Stuff What I Made

Driving a van without rear windows, there is obviously also no rear view mirror. At some point, however, I became aware that aftermarket digital rear view mirrors are available. These use a camera pointing backwards, and the “mirror” itself is simply a screen. I did a survey of the available options and they fell into two broad types, those that clipped on top of an existing rear view mirror, and those that replaced it entirely. Honestly I’m not sure I really understand the point of the former; if you have an existing (and real) rear view mirror, why would you... [Read More]

I recently(ish) got a new(ish) laptop. In the main I’m very happy with it, but it had one flaw, that being that when struck on the right hand side, the space bar would either not work at all, or sometimes insert a double space. This was highly annoying and wasn’t something I was prepared to put up with. I looked into getting an OEM replacement but this was going to be nearly half what I had paid for the entire computer, so instead I looked on eBay and eventually found a C-grade part from a breaker for 40 notes; still... [Read More]

In one of my earlier posts where I discuss my first impressions of the Pinion Smart.Shift gearbox I had fitted to my bike, I had a little moan about the missed opportunity in the Pre.Select auto shifting feature. This is a setting where a gear is automatically pre-selected if the system detects you’re coasting. In general I like it, but it becomes annoying when switched on all the time. For me I only really want it enabled on descents, where it comes into its own. What is really needed is a simple way to easily toggle it on and off... [Read More]

I covered in an earlier post that I had retrofitted a Pinion Smart.Shift gearbox to my Deviate Guide. I ended that post mentioning that I had yet to come up with a good solution for accessing the battery charge port, leaving it poking out one of the existing cable holes; hardly ideal. [Read More]

In 2023, Pinion began a staged release of a new model of their eponymous gearboxes, this one collectively branded Smart.Shift, and it immediately piqued my interest. In contrast to their previous efforts, this one shifted electrically, using a single sided trigger shifter, and promised better shift under load performance to boot. As I’ve alluded to before, I wasn’t a fan of their grip shift approach, so I was keen to get one. [Read More]