Of Crepes, Coffee, Cycling & Computers

I'm landlocked this weekend, chained to my computer while I complete RUSA's newsletter. But I managed to sneak out first thing this morning for a 15-mile loop on the Coho with buddies John and Lannis. They do the same greenway loop at the same time every morning. They've been doing it for years. I join them once a month or so and catch up on all things personal and political.

When I got back, Maxi had been down to the grocery store, returning with a quart of strawberries and a free pint of blackberries (don't ask; I never do). She had something sinful on her mind: breakfast crepes. We learned to love them on our two trips to Paris, also known as the "City of Crepes."

Cap'n Ende and his wife Amy inspired us on a mountain weekend with homemade crepes, and Kelly gave me a crepe pan and a cute little crepe paddle for one of the major holidays -- Jan. 6, whatever that one is.

Crepes are quick and easy. Here's our recipe (makes four crepes):

1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 tablespoon melted butter
salt & pepper

You simply whisk it all together and pour a small amount (about one crepe's worth, by my calculations) into the heated crepe pan. Each crepe takes about a minute -- or about twice as long as it takes to eat it.

The real magic is in the stuffing. For ours, we used some of Richard Lawrence's honey, Nutella, and fresh strawberries and blackberries.

I made two small lattes and we enjoyed crepes en plein air.

And now, back to the newsletter...

Hot on the press: Am/R

One of the joys of my job as RUSA’s newsletter editor is working with our printer, Carl Derreth, at Litho Printing in Raleigh, N.C. I recently showed up to watch Carl run the November issue of American Randonneur. That's me on the press.


First stop: Carl’s front office. These two cool cats are in charge of op-purr-ations.


As I head to the production area, I stop by Karmen’s office. He is the fellow who does pre-press on American Randonneur, making sure our pictures look nice and crisp, like an autumn apple. A big rock fan, Karmen has band posters from the 60s all over his walls.

Back in the press room, I find Carl by the Heidelberg offset press. If you’re curious about offset printing, here’s an article that explains how it works.



In this Digital Age, it’s comforting to see a machine that looks like a tank-sized relic from the Industrial Revolution. All gears and levers and chains -- hey that sounds familiar. No wonder I find it comforting.



A born tinkerer, Carl does most of his own maintenance and repair work. He is quite possibly a mechanical genius. Here, he gets a little help from an assistant, Cat #3.

Carl has already finished Signature 3 of the 64-page issue. Each signature contains 8 pages printed on one large sheet of paper. Another 8 pages are printed on the back. The sheet is eventually folded, trimmed and assembled into our letter-sized newsletter.


Here’s one of the sheets that Carl pulled off the press to check for alignment and ink density. Click on it for a sneak preview of pages in the November issue.


To run the next set of pages, Carl inserts an aluminum printing plate in the Heidelberg press. If you look closely, you can see images on the plate.

Now to the video clips.



After inserting the plate, Carl makes a few final adjustments of water and inkflow before firing up the press.



Here, he checks the alignment between the front and the back pages. You'll see 8 pages on the front of the sheet and 8 on the back.



In the clip above, he checks the ink density.


Here's the page he just checked.



Oops. As the press gets up to speed, it pulls two sheets at once and trips itself off. The video above gives you a good look at the press from back to front.




These little suction cups lift the blank pages one at a time to prevent double sheets from being pulled through the press. But they're not fool-proof, as you just saw.



In the video above, Carl fixes the jam and runs another test sheet through.



Here's the sheet from start to finish through the printer. The "PBP 07" page is visible as the sheets begin to stack up.

Assembly and trimming of the pages take place on another machine. I'll save that for another day.