Author Topic: Ready the flashing lights, party poppers, dancing girls and brass band...  (Read 86290 times)

redshift

  • High Priestess of wires
    • redshift home
Hello Becky, long time no see!
L
:)
Windcheetah No. 176
The all-round entertainer gets quite arsey,
They won't translate his lame shit into Farsi
Somehow to let it go would be more classy…

Quickest and easiest idea for a drag brake is an old fashioned ratchet gear changer linked to the rear brake, with some ingenuity with cable runs the fitting position is versatile as well

On my old trice, I used this as a parking brake and it was fitted on the lower cross bar of the bars, but you can put it where you like, I have even seen one on the back of the seat!

They are often available from old spares bins


tonycollinet

  • No Longer a western province of Númenor

It doesn't work very well as a drag brake due to the lack of weight on the back wheel.
It takes a fine balance to stop the back wheel from just skidding while getting any type of braking action.
It will stop me but I need well over 10x the distance of the front brakes.


I've got the standard V brake on the sprint as the rear parking brake. It works pretty well as a drag brake.


Have fun choosing. Kevin is great company.

Such fun!  Very glad to hear about imminent trike ownership!

I've got a feeling Barakta will take to it nicely.  Remember MFWHTBAB? He'd not ridden more than a few miles in the previous year, and after our spin along the planets, in spite of his knee pain, he's having all sorts of KMX upgrading thoughts, and when we were deciding what to do last Sunday, he said it was a shame my trike wasn't over there so we could go and ride together.... 

On the brake front, the only info I can offer is that my Catrike has front brakes only (so can be operated with one lever, but I get the point about being able to alternate to cool them), and I've never really put it in a position where I've panicked, and that's up to a max descent speed of 40mph. Choosing the right roads to let fly on is the key I think.
If I had a baby elephant, it could help me wash the car. If I had a car.

See my recycled crafts at www.wastenotwantit.co.uk

Charlotte

  • Dissolute libertine
  • Here's to ol' D.H. Lawrence...
    • charlottebarnes.co.uk
You can organise the brass band and dancing girls   ;)

*gets on the phone*

Hello?
I wonder if you can help me...?


:D
Commercial, Editorial and PR Photographer - www.charlottebarnes.co.uk

You can organise the brass band and dancing girls   ;)

*gets on the phone*

Hello?
I wonder if you can help me...?


:D


I've never been myself, but I'm imagining that lot turning up in Little Thetford, and smiling....
If I had a baby elephant, it could help me wash the car. If I had a car.

See my recycled crafts at www.wastenotwantit.co.uk

clarion

  • Tyke
Haha!  Love Is The Sweetest Thing.
Getting there...

Love to see Kevins face   
                                         ;D
You can organise the brass band and dancing girls   ;)

*gets on the phone*

Hello?
I wonder if you can help me...?


:D


I've never been myself, but I'm imagining that lot turning up in Little Thetford, and smiling....
The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves, and wiser men so full of doubt.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
We did the impromptu occupational therapy assessment thing last night, with the aid of the Streetmachine, some pillows, turbo trainer, and a partially-unfolded BSO.

Rumours of barakta's compatibility with bar-end shifters appear to have been exaggerated.  They're just a bit too stiff, even for her right hand - she can get them to work, but not in a way that's particularly compatible with emergency downshifts or long-term avoidance of wrist pain.  Obviously extending the arm to get a bit more mechanical advantage would be an option.

Twist-grip appears to be the better option for the primary shifter, then.  Preferably a nice long grippy one, or one where there's a thick end, preferably at the thumb-end of the bar (which I think means mounting it upside-down - likely to be ugly cable wise, but not impossible).  Certain triangular grip-shift controlled gearing becomes an increasingly attractive option to everyone but my wallet, which is weeping in the corner.

Trigger shifters are still firmly in the "haha no" category: she can work them fine, but only in one direction.  Adding leverage to the thumb side of a trigger shifter seems silly, as it completely wrecks the ergonomics.  Stick to bar-ends for that.

I assume electronic shifting is the sort of unobtanium that makes expensive German hub gears seem sensible?  Unless I want to get fettly with some beefy R/C servos and a microcontroller, I suppose.  Anyone ever tried that?  Did it work?

Things look better in the brake lever department.  No problems with my bog standard 4-finger Tektro levers, given a bit of twiddling of the reach adjustment screw.  She can even sort-of work them with her left hand, though the issue there is that her fingers are permanently bent, so there's a fiddly shoulder-based unhook-from-bar-and-hook-round-the-lever motion that isn't compatible with braking in a hurry.  Might be viable for a rear brake used drag-brake style, though.


In other news, I got a garish email from Kevin including directions, which I diligently followed on Google streetview with a view to creating a waypoint on my trusty Garmin.  Of course, what I'd overlooked is that OpenStreetMap is frequently contributed to by the sort of people who have beards and a penchant for unconventional means of transportation...   ;D

what I'd overlooked is that OpenStreetMap is frequently contributed to by the sort of people who have beards and a penchant for unconventional means of transportation...    


        Yup, that'd be me then  ;D

PS: I reckon once Kevin has sat and scratched his head he will come up with solutions, he's like that.
                                      :thumbsup:


 
  
 
The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves, and wiser men so full of doubt.

I'd like to add another vote for bar end levers. Apart from offering the cheap home-fettled 'fatgrip' option, they have one truly great advantage over twist grips. That is being able to tell which gear you are in, just by the angle of the lever. Brilliant when it is dark (and you wouldn't be able to see the gear indicators on twist grips).

