Author: antc1946

Born in 1946 I learnt to cycle about 10 years later. On a bike with rods connecting brake levers to the brakes - anyone remember those? I emigrated to Australia (from the UK) in 1974 and moved to Tasmania in 1984. Bicycles were in my life for most of that time although sometimes they were replaced by motorised two wheels for a bit more excitement. On reaching 70 I decided to stick to pedal power but in 2019 an electric recumbent made an appearance. it's now 2023 and I have 3 bikes. 2 e-recumbents and the Brompton.

July 2026

Foggy mornings and plenty of rain in early July but I managed to catch up later and made the 250 kilometre monthly total once more.

I recently found this “Career” screen in Ride with GPS. I started logging rides in 2017 but didn’t fully use it until 2018. Now, in 2026, I find I have logged 31 thousand kilometres ridden and climbed 209 thousand metres on various bikes and trikes. Wow !! That’s a surprise.

That’s the Stats – now, what happened in July:

Minor Flooding

There were minor flood warnings for the South Esk so I went and had a look.

One track leading to the South Esk
Definitely difficult to pass
The boat ramp has disappeared

General

It was time for short rides mostly in the afternoons once the fog had cleared. A mixture of Brompton and E-City were used with one 40k recumbent ride. Although we are having a warmer than usual winter the air is cold enough at 4 to 5°C to still freeze my fingers, so the electric gloves have been used; a lot. They work well.

E-City Issue

I rode the E-City on the Armstrong Lane loop. I started one afternoon once the fog had cleared. As I rode along I got to thinking about how much easier it would be to get the bike in the car if I removed the front mudguard (fender). With that thought in mind something went odd with the front of the bike. A vibration kicked in.

That was annoying as the day was drawing in and I had left my flashing light at home. The lights on the City are OK but motorists know what a flashing light means. Anyway I had to pull over and sort the issue. It seemed to be mud/gravel on the front tyre contacting the mudguard. I cleaned the crap off but a vibration remained. I then tried to raise the mudguard and this half fixed the problem. Crikey – the sun is getting low! I thought I would pull off the mudguard and leave it behind a bush for later pickup. That didn’t work as I didn’t have the right tool for the job. After several more minutes of adjusting the guard (which fits very closely to the tyre) I managed to find a position which didn’t involve tyre/guard interaction.

It was enough to get me home before it got too dark and the guard was removed the next morning.

River Road

Another day I took the Brompton to River Road, Deloraine. The road has some interesting hills and I wanted to see how the 39 tooth chainring has affected my ability to climb them. I regularly cycled this route in pre-COVID times with a small group from Deloraine. It was this ride that persuaded me to fit the mountain drive to the Brompton as the standard (low) gearing was too high for me.

Today the Brompton decided to have gearing problems. Neither hub nor derailleur gear changing was happening properly. No matter, I did the ride and found I was able to climb all the hills without walking. That was pleasing considering I am 8 years older than when mountain drive was fitted.

However the stiff and error-prone gear changing resulted in a very sore thumb and wrist (arthritis). This means I have to do some proper work on the Brompton gear changing mechanism – it shouldn’t be this stiff and the gears should just slot in easily.

My initial examination showed the hub gear change cable was too tight and I eventually found the sweet spot for accurate gear changing. The derailleur was not so easy. It seems OK then plays up some more. I persevered until end July tinkering with the set up as it was but things kept getting out of sync.

Hint : in August I took the assemblies to pieces and cleaned. A report for next month!

Bottle and Can recycling

There has not been much about for a while. More items were available later in the month but nothing was recycled at the recycle station in the month. Has this revenue stream dried up on me? Shouldn’t think so – it’s just the bad weather.

General

I spent some time trying out recording using a smart gimbal with my camera attached. It’s certainly not as easy as firing up a 360 degree camera! I managed a few segments OK on the River Road ride but then, as usually happens, I couldn’t get it to do what I want. I set the gimbal up OK one time and the next time the same sequence of buttons does something different. Well, I guess that isn’t true, it’s more likely that I am not hitting the buttons in the same sequence.

Whatever, I’m having little success and watching far too many YouTube experts telling me how easy it is. I hope by Spring it will be mastered.

’til next time