The SB Cruiser : Amberwolf's 2WD Heavy Cargo Trike & Dog Carrier

[amberwolf]

Been riding the trike the last couple days to work, and getting between 1.7-2.3Ah per each half of the trip, usually the lower end when there's less stops, on the way home at nigth with less traffic to wait for. I can't remember teh Wh, though, and accidentally deleted the "note" on the phone that I'd been entering the info in, when I tried to enter tonight's info.

Using rounded numbers below:

But I guess I could use a 54V average voltage, which gives an average Wh of 92 to 124. A 52V avg means 89 to 120.

Since my trip is about 2.4 miles either way, that makes (for 54v) 38 to 52wh/mile, and for 52v makes 37 to 50wh/mile.



I expect that most likely it's a lot less than that, and the average voltage is lower than that, but until I actually get the real Wh used, I won't know.



On the other hand, this trike (for the last two days without the kennel on it, in flatbed w/rack mode), has garnered a lot of attention. I park it in a regular parknig space (under a streetlight directly across teh way right in front of the store) , front wheel out (keeps the battery in the shade).

There was a crowd of skateboarders today at the stripmall I work at, and they all gawked around it and took pics and stuff, while i was cashiering.

At least two cyclists stopped to do that too.

A bunch of drivers slowed or stopped as they drove thru the parking lot, sometiems with chains of cars behind them honking to make them get moving. Some I could see taking pics with phones, some I think were just gawking.

Numerous pedestrians slowed or stopped to look at it, some taking pics, some just pointing.

One non-leashed dog ran from it's owner and hopped up on the flatbed area, sat down, and just waited. No idea what that was about, and the owner didn't know either when they walked over, called the dog, who didn't come, and had to be picked up and carried into the store. :lol: Little black/brown mix of some kind, who knows what, but very wiggly and happy. When they left they had a leash and it wanted to go over to the trike again but they didn't go in that direction.


Yesterday there were not as many that I could see, and I was up at the register longer.

But on the way home, a handful of tshirt/shorts cyclists obviously together were crossing the street from one part of the canal path to the other just as I was coming up that street on my way to work, and a few of them left their group and followed me a ways, not chatting or anything, just riding along with me (about 17-18MPH I'd guess, still no speedo) around metroparkway for maybe half a mile before they turned around. I'd waved at them and grinned, but only one of them returned the wave or grin, the rest just seemed perplexed.

Not sure if their confusion was the trike itself, or that I wasn't pedalling. Could've been both.



Had two cars tonight actually turn around and pass me twice to get a better look at it I'd guess. One had a bunch of people in the back all hooting and hollering, couldn't make otu a thing they said.


A few "cool bike!" or "Bad ass bike!" or similar on my rides home both nights, those usually only happen at night, bprobably cuz of all teh lights on it.


There could've been stuff like that on my ride home Tuesday, but i was so wiped out I didn't pay any attention or remember really much of any of that, except wishing I was already home. :/




Oh, and on Tuesday, before I left for Winco, I'd put the SMV sign (usually mounted on the dog crate's door) up higher above the tail/brake/turn bar, on the back of teh white cooler on the rack, so it basically is in line with my head (probably keeps anyone behind me from actually seeing my head at all, and the rest of me other than hands on the handlebars blocked by the cooler and the seat and stuff under the seat.)

I did that because I was not going to take the dog crate at first, and was going to just put three coolers on there (which fit tightly enough to not need to be tied down) but then decided that with the multiple stops I should use soemthing lockable just in case, and put two coolers inside the crate with the crate strapped down in it's usual spot. (it also holds bigger stuff that way)


Need to get a pic but keep forgetting. :/

 

[amberwolf]

Remembered to write down the wh/ah today:

Trip to work
1.96ah
102wh

@2.4miles that means 42.5wh/mile

trip home
1.77ah
96wh
@2.4miles that means 40wh/mile


both of those sound pretty reasonable for this thing.

 

[ErnestoA]

That's really good! Makes me feel a bit more confident that my trike will get out of it's own way....if I ever get it done...lol

 

[amberwolf]

Guess it depends on it's torque.


I have no idea what the 3kw max power I see equates to in torque on these two 20" wheels. I guess the GRIN Simulator should show that...let's go see.

The left wheel is the 9C 2807, and the right wheel is the X5304.

If I simulated the stuff right, at WOT the 2807 makes about 86nm of torque at startup from a stop, with 7.138ft/s2 acceleration going down to about 40nm at 19mph where various things peak and start dropping off. Watts peaks there at 1300w motor power and 1750w battery power (at WOT), with 2.570ft/s2 acceleration.

