Pump It Up

This might be the most expensive thing I ever bought on Ebay - not really, but close enough. The usual prices of stuff I get there are about $2-8. This one was $16! Ouch! The photo on the listing showed this unit to be of pretty good quality and I was expecting the same when it arrived in the mail.

Can you guess what it is?

It's something I never thought I'd get b/c I don't really care too much for music. I don't follow the celebs and I don't really own much of it but hopefully that'll change. It'll be nice to get some music going on especially since I typically ride solo.

For $16 shipped, quite a bit of stuff came with it. Starting from the top left and making our way around clockwise are two straps, the rubber handlebar mounting bracket, the MP3 speaker player itself, the USB charger, white earphones, connection cable, carrying lanyard and bag!

Not that I'd be 'em separately, but the headphones are worth at least a couple bucks and the mounting bracket can be had for $3. So $10 for the speaker? Not bad at all! All the buttons are on one side for easy access. The charging port is on here too.

The speaker's on this side. I have yet to test it b/c according to what I got out of the Chinglish instructions, I'm supposed to charge it up fully before using it the first time. For stuff like this, it usually takes a few hours, so I won't be touching it until tonight.

Like I had mentioned earlier, the quality of this thing is good. It's superb actually and I'm talking now about the build quality. It's no wonder I see it for $25 on some sites and even up to $40 on others. It's nuts how different the prices can be on the same stuff. Looks like there's a pretty large markup on these MP3 players.

I'm thinking it's good quality b/c this thing's got some good weight to it! Feels nice in the hands, but I'm not so excited about the extra weigh I'd have to lug around on a HPV. Maybe I'll use this more on my electric rides than the recumbents.

Wow, I just tested it and this thing is amazing!!! OMG! The sound quality is so good. After turning the thing on, the sound quality so worth it. $16 is a steal! The thing accepts micro SD cards, so you can put music all on there and it slips right into the player. I used a 2gb card and it's excellent.

Navigating through Youtube trying to figure out the radio function on here. Once I get that going, you won't be able to snatch this away from me. I'm loving it.

Ebrake Me

The only thing other than not having rear brakes that bothers me on the Catrike Speed is not having emergency brakes. There's nothing keeping the trike from literally rolling away or worse, into one of my other rides in the garage. The last thing I want is a chainring jamming into some fender.

This may be one of the first times that I was glad that the package that came in the mail didn't look like the photo I saw online. The Amazon photos showed the handles to be chrome which I wasn't so fond of. There isn't much chrome on the trike and I like it looking as stock as possible.

I started a thread on BROL to get some feedback on who people think of the different brands of locking brakes. Promax won and it was cheaper than some of the others, so choosing it wasn't too difficult. $21.13 - not bad for a shipped price for the pair.

I'm still not sure how the shifters come off and I'll need to remove those before clamping these puppies on. I'll figure it out next weekend or so.

ALC 11!

ALC 11 was this morning! Yup, that means I got up at 5:15am to get ready to leave the house to get to the Cow Palace by 6am to see Paul off for the ride. I made it! One of my work colleagues is a volunteer there too and I met up with her to say hello. She does a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff.

I had asked someone how to get to her area where she was working. As the volunteer was telling me how to get there another guy next to him interrupted him and pointed me in the opposite direction. Figuring he knows what he's talking about, I talked off and didn't arrive to the "Upload" area where the support equipment gets put into vans until 10-12 minutes later. Meanwhile the Starting Ceremonies for the riders had already begun. Not wanting to miss too much of it, I rushed over to say hello.

When I walked back to the Starting Ceremonies area, I took a different route and that route was about a 4 minute walk! What the hell? What's up with that guy telling me to take the super long route? Ugh.

I probably should've taken more photos of the riders, but didn't really think much to do it at the time. I met up with Paul's mom and a friend of a friend of his to see off the riders. We had cow bells in hand and everything!

This is the caboose I luckily never saw last year on the ride. It follows the very last rider to make sure they know everyone is accounted for and receives the support they need on the ride. From what I hear, people hop out throughout the route and go into coffee shops to be sure they're indeed following the very last person. Must be a tough job trying figure out who's really the last rider.

A group of us had cheered on in support of whom we thought was the last rider. He turns his head towards us smiling and says, 

"I'm not part of them. I'm just riding to breakfast." 

Hahha. It wasn't until 10 minutes later that we probably saw the last rider. Not sure why so many people are lagging. These look like veterans though who've done this before so no need to feel sorry for them in struggling to catch up with the rest of the group. They'll meet them soon enough at the rest stop a few miles up.

Say Cheese!

Yup, it's the camera mount. I finally got it. 

