2WD Semi-Recumbent Recycled-Parts Cargo eBike: "CrazyBike2"

[ohzee]

Love the pics of the moon. I was checking it out this week while out on a ride that puppy was pretty damn close to full.

Getting a telescope and camera to capture pictures thru it sounds like something id like to do some day.

Sorry you hurt your hand. I am pretty good at putting in vinyl windows to bad you don't live closer. Luckily it was not worse
that glass can be pretty mean.

 

[amberwolf]

A friend once did something similar, but he had a hospital trip from it. I got lucky.


I wish I could manually focus the camera--it is my biggest pet peeve about it. It only gets the focus right about half the time on stuff that's either really close or really far away, and in poor lighting pretty much can't focus at all and gets it right maybe one in a couple dozen times, if that. Even in direct sunlight it has trouble figuring out what I want it to do on close-ups, with or without the macro fucntion on.

So I have a lot of problems trying to use it for astronomical stuff. I tried to get pics of Jupiter and the Galilean moons, but it is just one smear of globby light, even though I can see it clearly enough with my own crappy eyes to see the four moons plus vague stripes of color.


I always wanted to be able to do this sort of thing, but never had ascope and a camera that could do it at all, much less this good. Couple decades ago, I did once try the Quickcam DIY thing, which lets you capture multiple images and stich them or stack them up and whatnot, and it was kind of ok, but I could see better than that with binoculars so I gave up. I have lots of ideas on how to improve this stuff, some garnered from websites years back and some improv ideas form the last couple weeks, but I really don't have time to try them out, especially with the major problems I've recently had with this bike.


What I really need to do is finish up the new bike, so that is what I have decided to do. It probably will not be as nice or as complex as I originally planned, but it will be a first version, at least.

 

[Solcar]

I can relate to problems getting camera focus. The little manual for mine is about a hundred pages long and I really give them huge credit for that. Hope you stay safe from injury despite the vertigo thing.

 

[amberwolf]

Manual for mine is pretty short, not counting the several languages it's repeated in. Doesn't really have any manual way to control the focus.

Injuries seem to be healing ok this time around.


Couple of care packages arrived from Bikefanatic yesterday not long after I got home from work, but I was so wiped out I just brought them in and set them down. Had to leave after a fitful nap to help someone with a computer problem, and when I got back just fed dogs and went to bed, usual wake/sleep/wake/sleep routine all night but didnt' get out of bed for fear of waking up too much to get back to sleep, and then I finally slept hard till an hour or so ago. Just got ready for work, and not enough time to really check out the boxes till I get home, at the earliest...but I close tonight and have to open again tomorrow at work, so I won't even have enough time to get enough sleep as it is, so unlikely to check them out until some other day this week.

 

[amberwolf]

Little problem with the disc brake started last night--began squealing even when not applied, as for some reason the inner pad was always rubbing on the rotor. I turned the pad (it's round and threaded for adjustment) so it didnt' contact the rotor, and it was ok for the rest of the ride home.

This morning it started up even worse again a half mile into the trip, and when I stopped the pad was screwed all the way down against the rotor. I turned it back again, and made it about halfway to work before it went again, repeat ad nauseum.

At lunch I played with it a little, and thought I might've fixed it, but on the way home, after stopping at Fry's had a bit over 50lbs of stuff (including some small bag dog food on clearance at work) loaded up, and half way home it started again, lightly, then very quickly became active drag on the wheel, with intolerably loud squealing, heating the rotor past boiling (insta-steam when I put water on it and the caliper to cool it enough for me to work on it).

THis time I just took the whole pad off, as it's obviously going to need some goop or something in the threads to keep it from turning.

I think it actually does have something there, but it has been so hot last two days (never going below 90F even at night, just before dawn, and as high as 121F out in front of where I work, with 130-150F air temps just above asphalt) that perhaps it no longer does what it is supposed to. I doubt this, simply because momentarily that whole rotor and caliper gets way hotter than that during braking, but it's the only thing realy different about after the problem started vs before.

FWIW, it does it's magic self-misadjustment even if I don't apply that brake at all, probably from road vibration.


Anyhow, it's just one more little thing about that cheapie YUS caliper to hate on.

At least the rim brakes still work fine.



It is too hot right now (a bit after sunset and not quite dark out) to do anything about it, at 102F inside the house and 108F outside, with just a slight breeze, and *maybe* a storm coming in...it might just go around us instead, which would suck--I'd much rather have the rain to cool the house off, humidity be danged.

