Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Freewheeling => Topic started by: Kim on 02 September, 2023, 03:33:14 pm
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And a long walk back from Cotteridge with my new recumbent wobblebike. Good thing I wasn't halfway to Silverdale, I suppose.
(https://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/SMGT/IMG_20230902_144159_HDR.sized.jpg)
That's not supposed to be like that :(
R.I.P. Streetmachine GT. 13 years, 45907 miles. (Plus a few more when Charlotte had it.)
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Oh noes!!!!!
Much commiseration.
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Bit of gaffa tape round there and you won’t notice it
:'(
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[Insert Brexit-related swearing noises inspired by the HPVelotechnik and AZUB websites]
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Bugger, I know how that feels. Do you think it is catching?
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Oh Bugger! How did you notice? Feel yourself elongating ?
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Oh dear...
Repairs are always possible. Aluminium? Case of whether you can be bothered.
You could get a sleeve put inside the tube, weld round the fracture, then maybe put an outer sleeve over the top. Possibly.
Would be worth considering.....depends how much you like riding the bike I guess.
I've only ever had it happen on two older DFs before. And at first, neither were obvious.....just something kind of strange going on!! Then it quickly dawns.
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Oh what a shame. 😔
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I once had a very strange feeling when riding my Thorn Nomad. One of the S&S couplings had unscrewed!
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Oh Bugger! How did you notice? Feel yourself elongating ?
The seat brackets were creaking more than usual (they all do that on this model) on the previous ride.
This time it felt like it wanted to shimmy, like a soft front tyre and lots of weight on the rear rack (you'd normally put heavy stuff on the lowrider first).
After stopping a couple of times and investigating suspension, headset, etc, I gave in and added more air to a tyre that didn't really need it. As I started off, slightly uphill, I felt the seat position shift in a manner that I interpreted as the rear shock coming apart. The rear shock had not come apart, the main tube had, and was bending under pedalling force.
It was just about ridable for a bit if I sat forward in the seat, to keep the break in compression, but after wheeling it for a couple of km the frame was sufficiently twisted that it was full wobblebike.
Oh dear...
Repairs are always possible. Aluminium? Case of whether you can be bothered.
This is actually steel (and interestingly no sign of corrosion at the break). I'm reluctant to go the repair route, on the basis that it's an obsolete model, and various suspension/drivetrain components are unobtanium and wearing out (it's currently sporting a piece of marine fuel hose as a drive-side idler). The simple solution would be to bag a low-spec second hand one with a sound frame and swap the parts over.
But I'm thinking the better solution, in the absence of war, famine or disability, would be a whole new bike with the Rohloff it really ought to have and current components, transfer over my custom cranks, lighting, etc. And reasonably expect another decade of use before I have to replace anything expensive. But you could probably buy a small flat in a rougher part of Blackpool for the going price...
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Can you buy a replacement frame only & move the bits over ? Or ask a dealer to order it for you ?
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Can you buy a replacement frame only & move the bits over ? Or ask a dealer to order it for you ?
Framesets are available. You can probably buy a garage in a rougher part of Blackpool for the going price.
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That's an utter bugger, Kim. Commiserations.
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Ouch! That looks painful.
Does the search begin now for it's replacement?
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Kim, is that the bike you did the Tan Hill ride from York station on? I remember being mightily impressed by its shininess at the time - and, of course, it was the correct colour for a bike! It's a real shame, though I guess you may be looking at it as an "opportunity"!
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An opportunity to buy the welding rig she’s always wanted…..
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Ha! Andrew, I misread that as "wedding ring" - and I've recently paid £400 for these glasses!
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Kim, is that the bike you did the Tan Hill ride from York station on? I remember being mightily impressed by its shininess at the time - and, of course, it was the correct colour for a bike! It's a real shame, though I guess you may be looking at it as an "opportunity"!
Yes, that's the one. Charlotte told me that the colour was a German attempt at 'British Racing Green', which in this case it was not. It's done a few miles and a couple of crashes and drivetrains since then.