During the ALC ride, I wanted to take some shots of me going down the Quadbuster hill. Moving the handlebars even a couple degrees in one direction or the other at high speeds would've landed me in a bad situation. Needless to say, I didn't get much good footage on that decent. Ever since then, I wanted to rig something up for the trike to hold the camera. The Shark adapter on the KMX boom that hold the front derailleur wasn't exactly the easiest thing to mount a camera to. 

The boom on the Catrike Speed is much more standard and easier to mount something to. So finally, logged onto ebay and ordered myself a handlebar mounting bracket. Of course I had to do a bit of research to find one that would secure well and fit the size of the reflector holder bar that sticks out of the front of the boom. 

15 minutes later, I had it in my Paypal basket. 

A few days later, it arrived in the mail and it looks like this! I had to move the light down in order for the new camera mount to clear the movement of the derailleur. I still haven't tested it out yet, but I'm crossing my fingers hoping it'll work out. Let's see how it looks. 

 

From the cockpit, we got this view. After I take my test drive, I'll know how much of my view it blocks out - hopefully not much.

If I didn't have the computer mounted here on this horizontal bar, I was thinking of mounting the camera bracket there. But after looking at it, i'm glad I didn't mount it so high b/c it would definitely block my view and probably look awkward being so high up.

It only just occurred to me as I'm writing this that the camera matches the color of the trike!

And the front side matches the color scheme of how I wanted my Catrike Speed. I actually posted this whole set of photos a few days ago, but didn't want to post it live until after I gave the second bracket to Paul for his ALC ride. Surprise!

Bike Thief

I'm being completely prejudice and have no proof that this guy was transporting a stolen bike, but it damn sure looked like he was in possession of a road bike that didn't belong to him. 

As I'm driving on Balboa, I see a heavy built Mexican guy in his late 30's or early 40's riding a bicycling while holding the stem of a road bike alongside him. I pulled out my cell phone camera and took a video and a still photo, but the quality sucks way too much to be worth anything. I got the guy's face, but barely. I didn't really give a hoot that he saw me videotaping him. 

I got home and reviewed the footage and it's all pretty useless. My phone's video quality of horrible. No purpose in posting anything and I didn't even get a good look at the bike's brand name. 

It wasn't until today that I realized how hard it is to follow someone on a bicycle when you're driving a car. It's not that I minded being completely obvious to him that I was watching and following him. It's that the other cars on the road would give me crap for driving 7mph on a one lane public road in a big City. 

This was the one time I wish I had a bike with me rather than my car - all so I could follow the guy to see where he goes. He turned from Balboa to Fulton at about 10th Avenue or so, but that's the last I saw of him.

Head Up

The Catrike's headrest does suck. After getting a better look at how Mike rigged up the Catrike headrest on his KMX, I just came back from the hardware store an hour or so ago to pick up the screws and bolts to hopefully secure it like he did. Thanks Mike. I'm totally copying how you rigged yours. I just hope I got the correct parts and things work out.

Lately (actually, ever since I got the trike), the headrest has been loose and sorta useless. I'm hoping after I rig this thing on, it'll be much better. Pics and review to come.

3rd Place

The only question that really matters is, "How many trikes were there?"

Well, boys and girls. There were this many. Can you count 9 trikes. No? HINT: Two of them are in the background and they're velomobile versions. The one with the clear tinted cover in the way back facing us and the white one on the far right.

Could it be that the color scheme just doesn't look as good? And that's why the Catrike Speed doesn't pop off the screen like the KMX does? The Speed's got some smoothness to it that the KMX'll never have, but it's definitely not as photogenic. There's something about the KMX that I adore that can never be achieved by the Catrike. 

Mike, I hope it's okay that I use your pic and name here. If you're bothered by it, then this photo here is a picture of Bartholomew on a KMX Tornado fully modded! This is the first time I've seen it in real life since the upgrade. Those are 18" fronts and I believe a 24" rear. The proportion on this bad boy looks perfect! Reminds me of a Catrike 700! The proportions look much better than my Catrike and I still miss the white base color of the frame. The white lettering on the sidewalls definitely give it that sports look. Loving it Mike, I mean Bartholomew. 

Paul's warming up on the inside track. He kicked but with the both rides he brought to the race that day. Actually, that's an understatement. He hauled ass and kicked all our butts. You can almost see his calves of steel here in the pick. Very impressive.

Pick your jaw up off the ground as you continue gawking at this masterpiece. Yup, that's a carbon fiber cockpit cover. So awesome. My favorite color scheme of course - white with some red accents and enough carbon to make anyone drool. 

Don't laugh. The guys who brought these bikes take their races seriously. No joke. They ride like they're in the Olympics. I would've taken a video if it wasn't for me having to recover from one of my races. I got up for a second to take this and stumbled back to the concrete for a nap.

For the remaining photos, check them all out here.