A what? A Brompton romance rekindled !!
Purchased in 2018, the Old Grey Brompton has sat in the shed for quite a while, used only for local shopping trips and other short trips. Initially it got quite a workout on a couple of overnight camping trips plus being with us for many caravan trips where it was used to explore towns – and go shopping. With my adoption of recumbents and e-bikes, Old Grey sat in it’s niche in the shed, not forgotten but little used. That all changed this month for 2 reasons.
Firstly, I have signed up for a folding bike ride hosted by Bicycle Tasmania. The ride is mainly aimed at Bromptons but other folders are welcome. It starts in Hobart and is not a long ride – out along the Hobart to Glenorchy Cycleway to the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) for coffee.
It does, however, mean I have to awaken various riding muscles to enable me to have some chance of keeping up with the others.
Anyway, the Old Greys (bike and human) continued the good work from last month and added further weeks of prep – we had until the 27th April, the day we head south.
Secondly, I have had disappointing news re my lung condition. Finally, after getting a GP interested in finding out what is wrong, I had a CT scan. That told us there are non-fixable issues in there. Not too bad but it means my cough cannot be fixed but cycling is good for it. So, it’s more aerobic to cycle without a motor and I will do a bit more.
For the first week or two on Brompton I stayed local. The weather was a bit off with the second month of Autumn involving some interesting wind and shower activity. I thought it best to build up to ride into strong headwinds and so dodged the worst of the weather. While in this initial stage I did notice some things about Old Grey (the bike), most worrying of which was a clicking from the Mountain Drive. I thought I had fixed it with a thickish grease but the noise came back and I injected more. My thinking here was maybe the grease got into the high range components first and then moved into the low range – so maybe more grease was needed. Once again sound deadening occurred.
Everything else I noticed was all about how convenient the bike is, how good it is to ride and how well it is built. When I installed the new tyres last month I noticed the PSI rating for them is 70-110 PSI. I didn’t do that with the old tyres as I regularly inflated them to 60psi only. Why? Don’t know. The bike does roll better at the 90 PSI currently in use. 110 PSI seems a lot – would my old rims be able to cope? Perhaps I will try 100 PSI as a good compromise.
After a bit of riding I decided to use the portability of the bike to pop it into the car and take it to Latrobe – the start of the NW Coastal Trail – and see how things go.
Latrobe to Don
An ‘Out and Back’ ride with a small detour at Don.
The attached video covers most of the way out and gives an idea of the scenery. Strangely the YouTube Embed function isn’t working today so —> Click : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InpkXkFdBqU to access the video.
Old Grey (Bike) went fine until the 15k mark. Here the trail gets steeper and I snuck into low range. The mountain drive sounded great in low and we climbed the trails all the way up to the Don railway (a community railway) terminus. Once there I headed along the other side of the Don River looking for a cafe that, it turns out, is no longer. Here I put the drive back up to high range and the noises began! By the time I got the bike back to Latrobe high range was bad. It was no longer a gentle click but a nasty grinding noise. Something has to be done
Bottom Bracket Work
Once home I checked the bottom bracket and the noise and vibrations were indeed coming from there. The Mountain Drive seems to have shat itself. YouTube advice on how to fix is limited. Advice from Schlumpf is of the ‘return to base’ nature. What to do?
After some research and with the idea to simplify things, I decided to pull the Mountain Drive out and re-install the original Brompton BB cassette and cranks. This would mean a return to walking up steep hills but that’s what Bromptoneers do!
Right, that decided – the second choice is whether to use the local bike shop or DIY. Back to YouTube to double-check the process and the decision was made that I would DIM (Do It Myself). What special tools are needed? A crank puller, magic link pliers and a bottom bracket tool were what I didn’t have. Well, I should have had the first two but it’s looking likely they disappeared with the BikeE when it was stolen.
A visit to a couple of bike shops uncovered the fact that they don’t stock such tools anymore. Luckily a wait for delivery of an interstate order was not needed as Pete the Cyclist, a block away, had them and lent them to me.
Without further delay the Mountain Drive was extracted from the bottom bracket. It’s now in the shed and there it will stay until one day I am bored and decide to pull it apart to see how it works and what went wrong.
In the meantime the original 44 toothed chainring and cassette is back and working well – and silently.
Bottom gear is a bit high – perhaps a 39 tooth chainring is needed?
The month continued well. Goal reached again and I felt ready for the group ride.
The Flight of the Folders – A Bicycle Network organised Hobart ride
Not knowing where to park in Hobart these days, I parked at Cornelian Bay and cycled along the Intercity Cycleway to the start. There a group of folding bicycle owners was forming up.
We exchanged greetings and names and settled to wait for another couple to arrive. While waiting I eyed off the bikes noting two titanium models (half the weight of mine), a couple with motors (Swytch) and a non-Brompton folder with a serious e-motor. Oh dear – would I really be tail-end Charlie. Whoops – it’s not called that now – oh yes, Sweep.
A couple of large wheeled non-folding e-bikes stopped by and I was relieved to find out they were Bicycle Network riders off on their own ride. At 10am we took off, following a briefing given by the ride leader. There were 8 riders including two people from Melbourne – members of the Melbourne Brompton Junction shop. Dayna was riding the fairly new 20” wheel Brompton which looks bigger all over – a 16” Brompton on Viagra.
The first section of the ride is quite flat up ’til you get past the Creek Road exit when a longish drag up an incline occurs. I was pleased to find myself keeping up with the group – training kicking in! The busy road crossings in Moonah and Glenorchy were as dodgy as ever – the cars not appreciating cyclists needing to cross. Thankfully all were negotiated without incident.
You will notice – no pictures. I was more interested in riding with the group than causing issues stopping to take pictures. Also, I had the 360 camera with me but when I fired it up the aperture setting was wrong. Things obviously got screwed when I connected to the app to fix the file dates and it gave me a firmware update. There appear to be several new items in the Menu which I needed reading glasses to navigate but the glasses were in the car (!!) so no video either.
The ride progressed, I managed to keep abreast of things and we finally stopped for coffee in Moonah – MONA being closed on a Tuesday.
From the coffee stop it was a cruise back to the end running past Cornelian Bay where I peeled off before going to find Mrs C and our hosts for our Hobart stay. (We had lunch at the New Town Nursery Cafe).
It was a great day for the ride and I really enjoyed using the cycleway, recalling many rides along it from my Hobart life. Even the Bridge to Bridge ride when I tore a thigh muscle and those rides after I recovered from some serious tendon damage and the knee would play up after 27 kilometres exactly! Ah – those were the days.
Anyway, luckily Dayna produced a video of her ride for the day. It covered her trip through Hobart, meeting up with us, the group ride and their return along the Hobart Rivulet track. Here it is – I do make a cameo appearance or two so look for the rider with a red front, a black back and green helmet.
Click here : https://youtu.be/U6A8yTWhHVQ?si=iaTchg6IV-eZwRA6
All in all, another enjoyable cycling month. Although there was some windy and wettish weather, the month as a whole was a surprisingly good Indian Summer thanks to a “Blocking High” so much discussed on weather reports it became a “thing” with a life of it’s own. This High forced approaching Lows to go south of Tassie leaving us in a northerly airstream bringing warm mainland air down to us.
It’s all due to crash next week.
’til next time ………………
Tony's Tasmanian Cycling Blog 