Some twist shifters work by rotating the whole grip - the shifter can connect to a sleeve under the grip, so you can twist the whole thing, motorbike-throttle-style.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
I'd like to add another vote for bar end levers. Apart from offering the cheap home-fettled 'fatgrip' option, they have one truly great advantage over twist grips. That is being able to tell which gear you are in, just by the angle of the lever. Brilliant when it is dark (and you wouldn't be able to see the gear indicators on twist grips).

After getting into night-riding and discovering this problem, I solved it for the trigger shifters on my Dawes by dismantling the indicator part[1] and applying a sliver of retro-reflective tape to the needles.  Another piece of tape along the side of the window as a reference, and they're impossible to miss by the light of a head-torch on minimum brightness.

I don't think it would be rocket surgery to devise something similar for twist-grips, though I agree it is an inherent advantage of bar-ends.

Either way, that's very much a secondary concern to ergonomics.  There are an awful lot of things that barakta *can* do that she shouldn't do very often for risk of long-term damage, especially where hands and wrists and shoulders are involved.


Quote
Some twist shifters work by rotating the whole grip - the shifter can connect to a sleeve under the grip, so you can twist the whole thing, motorbike-throttle-style.

That sounds ideal, yes.



[1] Caution: trigger shifter position indicators may contain pingfuckits or traces of pingfuckits.  Do this on a well-lit tidy workbench, not a speckled living room carpet.

Quote
Some twist shifters work by rotating the whole grip - the shifter can connect to a sleeve under the grip, so you can twist the whole thing, motorbike-throttle-style.

That sounds ideal, yes.

If that turns out to be a required solution, I think I have some NOS shifters of this type innaboxsumwhere
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Bar-ends can be operated using one's whole hand, which is what I do when I'm feeling lazy.  Most, if not all, current twist-grip shifters seem to have a twisty bit ~2" long, which may be sub-optimal.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Bar-ends can be operated using one's whole hand, which is what I do when I'm feeling lazy.

I wasn't entirely clear: that's the only way she can get them to move, and not very easily on account of the wrist.  Her 'thumb' (being a pollicised index finger) strength is minimal.

andygates

  • Peroxide Viking
Bar end shifters are also easy to extend, with a bit of stuff and some bolts (or a bit of pipe, some araldite to pot it, and a comfy grip to cover).  That'll allow a very low-force and imprecise hand to work a fairly small stiff controller.
It takes blood and guts to be this cool but I'm still just a cliché.
OpenStreetMap UK & IRL Streetmap & Topo: ravenfamily.org/andyg/maps updates weekly.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
or a bit of pipe, some araldite to pot it, and a comfy grip to cover

That's pretty much what I was thinking.  Though I'd probably go for some sort of bolt-based attachment, because Kim's First Law Of Fettling states that if you're using adhesives, you're probably doing it wrong.

...Actually, I reckon you could molish a pretty reasonable removable extension by cutting the pipe in half for the inch or so that covers the shifter, then filling the gap with appropriately-shaped wedges and securing it in place with a couple of those decent symmetrical-action hose clips you use for high-pressure fuel lines.  Just add foam/heatshrink/bar tape.

I'm leaning towards a possibly inverted, possibly full-length (indexed) grip shifter for the rear mech and an extended bar-end (friction) for the front, but we'll see how it goes on Tuesday when she actually tries to ride something.

andygates

  • Peroxide Viking
That all sounds wise. 

If you've got a funny space to wedge, then wrapping the lever in clingfilm, half-potting it, then re-filming and re-potting the other side works nicely.  A bar-end lever shouldn't be too funny though: I just like epoxy. 

Adhesives are one thing, reversibility is a whole other. 
It takes blood and guts to be this cool but I'm still just a cliché.
OpenStreetMap UK & IRL Streetmap & Topo: ravenfamily.org/andyg/maps updates weekly.

~You are doing it all wrong, if you are fettling with bolts and adhesives.

Cable ties, that's teh way to go.

joking aside, I was thinking of a handle ripped off a 'good grips' peeler or knife.  weatherproof, good grip, comfy, etc
<i>Marmite slave</i>

CrinklyLion

  • The one with devious, cake-pushing ways....
I have absolutely no idea about all this technical gubbins.  But I can do party poppers....


It's ver' exciting :)

My first bike with gears (all five of them) had a down tube shifter that had been extended by cable tying on the handle of a tooth brush, to the lever.

I then had 'indexing' in that we put cable ties round the toptube in line with the gears!!

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Cable ties, that's teh way to go.

You're absolutely right.

The YACF department of Bastard Disability Mods From Hell proudly presents:

Spork'n'Shift™



Quote from: British Journal of Occupational Therapy
What could possibly go wrong?

Quote from: Applied Ergonomics
Ain't no spack-handles on that bitch!  FUCK YEAH!!!

  ;D   :demon:

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
*giggles* at Kim's latest fettleage.

I'd like to say how lovely it has been to see people's kind comments, generosity and sharing of ideas.  I'm full of the ill so haven't had much coherent to say other than I hope I'm better enough to make the most of my visit to DTek on Tuesday.

CrinklyLion

  • The one with devious, cake-pushing ways....
The YACF department of Bastard Disability Mods From Hell proudly presents:

Spork'n'Shift™
Quote from: British Journal of Occupational Therapy
What could possibly go wrong?
Quote from: Applied Ergonomics
Ain't no spack-handles on that bitch!  FUCK YEAH!!!

  ;D   :demon:

C|N>K

(In a staffroom, with people watching and wondering what I was snorting unattractively about and everything!)

clarion

  • Tyke
Set the coordinates and shift to Spork Drive

Aye aye, Captain!
Getting there...