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Ha! Andrew, I misread that as "wedding ring" - and I've recently paid £400 for these glasses!
IIRC that's how Mr Arch's wedding goggles happened.
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Bugrit. Commiserations, Kim.
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Commiserations Kim :(
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Commiseratons but...
...that looks very fixable.
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Ha! Andrew, I misread that as "wedding ring" - and I've recently paid £400 for these glasses!
IIRC that's how Mr Arch's wedding goggles happened.
Quite likely! Has anyone heard from them at all?
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Buggrit >:(
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Ha! Andrew, I misread that as "wedding ring" - and I've recently paid £400 for these glasses!
IIRC that's how Mr Arch's wedding goggles happened.
Quite likely! Has anyone heard from them at all?
They're alive and well on Mastodon. Probably still on the trashfire formerly known as Twitter, too. Collecting winches, making small objects, learning Welsh, general wombling, that sort of thing. Don't really ride bikes, but do have a car. I think the baby elephant is a work in progress.
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[Insert Brexit-related swearing noises inspired by the HPVelotechnik and AZUB websites]
If there’s any way I can help as a delivery address in DE let me know. I’m visiting England again mid-October.
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Guess at mileage?
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Bugrit. Sympathies, Kim.
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I’m sorry for your loss.
Was that cable tie too tight?
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Cheers, Kim!
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Was that cable tie too tight?
I'm reasonably sure the cable tie is coincidental (it's only holding a bundle of dynamo cables, and didn't appear to be concealing any abrasive/corrosive grit). The crack runs between the end of the seat bracket and the bottle cage braze-on, at the point where the frame is presumably under the greatest stress. I always thought that if it were going to fail it would be around the headset, but this makes more sense.
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Was that cable tie too tight?
No, it was holding the bike together from the last time this happened.
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Was that cable tie too tight?
No, it was holding the bike together from the last time this happened.
I thought the bottle cage was holding the bike together on the way home, but sadly that wasn't the case (both braze-ons are the same side of the crack).
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You should always carry half a dozen cable ties for events like this. Commiserations Kim. Any thoughts what you'll do with the cracked frame? Some sort of mechanical art project?
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I've spent much of the afternoon reducing the bike to its components parts, vis:
a) likely to be used on the replacement
b) unlikely to be used on the replacement, but useful spares for other bikes in the fleet
c) might be useful to someone else one day, perhaps in a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances
d) scrap
This was a great deal more depressing that I expected it to be. I'm not particularly attached to the bike as a physical object - my current frustration coming from the effort and expense inherent in replacing it - but nearly everything I removed was either an original part that had served admirably well and will now be retired, or something I'd tweaked and changed and adapted in some way and had its own story.
The other thing that struck me was the sheer number of cable-ties I ended up removing, though rather uninterestingly the vast majority of them had been tying cables.
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Commiserations kim. Hoping that you can find a suitable replacement ASAP :)
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Once saw a bloke on a 200k turn up at a control with a broken seat tube. They shoved a bit of tree down it and he finished. Different force vectors on a recumbent, though.
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That is sad.
Two things I remember about that machine on that Tan Hill ride; the awkwardness of fixing a puncture, and you 'gravel tracking' on a recumbent.
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that's a bummer. it is however repairable, at the right workshop. it would also cost a fraction of the new/replacement one.
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Commiserations.
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This does give the opportunity to try a different recumbent, which can be fun in itself and gets rid of the worn difficult-to-replace components that are par for the course with old dual-suspension machines.
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Yes, I'm giving serious consideration to the AZUB Six, which is an equally competent touring machine that has actually seen some innovation in the last decade. (I get the distinct impression that HPVelotechnik would rather be making trikes and Grasshoppers, and keep the Streetmachine and Speedmachine going purely because people keep wanting to buy them.) Last time I met one I decided I preferred HPVelotechnik's handlebar ergonomics, which trumps most other considerations.
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Once saw a bloke on a 200k turn up at a control with a broken seat tube. They shoved a bit of tree down it and he finished. Different force vectors on a recumbent, though.
