My Recumbent Days

W hen I left to ride this morning it was already 85 degrees and climbing. I first let air out of the front Scorcher TR tires and then inflated to 85 pounds. I also wiped the chain again as the Dumonde Tech instructions call for. As far as the results go, 85 pounds seems to be the magic number for my weight and type of trike. Also the type of roads and bike paths I ride. The new inflation pressure smoothes out some of the road imperfections, and doesn't rattle my teeth as the 100 pound setting did. I will work on the rear tire pressure also. I will do that in a couple of days. A s far as the use of Dumonde Tech lubrication goes. The drive chain seems to be quieter and a bit smoother shifting. The chain sure looks cleaner, but my rear cassette will need cleaning soon. I will come in with a verdict after a few days of riding. A s far as my ride conditions for today! It was 85 degrees, partly cloudy with a wind out of the N at 3 MPH. T oday the postman came by early to drop off anothe

T his morning I was out on the road at 9:00 AM, I thought I would beat the heat. The weather calls for another scorcher. Today's ride was to test the tires inflated at 100 pounds and the fender mount. I found that the Scorcher TR tires make for a firm and comfortable ride, but there is a slight negative it is not as comfortable as the tire inflated at 75 pounds. The speed increase over the 75 pounds is a subjective 2-3 MPH. I will deflate the tire to maybe 90 pounds and see if I can get a slight speed increase and also a more softer ride. I am not sure if 90 will do the trick or 85, testing will be the only way to find out for sure. My base for the test was my 5 mile course which is a combination of smooth paved and chip-seal roads. I find that the horizontal cracks create the worst part of the ride. T he fender test went very well, the fenders are motionless on smooth roads at any speed, and there is ever so slight trailing edge vibration on rough roads. All and all I am very ple

T his morning I went out for my daily ride, to mainly test the Scorcher TR tires inflated to 75 pounds. I found them to create a very comfortable ride, but seemed a little slow. I have inflated the tires to 100 pounds and will test them tomorrow. I did notice that round problems did not show as much with these tires ant 75 pounds, I will see tomorrow how it is. Today's ride was 15 miles on rough and smooth roads, the temperature was 90 degrees with the wind out of the SW at 11 MPH. New Fender Brace from King Pin to fender support O n the fender modification, I found that after many miles an additional support was needed and I designed and built the new fender mount. I will test it longer tomorrow. The new mount one on each fender will prevent the massive vibration that happens all the time. I don't think the vibration would cause any problems, but I felt it was disconcerting to me.

T his morning I went for an early morning ride because the weather called for hot, and more hot. The temperature was 87 degrees with the wind out of the WNW at 8 MPH. Even with the heavy cloud cover it was extremely hot and humid. I was sweating before I got on the trike. I rode 15 miles and returned after I ran out of water. W hen I got home I had two packages waiting, one was my CoolMax head sweat and the other was a pair of GreenSpeed Scorcher TR tires and tubes. I went to work removing the Comet tires and tubes, which turned out to be a very hard job. The bead on the Comets was much tighter than that of any other tire I have used. The Scorcher TR tires went on in no time, and I was out for a quick spin just to make sure the beads were set in the rims. I did notice that the ride at 75 LBS was a lot smoother than the Comet tires. Tomorrow I will give them a good test ride. I do not have slime in these tubes, but the compound feels firmer than the Comets also.

T oday I headed out to ride at 9:30 AM for a slow scenic ride. I took my time and my speed was between 10 and 12 MPH, but I did hit speeds of 20 MPH+. When I am in that high cardio mode I will ride at 12 MPH and do sprints up to 25 MPH and continue this for the complete workout. I prefer to take my time and see what is around me. Nobody can call me a speed demon, but I am a very competitive person. In other words if someone is pushing me I will race. I rode the local bike path then headed for the back roads and the farm lands near by. I rode 15 miles and had a very relaxing day. The temperature was 86 degrees and there was a wind out of the S at 8 MPH.

