Recycled Recumbents

A little while after I started cycling last year I discovered Recumbent Bikes after spotting one on the MEC gear swap. For those who do not know what a Recumbent Bike is, it's basically a bike (or trike) but with a much more relaxed, laid back position. Check the wikipedia article on it for some more info and example pics. The recumbent that I saw was a Actionbent Jetstream.

So you see what I mean by laid back. These type of bikes captivated me for some reason, but I was most taken with the tadpole trikes. I would have visions of touring the world sat back with my head back taking in the scenery not worrying about balance. Just taking it all in. Actionbent actually sells a tadpole trike for a fairly low price of around $1200 USD. It's the T1. They come in suspensions and hard tail models.


I've drooled over it online many times. However it is a bit of a small market, and none of the shops in St. Johns carry any recumbents, so I can't even try one out. There maybe a bit of a novelty factor to it, but I do think I would like to buy one someday. As far as quality goes Actionbent is top notch from what I've read, but they are the cheap guys on the block. Most other companies start their lines at $2000 or so.

There are also many variations on the recumbent.
Short wheel base
Long wheel base
Over seat steering
Under seat steering
Tadpole trike (2 wheels in front)
Delta trike (2 wheels in rear)
Front wheel drive
etc etc etc...

Some examples of recumbent companies I've had a look at are
Actionbent (obviously)
Catrike
Greenspeed
and of course there are more but those are the three ones that I like the best (by looking online only).

Okay so I'm rambling again...
Basically to recap: Recumbents are pretty neat, they're really expensive, and I want one but can't afford one. (The Greenspeed GTO is absolutely heavenly looking...)
But onto the point, and the title. Recycled Recumbents.

Recycled Recumbents is a website I found made by A.D. Carson, and he has given me hope that before the summer is out I will be riding a long wheel based, recumbent bicycle. Why? Not only did he take 2 old steel road bike frames, some old components, and using the Tour Easy (a popular LWB recumbent) as a guide and built this:



But he also did it on an extremely tight budget, and has built up his website with all the instructions, plans, pictures, and info you need to do it yourself. And it's all absoultely free just to spread the love of home building and recumbent riding. What a great guy eh? He also makes these bikes now for other people. Still made from used bike frames and components, but a complete bike will only run you about $700! You can also just buy a frame from him and do the rest yourself. It is absolutely, 100% worth while going through his site in great detail, it is a wealth of information, as well as lots of cool pictures. He is also a really nice guy. I emailed him asking him for some more info on a couple of under seat steering setups he did, and he explained it all to me as well as sent me a dozen or so very detailed pics pertaining to my question. So go to his page, support him by buying your first recumbent frame for dirt cheap, knowing it is mostly recycled (except for the bottom rails) and build up your very own recumbent, or buy one of his complete Mach 2's! As a poor student I am unable to support him in this way, so I'm passing the buck onto all of you. I am however planning on building my very own Mach 2! I recently acquired an old Giant Kronos road bike frame from my LBS guy Harold for the price of washing a repair bike for him in the freezing cold rainy weather, and I also acquired a cheap old Venture steel road bike for $5. I have some old (very old) drive train parts I can use, but I think if the frame turns out good I will actually try and put a little money into it and give it some decent components.


Hopefully sometime within the next week or two I will start cutting, and maybe get my dad to come out and do some welding for me if he has an hour or two to spare. He is also pretty interested in this project, just from a build perspective but is pretty busy.

Well, that is all for now. My riding has been little to non existent due to the non stop rain we've been having. However, Newfoundland summer is just around the corner.

Hopefully I'll be riding one of these before winter comes back.

Bike For Sale: Goodbye friend.

So I've decided to sell my Giant FCR 2 hybrid road bike. It's a great bike, nice and light, fast, and a comfortable ride. But I've got to say I've been riding my Surly Long Haul Trucker all the time, and because it fits me so well and I want to get more accustomed to the feel of it for my Cross Canada tour next year I doubt the FCR will get much love this summer, other than a pity ride here or there. And then next year when I'm gone on tour all summer, it will again be neglected. For these reason I have decided to sell it (not to mention I have a crap load of touring gear left to buy).


She is a good bike, but by riding her I have discovered the type of riding I truly wish to do. Hopefully she will find a good home.


If anybody out there in blogger land is interested in her, I will definitely ship it within Canada, and possibly in the USA. Asking $650. See here for more details.

If I get back from my tour and decide I want another road bike, I'll deal with it then. For now me and my Surly Long Haul Trucker are having a grand time. I think my next ride purchase will be a recumbent trike, but that won't be for some years down the road I fear.