You should always carry half a dozen cable ties for events like this. Commiserations Kim. Any thoughts what you'll do with the cracked frame? Some sort of mechanical art project?
If it had been an e-recumbent you could have used the battery to weld a repair by the side of the road. My ex-boss, who once specialised in forestry tractors, said that two norwegian brothers in the Landes after the great tempest had a tractor much welded together that they did on site with the welding cables directly connected to the battery. OTOH a lead acid battery is probably better suited to being short-circuited like that. A lithium battery (or accumalator as I suppose people will tell that is wot I mean) would probably do a good impression of a firework show!
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Going by the design and quality of build of my azub tricon gr a two wheel recumbent built by them seems a good option :)
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Going by the design and quality of build of my azub tricon gr a two wheel recumbent built by them seems a good option :)
Indeed. Though I'm sure a Scorpion would fare equally well on build quality, you'd go about half the speed on one on account of HPVelotchnik's general inability to keep the weight down.
IIRC Woollypigs OTP has a Six, and is very happy with it. What puts me off (apart from the handlebar position and general familiarity with the foibles of Streetmachines) is that none of the UK AZUB dealers seem to carry demo models of the bikes, and my ability to get a foot down is marginal enough that I'm disinclined to buy one without having had a proper fiddle with the seat/bars adjustment and test ride.
I also think the HPVelotechnik luggage racks are substantially less fugly (I'm unlikely to ever need the ability to carry six panniers), I prefer the simplicity of direct steering and - until someone[1] works out how to drive an E-14 actuator without an electric assist system - their custom Rohloff shifter seems to be the least worst option[2] (though I could probably obtain it as a spare part if necessary).
[1] Preferably not me, unless someone wants to donate a suitably equipped e-bike for reverse-engineering purposes :)
[2] I detest grip shifters, but you can't drive a Roholff with a bar-end, and trigger shifters via a widget aren't ideal with USS.
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https://www.nextstopwhere.com/2017/04/17/azub-vs-streetmachine/
A comparison of the 2 bikes here. You've probably seen it, but it may be useful to others.
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https://www.nextstopwhere.com/2017/04/17/azub-vs-streetmachine/
A comparison of the 2 bikes here. You've probably seen it, but it may be useful to others.
Yep. Worth noting the age of the article, and that both bikes are being equipped with different components now. Also the lowrider-mounted kickstand has always worked well for me (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=122383.0) (soft ground and sandals notwithstanding), so I suspect they got one that was the wrong length.
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A couple of cable ties and other bits of plastic is what you need.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/4114/4913972294_2056fee425_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/8ueoLf)
IMG_4272 (https://flic.kr/p/8ueoLf) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr
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After several earth months[1], I have news that a SMGTe with my name on it has arrived in Glasgow. Just to give the smug Ribble customers some perspective ;D
[1] A wise man once said that if we do things by the book, hours would seem like days. It appears that HPVelotechnik do things by the book.
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:thumbsup:
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Isn't that about 200 miles away from the Desolation of Fridges?
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Isn't that about 200 miles away from the Desolation of Fridges?
Yes, but having defeated the hurdles of supply chains and brexit, there's a guy called Eddie with a van who should be able to sort that bit out relatively easily.
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How spiffingly exciting!
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Is it another green one?
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Presumably Kim gets to choose the colour of this one, so it'll be matt black with black reflectives and lights.
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Or white, to better blend in with the fridges.
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Presumably Kim gets to choose the colour of this one, so it'll be matt black with black reflectives and lights.
with the GPS programmed for the heart of the sun....
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HPVelotechnik ORANGE, because I'm too colourblind to make those sorts of decisions[1], and I didn't feel like a) paying another couple of hundred Euros or b) waiting until the heat-death of the universe for them to do a custom paint job.
[1] Orange is basically green anyway.
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I'm told ORANGE is the new black.... Hope they get it down from Glasgow quickly for you.
