FIRE!!!

Holy Crap! Tonight, sans my girlfriend, I decided to roast some marshmallows. Make some S'more on the fire pit. I had it moved over to my bedroom, away from the brush I cleared. A small ember, I didn't even see it, must have flew over to the brush. Over or around two SUV's. Luckily I had the hose hooked up. I immediately tried to cool the core of the fire.

The brush was clearly the reducing agent. The heat came from my S'more fire =( the self-sustained chemical reaction and oxidizing agent were quite clear. As soon as I saw an orange glow beyond the trucks, I grabbed the garden hose. I didn't even think to call 911 because it was a small fire I was sure I could contain.

A neighbor yelled that he had called 911 and I could already hear the sirens in the distance. I was so thankful. When the firefighters arrived I had gotten rid of all of the live flames. The only exhaust gas was steam. I was cooling the core. They were able to cool the core more rapidly than I could have ever hoped. Steam was everywhere. At least I could breathe in the steam.

After all of the heat had been taken out of the equation, the brush was raked over and cooled again. Lastly, the fire pit, which originally threw the ember, was extinguished. I am sure I will only be making S'mores on my stove from now on.

My sincerest thanks and appreciation go out to the Baltimore County Fire Department for their help in my time of need. I tried to offer the crew a donation check and cash for some ice cream but their crew chief kindly declined saying that is what I pay my taxes for. He clearly loves his job, and I could not ask for anything more.

How to get a loop or (Gordian) knot out of a bike chain

Does your bike chain look like a Gordian knot? Let me show you how to fix it (without cutting!)
Does your chain look like this:


If so read on for a picture guide to unlooping your chain. No special tools needed, although if you're like me, you might want to have a drink before going back out. This happened to me twice, and the second time I decided to find out WHY this happened. I have had up to four loops or knots in my chain at one time. Some would consider it punishment, but I purposely re-created the loops to take pictures for this post. If I could recreate them purposely, I should be able to destroy them purposely.

First, I think it is important to understand exactly how the loop occurs. The bike is upside down, the wheel just taken of. The keys are the pedal and the rear derailleur. If the chain that is normally on the bottom part of the circuit (when the bike is being ridden) gets around the pedal or derailleur, and falls below the chain that is normally on top then your first loop forms.






Now one loop probably wouldn't be too bad, and might be easy to fix. Simply take the chain back up around the pedal. But loops love company. The second loop forms when the back sprocket (derailleur pulley) loses its chain as well.







Now, to fix two loops or knots, you have to take two steps. It is important to get the loops as far away from each other as possible. Most people say that simply by "pushing them into each other" they will go away. This is not true. Step one is putting the back loop up and over the back sprocket, and step two is getting the chain up over the pedal. You will probably have to re-run the chain around the gears by the pedals.

Now, what if you have three or four loops? You can create more than two, but to do this you would have to have twisted the chain as a hole, so that the loops are facing up instead of down.




My unprofessional opinion is that you can only add loops one at a time at this point. you ad them off of the derailleur pulley (rear sprocket). You simply repeat the process from above. Notice, however, that the new loop faces the opposite direction as the first two.




I have had up to four loops in my chain. It was at this point that I considered throwing the bike away and getting a new one. But calm, cool, liquor... I mean collectiveness got me through the situation.

For the future, this can only happen if your bike goes from up and down to sideways. This will usually happen when putting the bike into a car. To avoid this in the future, put the sprocket side of the bike up.

Good luck with your chain!