 

[amberwolf]

Ok, this is just silly: Just past 11pm, and it is now 99F outside and was 105F inside before I opened the doors and windows after a couple of involuntary naps. A very slight breeze is pushing the "cooler" air thru the house now.

Am very glad of my closed-off window-AC-cooled bedroom, which is only about 85F right now. (even on max cool for the last few hours, the poor little window unit can't do any better than that).

It was so hot in the livingroom where the bike was charging that the charger itself was too hot to hold onto! It is normally pretty toasty when it sits there after it's done charging and it's fan shuts off, for whatever reason, but this was scary hot.

Dogs don't even want to leave the room for potty breaks; have to force them to go out and stay long enough to do their business. Can't blame them, either.

Tomorrow is probably going to suck; the clouds have settled overhead just enough to block heat from radiating to space, but not enough to do anything else--I can even see the glow of a couple of bright stars/planets thru them.

So it will probably stay hot, and maybe even get *hotter*, throughout the night. Then tomorrow it will probably clear up at dawn like usual, and let the sun add more heat. Probably be 110F by 10am, and 120F by 2pm or earlier, and stay that way thru evening, maybe drop to 110F by sunset, maybe 100F by midnight, and maybe 90F by dawn, if it repeats the pattern it's had the last couple days. This is the part of the year I'd like to fast-forward thru.

 

[amberwolf]

Good news: I am actually posting about the bike today.

Bad news: it si becuase the steering tie rod got wiggly on the ride to work; I found the nut on the bolt at the rear end (the end that had broken earlier) had worked it's way almost 3mm loose, just during the time I went from home to about 3/4 of the way to work, something less than 2 miles. (becuase it was fine when I left home, as I can always feel any looseness in it as I back it over the doorsill of the front door; it makes the handlebars feel loose).

This is very unusual to happen, and I do not recall it happening anytime this year, maybe not even last year, though it has happened once before after I'd worked on it and probably not fully tightened it or something. Cant' recall the details.

I suppose it's trigger is probably whatever twisting around I did of the joint while twisting on the tie rod to the stub of the linkage threads. I only looseneed the *front* end of the tie rod to do this, so I see no other reason it would happen. The front was still completely tight when I checked it.

But this is just one more thing prodding me to work on the other frame and finish it. :/


In weather news, while it did get so hot that people were complaining as they came in that their cars' temperature displays said it was 125F+ out there (probably it was a few degrees cooler than that, at least, but I wouldn't doubt 118-120F), it actually is now 97F and it isn't even midngiht yet (about 1030pm), and although rain is predicted within a few hours, the sky is cloudless and pretty dry, as I can see many stars I often can't see in the city haze of pink light. Tempting to take the telescope out, but am too tired to do that *and* make dinner, so I chose dinner instead. (sometimes I pikc the activity and skip food till later, and usually regret it). I did see a tiny faint streak of light for a moment, probalbly an early Perseid; it's about time for those.


I dozed off a couple times typing this up, so now it's a bit after 11pm...still 97F though.

 

[amberwolf]

When moving the bike out fo the way of the front door today, I noticed that the same nut had worked it's way loose just a tiny bit since tightening it yesterday, so I added a second nut (found yesterday at work when we took out the trash, was next to our dumpster) as a jamnut above it on the bolt, and took it for a test ride in the noonday sun. Thermometer says it's only 108F out there, but that's a lie--it is at least 800 or 900F. :lol:

Test run went fine for a couple of miles of puttering around the neighborhood, twisting and turning a lot in case that is what causes it to work loose, as well as hitting all the little bumps and vibrations I could. This is harder to do now that they finally repaved the area north of Butler (where they have been doing water main/drain work the last few months), all the way up to Dunlap. It is noticeably hotter on those now-darker-colored streets than it is on the older lighter-colored areas south of Butler. I need to mount a thermometer on the bottom of the bike to measure ground temperatures vs one up at say head-height to measure air temperatures of wind in my face and on my hands (nearly same level on this bike), just to verify my feeling.


On the run, the mileage has rolled over to 4001 miles total on this bike frame, using conservative numbers for a few times when I messed up odo data in the CA switching it between bikes, and times I lost the VeloAce data prior to getting a CA. It could actually be as high as 4200 miles or so. Only one major breakage of the frame in all that time, given what I have put it thru, and what it is made of, is not too bad.

 

[Solcar]

I know what you mean about no manual focus on your camera as mine is like that too.

At least the healing of the injuries is one good thing and it could be said that we're scraping the bottom of the barrel to consider the normal course of nature good, like we have nothing better to appreciate.