Same setup for the x5304 gives about 90nm startup 7.439ft/s2 accel, down to about 40nm at 19mph, 2.592ft/s2 accel, 1750w battery power, 1325w motor power, although things don't actually peak until 22.5mph on this motor.

That's with a setup of 330lbs, mountain bike, 20" wheel, 33a .3ohm controller, 55v 0.05ohm 20ah battery (em3ev a123 prismatic pack).

Simulation is with 100% throttle at all points, but really I end up at something around 3/4 throttle rotation or less of just the x5304 (zero on 2807) when I'm at my cruising speed), and the simulator figure at 76% sort of agrees with my actual wh/mile, to it's probably a little less than 3/4 throttle really, since the startups use more wh and make the total wh/mile higher.

Now, what the figures would be if the simulator could do both motors at the same time, I don't know. The *actual* acceleration is not just double what I get if I use either motor by itself, it feels like much more than that, so I expect other numbers would be more than double or less than half of what one motor by itself shows.

 

[amberwolf]

After having quite a lot of pothole/etc encounters on the Winco trip last week, plus all the usual ones in my commutes and normal store trips, plus all the hefty sideloading in all of my turns, I checked out the wheels, and found that so far there is no apparent de-truing of any of the wheels.

The front 26" isn't surprising, as it's larger, normal wheel, on a (crappy) suspension fork, and not too much weight on it.

But the two rear wheels are 20" hubmotor builds, one with a lesser rim that I didn't expect to last long at all, though both use Sapim 13/14 spokes from Grin-Tech, and I built both as carefully as I could.

I must've done a better job than I expected, given the results so far.


The big thing I expected to cause problems is the sideloading, when I make faster turns in traffic, fast enough to actually skid the tires on the pavement as I slew around a turn with cargo or one of the dogs in the crate/kennel (which prevents it from tipping at that speed; when it is loaded less and tips on one of the rear wheels, it doesn't skid).

Then there's the potholes, which I avoid as much as I can, but there's always some I can't for various reasons (usually other traffic on the road). Some of them are pretty bad, up to several inches deep. Some are not holes but are instead ridges at the interface between concrete and asphalt, at gutters, sidewalk curbs, or manhole covers, etc. As heavy cars and trucks brake and accelerate they push these ridges up, some of them several inches high (made even worse by up to several inches deep troughs on one side or both!).


Anyway, this post is really just a note to say the wheels are hlding up really well, especialy compared to my expectations.

 

[dogman dan]

That's good to know. Likely going to take some watching them though, for spokes loosening. I'm running that identical wheel I sent you now on that Re bike recumbent, and sure enough, it began to fall apart right away. So it's check the wheel weekly for that crappy wheel.

Nice though, to zoom to the store on it towing the bob trailer. Need to get a 20" front wheel on it, so I can move the crappy wheel to the front, and run a stronger wheel on the rear. 20" 5304 would be cool! but a 9c will be fine.

 

[amberwolf]

You could always buy that one back from veloman--he's got it up for sale. :lol:

The spokes on the "champion" 20" began to have problems pretty quick; then rim after fixing spoke issues. Same with the crystalyte spokes/rim on the HSR3548 from Grin (which is now got Sapim spokes from Grin on an ex-zero rim from Ypedal, and hasn't had problems since relacing it radially--the half-radial/half-1x suggested by Justin didn't pan out, probably because of the bend that had to be made to get the spokes to work in that extreme an angle).



As for my trike's 20" wheels, they're the ones I built from Grin's Sapim spokes, and one good ex-zero rim (on the 5304) from YPedal, and one crappy random rim (on the 9c) from my junkpile.

I want to get more of those ex-zero rims, but can't yet afford it. He offered to send them and let me pay as I can, but that's not fair to him since he might get a buyer that can pay now and since ebikes are his livelihood now, I'd expect he kinda needs money sooner rather than later.




My sister is apparently not coming by today as planned to move stuff over here from the place she has to leave, so I may have time to do a few things to the trike.


I'd like to fasten the battery down better than just straps, and get the cotnrollers mounted under the flatbed, wires rerouted, and the switches for things installed and wired up. (some are there, but not wired in since the moving-around of things).

 

[amberwolf]

I got the controllers moved, and that's pretty much it.



Got wiped out tired too often, kept having to stop and rest in the cooler (and drier) bedroom (where the dogs chilled out most of the day, as usual, coming out to check things out every so often).