L ast night after dinner Alayne and I were discussing my tire problem. She suggested I order the new tires now rather than wait for another tire problem to arise. For some reason my Comet Kevlar tires seem prone to flats, and the compound in the tread area seems very soft. I have had numerous flats where there is no visible object in the tire, and I find just a hole or an irregular cut on the tread area. Yesterday my riding partner suggested I purchase GreenSpeed Scorcher Kevlar tires. He says they give a more softer ride and are supposed to be tough. I looked on Bentrideronline for more information, and found that it has a very low rolling resistance, and is a very popular tire. So I ordered a pair with tubes at Calhoun Cycle , they had a fair price including shipping. They are a lot more expensive than others, but I was willing to take a chance. T his morning I was supposed to ride with my friend Alan, but he called a told me he had to go into the office, so I was on my own. The we

T his morning I met my friend Marty at his home for a guided tour of his local riding area. We were having a nice ride on these beautiful country roads, with little or no traffic. We had gone about eleven miles when I heard this horrible sound like escaping air. We stopped and I looked at my rear tire, because that is where I thought the sound came from. I found nothing and continued to ride. A mile or so past and again the sound, this time we saw the Slime in the tire shooting out all over the place. I continued to ride until the hole was sealed. We pulled over and looked for the hole. I found a pin hole where I think the Slime was coming out of. I cleaned off the area and continued to ride. We planned to stop in at Marty's LBS for a tube repair, but we made a wrong turn and we were to far away to chance the ride. So off we went with the slime sealed tube, and there seemed to be no problem. Just to be safe we rode a zig zag course in Marty's neighborhood, and ended at his hous

I t has been raining here since yesterday afternoon, so a ride today is out, and tomorrow Alayne and I are heading out to go to an Antique show. On the way we are stopping at Marty's Reliable Cycle in Morristown to pick up some Dumonde Tech chain oil, and maybe a head sweat. T oday the mail came and in it was my package from FastBack Systems. This package contained my strap on insulated bottle cage. I needed an additional bottle for those moderate rides, where a hydration would be over kill. Besides I hate the additional maintenance of the bladder. It was easy to mount once I figured out where the best place for it would be, and that was behind and below the seat back.

W hen I awoke this morning it had just rained and looked very cloudy. Thinking that it was going to rain I figured I would get in as many miles as I could. Not feeling up to par, I would be grateful if I could get in a few miles. I loaded the trike with a partially frozen bottle of water, so I would be assured of cool water for most of the ride. I left my driveway and headed out, before I could get out of the development I heard a strange clicking noise from the rear of the trike. I jumped off and looked at the trike very carefully looking for this strange noise. I didn't find anything visible, but just to make sure I tightened the Panniers and proceeded to ride. Again I heard the noise, and narrowed it down to the rear wheel. Of course I was thinking the worst, but after a much closer look I saw the problem. It was a piece of fresh blacktop from the school repaving project that stuck to the tire. Every time I made a revolution of the rear wheel I heard it hitting the fender at its

T his morning I awoke to cloudy but clearing skies. I hit the road to get my ride in before it gets to hot. I rode 10 miles and was within a block of my home when I felt ill. The temperature was 86 degrees with the wind out of the NE at 9 Mph I don't know if it was from lack of hydration or just a bug. I was drinking plenty of water, so I tend to believe it was a bug. I headed home and tried to sit back and relax. Again thinking about my hydration on shorter rides, I decided that one bottle was not enough and my CamelBack was too much and a pain to maintain properly. I thought about how would I mount another bottle and came to the conclusion that the best place was under the seat. I looked at the trike and found that the seat bottom was not wide enough to mount a cage because of the part protruding down. I also felt I didn't want to drill two holes in the seat. So I decided to go with a commercial solution: FastBack Systems had just what I needed. So I gave them a call and ord

O ver the years people ask me "why am I devoted to recumbent riding?" At first I would say that "I am no longer able to ride a conventional bike do to my accident and the resulting surgery." But now I would say that riding is fun, comfortable and a source of great exercise. But today I think I have added another use, I did my first small grocery shopping on the trike, and I found it not only is it fun, I also save on gas, and I don't add to the air pollution. Plus the I can combine my sport and chores at the same time. If I planned to do larger shopping I would need larger panniers and a much better lock. I don't plan on that at all, but to go to the farm market or the little convenience store it would be OK with me. Today's ride consisted of local roads with many steep hills which I was able to spin my way up at around 9 to 10 Mph. The total ride was 17+ miles and the temperature was 83 degrees with a wind out of the NE at 4 Mph.

