Trike traffic problem

Today, I had a problem. I was going to ride my trike on a relatively busy section of our downtown. (I had to wait quite a while for enough cars to clear to get this photo). The place with the arrow has a store around a corner. Staying close to the side of the road is usually fine except I've noticed cars on this section of the street go around that bend quite fast so they might not see me in time. Although there is a sidewalk, I really don't want to ride on it. Plus, I would have the problem of parking my trike when I got there. So, I had a radical idea. Lock up my trike at a nearby bicycle rack and walk! It's truly amazing how a car centered culture can change a person's thought patterns to make the idea of walking seem so new and revolutionary.

What's a quicklink, and why should I pack one?

Last evening, I was on my way home, gliding down the street when I crossed over some rather rough railroad tracks. This caused the bike to lose the quick link. This is a link I use to adjust the chain if I need to adjust the front chain crank longer or shorter. Since the crank is the way I like it and my legs don't normally fluctuate in size, I didn't think I needed to pack one of these. I would only need one if my original was lost - which unfortunately it was.

After a few minutes of mucking about, thinking of possibly fabricating a temporary link using some wire, one of the city DPW trucks stopped to see if I was OK. He pointed out that he couldn't see me very well and recommended I put on some reflective tape. So, after giving me a rag to clean off my now greasy hands, I decided a field-fix of the chain was not possible. So, I decided to push the bike home. I found I could steer the bike as I pushed it without needing to bend down by attaching a pull-string to one of the steering stalks.

So, next trip I'll be packing some cord, a plastic bag (for greasy broken parts), my multi-tool and of course an extra quick-link!

Going to Walmart

I decided to go to Walmart to pick up a convex mirror to stick on my nearly useless aftermarket bicycle mirror. However,the only way to get one was to go to Wally World via the sidewalks. I really don't like riding on sidewalks since it reinforces the notion that bicycles don't deserve the road. However, I didn't want to chance being run over by a fast driving petrol powered car either. So, I reluctantly took this naughty path to the store. When I arrived, I found that there was no specific place for bicycles to be locked up. However, the area was not totally hostile to cyclists. I found I could lock-up to a bench. Plus, cameras in the parking lot gave me a nice feeling that my bike would be watched over in some minimum way.

Now, let's go northeast a bit.

I decided to go to the discount mall on the northeast side of town. The main mission is to pick up some toggle switches for the signal bar I'll eventually mount to the trike. However, while I'm there, I've also decided to pick up some calories for all these excursions. The dollar store is a perfect place for that kind of thing. The strip-mall destination at first glance is rather challenging since the traffic is usually quite heavy towards this end of town. However, taking back roads allows entrance to the parking lot from the rear.

On flat ground, I can usually sustain around 10mph with no problem but hills and traffic decrease this average speed. At 15 degrees, my face shield does fine shielding me from the wind. However, it fogs up quickly. Plus, there is a surprising bit of salt thrown up by passing cars and also the front wheels since I currently have no fenders. This isn't obvious during the journey but becomes apparent when I bring my face shield home to dry off then see the salt streaks left behind. Also, the bike has quite a few salt streaks on it as well.

I'm eventually building up enough stamina to be able to zig-zag through cross streets to reach "the strip". Here will be various car dealerships, a McDonald's, Taco Bell and the consumer holy-of-holy places, Walmart. Ironically, one popular destination for me doesn't seem to be easily reachable by trike. The bike shop at the edge of town!

Adding some blig for night riding

LED tail lights have really come down in price so there is really no excuse to not have one on a bike or trike for night riding. The photo on the right is a photo looking down on the cargo rack so the mounting arrangement can be seen.

As for the headlight, since there are no front handlebars, there is no really good way of mounting a traditional handlebar mounted light to the front. So, I decided to take a headlamp and modify it to be a bike light. The headlamp is a model that can be tilted. That way, the lamp can be secured by a bunch of rubber bands then tilted forward. The lamp has a "flash mode" which is quite bright. It's so bright that when I pulled up to a store, the clerk at first thought I was riding a snowmobile!

Mounting the speedometer was rather problematic. The cord between the speedometer and the pickup sensor did not allow for enough length to have the sensor in the rear and also have the readout in front. The solution came was to pick up a u-bolt at the local hardware store. This would allow the readout box to be mounted to the front crank tube. Since the wire was too short to reach the back wheel area, the sensor needed to be mounted somewhere around the front-wheel area.

Just as with the other items, there was no ready-made way to mount the pickup sensor. However, I had an idea. To accomplish mounting the sensor to the front wheel, an "L" bracket from the local hardware store was purchased along with a couple of 8-32 machine screws with washers and Nylock nuts (so the screws don't vibrate lose). The nice looking plastic clamp around the right control stick was the unused clamp left over from the rear tail light installed earlier.

Riding downtown

My last journey was west. Now, let's try south. Same mission as before - fetch a backpack of groceries and see what the issues are. The route for this normally has more traffic since it's the heart of downtown. Although there is more traffic, the road is also wider, well lit and is a shorter journey. As before, automobile drivers were respectful.

Having a bike allows me to ride downtown and park for free. Right in front of the store is a perfect place to lock up the bike. It's out of the weather, well lit and even features a robust bar to lock up at. If more people start using trikes, I suspect this premium parking spot will become unavailable. However, for now, it's rare to see bikes tied up in front of the store. I do wonder when this will change.

I only had one slightly annoying incident. I threw the chain off the front sprocket at an intersection since the shifter limit was set improperly. Fortunately, I worked the shifter so the chain worked back onto the sprocket while gliding through the intersection. A slight adjustment on the derailer should take care of that problem.

First road test

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.