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Achievement unlocked:
(https://www.ductilebiscuit.net/embedding/yacf/20240306_SMGTe_box.jpg)
Kitchen pr0n to follow when it's fully assembled. I got as far as fitting the lowrider rack[1] and kickstand, so that it can stand without support, but various bits are staying unattached until I've had time to fettle wiring, mudguards etc.
[1] A complete bastard of a job, as it means undoing the suspension pivots and then trying to line up both parts of the frame, both luggage racks and a vital washer without trapping any gear cables or whatever.
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:thumbsup:
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Achievement unlocked:
(https://www.ductilebiscuit.net/embedding/yacf/20240306_SMGTe_box.jpg)
Kitchen pr0n to follow when it's fully assembled. I got as far as fitting the lowrider rack[1] and kickstand, so that it can stand without support, but various bits are staying unattached until I've had time to fettle wiring, mudguards etc.
[1] A complete bastard of a job, as it means undoing the suspension pivots and then trying to line up both parts of the frame, both luggage racks and a vital washer without trapping any gear cables or whatever.
You got all the bits to get it sorted and ready for this weekends camping?
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Achievement unlocked:
(https://www.ductilebiscuit.net/embedding/yacf/20240306_SMGTe_box.jpg)
Kitchen pr0n to follow when it's fully assembled. I got as far as fitting the lowrider rack[1] and kickstand, so that it can stand without support, but various bits are staying unattached until I've had time to fettle wiring, mudguards etc.
[1] A complete bastard of a job, as it means undoing the suspension pivots and then trying to line up both parts of the frame, both luggage racks and a vital washer without trapping any gear cables or whatever.
You got all the bits to get it sorted and ready for this weekends camping?
Not quite (it needs a sprocket-swap and I'm planning to get another left crank shortened so I can use the stock chainset, and no doubt other things will arise as I get to them), though camping's academic as I can't leave barakta unattended for more than a couple of hours until she's rated for weight-bearing and can get to the toilet herself.
Planning to have a good meditate on internal routing of lighting cables etc, which is undoubtedly going to result in Bad Swears, but worth doing now before I work out what position the boom's going to be in. The seat brackets have changed, so any question of reusing the known-good old seat and reproducing that riding position has gone out the window, which means Voodoo Ergonomics. All good fun...
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Looking forward to seeing this in the metal and plastic with a Kim on board, sometime, somewhere.
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In her usual cool & laidback manner.
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Congrats on the new bike! I think VT Orange is far more fetching than dull silver anyhow.
Next time your bike catastrophically fails in Cotteridge pop by for a cuppa.
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It's been tangled ;)
Looking forward to seeing you on your new mobile deckchair soon 😀
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I want to see teh oRaNG3.
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Some progress, chiefly swapping the front wheel (because dynamo - I'm doomed to have mismatched wheels) and rear tyre (and rim tape, because the the plastic stuff looked iffy and I had some 19mm Velox right there), fixing the p*nct*r* I somehow managed to inflict in the process, fitted mudguards, adjusted the headset (considerably less painful due to the availability of FRIKKIN LAZERS to determine when the wheel was straight) and brakes, fitted the lights while waiting for the glue to dry on the tube repair but haven't done any wiring yet. Kickstand appears to be slightly too long, which is irritating (but admittedly less irritating than it being too short). Managed to b0rk the quick link on the chain, on account of it being non-reusable, which is pointless. Reusable ones on order. Noted the absence of any V-brake mounts, which means I can't fit the parking brake. Have molished a Mike-Burrows-compliant hydraulic disc brake compatible substitute for now, and will keep an eye out to see if that external latching lever thing that Hase came up with a couple of years available might be available as a spare part.
I have at least had plenty of practice fitting and removing the Rholoff wheel. This, at least in this incarnation, is the benchmark for-low faff IGH.
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A Rohloff?!!! You've been spending too much time with that Wowbagger chap, you have!
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A Rohloff?!!! You've been spending too much time with that Wowbagger chap, you have!