120 degrees is dern near the figure I recall as the all time high for anywhere in the United States, which if memory serves me from times past from the old World Book Encyclopedia or the Guinness Book of World records or whereever I saw that many years ago. I recall a figure of 123degF at Death Valley, California recorded many years ago. Don't know if memory is serving me and its funner to be sentimental by not doing an Internet search. Though maybe the figure could have been 127 degrees.

 

[amberwolf]

It's been "officially" 122F at least once here in Phoenix, in June in the early 90's--people were even selling t-shirts with "I survived 122F in Phoenix" or something liek taht.

It's been *actually* 122F (and higher) here in various parts of the valley many times, depending on where you measure the temperature, just not at "official" stations.

I don't remember the details, but the highest I've ever read of in the USA is over 130F, probably in Death Valley but I don't recall.

 

[texaspyro]

I don't remember the details, but the highest I've ever read of in the USA is over 130F, probably in Death Valley but I don't recall.

Nope, there was a recorded "heat burst" in Texas that reached 140F-150F for a couple of hours.

 

[amberwolf]

In some places there, I wouldn't doubt it. I suspect similar bursts have happened here in AZ, not counting in the middle of stopped traffic but I dont' know of one for sure.

 

[Sancho's Horse]

"heat burst"...ha...I love it. I think I will be putting this in heavy rotation at my house.

 

[texaspyro]

"heat burst"...ha...I love it. I think I will be putting this in heavy rotation at my house.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_burst

That big one in Texas killed most of the plants...

 

[amberwolf]

Speaking of hot weather, here are a couple of examples of what asphalt does here. These are common problems on valley roads, especially the ones that get used a fair bit but are not maintained much, if at all, like most everything around Metrocenter.

Since the actual problmes are harder to see because othe angle of lighting (about 830am) I've outlined dips with ellipses, and used straight lines where possible to indicate ridges and/or what *should* be the flat surface level, or edge of sidewalk/street interface.


The first is a pothole that started out a long time ago as a repaired area (that lines up with the asphalt-filled sidewalk). It wasn't done well, and eventaully chunks started coming off the pavement because of heat and cars braking, causing the asphalt to buckle at the righthand edge where it meets the concrete gutter/sidewalk. Then a while back, when the hole was as big as a car tire, someone filled it in badly with some asphalt, but didn't pack it down. Very quickly it became a less jagged pothole than before, but still quite deep and large. Someone put a traffic cone in the hole at some point to try to warn people of it, and that was run over and squished into the asphalt, eventually pulled out and it's been on the side of the road since then, some time ago. Months at least. You can see it on the right in the first pic.

The red arrows at the top middle-ish are the curve of the ridge described further on in the post, and the line leading off to the lower left from them is the left edge of the lane both of these problems are in.



This is the pothole from the POV of the top edge of the sidewalk just before it starts, camera pointed across the top of the pavement; sidewalk curb is only at most thrice as high as that "cliff" of asphalt on the left.




Then there is asphalt on the other side of the lane a little further on, pushed up by the braking-turning action of cars. It runs in a large ridge around the corner, making a big bump (about as bad as some speedbumps!) across the lane, worst at the left side, becuase *many* more cars turn right there than go straight thru the intersection.

This shows the ridge and dips, approximately:


This is a big pic because of it's width, so I had to turn it on it's left edge to get the board to display it. You can see the "mountain range"-looking ridge of asphalt, with the pic taken from about curb height at the sidewalk. I drew a line in red showing the actual "level" it should be at. Click on the thumbnail to show the full image.
View attachment 2

This is not a ridge you wanna run over with a bicycle, electric or not, especially if you are not expecting it. It's bad enough in a car at any speed; I've seen one almost flip over becuase they started to make a right turn from the left lane (that happens a lot in the valley), then changed their mind and went straight again, and the right wheels went up on the ridge and they went up in the air a little bit before bouncing back down. If they had continued the hard right turn, I'm not sure what would've happened.



This is the western exit from my workplace's parking lot. It's got a bunch of ridges and potholes, from where cars slam on their brakes just before they'd end up in traffic (as many normally drive thru this part of the parking lot at 20-30MPH+). Again, the dips are ellipsed and lines added to highlight the ridges. It's hard to see how bad it is; I couldn't get a pic of it at curb height across it due to angle of sun; it glared out the camera, and there were too many cars zooming thru there to go where it wouldn't be a problem. Again also, the pic had to be rotated on it's left edge at bottom to fit.