T his morning I was getting the trike ready to install the wheel covers that are on the UPS truck waiting to be delivered, and I noticed the left side rotor is hitting the disc break caliper. I hope it is just a adjustment. This is not at all the order I wanted to do this project. But I guess I have no choice in the mater. My original idea was to remove wheel, then remove disc rotor and install wheel cover and see if it clears the disc break caliper. But now I have to do the operation twice. I will post an update if things go well or not. I hope the UPS guy gets here soon, this way I only have to do this once not twice. Update #1: As of now I have the rotor fixed and the wheel and breaks removed from the left side of the trike awaiting UPS. I hope they show soon, it is getting hotter by the minute, and the garage is like an oven. I was very lucky that the rotor was not destroyed, and to my surprise the LBS didn't charge me a cent for the repair. I tried to give him a tip, but he w

T he temperature this morning was 89 degrees and rising. The weather report said reaching 101 degrees today and very humid. I thought if I was going to ride and get any mileage in testing the new fenders, I better get my butt in gear and head out. I picked a route that consisted of both smooth roads and rough roads and bike paths. I found at first that the right fender was vibrating but also making a sound. The left fender was vibrating and no sound. I proceeded to look for the cause of the noise and after a few minutes I saw that STUPID ME didn't tighten up one of the vertical support nuts. After tightening it I continued on my way. The noise in front went away, but there was a clicking in the rear fender, after looking at it I saw that the fender mount was less than a quarter inch away from the rear rack support. So I bounced the rear wheel and saw that the two were hitting each other. I tried a tie-wrap, and it worked to an extent, but I will have to come up with a better idea a

Y esterday I took the Black Widow out for a test ride with the new fenders installed. The front fenders do shake when riding, but I did expect that as the mount is flexible. There sometimes is a noise, but that is only on extremely rough roads. The rear fender when under power hits the luggage rack when on rough roads. That can be fixed with a tie-wrap, but I think I will come up with a better idea, maybe some foam mounted in a strategic location. I will continue to tweak the installation a little. I think I might move the front fenders a little higher on the mounts, to gain more tire clearance. I will also move the trailing section of the rear fender out a little. This first test consisted of fourteen miles on a mix of road types. So far I am very happy, but time will tell. Basically the fenders and mounts are very light, and don't add a lot of mass to the trike. T here will be no ride today, as Alayne and I are heading out to do some food shopping then on to Long Island to visi

T oday Alayne and I went on a day cruise complements of her company. It was real nice, there was an open bar and a nice lunch spread. After the cruise each passenger was given a gift bag which included a bottle of wine. We were on the boat from 1:00 to 4:00 and it was an hour and a quarter ride to get there. Not a bad day at all! Y esterday I ordered a set of wheel fairings for the front of the Black Widow, they might need some alteration for them to work. I have a hunch that the disk break caliper might be in the way, so the hole where the axle passes through might have to be made larger so the caliper doesn't rub. I will also have to mount the magnet from the CatEye speed sensor which is on the spoke now, but a small hole should solve the problem. I also ordered some jigsaw blades for plastic, so that if the hole in the disc needs to be made larger, I will have the equipment to modify it. After it is mounted I will have a decal made for each wheel that will say: H.P.V. Human Powe

I installed the fenders today, and they are a thing of beauty. The rear fender required a slight amount of modification do to the amount of inclination of my seat. I had to remove a 3" long by 1/2" wide section at bottom of fender. The right and left fenders were mounted by removing the handlebar mounts and the spacers, then dropping the fenders onto the stem and replacing the handlebar mount. For all intensive purposes it gets sandwiched between the headset and the spacers. Rear Fender: Right Front Fender: Right Front Fender Mount: A s it stands now I won't be providing a ride report today do to me having to wait for the cable service man to arrive. If he shows up on time I will provide an update.

