The first ride was rather short. Only around the block. I attached a flashing headlamp to the front with a bunch of rubber bands and a red lamp to the back with a bolt. Then, I put on an orange rain suit and I was off! I had a couple of things to get used to. First, the turning radius is more like a car than a bike (very large). Second, since I adjusted the front crank tube to be shorter, I found my chain was now a tad bit too long. That resulted in some mild gear skipping. Also, after my short ride, I found it tempting to go full speed which made me quite winded! Gotta pace myself!
Fortunately, when it comes to adjustments, the front tube holding the crank can be put in or out and is held in place with a pair of hex bolts. The bike also came with a chain tool that enables easy removal of chain links. It works well. Unfortunately, it does not come with a quick-link to put the two ends of the chain back together! So, I went off to my local bike store with a sample of chain. After $3 for the quick link and an upgraded bike light (impulse purchase), I was back in business!
Time for a "milk run" test. Literally, to get a gallon of milk and see what other items I can return with. It's about 4 miles as a total trip. Just like the night before, it's a calm moonless night, about 20 degrees with some snow still on the roadways. Not much traffic. For clothing, I decided on sneakers, two pairs of socks, one pair of Jeans, covered with a pair of rain-suit pants. For upper body, two t-shirts, a polyester sports shirt, wool sweater, cotton coat and the orange rain-suit top. For hands, some good leather gloves. For my head, a cotton ski-mask and a safety face-shield I normally use when I'm doing metal work. On the back, a backpack, bike cable lock and some bungee cords to secure it to the rear rack.
Temperature wise, the outfit was just right. The face shield and rain suit made windchill a non-issue. When I was too warm, face shield goes up. When too cold, face shield goes down. As a technique to regulate my temperature and deflect windchill, it worked great! The shield did ice up due to my breath. Fortunately, the grocery store was warm enough to rid the lens of ice. On the way back, I developed the technique of pulling my face mask up to deflect my breath when the shield was down. This helped quite a bit. Temperature wise, the whole outfit was almost perfect! As for being winded, the first part of the journey was the worst since I was rather enthusiastic on how fast I could go so I tended to pedal too fast. Eventually, I found using the gears to maintain a steady crank force and rate rather than a steady speed was the best way to pedal. The ride became almost relaxing!
Along the way, I found drivers were very respectful, waiting to go around and I even got a few waves along the way from people walking. I was an instant low-key celebrity! When I arrived at the store, I cabled the trike to a shopping-cart rack, left the orange rain gear with the bike and returned to being dressed just like everyone else. The only unusual incident on the way back was the upper chain tube ziptie not being able to hold the chain tube in place. It kept working it's way to the front sprocket where it would get caught in the front crank gearing. Ah, if only I had some duct tape with me! Instead, I had some bungee cord that I used to keep the chain-guide tube against the central tube so the tube wouldn't work it's way up quite as fast. The field-fix wasn't great but it worked. I found I could go slow without the tube working forward but only in the lowest front gear. But hey, slow-go beats no-go! So, I made it back under my own power. After a glass of milk and a cookie, I considered my nightly bike adventure complete!
I now am questioning the need for a velo shell at all for winter triking. I found I don't need front fenders for the tires. In fact, I found with the face shield, rain suit and clothing layers I don't really need to be shielded from the wind either! (the face shield makes a HUGE difference) For rain, I think there may still be an advantage to an overhead cover. However, for a winter excursion I think a shell might be more bother than benefit.