Click on the thumbnail to show the full image.
View attachment 1


A quick snap as I stopped to wait for passing traffic, while sitting over the problem area. Note the huge bulge of asphalte that has been pushed out onto the sidewalk from the parking lot.

 

[Sancho's Horse]

texaspyro- I was in the heat burst mentioned in the wikipedia write-up in Indiana. Only I was in Muncie. However, I distinctly remember what it felt like. It was accompanied by a wind that was like a wall. I said to myself, "this is different." I have been around tornado weather all my life, but this wasn't accompanied by cooler weather, but a blast of even hotter air.

Amberwolf - hard to tell from the pictures, but I am afraid Muncie potholes may be far worse. Makes me worry more about suspension more considering the weight of my rig.

 

[amberwolf]

I don't doubt that these are minor compared to some places...but they sure make it hazardous even as they are. I've broken many wheels on ones like these, when unable to avoid them due to traffic.

 

[The fingers]

Turning transit buses tend to create those humps. They can get pretty big over time. Hot weather helps to soften the asphalt. The hottest I ever saw it was 118F on the highway sign thermometer at Ryerson Concrete between Holtville and El Centro, CA. and the humidity had to be near 90%, rendering AC in cars and buildings practically useless.

 

[amberwolf]

humidity had to be near 90%, rendering AC in cars and buildings practically useless.

Interesting; I have found in my own experimentation that my house A/C (both window units that I use nowadays, and the main house unit I used to use years back) work *better* when it is higher humidity outside. I do not know exactly why, but I suspect the higher moisture content allows better heat transfer, or maybe the air can hold more heat better with the higher humidity, etc.

Either way, generally not only do the units run for a bit less time (I've forgotten the exact percentages, but I think I posted a few results up in one of my threads here on ES, maybe even this one, but might've been on my Electricle blog prior to ES), but they also blow a little colder air, when it is very very humid, compared to when it is very very dry.

It might be caused by some other effect, rather than the humidity directly. Could be that I curtain across the rooms not used or cooled, and try to keep airflow in or out of the rooms/house to the minimum possible so that once the units remove humidity from the air inside, it stays much much drier inside than outside.


Regarding the buses causing the problems, that is certainly a contributor to many of the places I have problems, since they are on many of the routes I must travel, although they are not a contributor to the second area shown above, in the parking lot exit; few large/heavy vehicles beyond SUVs and pickups travel thru there. Only ones that regularly do are Fedex/UPS, and the rentacenter assholes in their delivery trucks/vans; the latter do not usually stop at that exit, or even slow down, often they just barrel out (and have caused numerous near-crashes, probably have caused crashes but I haven't witnessed any). More often they exit via Peoria, since they can drive faster on it.

(please note that I do not normally use such language to describe people; it takes a fairly extreme problem to cause me to do so).

 

[Sancho's Horse]

They had a bit on npr today about Phoenix city planning, and how it is ineffective at helping the city deal with heat. They had a weather/climate expert on who predicted that long stretches of 114+ degree weather would become the new summertime norm.
That is terrible. Do your dogs crunch ice? I had a dog that loved to crunch ice in the heat.

I don't think I would want to live in Phoenix. I have had too many jobs in those conditions.

Not sure where the best places to live will be...post climate change.

 

[The fingers]

Maybe the dogs would like a hot dog smoothie!
Combine: 2C ice, 1C vanilla ice cream, 1C nonfat milk, and 2 hot dogs in blender; mix until smooth. Adjust recipe to taste/consistency.

 

[amberwolf]

I bet they would love that. :lol:

@SH: Yes, they do crunch ice. I keep some sugar-cube-sized ice in a few trays in the freezer just for them as negative-calorie treats. I started doing it for my border collie Bonnie (RIP) that was severely overweight but still needed encouragement for exercise and whatnot, and also would probably ahve broken teeth on normal sized ice-cubes, thus the smaller stuff.

They also like frozen greenbeans and things like that. Sometimes I have veggies/etc. that are too old/icky for me to eat (whcih honestly has to be pretty bad for some types), but I know they will love them (and root thru the compost piles/bins to find them!) so I freeze those for them, too.

Loki, the most timid, is the only one that will push thru all the others as soon as he hears me open the freezer door, or twist/pop an ice tray, etc. He perks his floppy ears up so they are half-erect (as good as they get), with these big wide Mogwai eyes, and a tail going so fast I could probably cut thing with it. :lol: He doens't even act taht way for food, usually!