Oh Greenspeed GTO, one day you will be mine...

1000 Words

This is me.



This is my commute (the good part).









This is my office with a free photography lesson I didn't ask for from my friend William.


This is my parents house.


This is a weekend group ride I help organize.


This is my girl.


This is my rainy city.



And last but not least, this is Sprocket.


So I really like that camera, especially with the 50mm lens. The lenses need to be cleaned as you can probably see in some of the pictures, but I think most of the photos I took turned out pretty good (imho, good enough for me anyway). These aren't all of them, but a good fraction. Have to get some more film now.

Tomorrow I will be taking my Giant FCR 2 out to Harold's bike shop. I'm going to true the wheels, clean up the derailleurs and cassette, and probably replace the chain. Then it is going up on the market. The money from that bike will help me pay for a significant amount of the equipment I need for my travels this summer as well as my planned Cross Canada Bike trip in the summer of 2011. Otherwise it will sit in my parents shed for most of this summer as I will be mostly riding my Surly LHT around, and then all of next year due to my journey. If I want another road bike in 2 years time, I'll worry about it then. It was a good bike, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I just really don't see a reason for keeping it right now.

Oh by the way, I've commuted around 150km this week. Not a bad start to the summer.

PS: This coming week I am going to attempt to start making more "educational" entries for the beginners as I had originally planned. "Talk the Talk" will finally continue with a second installment on the drive train.

Bicycle Zen

This is just a quick post that really could resist.

I had an excellent bike commute this morning. It was just perfect. It had been raining all night but come 9am this morning it was sunny and 12 degrees with 88% humidity. The little bit of spray escaping the fenders, and the humid warmth, and the tail wind just maid for an absolutely glorious ride. My 18km commute only took 45 minutes, over a third of which is on a slight incline.

My Brooks B17 is still amazingly comfortable, It barely feels like I'm riding a bike.

The Arkel GT-54's are great. I use one for commuting, they just hold all stuff I need for the day so well and are so easy to mount and unmount.

My Surly Racks are living up to the challenges. I had my Pletscher 2-legged kickstand in a box strapped to the front rack.

The Surly Long Haul Trucker, with those Surly Racks, Arkel Panniers, and my trusty Brooks B17 are the best combination of purchases I've ever made.

I'm in bicycle heaven.
Now if I could only sustain this feeling for 8 hours or so to get me through the work day!

PS: I have a roll of film in to be developed from my Canon AL-1 film SLR, should get it back along with digital copies on Friday. Will post up some pretty (hopefully) pictures of my bike and commute then!

Crappy weather update

So the weather here in St. Johns turned foul on Monday of last week and it's been raining ever since. Even had a bit of snow thrown in there for good measure. Today we had a bit of a break in the early evening with some sun peaking through and a pause in the rain. So I decided to take some pics of my new Arkel GT-54 panniers, and also take my beater around the yard for a quick spin to see how it fit with the new stem and seat post.

But first I should talk about what happened last week. I had that group ride to Outer Cove on Sunday, my first ride on the Brooks B17 saddle. I feared the worst upon mounting the saddle, but strangely it felt alright. The whole 20km group ride I was more comfortable than I have ever been on any other saddle. I had to adjust the tilt upwards a little more, but I never felt any discomfort what-so-ever until 10km-ish into my ride home. I was blown away. SO I guess I must have a "Brooks Arse" as they call it. Looking forward to molding my but print more when the sun is back out.

On to more recent matters.
I've started working in the bike shop part time. Last Saturday I found myself with nothing to do and Harold, my LBS, had no one to work for him on what he suspected was going to be a busy day. So I worked. And again this Saturday! I haven't been doing any major repairs or tune ups myself, but I've been doing some minor stuff and cleaning up the bikes too. It's a great way to learn bike repair and make a couple of extra bucks on Saturday mornings. The employee discounts don't hurt either!

Speaking of discounts, I got my new Arkel GT-54 Panniers!


Just seeing her with bags on front and back, looking like she's ready to take on the world is getting me all excited for my vacation this summer not to mention my trip from Vancouver to St. Johns next summer! I'll probably try to do a review of the GT-54's once I actually use them.

After I put my Brooks on my Surly LHT, I noticed I had a few parts lying around. So I took the stock saddle from the LHT and some platform pedals I had lying around and put them on my Orange Beater bike that I resurrected this winter. I hadn't ridden it since replacing the seat post and getting a longer quill stem for it. I took it for a spin around the yard, and with the longer stem and the decent amount of seat back that the post has, it's not a bad fit!