No, I've spent too much time mucking about keeping derailleur gears indexing properly, to say nothing of bending and bashing the chainring guard[1] back into shape after dropping the chain, encounters with dangly bike spaces and the like. I can't help feeling the bike was intended to have gears-inna-can from the outset. Solves all manner of fiddly problems, I just have to get over my aversion to grip shifters (I'm anticipating that being able to shift while stationary will help with that). The Rohloff does appear to have the Wowbagger-proof flange, which is reassuring.
On a related note: Hydraulic brakes. That's two fewer cables to fill up with rain and stop working if I have the temerity to spend a weekend in Wales. (Though I note HPVelotechnik have developed little brake lever gaiters to help with that.)
[1] With a single chainring you can have a rigid guard as part of the chainset, rather than the bendy one.
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Congrats on the new bike! I think VT Orange is far more fetching than dull silver anyhow.
Next time your bike catastrophically fails in Cotteridge pop by for a cuppa.
I absolutely agree, “ I loves Orange, I does “
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A Rohloff?!!! You've been spending too much time with that Wowbagger chap, you have!
No, I've spent too much time mucking about keeping derailleur gears indexing properly, to say nothing of bending and bashing the chainring guard[1] back into shape after dropping the chain, encounters with dangly bike spaces and the like. I can't help feeling the bike was intended to have gears-inna-can from the outset. Solves all manner of fiddly problems, I just have to get over my aversion to grip shifters (I'm anticipating that being able to shift while stationary will help with that). The Rohloff does appear to have the Wowbagger-proof flange, which is reassuring.
On a related note: Hydraulic brakes. That's two fewer cables to fill up with rain and stop working if I have the temerity to spend a weekend in Wales. (Though I note HPVelotechnik have developed little brake lever gaiters to help with that.)
[1] With a single chainring you can have a rigid guard as part of the chainset, rather than the bendy one.
In which case, weren't you tempted to go for a belt drive too, for even less maintenance, possibly not even needing a chainring guard, etc? Possibly they don't work well on such a long transmission.
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Noted the absence of any V-brake mounts, which means I can't fit the parking brake.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53575389800_428a62c144_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2pCgSRf)Untitled (https://flic.kr/p/2pCgSRf) by mark tilley (https://www.flickr.com/photos/yo_stumpy/), on Flickr
Do you not have these wee beasties on the lower swing arm? Failing that, I always use a toe strap around the rear brake lever, (front brake lever on an upwrong.)
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In which case, weren't you tempted to go for a belt drive too, for even less maintenance, possibly not even needing a chainring guard, etc? Possibly they don't work well on such a long transmission.
Contraindicated on account of suspension, I think. Needs a tensioner to allow for chain length changing[1] as the sproingy bits do their thing.
[1] While the no-squat geometry presumably keeps the drive-side length reasonably constant, the non-drive side will still vary.
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Noted the absence of any V-brake mounts, which means I can't fit the parking brake.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53575389800_428a62c144_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2pCgSRf)Untitled (https://flic.kr/p/2pCgSRf) by mark tilley (https://www.flickr.com/photos/yo_stumpy/), on Flickr
Do you not have these wee beasties on the lower swing arm? Failing that, I always use a toe strap around the rear brake lever, (front brake lever on an upwrong.)
Nope. At some point they seem to have gone all-in on disc brakes. Which is entirely sensible, really.
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Today's achievement has been threading cable internally for the lighting, which was a complete bastard of a job, even armed with torch, a spare gear cable inner and harsh language. Slightly baffled by how the cable is supposed to get from inside the boom to the dynamo, unless they drill a hole in the steerer (which is where I draw the line). Will route that bit externally anyway, because it's going via a switch and a socket for the e-Werk.
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E-werk of stan, i think you mean. Mine never lived up to promises
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E-werk of stan, i think you mean. Mine never lived up to promises
I find it werks as you'd expect for the specification, given something that can soak up the charge without being fussy about the start-stop nature of the power. Which is to say, you can get a couple of amp-hours out of a day of riding. Which is occasionally useful, but not as much as some quality time with a mains socket.
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Well, it works!
