برچسب: Recumbent

  • Electric Recumbent Adventure Continues – BionicOldGuy

    Electric Recumbent Adventure Continues – BionicOldGuy


    I have finally gotten my recumbent back on the road in electric-assist mode. This turned out to be quite an odyssey. I pursued two parallel approaches. First I tried to fix the wheel with broken spokes It turns out you can get custom spoke lengths online so I got replacements in 228 mm. Then I swapped out the five broken spokes with new ones, and tried to tighten them by feel so they matched their neighbors.The wheel appeared pretty true so I took it for a ride to try it out. It was badly out of round, meaning there was a very noticeable up and down motion of the front wheel. So I took the wheel into my local bike shop. They were unable to fix it because they found there was a permanent bend to the rim causing a flat spot. Remember that I had first discovered 5 broken spokes at once. Whatever I did, like hit a really bad pothole, that popped the 5 spokes must have also bent the rim.

    Mine wasn’t quite this bad. https://wheelbuilder.co.za/broken-spokes/

    So that wheel must be rebuilt. This is not something they do at my local shop so I’m nosing around for a custom wheel builder. Alternatively I could just get an inexpensive truing stand and a new rim, and rebuild the wheel myself. This doesn’t look too difficult for the standard “two-cross” method based on what I’ve read and seen in videos.

    Fortunately, there was the parallel path. Last November, the makers of my ebike kit, Swytchbike had a great sale on their kits. I wanted to get some spare batteries, and it turned out that with the sale a replacement kit was no more expensive than just getting the batteries, so I ordered one. When it arrived a few months later I put its batteries into service but set the kit aside. I finally got around to trying fitting it on my recumbent when I had the broken spoke problem. Unfortunately the wheel did not quite fit in the dropout slots on the bike. I contacted customer service, and they told me I was outside there return window (that’s what happens when you wait two months before actually trying a product). But fortunately I could just file the wheel so it fits in the dropouts (for which they had a brief video). This turned out to be quite a workout. I think my right arm is bigger than my left after the filing. It was very satisfying when it finally fit.

    The new wheel worked like a champ plugged into my existing controller. The only adjustment was setting the wheel size on the controller to 20″ instead of 26″. I took the bike for a test ride and it was delightful.

    Recumbent with 20″ front wheel (pardon the messy garage)

    This matches the configuration of my previous recumbent, the 26-20 Bacchetta Giro. I had forgotten how comfortable that was. So this is my ride for the foreseeable future, though I’ll consider to pursue getting the 26″ motor wheel rebuilt.





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  • Non-Electric Recumbent For a Few Days – BionicOldGuy

    Non-Electric Recumbent For a Few Days – BionicOldGuy


    On Friday I was out for a long ride on my recumbent and I happened to look down at my front wheel and noticed a broken spoke. The wheel appeared in good enough shape, not too badly “out of true”, and was still ride-able. So I headed home and switched bikes, completing the ride on my upright. I later took a good look at the wheel and found it actually had 5 broken spokes. All broke at the J-bend where the spoke comes out of the hub. I was surprised because I’d never broken more than one spoke before and also usually there is an audible ping. This is my front wheel with the electric motor, so the spokes are subjected to torque from the motor as well as impact, e.g. from potholes. It had performed just fine for well over a year so I assume I must have hit something fairly big recently. I ordered replacement spokes on Amazon, being pleased to find out they come in custom lengths so I could order the right size. I’ll fix the wheel when they come in and get it back on the road. I will strive to stay on smoother roads in the future.

    In the meantime I can still ride my upright if I want electric assist, and I have the original wheel back on the recumbent. The timing is fortuitous. I hadn’t been riding my upright enough since I recovered from my last bout of sciatica. So my butt was getting sore on longer rides on the upright. A came across an amusing term for this on an ultramarathon cycling website: “marshmallow butt”. I need to toughen my butt back up, from “marshmallow” to “iron”, because in May I’m going in a friend’s van down to Paso Robles for a few days of cycling, and my recumbent won’t fit so I’ll be taking my upright. I’ll make sure to get more saddle time in on the upright before them.

    El Toro From a Different Angle on the Coyote Creek Trail. This was on my recumbent without electric assist yesterday. I can still go for nice long rides, it just takes longer





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