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| Aka Riding and Retail (therapy). What were you expecting? :) After a long work month (160 hours!), a Saturday of not much, a Sunday of not much more, I was feeling like playing a bit on my day off. ( So I did. :) )*The outdoor clothing companies seem to encourage stealth pedestrians which is one of the reasons I wanted more (and heavier duty) front lighting. | |
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| Last night I had the somewhat disturbing experience of the dynamo not engaging properly on the wheel due to the wet conditions. ie I was riding on dark wet roads with no headlight.
I got home and experimented by rotating the dynamo mounting so that it is more centred on the tyre. This morning the roads were still wet but the dynamo seemed to be working fine.
It does raise the possibility of having to adjust the dynamo mounting whenever I change the type of tyre used on the rear wheel. Mind you I've only done that once so far so not really a big deal. | |
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| Yesterday Fuse Recumbents serviced the trike for me and remounted the fairing (including a new layer of plastic to keep it from scratching the paintwork again). While that was happening I took a long walk down t Commonwealth Place to see the Dreams on Wheels cycling exhibition put on by the Danish Embassy. Many cool bikes and presentations on how to get cycling infrastructure right. Today I slept in and then rode up to see ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dalekboy and shazgirl in the afternoon. Much pleasant conversation ensued before encroaching darkness turned me into a pumpkin. The fairing isn't folding as far forward which is making mounting/dismounting awkward. Will have to look at adjustments for that but not sure what will work best at the moment. | |
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| Oh look, its shiny and go-faster red. (snaffled from 'Bent Rider Online).
In the cold light of day however I have to point out that the "NT" in the QNT stands for "narrow track" which means that I might find the cockpit a wee bit cramped.
I'm comfortable in the Arcadia but I've previously found Trisleds and the Greenspeed X5 to be tight fits.
But still... WANT! | |
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| Many of my recent flats have been due to the parlous state of my tyres, and replacements for the Scorcher TRs have been well nigh impossible to lay hands on. Thus I've been running the current set as long as I could in the hope of getting new ones.
With the trip to Perth coming up later this month, and a possible overnight to Goulburn this long weekend, I bit the bullet this week and ordered a set of whatever was available with kevlar anti-puncture protection.
What I got was a set of Schwalbe Marathons with a few features that I've not seen before such as a reflective strip on the sidewall and directional tread (there's an arrow on the sidewall). I'll install them when I get home (ie when I have access to floor pump). | |
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| Well I've touched up the frame where the fairing was and I am now waiting for it to dry. The touch up paint comes in a little bottle (about the size of nail polish I think) with the brush attached to the lid. Continuuing with the theme of mockery by the rain gods there were a few spits whilst I was cleaning the frame first so I've dragged the trike back inside for this bit. I haven't ridden anywhere this weekend - I felt really tired on Friday night and wasn't much better on Saturday. Speaking of which, apologies to lilysea for my ever so slightly antisocial behaviour at the chinese restaurant. I really should have stuck around but I just wasn't up for it. | |
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| On the weekend I removed the fairing because it is summer. You know the general concept: hot, dry.
Its raining. | |
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| Other than being located in Perth and offering a range of trikes I don't know anything about this recumbent dealer.
Trike 2 looks pretty cheap though. - Tags:friends, trikes
- Mood:awake
 - Music:The Eagles - Life In The Fast Lane
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| The Greenspeed Anura is the first delta (ie two wheels back) trike from Greenspeed. As with my previous review of the WizWheels TerraTrike Cruiser most of the comparisons will be made to my tadpole (ie two wheels front) Greenspeed GT5 because that is what I spend most of my time on.
I really should make one disclaimer: I'm not the target market for the Anura as I'm too much of a go-karting hoon so bear that in mind as you read on.
