This is not an official Cool Tool Review.

I am trying out electric bicycles. Today e-bikes have a limited range of 20-30 miles (50km) because of battery constraints. So most e-bikes are sold for daily commuters, especially in a hilly city like San Francisco. Zip to work and back with no car, faster than public transport. You can get some very good e-bikes these days. Millions of them are sold and used in China, and there are also very good models from Europe.

But I am looking for a touring e-bike, one that could give me mild assistance over 80 miles. I am doing a 1,000-mile tour with my teenage son and his cousin, and I can’t keep up with them, particularly on the hills. So I need a very mild assist to “flatten the hills” yet lightweight enough that for the rest of the time while I am pedaling, the bike with motor is not a burden.

Eric Hicks, the expert at ElectricBike.com recommended I try out a German Stromer e-bike. The legendary bike rental store Blazing Saddles rents e-bikes to tourists near the Golden Gate Bridge, so I headed there last weekend. The Stromer uses a motor on the back wheel, called a hub motor, and retains some of the chain derailer shifting. When the motor is off you can pedal as normal (the motor doesn’t impede your pedaling), and you pedal even while the motor is running — thus it is called Pedal Assist. You can set the amount of assist you want, from very low to very strong. The motor will only assist when you pedal. So it is not a lightweight motorcycle, but a pedal assist bicycle. A downside of the a hub motor is that changing a flat is a huge project.

So on Saturday I rode the Stromer with my son on 30-mile roundtrip across the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin. I was able to keep up with him (he’s on a fast road bike), but only by using the assist on most hills, more than I thought I would. I can handle most hills on a road bike myself, so I was only looking for assist on the steepest hills. But the e-bike is so heavy with motor and battery and the gears do not go low enough so that I had to use the lowest help for any hill. Catch-22. I could only go non-assist on the flats and downhills. But we did 30 miles and I had 3/4 of the charge left, so it is possible I could get twice that mileage out of it using it as I did, only in the lowest setting.

Also on Friday I test rode the Focus e-bike from New Wheels in Bernal Heights, San Francisco. The Focus Speed is from Europe and uses a Panasonic mid-drive. Rather than turn the back (or front wheel), it turns the chain from a place near the crankshaft (mid-point). The Focus has a mighty 18-amp battery, and in low “eco” mode, and with a smaller drive sprocket, New Wheels believe I can get 80 miles from it. I did not find it noisy, a complaint of some other mid-drives. Like the Stromer, it is too heavy and high geared to pedal up any kind of hills without assist, especially if loaded with touring gear. I preferred it to the Stromer because the controls were nicer, battery bigger, and the mid-drive would be less complicated to fix a flat tire.

I tried out one other e-bike, a recumbent, and today I hope to try another. I’ll report here on which, if any, I buy. But whatever one I go for, it’s a bike for touring, with only mild assist. If I were buying one just for commuting, I might choose another.

If you know a lot about bikes, or have one to recommend as fantastic, please rave about it in the comments, or send us a review.

– KK

I found this folding Leifheit drying rack at my local hardware store and have fallen in love with it over the past few years. It’s versatile, lightweight, holds a ton of damp laundry, and folds down to almost nothing for storage. You could probably slide it into a three inch gap between the dryer and the washing machine.

It also expands sideways to be quite large (close to 4 feet wide). When fully expanded it has 62 feet of drying space (and 32.5 feet when closed). This drying rack is designed to be set up over a bathtub, but you can also set it up nearly flat for drying afghans and large quilts, or for sweaters. In fact, I have a beautiful hand-made quilt drying on it right now! The powder coated metal rods are sturdy, smooth, and rust proof. They will not stain or snag your clothing. I’ve used mine on a weekly basis for two or three years now. It has held up well, and looks like new.

Lloyd Chambers’ series of subscription-based photography websites are valuable tools for any photographer interested in better understanding the mechanics and optics of digital photography, especially for those delving into landscape photography or large format printing. Specifically, Lloyd offers remarkably in depth reviews of lenses, sensors, and tools associated with the trade (including hard drives, photo software, tripods, etc), while also providing incredibly thorough tutorials on how to make sharp images.

Given that nearly every other image on the site is a 100% crop at the pixel level it’s all too easy to characterize Lloyd as a “pixel-peeper”, a term often used to deride photographers who are more interested in the sharpness of their image than composition or subject or color. Having graduated from a fine arts program I fully understand the importance of the formal elements of photography, and likewise I believe most photographers would be better suited with a lesson in composition and color than a lesson in field curvature, sharpness and optics. But I also believe that developing as a photographer necessitates a technical understanding of your tools, and that Lloyd’s reviews are a fantastic resource for exactly that.

Diglloyd Advanced Photography, and Making Sharp Images are book like in length, but are frequently updated, which explains the subscription system Lloyd uses to fund the site. It also means that in the fast paced world of photography the content remains fresh and relevant.

Advanced Photography focuses predominantly on reviewing equipment available today (with a heavy focus on professional quality Canon and Nikon gear). Be warned that his recommendations favor image quality over cost. However, for the amateur photographer who is looking to make an investment in lenses, or for the seasoned pro who is looking to switch systems, Lloyd’s reviews are invaluable. Like any reviewer, he has a particular slant given his background, specifically focusing on photography centered around a tripod which allows him to achieve maximum image quality (not necessarily flexibility). Many of his reviews favor focus accuracy over autofocus speed, and lens sharpness over lens character. His reviews represent a specialized subset of photography, but much of the technical information will be as relevant to the wedding photographer as it is to the landscapist.

In contrast to his reviews, Making Sharp Images is much more skills oriented. It focuses on developing methods that can be used to achieve maximum sharpness and image quality from your equipment. The site offers in depth tutorials on subjects ranging from diffraction, refraction, haze, focus shift, axial and lateral chromatic aberration, moire, mosaicing, field curvature, and depth of field. He also has a great tutorial on how to test a lens. Lloyd, himself, has said that Making Sharp Images is his most valuable resource, and it is easy to see why.

At the end of the day, gear does matter to some photographers, and for them Lloyd’s sites will remain a valuable resource.

[Michael Zhang from Petapixel has tackled the "Gear Doesn't Matter" issue as well, and it's a worthy read. --OH]

This little plastic kitchen timer has helped my life dramatically. Yes, it lets me know when my eggs are done, but it mostly lives on my desk.

I’m a writer who works from home, prone to distraction and procrastination. Those two behaviors can compound one another, turning a “short break” into a lost hour, or three. For me, this made any sort of actual relaxation impossible, because the danger of distraction was dire. Phone and computer-based timers helped a bit, but their lack of immediacy made me lose interest.

Now, to take a break, I grab my timer (2 inches from my keyboard), give the top a twist, say, to 10 minutes, and I can truly relax, knowing the bells will snap me back to action right on cue.

Without the rhythm of the office around, a freelancer’s time can feel all too elastic. For me, it made it hard to keep touch with the flow of time, to know what a day really meant. From a practical angle, this sunk my ability to accurately forecast tasks and budget time. That’s bad for an employee, but for freelancers, it’s murder.

Now, when I start to drift off, I grab my timer and dial in an hour. The ticking lends texture to the passing of time, and the bell keeps me in touch and on task, giving even continual tasks a sense of beginning, middle, and end. This allows closer contact with my pace and progress through a job, and has brought my forecasting ability back toward optimal again.

A little woo-woo, maybe, but a complete godsend for me and the pals I’ve bought them for.

[While looking for a bit more information I stumbled upon this neat hack to make time lapse movies with these kitchen timers.--OH]