The Four Spring Lake ride was the “special” ride of the week. Most other kilometers were gained riding to Bishopsbourne and the Deloraine Friday ride.
Just a few “top-up” rides occurred on Sunday when I rode them on K’s Bike E recumbent. K & D came up to Longford and stayed in the caravan park in their new caravan on a shake-down trip. The rather lengthy Bike E was brought up lying on the bed in the van. Luckily an old blanket was under it as the rather lengthy chain left a bit of oil decorating it. On Sunday it looked like rain and we thought it would be best to get the bike under cover as it had been kicked off the bed the previous evening and stood in the corner outside for making a mess.
The plan was to put it in my garage and so I walked down to the caravan park on Sunday morning to pick it up. I pushed it out of the park, away from prying eyes and then took off. After my wobbly attempts at Huonville I was expecting another round of difficult “take offs” but things went quite well. I could have started in the caravan park after all and not looked a complete novice! The recumbent feels very strange after a “normal” bike and, when pedalling, it doesn’t feel very lively. I used, I think, 4 of the gears on the derailleur but didn’t try to change gear in the hub (it is a 3 (hub) x 7 (derailleur) SRAM gearing system). Steering the device is odd because you can’t lean into turns in the same way as on a “normal”. On a tight turn you have to use the trick of flicking the steering the opposite way to the way you want to go and use the “fall” in the other direction to go into the turn. Or, if that doesn’t work, panic brake, put your feet down, lift the bike off the ground and turn until it points the right way and then pedal on – but that’s not a cool look.
On Sunday afternoon I played with the gearing and found the hub gears do actually select gears 1, 2 and 3. Gear 1 – the lowest – can only be used if you keep the twist grip changer hard on the low position – probably due to slackness in the cable. There is no more adjustment at the twist-grip end so this will take a little bit of work to sort out. More of a test ride showed that, when used with the lowest hub gear setting, low on the derailleur results in a lot of pedal twiddling or, in cycling terms, a very high cadence – so hill climbing on the bike should be possible. That’s good because it would be an awkward lump of a thing to push up a hill.
K and I plan to spend a morning with the Bike E tomorrow (Monday) and see if the working of the gears can be improved. Then it goes back to bed for the journey south to Huonville.
And so another week in cycling draws to an end ………..
Totals for week :
Total for week : 109 k Total for year : 1,492 k
Vivente : 81 k Brompton : 17 k Bike E : 11 k
Tony's Tasmanian Cycling Blog 