My replacement Rohloff 8201 grip shifter is still fully intact thanks to Liam and Hewitt from the University of Minnesota’s Mechanical Engineering 3D Printing Lab. Since building up my Surly Pugsley four years ago, I’ve noticed that the shifting seemed really stiff compared to my also Rohloff-equipped Surly Big Dummy. I’m embarrassed to report that it took until today to resolve the sticky shifting. It was a busy last several months, where I mostly neglected all but essential bike maintenance with Viola staying with us – we still miss her!

From the moment I completed the Pugsley build I noticed stiff shifting and assumed it was because of more complex cable routing that was required by the Pugsley’s horizontal drop outs and rear mounts, this was a false assumption. After left knee surgery in December, I was house-bound and corrected the cable routing, which only slightly improved the sticky shifting, but there was still room for significant gains. While correcting the cable routing, I figured out my previous assumption error when I tested the moment of the Pugsley’s Rohloff compared to the moment of the Big Dummy’s Rohloff – about the same force was required to shift each – testing was conducted using a wrench at the Rohloff’s gear box that precluded any shift cables.

I was relieved to know the problem wasn’t the Pugsley’s Rohloff, so I began to work upstream. When the Pugsley’s cable pulley was detached from the rear mech the grip shifter slid mostly smooth, but the minute the cable pulley was reattached to the Rohloff’s rear mech the shifter was difficult to turn on the handle bars. Only after I applied silicone compound (lubrication) to the inside of the Rohloff’s grip shifter housing did the shifting become as smooth as the Big Dummy’s Rohloff. I’m so relieved to have finally resolved this.

Last note… I used AGS Silicone Compound for the grip shifter’s lubrication, because chatter online indicates it will be compatible with PLA (what the 8201 grip shifter is now made of). I’ll post updates here. Should the Silicone Compound weather poorly, I will consider switching to a lithium grease.

On rare occasion I’ve wanted to download videos for instance that the University of Minnesota posts. Get the video playing, then inspect the code within Safari (press command-option-U). Next select the “Network” tab, search for “master.m3u8” and select it. The righthand pane will show a preview of the code, right-click and copy the video’s link. Download the video using VLC->File-Convert / Stream. I left the defaults and downloaded the video as a .ts file. Now to convert that into a format that is smaller…

My bike light stopped charging this winter. I was hoping it was a battery issue and that I could replace it with one of the many batteries I’ve scrapped from street vapes, but the repair was easier than that. I published the repair on iFixit, enjoy, and make sure you have some dielectric silicone compound handy. I’m hoping my light continues working until the battery fails. Expect updates here.

** Update 4-7-2025 **
The repair is holding true. The light seems to be working as if it were brand new. Prior to its repair, the seemingly diminished capacity of the battery forced me to use it in camera-only mode and with the light’s LED extinguished. After this repair, I am happy to report I am once again using the light’s LED and camera simultaneously, functionality is fully restored!

Sometimes it’s difficult to get a video owner’s permission to access a video in Microsoft Stream. To download the video to a computer, use a pre-built copy of “Sharedown” (or build Sharedown from scratch following its readme) and follow these instructions:

1. Log into stream.microsoft.com and find your organization’s video that you want to download.
2. On the righthand side of your browser window, click the red button titled “Share”, then tap “Copy link”, and tap “Copy”.
3. Launch “sharedown” and paste the link you copied from Step 2 – view this to see screenshots of this step.
4. The saved video should now be located in the output folder you selected – review “sharedown” wiki if you get stuck using it.

I used Sharedown 5.3.6 running on macOS 14.7.2 and it worked well.

I was trying to get Xcode to talk with an old iPad and found this video helpful; however, when I attempted to prepare a .ipa a Team Provisioning file was absent from iOS App Signer 1.14. To get the Team Provisioning file to appear, the fix is easy: either log out and log back in to Xcode or install iOS App Signer 1.15, available here:

https://github.com/ImNoahDev/ios-app-signer/releases/tag/1.15.0

And a pre-requisite to this… I was trying to get Xcode 16.2 to talk to an iOS 10.3.3 device and installing legacy device support, using this fine script, works well:

https://github.com/filsv/iOSDeviceSupport

Settings I used in iOS App Signer to sign Socket.ipa for an iPad running 10.3.3.

If the above steps drive you crazy with certificates or because a signing certificate doesn’t appear, trying trashing Xcode and reinstall it or just log out of your developer account in Xcode and log back in. If all else fails, there’s Sideloadly, though I prefer a good open source option.

For a step-by-step view of how to get Socket onto a legacy iOS device like an iPad10, check out this YouTube video.

Syncthing has a tendency to make data connections outside the U.S., whether they arise from features for “Relaying” or “Global Discovery”. As a temporary workaround, I considered enabling Syncthing’s Discovery Server, stdiscosrv-macos, to reduce this traffic.

I grabbed the executable file here:

https://github.com/syncthing/discosrv/releases/download/v1.29.3-rc.1/stdiscosrv-macos-amd64-v1.29.3-rc.1.zip

I saw Lisa for the first time with my left knee recovery. She thinks it is making good progress and approved a return to biking, as long as the rides are limited to 30 minutes each and to remain on flat ground. Tomorrow I’ll head to work by biking to a light rail station, riding light rail to Mall of America, and biking from MoA to work – each segment will be 30 minutes – yessir!

A good chunk of the swelling was down by Saturday, the 4th day of taking naproxen. At today’s post-op followup with Dr. LaPrade, he asked me to keep at the quiet knee approach and get swelling down further when I can resume biking. I’ll see him again in 3 weeks. Until then, I’m allowed to work with the PT team on resuming bike exercise, with the goal of improving range of motion and reducing swelling.

Twin Cities Orthopedics’ team has been diligently helping my left knee regain function, all while Lisa is away. Despite increased swelling, I got off crutches last Wednesday and have been icing and elevating whenever possible. As of today, the swelling has only seemed to increase and mostly on the lateral side at the incision to grab some of my left knee’s IT-band. Jake was concerned about the swelling and that my stitches might let go, so he connected with LaPrade’s team who ordered me to take an anti-inflammatory for four days. I hope that does the trick!

Last week’s MRI indicated a bleak prognosis for my medial meniscus, but LaPrade’s team found otherwise when they got inside my knee today. The medial meniscus was able to be somewhat salvaged, some fugitive meniscus tissue was removed, and my IT-band was harvested to construct a new LET ligament – the recovery begins today! LaPrade told me it would be about 4 months.

Thanks, LaPrade team for saving my left knee and giving me another chance to have more fun with it. And thanks, Dad, for taking care of me! And thanks family and friends for being patient with me and my knees, yet again!