I actually like Phoenix's weather most of the time; it's just these three months of summer that are difficult to deal with, and the only time that is particularly bad is late July thru August, as the evap coolers don't do nearly enough to cool because of the increased humidity, so I have to switch to window A/C and cool only a single room, instead of most of the house with the evap, for about the same money.

Plus, for this time range, due to humidity in the air trapping heat so it doesn't cool down much at night, it never really cools off much in the rest of the house when I open it all up at night, to let the outside air cool it down once outside is cooler than inside. Normally the rest of the year, that works really well (and in the winter, the opposite, close it up as the sun gets near setting, and open up again a while after dawn, so it warms up the house once it's warmer outside than inside).


I complain about the heat, but I can normally deal with it, and now that I know I can cool this room for much less than the other, I can even afford it, more or less. And it tells me that I could reduce costs and increase efficiency even more, with some further work I have ideas for shading and insulating the house (shading is already underway, as I am still growing and moving more shade trees and bushes like Lantana all around the house--at least for now, water to keep them around is cheaper than electricity to cool without them; eventually they will be big enough to "drill for their own" water, and ti will take less watering by me to keep them around once their roots go deep enough. By the time they become more liability than asset as water costs rise and water becomes scarcer, I will hopefully have increased the energy efficiency of the house itself enough to offset the need for them).


I suspect some of the better places to live will be places that right now get a lot of rain. They will still get *some* rain because of their terrain, even when weather patterns change, for the most part. Coastal areas might nto be so great, as the weather might be more violent there due to the increase in chaos from the added energy (although that will probably happen to some degree everywhere).

 

[amberwolf]

Just a note regarding the higher power controller and slightly higher (by one cell) voltage: As I speed up with WOT from a complete stop, it's a little sluggish at first; by 5-6MPH it's gettin' goin', stays abotu the same acceleration from there till nearly 20MPH, and just about 19-20 it suddenly hits it's stride and WHAM you're really starting to go...but right then is when I have to let off the throttle, cuz that's the max speed allowed on the roads here for ebikes.

I REALLY want to find a good long straight paved surface that isn't a public road, that I could see what this will do and where it starts to taper off on the acceleration, etc., and what the max speed might be. But it needs to be on private land so I dont' have to worry about breaking a law to do it, and also so I can make sure no traffic or pedestrians or anythng else will suddenly end up in my path, because I don't have sufficient braking to quickly stop from much faster than legal speeds.

Ideally I would like someone timing the runs, too, so I can see what the 1/8, 1/4 mile, etc. runs would be. Really slow, I'm sure, compared to an actual racing bike, but I'm still curious.

I'd also like to have time to test it stock, as I ride it as a commuter, and then to take off the cargo pods and empty the toolbox, and run it bare-minimum with a recharged pack and see what difference it makes. Probably not much, but still.

If I ever have time to make a velo shell or even partial fairings, I would also lke to test it on teh same conditions with and without them, both for speed difference and efficiency difference.



Still saving more styrofoam containers the fish get shipped in, so I can use them for dog food and for insulation around the house. Hard to fit more than one at a time on the bike; got two more waiting to come home at work, plus a pile of metal stuff saved from discarded retail fixtures, which I have to take the trailer up there tomorrow on my day off to pick up.

Also saved a cracked but still usable "airtight" food container, which I thought would also have to wait, but it fit above the lights on the "rear deck", strapped to the back of the seat like the styrofoam box inside the cardboard box below the lights.

I just used a bungee cord on each one since they are empty and light, but I have once used a pair of pallet straps to hold such a box to the seat back while full of dog food and stuff, just to see if it woould work. It does, and it doesn't sag enough to force the fender down onto the tire, but it probably would if I had to go much more than 2.5 miles home. I'm sure it's not good for the seat frame either. :lol:

But if I were to ever take a "camping trip" at least I know I could put a bag of light clothes up there, and a sleeping bag above the lights, and probably food and stuff in the metal side pods.

 

[amberwolf]

So I went to snag the rest of the stuff from work, and a mile or so in, at the same place the last flat happened, guess what?

No, I didn't find a million dollars.

I did, however, find the limits of yet another innertube.

This one started as a fast leak; then it seemed to stabilize arround 20PSI, but that's really squishy and I figured the tire/tube would slip in the rim with the power on that rear wheel plus the weight on it, and damage the valve stem (if it wasnt' already), so I aired it bakc up to 50PSI, and no sooner had I put the compressor away and rode off than it went totally flat, just after I had pulled into traffic, of course.