L ast night before going to sleep I knew that the weather for today would entail many severe thunder storms. So I planned to get out on the trike as early as possible. I had breakfast and changed into my riding cloths. At 9:30 AM I headed out the door and started to ride. It was very overcast but not a white cloud in the sky, and the sun was hidden by the gray clouds. As I rode I felt a few scattered rain drops, but nothing to worry about. At the 12 mile mark it started to get real dark, and I thought it would be wise to head home. I reached home with 13 miles on the odometer. The ride temperature was 80 degrees with a wind from the South at a nice 4 Mph. I heard from Kevin at TW-Bents that my fenders were shipped on the 10th of July by EMS Air-Express, since I never heard of them I have no idea of travel time. I think my idea of wheel covers has fallen by the wayside. The supplier wants $20.00 per wheel which is acceptable, but he also want $32.00 US for shipping which I think is hig

L ast evening Alayne and I returned from a wedding in Chicago, we spent four days there. Chicago turns out to be one of the friendliest bike cities I have ever been to. It has some of the nicest wide paved bike paths, and over 300 miles of them. The mayor is doing everything possible to provide a safe biking environment. I had the pleasure to walk, yes I said walk part of Lakeside Drive that run along the great lake, there were more people on bikes than I have ever seen. We had magnificent weather the complete time we were there. To my great surprise I didn't see one recumbent bike or trike in the four days we were there. They had many bike rental places, and free bike parking near Grant park and Millennium park, which makes for a safe biking experience. I am so sorry I didn't drive the 18 hrs and bring my trike. T his morning I found out that by not riding my usual amount each day while away it was much harder to maintain my usual speed and cadence. I did many miles of walkin

A s usual I am unable to ride today do to heavy rain. This year we have been getting some freaky weather. I say it is because of Global Warming, but that remark would be denied by certain people. I truly don't want to get into this discussion, because it brings out the worst in people. I have found over the last few months, that if I ride at least ten miles I can easily maintain my weight and possibly loose a few pounds. I would like to keep my weight between 150 and 153 Lbs. I have never reached the low of 150, but I have reached 151, but that lasted only a few days. My back and neck does have less pain when I am in the middle to lower part of that range. O n my list of to does for the trike, I have progressed nicely. The next on the list is one of three things. Wheel Covers, head-sets and a GPS. Not sure which will come first, but I will decide soon. Of course this all depends on my finances. As far as price goes the Headsets and GPS are the highest price items.

T oday I met up with some friends and we decided to ride along river road which runs parallel to the canal. The plan sounded great, but as usual the plans don't necessarily work. We ran into all types of crazy car drivers in the first 10 minutes, so we changed the route to ride along the opposite bank of the canal. This worked out very nice and we were able to ride a nice twenty miles before we loaded the trikes up and headed home. The bikes on the ride consisted of my trike and one Bike-E and one DF bike, but by the time we were ridding thirty minutes we picked up another ten bikes and one more trike a Greenspeed GT. The ride was fun and we now have some new ridding friends. The weather for this ride was 86 degrees with a wind out of the WNW at 6 MPH. It was a little cloudy, but a good day for getting a bad sunburn.

T his morning I was up early and ready to play with my grandson, being just two he is full of energy and ready to take a 59 year old like me for a ride I will never forget. I had a great time playing with his toy trucks and construction equipment. I had a blast, but by 11:00 AM I felt like I had ridden 200 miles without a stop. By back is sore and I can hardly bend over. When my kids left and my wife and I had time to relax it was 3:00 PM and enough time to take in a movie. All in all a real nice day. Tomorrow I hope to hit the road for a short local ride, and then go to the fireworks. This will be my first fireworks in 5 years. Ever since my service in Vietnam the sound of fireworks and the smell makes me a nervous wreck, I am ready to dig a fox hole and crawl in. I have given my friends every excuse under the sun not to go before, and I think it is about time that I go and try to make the best of it. I have been in contact with TW-Bents regarding the trike fenders, and I am looking

A t ten this morning I headed out for a short ride. I wish I could have stayed out longer, but we have a birthday party to attend at it is over an hour away. I was able to ride 16 miles in a little over an hour. Mostly moderate climbs but all in a row, making my legs very tired. The Japanese beetles are still a pain in the ass, but I think they will disappear soon, at least I hope so. The ridding conditions today were as follows 79 degrees with a wind out of the WNW at 5 MPH. K even from TW sent me an email telling me that the fenders are ready for shipping. I am looking forward to getting them. Steve from ActionBent said they are in the July container.