plites » Recumbents

Mechanical coniptions

peter — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 11:47:06 +0000

Both our bikes agree kept in good condition, by me, and in the run up to our tour I went through each from stem to stern, bearings, cables, changers, tyres lights were all checked, serviced or replaced as necessary. Both bikes had new chains, that is on chain for Jane’s bike and three for the recumbent. Jane’s bike had me chainrings and a cluster. Mine were OK. We carried Prolink chain lube and cleaned the chains with a rag before applying the Prolink. If I can do this at the end of a day I wipe any excess off the chain the next morning. As we covered some grubby ground I often word the chains down at the end of the day and kept an eye on the hockey wheels to make sure they didn’t get too grungy.

Jane had new brake blocks before the trip and in the Avid 1Ds they seem tho require little adjustment. My recumbent has BB7 disks and if used heavily I find they need adjusting Evey fee hundred km. I don’t know how long I’ve had this set of pads and carried a spare pair, just in case.

We probably had about seven kilos in each of our rear pannier bags and discovered that the rough roads caused welds to fail on both racks.

We both ran Schwalbe Durano tyres and have found them to be a reliable, comfortable choice. We carried folding spare tyres and tubes. We had no punctures in or time away.

Big bag for the new seat

peter — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 04:08:39 +0000

Riding the new seat on the FF to work necessitates the ability to carry a decent sized bag. For some years a beloved Timbuktu courier bag (70 bagel size?) has carted all manner of gear on all manner of riders really well. That bag doesn’t easily adapt yo the narrow profile of the new seat.

A large giveaway laptop backpack one of my daughters bought home from a placement looked about the right size, shape and volume. With the addition of a seat pocket at the top and a bit of webbing for additional security it looks like it will do the job well, apart from being black. This latter problem means I am not as conspicuous as I would like in commuting traffic and will be solved by a reflective vest adaptation very soon.

New carbon seat

peter — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 03:58:26 +0000

A mate made me a new carbon fibre seat for the FF. Getting it up and running has been a bit of a saga as the frame was not really built for this type of seat. However, with a bit of cutting, pasting and unpicking it now seems well set up. The new config sits me about 30mm closer the the ground but about the same distance from the pedals. Handle bars could now be adjusted. It is very comfortable, although 90km is the longest ride I have done in one go so far.

Solving the squeeking was a minor saga and the peleton of squirrels accompanied our rides in Bright last week.

Cranking up a new transmission

peter — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 03:44:04 +0000

My little FF recumbent is now well into the forty thousands of kilometers. Like grandpa’s axe a lot of stuff has worn out and been replaced over time, but the basic configuration has remained the same.

Recently, faced with having to replace the big 67 tooth chainring (Oui, soixante sept!) at about $2 a tooth, I did some thinking.

The big ring is good but brings problems as it requires tricky front derailleur set up and depending on the range of other chainrings, clusters and the rear derailleur tricky chain management is necessary. A quick change to the big ring and big sprocket results in a very big stop, and possibly ugly repairs to der and hangers.

I’ve installed front 53-39-30 rings and a new Greenspeed

GS capreo 9-32 cluster 2 leading and trailing spokes x 32

rear hub, which takes a Capreo cluster.

It rides beautifully and I am loving the range of gears available on the large and granny rings. Before I could only access a couple on each ring.