I pulled off onto one of the canal path entrances and out of the way, and tried reairing it up, but no, it was done. I pondered changing the tube out for the one I had with me, but that takes an hour or more, the sun was poking back out of the partlycloudy skies and bringing temperatures back up closer to 100F (was already 95F in the shade when I left), the wind had crawled to a breeze, and I had no shade anywhere nearby that I could work on it. So I started walking it back home, trying to remember where shade might be along the way enough to do the work, and the peeking sun became full sun and the wind died completely, so I just kept going home.


When I got home, more clouds rolled in and blocked the sun compeltely, the wind picked up from a different direction and stayed relatively breezy at a couple MPH, and the temperature dropped a few degrees. Naturally this couln't happen while I was out walking, or working on the bike.


I dug out the tools, setup the bike on blocks, and changed the tube for one of the two BikeFanatic sent me in the last care package boxes; a pre-Slimed branded tube (made in China, unfortunately, but so was the one I just blew). The old tube blew a little hole on the INSIDE of the circumference, nearly directly opposite the valve stem. It does not correspond to any rough spots or pointy things anywhere on the wheel or tire, and I did nto find any debris inside the tire/wheel/etc when I was opening it up.


The slime in the tube could not have done anything about this hole. Also, the slime seems to have congealed into ropes isnide the tube, which is wierd. It is "fresh", as in newly-installed when I put the tube in when I changed to this Armadillo-armored tire.

I can patch it, and probably will, just to have another spare tube, but this is pretty annoying. (I could probably have patched it on the road and continued, but I figured it was just as likely to be the valve stem or some other unrepairable damage, since it would not reinflate at all, and I did not even bother to check till getting home).


Now a friend is coming over so we can go to American Foods in Mesa for groceries and whatnot (he has a new-old car he really likes to drive, so he is picking me up at the house rather than me meeting him near end-of-line on the lightrail by bike), so I will have to do my salvage trip another time, probably tomorrow when I am working anyway. Oh, well, at least the flat didnt' happen on a workday.



In other news, the rim is cracking around the nipple holes. Not severe yet, but I guess this is the result of all the weight of this bike on it as a rear, possibly plus the power put thru it (4KW+) in bursts on takeoff on the occasions I can't keep my lead thumb under control.

View attachment 6







The clamping dropouts are holding up well; as is the axle, so far. No rocking or other damage that I can see yet, though close examination of the pics does reveal some details that might show damage, I think it is from previous issues as a front, on the axle.

 

[amberwolf]

So my friend arrives, carrying these:


View attachment 1
They're "airless" tubes, which apparently were a cheap goodwill find. 24", so this means I can use them with those nifty "slicks" that are semi-hookworm-tread-clones, whcih I like so much, one of which is worn/torn so can't be used with a tube, but could be used with these.

They'd be likely fine on the front wheel of CB2 or the new version, as most of the weight is on the rear, so wouldn't feel quite as mushy as when on the rear.

I am at this point seriously considering putting my other 26" one on the rear motor wheel of this bike, mushiness or not, just to prevent the whole flat-at-a-crucial-time thing. Gettin' sick of it, too hard /time-consuming to fix on the roadside. Same reason I put the first one on DGA's rear wheel.


He also found a box of assorted goodies at a yard sale, and gave me a few things he had many duplicates of:

The loctite has a use-by date of 2009, but should still work well enough for my purposes (better than nothing or than using superglue on the threads, which often rquires cutting the fastener off or drilling it out, after the head snaps off from the torque required to overcome the superglue-on-steel bond).

The clear plastic bits are eyeglass side-protectors, which I could use a fair bit. A Bussmann cdnf25 switch, 25A 600V, easily usable as a main disconnect for my more normal ebikes. it's also 3-pole, so it could be used to disconnect multiple separate things (like a common ground and then positive for each of a lighting pack and a traction pack).


Were also some copper terminal bits and very thick bare copper grouding wire, and some advertising-type pocket measuring tapes and stuff.



I had a thought about a spare tube half-pre-installed, so that I wouldn't have to take the wheel off to change it. If I put a tube inside the stays on one side, and then pulled it around the cargo pod, and tied it up in a bundle with velcro or zipties or something, to keep it out of the way of the wheel or anything else, then when I have another flat I can simply pop the tire off the rim, slip the dead tube out, and put the new one in and put the tire back on, and reinflate. I've heard of it being done on regular bikes, too, but it would be an incredible timesaver on this bike.

I'd rather not have to worry about flats, though, so it's looking more and mroe like I'm gonna stick that "airless" tube in there.