My Recumbent Days

T his morning I decided it was a day for just a local 10 mile ride, and I would spend the day doing things with my wife. The ride was on local streets, but it was much harder a ride than any so far. The wind was so intense that there were times I was slowed to a 7 mph crawl. But when the wind was at my tail I moved along at 13 to 14 mph without a problem. The time I got home my legs were mush and I could barely stand. I wish I had my heart rate monitor, so that I could judge the workout. T omorrow I will purchase PVC fittings and pipe to make a work stand for the trike. It has been very hard to service the chain without one. It should take a few hours and I will have a easy method of raising the rear of the trike.

A fter taking care of things around the house I loaded the trike into the SUV and got ready for a ride. I drove the 5.5 miles from my home to the D & R Canal tow path at Blackwell's Mills crossing. I unloaded the trike and got my self ready for the ride. I then noticed that I had forgotten my shoes with my cleats on and had one of three choices, cancel the ride, go back home and get the shoes or ride with my New Balance athletic shoes. I chose the later. So off I went heading west toward Rocky Hill which is 7 miles give or take a tenth of a mile. This leg of the tow path is a lot harder due to the rough terrain. Lots of pebbles and uneven surface, and two spill ways where you must walk across. I was doing real well despite that I was missing my shoes, and was proceeding at 10 mph most of the way, until I hit a real bad section and my foot came off the pedal and dropped to the ground. I was very lucky that my foot did not get sucked under the front cross member and tie-r

I am looking for a good chain lubrication product. Below is my requirements. 1. Easy to apply with a thicker solution 2. Cleans the chain. 3. Dries to a wax finish. 4. Does not collect dirt. 5. Good in wet as well as dry climate. 6. Clings to chain and moving parts. I have tested the following products with not such stellar results. 1. Pro Link Chain Lubrication: A. A mess to apply gets all over the place, and looks black when dry. B. Chain drive was very noisy after lubrication. C. Got all over my legs. 2. Finish Line Teflon Plus: A. Spray bottle, went on fairly easy. B. Still a mess to apply. C. Until dry it was all over. D. Dries black and very noticeable on the trike and its drive train. E. Did make the drive very quiet. I am going to try and find Pedros ICE in my area, seems harder to find than Finish Line and Pro Link. I used it before on my Trek R200 recumbent bike with very good results. I will test this as soon as I get it. H ere are the results of using Pedros ICE Wax lubrica

T oday I awoke to a beautiful sunny day where my back didn't hurt one little bit. I decided to get my errands done then eat lunch and head out for a ride. My errand was to go to Home Depot and pick up a case of fluorescent lamps for my office and some tape. When I got back I replaced the lamps that were out and planned how I wanted to apply the tape to my flag shaft. I decided that a broken pattern would look and be more practical. I felt that if I placed a 2" stripe then a space of 7" it would be the best. The tape went on very easy and I was done in a few minutes. I changed in to my bike gear and had a light lunch. M y ride today was 12 miles averaging about 10 mph against the wind. I find the training course getting easier and easier. Today I had people blowing there horns and yelling good things like "Cool", "Nice ride" etc. At least they weren't trying to push me off the road. I do notice the ones that are coming out of driveways are the ones

I had placed and order at 10:00 AM EST at bike Nashbar, and was told it would ship the same day. I have checked with Nashbar customer service yesterday afternoon and it had not shipped. I called this morning and the item I ordered went out Parcel Post last evening, which in all intensive purposes means it is going out late today. Parcel Post is the slowest form of package shipping. The item was shipped from the warehouse in Ohio, I wonder how long it will take to get to New Jersey! For a company to charge UPS prices and ship Parcel Post is highway robbery. They could have sent it out Priority Mail, and they still would have made a profit on shipping. I have to remember not to use them again, even with the lower price, it is just aggravating dealing with them. S ure enough when I went to check the online status of the order at Nashbar it said shipped 04/26/06. I can't figure out that they are the only bike parts supplier that takes over two days to ship and order Parcel Post. At le