I was going to race this puppy in the Alley Cat Race hosted by Ordinary Spokes in downtown St. Johns tomorrow. It is not your typical race. It is like a treasure hunt through all the nooks and alleys of downtown. You get a list of clues to checkpoints and an hour to plan your route. The one who gets the checkpoints and to the end the fastest wins, be it through alleys, sidewalks, or down flights of stairs. I was going to take this as I wanted to get crazy and not beat up my Surly. But it is calling for rain and snow tomorrow evening, the race is still a go I just don't want to get pneumonia.

There was no group ride yesterday due to weather, but hopefully we catch a break this coming Sunday (doubt it). And I'll try to remember to bring a camera this week.

Speaking of cameras, here is a little something off topic for the camera junkies. My dad has an old 1982 Canon AL-1 film SLR sitting in his closet with a 50mm fast lens and a 300mm telephoto lens (I think that's what it's called).

I know nothing about cameras, and I don't have the urge to start learning. All I know is it would be nice to have something that takes decent photos. The little experience I've had with my friends DSLR and his fast lens showed me that I love how the pics come out, and even looking through the viewfinder I can tell this setup will give similar effect. The camera is supposedly not working. The story goes that it started making red streaks appear on the pictures, and then they just stopped coming out all together. It has sat in the closet untouched since then. I took it to a camera shop and after a thorough inspection by the owner it seems to be in perfect working condition. But just in case I shot a test roll on all the different shutter and aperture settings with the fast lens. I get the negatives tomorrow, so I guess we'll see how it turns out.

If they turn out good, I will probably use this camera for my day trips and for any nice pics I want to take. For any quick and dirty pics I want to take, I will just borrow my sisters Canon point and shoot. My old samsung digital camera sucks the big one and is almost unusable.

Anyway! That's it for now. Hopefully I'll get out and do some more riding soon on the Surly and maybe even the Beater! When I do I'll be sure to get some pics.

Oh, btw. The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking about selling my Giant FCR2. :o

Later!

Brooks, Lezyne, and Group RIdes

I received my Black Brooks B.17 Champion Standard bike saddle as well as my Lezyne Pressure Drive mini pump (along with a pair of shorts for Alanna) from REI.com. The shipping was $45 to Canada, and then I got charged $35 for customs. Needless to say while I never had a problem dealing with REI the shipping and customs charges are just way too much. They have a very large selection of bike products and I only purchased what MEC did not have, from them. VeloOrange.com is another place (also US based), I might try them if need be to see if their shipping is cheaper. But if I can I buy my stuff locally or from MEC.ca. I wish there was another Canadian place with a large selection.

I applied Brooks Proofide to the saddle and let it sit overnight, then buffed it off the top surface this morning. I sat on it and it didn't feel like it would be that uncomfortable, but I will only be able to really tell once I've put some miles on it. Hopefully the break in period isn't too hard on my butt. Here is a few pics of the Brooks to drool over, or cringe over in pain. One or the other.


The Lezyne Pressure Drive mini pump is WAY smaller than I thought! However is it 100% made out of CNC'ed aluminum, is light, and uses a hose so there is no pressure on the valve. I have yet to try it out, but it seems very sturdy and reliable, and the hose storage is genius. My only concern is the number of strokes it will take to go from flat to 90psi, supposedly it is rated to 120psi. I had a little bit of a hard time understanding how the pump worked and how the hose was stored and how big it was etc. from pictures online, so I'll try and get some detailed pics in.


The last pic is of the inside of the piston tube. As you can see it is hollow. The hose screws in here and is covered with the dust cap when not in use. You take it out and screw it into the other end to pump. One end of the hose is presta, and the other end is schrader.

So the saddle seems moderately comfortable on first sit, will try first ride on it tomorrow. The pump seems well built and rugged, but we'll see how the pumping action performs when I get a flat.

So until I get my Arkel GT-54 panniers (hopefully Monday) here are a couple of pics to tide you over. I still have lots more camping/touring gear to get, but for the most part the bike is complete.

As I mentioned I will be going on a ride tomorrow. A guy I met via a group ride and myself have started up a facebook group in an attempt to get an organized group ride every Sunday.

Bike the Street - NL

Tomorrow we will be heading up to Middle cove beach via Marine Drive. Should be a really nice ride. Maybe I'll try and take some pics.

View Group Ride - Outer Cove 20km in a larger map