(https://www.ductilebiscuit.net/embedding/yacf/20240313_SMGTe_first_ride.jpg)
(Horrible gooses for scale)
(https://www.ductilebiscuit.net/embedding/yacf/20240313_SMGTe_first_ride_left.jpg)
Feels weird. Hard to tell how much is the minor differences in gemoetry/suspension, and how much is 5 months of exclusively riding upwrongs.
I seem to have got the gear ratios spot on, which is pleasing: Slightly lower than the granny gear on the previous bike, spinning out at about 30mph, which is perfectly sufficient for a touring bike. Rohloff shifting will take a little getting used to, as will the absence of a convenient parking brake (the Mk 1 bit-of-elastic works to hold the bike, but is too fiddly for stopping at junctions). Chain is deliberately a bit slack, as is the cable to the speed sensor, until such a time as I'm happy about boom length adjustment.
The new style seat has too many axes of adjustment, so I expect to be tweaking it for the next six months. The special seat brackets for short-arses appear to have been unnecessary, but only just. Interestingly, overall length is about the same as the old bike, as I've lost most of the extra 40mm through the lack of a chainring guard that can accommodate a 54T big ring.
The XT hydraulic disc brakes Just Work, and have cute little HPVelotechnik neoprene gaiters to keep the Weather out.
Ventisit pad is a work in progress[1], hence the nasty closed-cell foam pad - no point paying HPVelotechnik prices for a posh sponge. And a matching left crank is on its way to handcyclist OTP for shortening.
Suspect I may need to obtain a firmer spring for the front fork, which is likely to be annoying. It's about right with the preload dialled up to max, and that's with the bike unladen. TBH the fork is the weak point of the design - it seems like a downgrade on the MEKS one, although it probably saves a bit of weight. They really need to ditch the 1" headset to have better options - which is a strong argument in favour of the AZUB Six.
The braze-ons on the underside of the frame have been re-arranged, which precludes mounting both a bottle cage and the low-rider rack at the same time - at least without the aid of comedy spacers (which I've employed, along with cable ties, for the Bordo Lite). But since there's now a proper mounting point for the front light on the BB shell, I was able to use the bottle-cage braze-on the derailleur post[2] for their intended purpose. It looks a bit stupid, but it's surprisingly easy to access, at least when not in motion. Proximity to the cranks makes it unsuitable for stuffing my waterproof jacket in, thobut, so I'll have to come up with another solution for that.
Absence of bar-end shifters means I can use a Mirrycle rather than the B&M Cyclestar mirror. Will see how it goes long-term.
Had to do some rather tedious sewing to extend the straps on that tri-bag (which is looking like it's been out in the sun too long) to account for the larger boom diameter.
[1] They no longer ship to the UK because brexit, which means I have to deal with recumbent dealers or arrange to have one smuggled in.
[2] I could have had a boom without one, but it seemed silly not to have to post for the mounting of stuff. There is, after all, no point in weight-weenieing a Streetmachine.
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Is that in Trump orange ?
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Is that in Trump orange ?
It's Vorsprung Durch HPVelotechnik ORANGE[1], a much classier metric colour which is completely different to Demented Shitgibbon ORANGE.
[1] AIUI it's RAL 2004
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Photo taken from drive side? ✔️
Cranks at aesthetically pleasing angle? ✔️
Marmite present? ✔️
White goods or kitchen furniture in background? ❌
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Is that in Trump orange ?
It's Vorsprung Durch HPVelotechnik ORANGE[1], a much classier metric colour which is completely different to Demented Shitgibbon ORANGE.
[1] AIUI it's RAL 2004
I'm sure I could get you some skin treatment from the makeup shops of Scouseland to match the bike..... it would probably double as Hi-Viz for those annoying rides that insist on such stuff....... ;)
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Looks nice :thumbsup: Proper bell too, but how do you ring it (without taking your hand from the handgrip)? And you must have 20/20 vision to read the GPS from that far away ;D
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Looks nice :thumbsup: Proper bell too, but how do you ring it (without taking your hand from the handgrip)?