T his morning I awoke to partly cloudy skies, with a bright sun filtering between the clouds. That was my queue to change into my biking shorts and jersey, and head out for a ride. Thunderstorms were expected this afternoon, so an early ride was on the agenda. I was like a new person, only a slight bit of back pain, and that was gone after a few laps on my local training course. There was also an unusual amount of traffic on the local streets, could be a lot of people put off things they had to do because of the horrible weather the past few days. I had missed a few days riding and I felt it was a little harder to get moving today. Probably it is all in my head, and I needed the incentive to move my lazy butt. Once I got started I did my 10 miles without a problem. It is amazing how wide a berth people in cars and trucks give me when they pass. Some even ride into the next lane. Strange since I am all the way to the far right or on the shoulder if there is one. I n a prior entry in th

G ot up this morning to thunder storms and huge down poor of rain. I was having a huge amount of pain in my back, something I have when the weather is cold or rainy. I needed a project to fill the time, so I thought long and hard and came up with something I knew I needed. I had ordered a heart rate monitor from Nashbar and needed to build another mount as I did for the computer. So I headed over to Home Depot to pick up the needed parts. The reflector mount I had already purchased a couple of weeks ago at my local LBS for $1.00 US, the other parts, a CPVC 1/2" coupling and two plastic caps a cost of $0.97 US I purchased at Home Depot. I first marked and drilled two holes in the 1/2" CPVC coupling matching the two holes in the reflector mount. I then screwed the coupling to the mount and placed one of the plastic caps on each end of the coupling. To finish the mount off I painted it black to match the Black Widows finish. T he second project for today is to put the heat shri

I spent the morning helping my wife do some cleaning. Yes I do help around the house. I then went to Hillsboro to meet my sun and daughter in law at Lowes. After loading my truck with 4 patio chairs and two tables we went to there home and un-loaded. W hile at Lowes I picked up some 1/4" heat shrink tubing to use around the trikes flag shaft. I have found that the flag shaft rubs against the rack and makes noise, the heat shrink will prevent this from happening. T he rest of the day I am planning on updating my web page and its mirror page to include some information on what I used for the upgrades. These are the links to the pages. Main Page: and this is the Mirror:

I have gotten into the habit of weighing myself before breakfast each morning, yes I know that is excessive! I wanted to lose weight, and was doing very well until the last few pounds, and nothing I did would help. Now that I am back to riding the recumbent, the weight is just falling off. What a huge difference exercise makes. I will continue to use Weight Watchers, but just to maintain my weight goal. T oday I decided to take my ride a little early, do to a threat of rain. The temperture was 55 degrees and cloudy, but the wind seemed to be in my face most of the time. With this 10 mph wind in my face it took a huge amount of effort to maintain 10 mph. I still managed to do 11 miles before I gave in and went home. W hen I returned with my trike after yesterdays D & R trail ride it was so dirty that I thought I would never get it clean. Well I was wrong! The California Duster removed this dirt leaving the trike shinny and clean. It looks like I might not get to ride for a good num

T his morning I loaded the trike in my SUV to head south to Kingston, New Jersey and one of the access points for the Delaware & Raritan Canal trail. I had the intension to do 5 miles each way, but I ended doing 14 miles total. T he trail is a mixture of compressed soil and small gravel. It is not the type of ride a person would do with 1-2.5" tires. Most people would use a Mountain Bike with 2+ tires. But I decided to take my chances. The ActionBent Trike did handle itself great, it was a bit of a rough ride, but very enjoyable. I would surely do it again. The trail is basically continuous but there are spots where you have to cross busy rural roads. I was careful, and had no problems. There are a few short up grades, but nothing to speak of. I was able to do between 8 and 10 mph and in a few places 15 mph. There was one obstacle that I had to cross which was a spill-way, and I walked across going and rode across going back. The scenery was beautiful, and I am including a fe

