Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Trike Pickup and Cleanup

I picked the trike up early this evening from the Cow Palace. Mc Collister's bike transportation service had driven it from LA back to SF. Today was the last day to pick it up. It was nice seeing familiar faces at the pick-up desk. One of the entertainers was there waving people good-bye.

Even though I covered the trike each day with a nylon cover, moisture managed to accumulate making the tie bar rusty. I'll have to attend to that tomorrow with a chrome buffing agent. I only had time today to give the trike's frame and components a good thorough clean. It's amazing how much dirt I've collected on the thing in the past 7 days.

I'll also need to pick up another flag since Mc. Collister's didn't allow me to transport mine on their truck. I'm not surprised though. The trike already takes up more space than a bike and I'm sure the company struggled to fit it in with the upright bikes. Adding a flag would have only made it more difficult. Here's my chance to look for another red flag. Amazon, here I come.

After getting back home with the trike, I decided to swap the super durable Schwalbe Marathon tire with the thinner Racer version I had sitting in the garage. Reducing rotational weight should help me pick up some acceleration on the trike during my next casual outing. While I was at it, I made some minor adjustments to the internal gear hub. It seems to be working better than it did on the ride.

When removing the rear wheel to replace the tire, I noticed that one end of the axle was loose! No wonder the trike's back end was making noise the last couple days. Looking back, it was a bit dangerous. I doubt the wheel would have fallen off, but the problem definitely didn't help the alignment.

During my ride on Friday, someone had mentioned to me that my rear tire was angled in one direction. After pulling over to the closest sidewalk, I had checked it and hadn't noticed anything loose. I should have looked harder. The bolt on the cable side of the hub was way loose. It's fixed now, so I'm definitely not so concerned now. Thinking what could have happened though, worries me a bit.


0 comments:

Post a Comment