Winter bike wash

After my last winter trip, I noticed the bike had quite a bit of salty dirt from it's travels through the snow and slush. Since salt and metal typically don't get along very well, something had to be done! Fortunately, I had a garden sprayer that I use to water my plants during the summer. After using about a gallon of plain warm water to spray it down, the bike looks much better. Hopefully, by washing away the salts, the frame and other parts won't rust away. As for drying, I simply leave it in the garage to drip dry. Fortunately, my garage is dry and seems to stay just above freezing so the water will eventually evaporate. Ah, if only my car were small enough to wash off after each of it's winter trips.

More winter mods

The advantages of limiting extra structure are significant. Structure adds cost, instability and weight. However, the rainsuit way is not problem free either. There are two main problems with the rain suit approach.

First, it's inconvenient to put on and does add some minor friction to pedaling. That, I can't do anything about.

Second, the safety visor I use has a fogging issue. However, there are helmets and visors that have built-in defoggers. They are expensive but they do exist. A visor system would require quite a bit of 12V power. So, I would need to mount a 12V battery to the bike. If I had such a 12v battery, it would also make sense to power the other accessory lights from it as well.

This approach is not beyond imagination but it's currently beyond my pocket book. So, for now, I'm staying with the original visor. While I'm underway, I just flip up a bit for the wind to carry away my exhaled breath.

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.