( LOTS More. With pictures... )
Summary
For a first version the Anura is an impressive debut from Greenspeed and would make an ideal touring/cruising trike. The biggest criticisms I have are the lack of accessories (largely as a result of it being a V1.0 release) and the fact that it isn't really for me. But don't let that stop YOU! | |
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| Just before Christmas I bought a new set of pedals that would enable me to ride safely in normal shoes whenever I needed or wanted to. As mentioned previously I needed to salvage the toe clips from my first set of pedals before upgrading from the second set to the third set just bought. I've just done the upgrade and there are a couple of images behind the cut. ( Of clips and cleats... ) I also removed the fairing for summer today - it had been bouncing around a bit and the mounting on the boom didn't look right anyway. The rubber that kept the metal clear of the boom had slipped so I've got some nasty scratches in my beautiful red powdercoat. Sniff. Boo! :( Michael from Fuse Recumbents was gave me a hand with the pedals (I don't have a thin enough wrench to get at the cranks) and he'll bring some touchup paint next week. Yay! Michael was here to drop off the frog, er, Anura that I'll be reviewing in detail over the coming week. As a teaser there's an image of my GT5 and the Anura after the cut. ( Anura and tadpole side by side... ) | |
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| Finally managed to replace the battery in the cycle computer today. I'm discovering that the livejournal is useful for remembering things like the wheel size when I need to reprogam said computer. Of course not having readings for a couple of weeks means that, officially, I didn't even manage 5000Km this year. At least not according to BikeJournal (where I am also using the arcadiagt5 handle). Whilst I probably did manage 5000KMs it was a lot less than I was hoping for this year (some nasty bouts of flu and the knee didn't help). I'm not sure what to think about riding a quarter of this years total in one month. I have spare tubes again, which is a relief. I've also bought new SPD pedals that I can add toeclips to the other side. Once I've got that set up I'll be able to ride in ordinary shoes as well as the cycling shoes. Trust me on this, toe clips are the minimum for a trike like mine, and clipless better still (the words "leg suck" spring to mind), but there are times when cleated shoes (or sandals) aren't appropriate or necessary. And whilst I was out spending money I bought a new pair of lightweight riding gloves for summer weather. Of course this means that I'm assuming that summer like weather is on the way which is entirely unjustified based on the weather thus far in December. | |
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| I had an excellent ride with a friend yesterday that included Red Hill (featuring a nasty climb followed, naturally, by 30000 Pounds of Bananas style descent) but it seemed like I was struggling in places and the road seemed bumpier than normal.
On returning home (after a brief detour via Koko Blacks. Mmmmmmmmm), the cause proved to be a bulge in the tyre large enough for it to be scraping against the mudguard. I changed it this morning and the ride is much better now. :)
In other news the problems with the knee are lingering but taping it seems to be helping (one nasty twinge yesterday though as I was locking up the trike across the road from Koko Blacks). | |
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| Today on the way to work my bike computer switched over to a less than useful display of 8 rectangles, and none of the buttons would fix it. Having no idea of what to do I rang Michael at Fuse Recumbents who suggested pulling the battery and re-entering the parameters (such as the 1302mm wheel size). Combined with the information I had backed up on Bike Journal this appears to have worked and I haven't lost too much data and can probably recalculate what was lost anyway. Thanks Mike! | |
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| Just sighted on 'Bentrider Online is this entry level recumbent bike for kids. OK, still fairly pricey compared to the mass produced junk seen in places like K-mart etc but an impressve achievement nonetheless at about a quarter of the price of many adult recumbents.
Speaking from experience*, the recumbent grin is a powerful motivator for exercise.
Although, the positive reactions I normally get from kids when I ride past makes me wonder how much jealousy one of these or a KMX kart would cause in a schoolyard...
*Not that I'm complaining but I do occasionally wonder about what happened to those 10 Kilos... | |
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| My primary lighting system is a Busch and Muller dynamo. Now, the normal issue with a dynamo is that you lose your lights when you stop moving. The B & M compensates for this by giving you two lights for the price of one - a halogen fed by the dynamo and a LED fed by a capacitor (in turn charged by the dynamo) that remains lit (if less brightly) when you stop moving.
Well four lights actually - the dynamo feeds front and back. Oh, and the rear light also meets the legal requirements for a rear red reflector. All in all a nice piece of kit.
Guess which bulb has blown at the front? I now light up when I stop and switch off when I start moving...
EDIT: Fixed. I had a somewhat damaged spare front light that I salvaged the globe from... - Tags:trikes
- Location:Canberra
- Mood:amused
 - Music:Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells (Opening Theme)
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| Irony of the day: loaded several new albums into the iPod and was too busy at work to even take the thing out of my pocket.
Amusing 1: Courtesy of rdmasters, the 2007 Ig Nobels. Vanilla from cow dung and viagra helps hamsters recover from jet lag. No, really!
Amusing 2: Riding home in the rain with inappropriate gear and still arriving with dry feet. The fairing rocks! | |
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| First up a visit from the puncture pixies in the form of an arrowhead shaped piece of glass about 7mm at the base. In the rear tyre of course. Fortunately I managed to avoid the use of loud profanities in a public place while changing it (although honesty compels me to admit it was close). Second was the incident that left me with tyre marks on my left arm. Sigh. Its going to be one of those days... | |
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| ...you need to use the brakes at a flat set of stop lights. As in pancake flat.
Funnily enough I'm really hoping for wind change this afternoon before I have to ride home... | |
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