T he first thing I did this morning was to go to my local auto supply and purchase a product called the California Duster. This product has chemically treated fibers which draw dust and pollen like a magnet. I found that after a few days riding the trike became covered in a yellow green coating of pollen. As soon as I started to move forward this pollen was blown directly into my face, and of course my allergies became a problem. I know that I can not get rid of dust completely, but this will help. T he temperature is now 60 degrees and rising, and in a little while I will go out and take the trike for a ride. I just came back from a leisurely 12 mile ride, the temperature is a beautiful 68 degrees and the sun is shining. There was a stiff breeze at around 10 knots, making it hard to pedal against the wind. I was still able to maintain around 12 mph and a cadence of 63 rpm. N ow for the exciting part! I was traveling North on local Route 27 on the shoulder, when a car traveling in my

I decided to move the cadence computer to the top of the list. I felt if I wanted to get serious about training I should have a cadence computer. Since I allready have a CatEye Micro Wireless computer for speed etc, I purchased a CatEye Enduro 8 and set it up to do cadence. It is very simple to do with the following directions. A ny cycling computer can be made into a cadence computer by mounting the magnet and sensor on the cranks and by setting the wheel size to 1667mm and the readout to km/hr (instead of mph). This is true for any bike, any wheel size. The speed will indicate cadence, such that 9.7 km/hr will be a cadence of 97 rpm. N ow the CatEye Enduro 8 is set up in cm so I had to convert cm to mm which became 167, I rounded it up rather than down. The following pictures show the modification.

Yesterday was a no ride day, I spent the day with my wife and some friends taking in the culture at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Had a wonderful lunch sitting in the sun at a nice cafe, I need days like that. Today I took a 11 mile ride on local streets, and averaged about 12 miles an hour. I am no speed demon, nor do I plan to be. It was a little cool, in the mid fifties. Tomorrow I plan to get some more miles in, depends on the weather. This riding every day makes me very hungry. Time to go to the kitchen and get started preparing dinner.

Y esterday during the inclement weather I decided since I was unable to ride, I would up date my web pages to reflect the change to a trike. I gathered all the photos I found necessary and got to work. It took about 5 hours to complete the task. I did spend a hour today adding a few last pictures. Here are the URLs for my web pages. My Recumbent Pages Here is the Mirror Site I managed to get ten miles in today, the weather started out cloudy and cool, and ended up to be beautiful. I wanted to put more miles on, but don't have the time. I have to go shower and dress as we have a party to go to.

This morning I called the bike store to check his hours, as I wanted to take the trike there once again to find the source of that horrible and annoying noise. After a few minutes in the shop we decided to remove the break caliper and see if the noise is still there. Low and behold the noise was still there. I asked the mechanic "Do you think it is a bearing?" he said no, and said he thinks he knows what the problem is. He tightened the spokes on that wheel, then tested for truing and we re-mounted the wheel. I then took the trike for a test run. The noise is finely gone. The mechanic charged me $7.00 US. Not a bad deal for all those hours. I took a 13 mile ride to check it all out and it works just great. I am very relieved!

Yesterday I purchased two Master links. One made my SRAM which is reusable and my LBS assured me would work, and another by KMC which is not reusable. Hopefully I will never need either. While at the LBS I picked up the spare 26-1.25 tube for the rear drive tire. Now I have spares for each tire. I still might spend the money and have the tubes filled with Slime tire sealer. I think it will give me some piece of mind. I was able to put 11 more miles on the trike, and worked on my hill climbing. Now is when I wish I had a GPS to see what the actual rate of climb was. I hopefully will get out on the trike today and put more miles on. Just came back from a short ride and guess what? The noise is back, this is very frustrating! I guess I will be heading back to the LBS tomorrow. I hope they can figure this out once and for all!