I went to some effort to acquire a bell with a left-handed[1] mechanism, so I can ring it by pulling with my little finger.
(That bell position is a hang-over from the bar-end shifters on the old bike. By mounting a Proper Bell there, it sticks out enough so that it's what hits the ground when the bike falls over rather than the shifter. Bells being about 10× cheaper, occasionally fixable by application of brute force and a lot less critical for finishing your ride than shifters.
I reproduced that bell arrangement on barakta's trike, because that little-finger motion is about the only thing that really works on her left hand. (All her brake/gear controls are on the right.)
And you must have 20/20 vision to read the GPS from that far away ;D
Just barely, which is why for audax rides and similar I go to the effort to use Basecamp to craft proper Routes, so I can use turn-by-turn navigation to make it easier to read. Worked better on the old Vista HCx, where you'd get an enlarged view of the junction with a high-contrast arrow superimposed, rather than just overlayed on the map like the current eTrexen and Edges do.
Again, with bar-end shifters there wasn't really anywhere else to put it. I have acquired a little mount thingy that could go on the left handlebar, but I quite like having it in my direct field of vision and somewhere that isn't going to get bashed[2].
[1] Most bells being designed to be operated by pushing with the thumb of the right hand, with the bell mounted on top of a flat bar with the ringer sticking out to the right. Some, but frustratingly not as many as you'd hope, have reversible mechansims.
[2] Low-flying muntjacs excepted.
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Shitgibbon Orange is much better than green :thumbsup:
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A fine looking machine. In long term use I found the brass threaded tubes would separate from the plastic outer layer and the mirror would become impossible to lock in place so I no longer use miirrocycle .I now use decathlon. mirrors which cost a fiver and have proved very reliable :)
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Very nice looking machine. A job well done there Kim. 👍
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The new bike looks great. I especially like how there is already a certain Kimness to it – maybe the GPS mount and the rack bag.
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The gap between the rack bag and seat is new. Combination of the seat being thinner, and further forward. More space for stuff.
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Needs a Ventisit perhaps?
On cabling, I use two zip-ties around the boom with an s-shaped loop of extra, similar aroimd the headrest, maybe 6" or so in total, just in case of needing to refettle connectors at any point
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Needs a Ventisit perhaps?
Yes, that's why I ordered it with the nasty closed-cell foam pad, rather than the posh sponge. The Ventisit from my old seat *almost* works, but I've now ordered the correct model, which is a bit wider at the bottom. (The old seat and pad is going in the cupboard, on the principle that ergonomic equipment that's known to fit is worth keeping.)
On cabling, I use two zip-ties around the boom with an s-shaped loop of extra, similar aroimd the headrest, maybe 6" or so in total, just in case of needing to refettle connectors at any point
At this point I've got all the lighting cables inside the boom, with a sufficiency of slack to allow the boom to be fully removed. That leaves the computer speed sensor, which - now I know where the boom's going to be - I've attached to the cable supports where the front derailleur cable isn't, with a supplementary zip-tie to keep things neat. There's a reasonable, but not excessive, amount of slack (traditionally I've cut a couple of cable-ties to detach the sensor from the fork to gain slack for servicing the suspension).
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Meanwhile, I've worked out that the seat needs to be slightly shorter than I think it does, otherwise I end up bearing force on my neck, which is Bad. Exact angle a work in progress, and will doubtless change when the Ventisit arrives.
And I the other day I realised that the mudguard mount on the front fork would accept an M6 bolt. So I obtained a cheap and nasty sidepull caliper with oodles of reach[1] from eBay, and it works acceptably well as a parking brake (probably more so if I spend a bit more time dragging it downhill through muddy puddles to bed the pads in a bit). Might upgrade it to something dual pivot and less inclined to rust, now I've proven the concept.
[1] It needs about 75mm, for those playing along at home.
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The Ventisit arrived. I'm still failing to find a position for the upper part of the Bodylink seat that works. It feels like there's too tight a curve radius to the top of the seat, and that isn't something that's adjustable.
