bike that I wanted to convert to single speed and drop bars. I was actually almost done with the conversion when I realized that the drop bars didn’t really mesh with the ’90s disco esthetic that this bike seemed to demand. So I ended up...| Posts on Tegowerk
This is the first build where, instead of starting from a full bike, I started with the bare frame and added the parts that I thought would best fit the image I had formed in my mind the first time I saw it. An interesting hack is the 10-speed SRAM GX MTB shifter mounted to the 31.8 mm section of the drop bars. I wrote a short tutorial about the process for anyone interested.| Posts on Tegowerk
Update: A front-derailleur clamp for braze-on front derailleurs, like the BBB ShiftFix, might be an even better option than the seat clamp. I especially like that an FD clamp hinges open; this eliminates the risk of marring the finish of the handlebars when sliding the clamp over the thicker part. Another big plus is the lack of an inner lip that has to be filed off. I’ll definitely try one on a future project and report back.| Tegowerk
Read this short story here or download a DRM-free version for your e-reader: EPUB • MOBI • AZW3 If you like the story and would like to buy me a coffee, that would be mighty nice. They gave me a pencil to write with. It’s floppy and soft like a wet noodle. I didn’t know they made pencils like this. Can’t stab anyone with it, that’s the idea. Can barely write with it too, but it’s better than nothing.| Tegowerk
Read this short story here or download a DRM-free version for your e-reader: EPUB • MOBI • AZW3 If you like the story and would like to buy me a coffee, that would be mighty nice. The stream of piss was unruly, like it always is afterward. My dick was still sticky with sex. By the time the third splash hit the seat I realized I should have just sat down.| Tegowerk
You’ve heard this one, I’m sure: Buy experiences, not things. Have you noticed how it’s always delivered with more than a hint of smug condescension? How it always seems to be a value judgment on the way you live your life? It seems to me that the advice is almost always coming from two types of people: the extroverted, or the terminally online. The extrovert wants you to travel. Travel is the magic panacea to all of life’s problems.| Tegowerk
Our old privacy fence has decided to finally give up the ghost a couple of weeks ago during a particularly windy day when it came off its bindings and started to fall. I was planning on replacing it anyway at some point, so this provided just the motivation that I needed. Interestingly, the old fence was still very useful to the local population of wasps, who were using it as building material for their nests.| Tegowerk
Here’s a restoration project I’ve been planning to tackle for a long time now. I’ve had this bow for more than a decade, but for the past few years it’s been lying in a basement, neglected and abandoned (but mercifully dry). Of all my bows, this one has always been closest to my heart. It’s the one I have the most fond memories of. I went stumping with friends with this bow the most.| Tegowerk
But first, a demo! Click the image to see the full-size (potato-quality) clip: Winter is coming. I normally visit my club’s 3D archery range either early in the morning before work, or in the evening after, but with the lengthening dark it’s getting harder and harder to spot my arrows in the targets1. Lighted nocks to the rescue! Component-wise, a lighted nock is just an LED and a battery inserted in an ordinary transparent nock, but the trick is getting the LED to turn on only upon relea...| Tegowerk
No, I’m not that aero yet, I’m talking about chain wax. I’ve been meaning to ditch chain oil for a while now, because I’m really fed up with cleaning my drivetrain and un-gunking the jockey wheels all the time. Wax also doesn’t turn into abrasive paste when it meets road dust, which means the drivetrain should also last longer, so double win, yay. Here are a couple of before photos.| Tegowerk
In my last post I wrote about Johann Hari’s book Stolen Focus. The article sparked a really nice discussion over at Hacker News, where a user had this to say: Ideas should be judged on their merits, but based on previous behavior I wouldn’t necessarily trust Johann Hari’s writing out of hand - ie other things in the book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari It’s a valid observation, and it got me thinking again about a concept I’ve been mulling over for a long time: Death of t...| Tegowerk
Do you remember the avocado toast guy? I read Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus recently (you should read it, it’s great), and I learned that someone1 has come up with a name for this sort of modern reinterpretation of “let them eat cake”: cruel optimism. Cruel optimism, the way Hari interprets it2, boils down to the folly of suggesting personal solutions to systemic problems. It’s about advice given from a position of privilege to people who will never be able to apply it to their own liv...| Tegowerk
I’m kicking off the new year with a new category on the blog: reviews. There will be books, movies, video games, and maybe even tools. As with everything on this website that practically no one visits, I’m doing this mostly for my own benefit. I’ve found in the past that writing down my thoughts after finishing a book or video game helps me remember it better and appreciate it more.| Tegowerk
Have you ever tried taking your hands off the handlebars while riding your bike? Scary, innit? The bars start wobbling all over the place, and images of the front wheel suddenly becoming perpendicular to the rest of the bike–followed immediately by you making like the payload of a catapult–start flashing through your mind in great big neon lights. A couple of years ago I resolved to learn this skill for myself.| Tegowerk
When I was a child, growing up in post-communist Romania, very few people owned cars1, and those that did usually had some real clunkers2. Every single weekend some neighbor would be outside from dawn to dusk, banging and fixing on his car for the umpteenth time, trying to get it road-worthy for the week ahead. This bike and I have developed a similar relationship, only instead of fixing it, I keep making changes to it.| Tegowerk
I briefly mentioned this bike before, when I talked about how I got into bike repair. The bike was “analog” back then, but my wife has meanwhile developed some problems with the tendons on one of her feet, which have impeded her ability to climb hills on the bike. So I’ve built her an e-bike! Whenever the decision to get an e-bike comes up, one of the first questions to answer is do I buy a dedicated e-bike, or do I convert my existing bike?| Tegowerk
I don’t know if this is a new trend or if I’m just noticing it now, but more and more the popular wisdom seems to be that you shouldn’t monetize your hobby. That if you do, it turns it into a job, a hustle1; that it sucks all the fun out of it. Putting aside for now the fact that some people might want to turn their hobby into a job, monetizing a hobby seems to me to have some pretty big advantages for the rest of us, too:| Tegowerk
Serendipity the first When I was fifteen, I scored badly on my high-school placement exam. Not terribly bad, but just enough so that I didn’t make the cut-off point for the specific high-school that I wanted to go to. My mom (who had been a teacher for decades at that point) pulled some strings, and the high-school added an extra spot to one of the classes, a few months after the school year had already started1.| Tegowerk
What is it exactly that’s so great about riding a singlespeed? What draws people to it, and what makes them abuse their own knees like that? I’ve built and ridden a couple of singlespeeds recently, and I’ve been thinking about what makes them so much fun. Part of it has to be nostalgia, of course. Most of us have fond memories of a particular bike from our childhood, and chances are pretty good it was a singlespeed (if not a fixed gear).| Tegowerk
I had the pleasure of taking apart and servicing this cool piece of cycling history for one of my builds recently, so I decided to take a couple of pictures and write a few words about it. The SRAM Automatix was1 a truly automatic internally-geared hub. Unlike a regular kickback hub, where you have to pedal backwards to engage the gears, the Automatix shifts automatically based on your speed. Here’s the gist of how it works: a couple of pawls inside the hub are being pushed inwards (towards...| Tegowerk
It was the 28th of June, 2020; the perfect summer day. I remember it distinctly because of two important events that took place on that day. The first was the unfortunate discovery that I am highly sensitive to the venomous hairs of the Oak processionary caterpillar. If you’ve never wished you could use a cheese grater to remove the skin off your arms and legs just to be rid of the itching, then you can’t really understand how I felt for two whole weeks that summer.| Tegowerk