Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Mini Ride + BBQ

A little ride is coming up on 8/18. The trike's gears are still a bit messed up, so I gotta fix that smooth before the ride. Got two weeks left to prep. It should be no big deal.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

18 Miler

I think I got about 18 miles in today. Speedometer might still be off but I rode for about 2 hours with some stops. Gears are skipping since I changed to the e-brake levers. Love the e-brakes by the way. I can brake one handed and it's much more integrated and OEM-looking than the rubberband brake it replaced. 

With a sloped garage and hills all over the City, the e-brake definitely comes in handy. The skipping gears though needs to be fixed ASAP. Annoying at best. I think this is the first time I rode the trike in about 2 months! Ugh. Felt good though.

Feel less guilty about not going to the gym to get my workouts. I definitely need to rebuild my endurance. Going up the hills today wasn't easy and the skipped gear didn't make it any better. Every time I take a break (took one in Golden Gate Park and succumbed to my guilty pleasure - root beer), I get reminded how good a 10 minute break feels. Getting on the trike after that feels better than when I first started. Good stuff.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

E-brakes Installed!

I bought the Promax locking brake levers a few weeks ago but never looked into how to install it. The levers aren't a big deal. It's the bar end shifters I was unfamiliar with. Those had to be taken off before replacing the brake lever would be possible. 

One of the best parts about having e-brakes rigged up is so that I can use the trainer much more easily. I don't have to engage the brake everytime I want to pedal. What finally got me to buy these brake levers with the locking button was that my rubber "Brake Band" broke. Yup, it completely snapped. For the cost, I was hoping it'd last forever. Didn't quite work out that way, but I guess it's good that its breakage acted as an excuse for me to buy the new levers.
  • It takes two squirts of WD-40 to remove the handlebar grips.
    • I was having a hell of a time trying to get these off. One minute of research taught me to use that bottle of WD-40. It works like a charm.
  • The brake cable does have to be removed from the caliper.
    • This means the cable ends have to be removed b/c the cable has to slip through the housing. That's the only way the cable can be removed from the old brake lever.
  • The shift cable does not have to be removed. 
    • In order to be able to leave the shift cable alone, the whole handlebar assembly needs to be removed from the arm. It provides enough slack. 
  • Removing the bar end shifters:
    • That was a bit of a pain because if you're avoiding messing with the cable, there's not a whole lot of slack available to play around with. In hindsight, I should have shifted down to the lowest gear first to maximize the slack. A quick search on Youtube taught me how the assembly is put together. It was a lot easier to remove than I thought!

      When putting everything back together, I didn't quite do it correctly. The trike no longer shifts to the smallest chainring. Ugh! Gotta figure that out soon in time for my Sunday ride through Golden Gate Park. I haven't ridden a trike in almost forever! Forever = 1 month.
UPDATE: 7/5/12
The shifting didn't work in the front chainring after the installation. Turns out it was just a coincidence. It took me about 20 minutes to figure it out, but the problem wasn't due to the ebrakes at all! It wasn't working b/c the derailleur wasn't able to move down to the smaller chainring b/c my new camera mount was in the way!

I hadn't ridden to trike since installing the mount and hadn't realized it wasn't shifting down since. Ooops. I tweaked the cables and only made it worse. After messing with it for 30 minutes, it works, but doesn't shift as smoothly as it did before. I'll tune it sometime, but not tonight.