On today's ride I realised that the problem's actually more subtle than that: The reason it feels like the top of the seat is curving inwards is because part of my spine is sitting in the cut-out, and the bit above it is bearing on the top part of the seat. (The old seat has a similar curve, but doesn't have a cut-out.) So I have the choice of extending the seat, which feels comfortable in a static test, but soon causes neck pain when riding, as I'm bearing force on my neck with the top of the seat. Alternatively, shortening it spares the neck, but to put the supportive part of the top of the seat between my shoulders means the general seat shape is wrong, and it's non-specifically uncomfortable with tension in my upper back.
Next step is to find a piece of suitably rigid sheet material and gaffer-tape it over the cut-out to confirm this hypothesis. Suspect I'm either going to have to molish some sort of plug for the cut-out, or bodge the old seat onto the new brackets somehow...
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Because all the best ergonomic bodges involve Sun workstations[1], I tried gaffer taping a sturdy metal mousemat[2] over the hole, and adding a little foam to form a channel...
(https://www.ductilebiscuit.net/embedding/yacf/20240331_bodylink_seat_mousemat_bodge.jpg)
Vast improvement, in that after 30km I'm not eyeing up the codeine, and the primary seat grumbles were effectively displaced to the lower part (I think because the foam made the seat a little too upright). So I think that proves that the cut-out is the problem. Comparing with the old seat, I think what's really needed is something to bridge the hole with a shallow channel, rather than a flat surface. I think that puts us into the realm of serious molishment, rather than just taping random stuff on.
So I've ordered some fresh resin (my last bottle having set into a solid mass) and will see if I can reproduce the profile of the appropriate part of the old seat in fibreglass. Bonus points for meeting up with the existing mounting holes.
[1] There's a SparcStation crammed full of SCSI disks under barakta's desk that serves as a foot rest.
[2] Of the type used by early optical mice, which required a surface with a grid pattern to operate.
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[1] There's a SparcStation crammed full of SCSI disks under barakta's desk that serves as a foot rest.
Be careful with that... SCSI devices tend(ed) to draw blood, or at least refuse to work properly unless a sacrifice of blood was made.
Ah, days of yore when I was a PFY and still had to wrangle the hardware for my databases myself.
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[1] There's a SparcStation crammed full of SCSI disks under barakta's desk that serves as a foot rest.
Be careful with that... SCSI devices tend(ed) to draw blood, or at least refuse to work properly unless a sacrifice of blood was made.
Ah, days of yore when I was a PFY and still had to wrangle the hardware for my databases myself.
One year barakta and I gave Postman Piers (who at that point may still have been working as BOFH) a birthday present consisting of a Big Scary Knife™; some candles; a plastic goat[1] and a SCSI terminator from a Box of Old Computer Stuff.
This was an improvement on the previous years effort, which was a thoroughly obsolete developer's guide to Windows error messages.
[1] Have you ever tried to buy a toy goat? I eventually ended up with a whole set of farm animals from the Early Learning Centre.
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[1] There's a SparcStation crammed full of SCSI disks under barakta's desk that serves as a foot rest.
Be careful with that... SCSI devices tend(ed) to draw blood, or at least refuse to work properly unless a sacrifice of blood was made.
Ah, days of yore when I was a PFY and still had to wrangle the hardware for my databases myself.
What's wrong with SCSI? Just write out a list of the devices on each bus and which ID number they have been assigned then check the jumpers / dip switches. Then make sure you haven't put a SCSI 2 or SCSI 3 device with an ID of 14 on a SCSI 1 bus that only supports IDs 0-7 :facepalm: ;)
Oh and make sure you have the right sort of connectors on the ribbon cable and have set the termination switch on the last device and none of the others.
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I still remember Piers's face when he saw the knife, then candle, then he saw the goat and got the joke. We then had to explain it all to Yoav who was being Yoavish and didn't know the reference.
Am still proud of the Windows Error Messages present. I am awful at present buying so that was quite skill for me.