I just brought in the mail and the package from Hong Kong has arrived in good shape. The horn has a 115 dB electronic horn which will get peoples attention. It was a pain to mount do to the way the nuts go on, but it took only a few minutes. Here is a photo of the horn mounted. Cockpit view:

Yesterday I went on my semi annual trip to LL Beane for some shirts and shorts, and while there I purchased a LED light made by Princeton Technology. This LED has two modes, on and flashing, I will use the flashing mode. The LED clips on to the top of my Flag shaft allowing cars to see me over the crest of hills. The problem with riding a trike is that you have a very low profile. Having a low profile and riding on hilly roads causes you to be invisible to a car until they are just about on top of you. Having a flashing LED on top of a 6' mast makes it easier for the car to see me before he comes to the top of the crest of the hill. Today I took a 10 mile test ride to see if the brakes were making that annoying noise. I am happy to say that they are not making that noise any longer. I have added another item to my to do list. This item is a GPS training computer, it will give me the normal speed, but also provide me with altitude and direction etc. This way I can plot my

At this time I have a few projects on the back burner, and haven't decided which will be started. The projects are as follows: 1. Front and rear fenders 2. Cadence computer mounted on Space Bar 3. Two new sealed headsets 4. Proper lights for dusk rides. 5. Mini Lawn sail At this time the fenders are my prime project, but Randy of ActionBent said he doesn't think they will be in the next shipment. So either I do it as a do-it-myself project or slip the fenders to rear of list and wait to see if they become available. The cadence computer is a fairly easy project to do, so if the fenders don't get done I will do that. The headsets are a very expensive job to do, so I will hold off on that. The lights at this time are not a high priority project since I rarely ride late in the evening, but having lights on during the day is a safety issue to think about. The mini lawn sail is just an appearance think so no rush on that.

I usually don't post twice a day, but I never posted the results of the steering upgrade. You will notice in the photos that I added the bar ends to the steering handlebars and also added Mirrycle mirrors one to each side. Plus the new custom computer mount is shown.

After looking over my idea to purchase the CatEye BC-100 bottle cage, I came to the conclusion that for a few bucks I don't have to go out and purchase a new bottle cage and the things needed to mount it. I decided to got to Home Depot and purchase (2) 2" 1/2" hose clamps and (2) bags of Gardner Bender 12-4 AWG Polyolefin Heat Shrink Tubing. I then slipped to pieces of the Heat Shrink Tubing over each clamp and using a hair dryer heat the shrink tubing to shrink it around the clamp. I repeated this for each piece of heat shrink and each clamp. This left me with to clamps covered in plastic which will not scratch the paint of the trike. I now used the clamps to fasten my light weight bottle cage to the frame in front of the cross-beam. All was left to do was place (2) 1" pieces of shrink tubing over the ends of the clamps after installing the cage. I have included a photo showing the installation minus the (2) short pieces of heat shrink.

Yesterday I dropped the trike off at Halters Cycles for there mechanic to work on the brakes once again. I was told to pick it up later that day. I returned to the shop to find the mechanic taking care of other customers, which I totally understand. He said he started working on it but many customers showed up in the shop with repairs and wanting to purchase bikes. When the customers left he once again started working on the trike. He adjusted then took it for a ride around the huge parking area, then adjusted and rode again. After about 45 minutes of adjusting and riding he said "I think it is correct now". I took it for a short ride and heard nothing, I will take it out for a longer ride once this wet weather breaks. I am not very happy with the water bottle cage and the way it is mounted, so I will look for a Nylon cage like the Cateye BC-100, and try that out. This cage has slots on each side that will except Tie-Wraps (Wire Ties) for me to mount the cage to the enlarge

Well after going out for a ride yesterday I found the noise to still be there, so I am heading back to the bike shop to try to get it fixed. Hopefully it will be fixed today. This Morning I finally heard from the dealer in Hong Kong regarding the horn I purchased. He informed me that the horn will be shipped today. So I figure it will be here in about 10 to 14 working days.

I brought the trike over to Halters Bike shop in South Brunswick, New Jersey to have him look at the brake. He centered the caliper and adjusted the cable, then took the trike for a test ride. After he returned he gave the trike a passing grade, and said to let him know if it happens again. He said he doubts that it would, but keep an eye or ear open. Was planning to go for a ride, but right now it looks like possible rain. I will wait a little while and see.