Got real humid (for Phoenix) cuz storms moving in, though unlikely to actually rain where I am from waht I can see so far--just around the edges of the valley, where storms appear to have been happening here and there for the last few hours.


Anyway, Screwed the cotnrollers down to the bottom of the flatbed's planks, just inboard of each wheel behind the axle.



Then shortened the phase wires to just enough for a service loop, on each controller and motor. Since neither of the controllers respond to halls on any motor, even though they have hall wires, I just left the wires unconnected and taped off on both controllers (i'd already done so on the x5304 before moving them).

Becasue it was so hot and humid, I didn't re-run new wires from the controls down to teh controllers, but just spliced in extensions of the existing cables.


I did redo the power path back to the orignally-intended method, so it goes thru the keyswitch and I don't have to unplug the battery everytime I park it. It doesn't yet go back thru the frame, but it will eventually--all the wiring will go inside the frame to wherever it needs to get to from wherever it starts. Right now about 1/4 of the wiring is that way.




Also, as I keep forgetting to go get solder, I had none to redo the wiring with. So I had to just do the interlaced end-to-end twisted splice method, and then tape them together/insulate, for all the control wires. The power and phase wires got that treatment, plus a couple of zipties to squeeze the conductors together at the splice prior to taping up.


Tested it all ok, took some pics, and called it a day. :/



View attachment 3







Oh, I also tested the Grin FOC controller (the first version, with the aluminum block body, not the new more powerful ones), on the 9C (since I had already hooked up the x5304's controller before I remembered I wanted to do this ).

I was already tired, so I didn't go re-read themanual, and still haven't as of this posting, so there is probably an explanation of what happened in there somehwere.

I only hooked up the throttle, power, phase, and hall wires, nothing else. Motor was offground, with trike still on it's side, thsi motor up in the air at the "top".

As soon as I powered it on, before applying throttle, it started up full speed, then began grinding and shuddering, then reversed, rocked back and forth, sped up, reversed, sped up, slowed down, tehn shuddered some more and shut down with a flashing red light, about 1hz or so. (had been steady on red light before that).

I had to disconnect power to reset it.

Power back on, steady red light, no motor operation. Apply throttle just a hair, full motor speed. Ok, probably is set to power control by throttle rather than speed, so no-load it hits full speed. Dunno.

Let go of throttle, and it doesn't slow down. Waited several seconds, and still kept going at full rate, then some grinding and it slowed and stopped.

Then it restarted by itself again, forward first, then reverse, then shutdown.

Waited awhile, and it didn't restart.

I powered off, disconnected the throttle, repowered, and got the same apparently random behavior, acted as if it was trying to test the motor.

I gave up at that point, being too hot and tired to think clearly to figure it out. Later I will hook it up to the comptuer and see if I can access it to see what it's settings are, that might explain it's behavior, and fix any that need it. Or just do the whole motor setup thing.



Unrelated, a pic of the trike parked in a parking lot, like I usualy do with it.

 

[bowlofsalad]

Your last picture of your trike reminds me of peewees bicycle.

I am sure you'll figure out installing the bacdoor software and all that, http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=65031&start=25#p978256 but this is probably a good post to start with on reading.

 

[amberwolf]

I am sure you'll figure out installing the bacdoor software and all that, http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=65031&start=25#p978256 but this is probably a good post to start with on reading.

Thanks---I'll get back to it eventually.


Oddly, the shorter phase wires (or longer battery wires?) seem to have made the motors quieter. There's a lot less grumbly rumbling grindy sort of sound under hard acceleration, and even cruising on the x5304 (which is used by itself after I get up to speed) is quieter. I now wish I had a recording of the sounds and the feel of the vibrations before and after to directly compare.

Other than that, not sure there's much difference, other than it being neater and less susceptible to me catching legs or shoes in the spaghetti bowl of wires when they were around the seat. That was pretty much the only real reason for moving the controllers.

Though I did figure that shortening the phase wires by 3+ feet would make some difference to performance, I mostly figured it would be reduced waste heat in those wires.

 

[amberwolf]

First "flat" tire problem started yesterday. I didn't notice when I went out for the morning stuff (dogs, watering, etc) but when I was about to head to work I found the left rear tire nearly flat, when it had been 50psi the day before (or rather, had not had to be aired up from the last check at that pressure some days before, and had been just as hard as it should be the day before).

Aired up just fine, so is a faster-slow leak. Rode to work, parked under the awning cuz it was going to rain (and did this time, though not much), and came out at end of night to find it pretty well flat again. Aired up fine, and rode home fine. But I'll have to find and fix the problem soon. Probably not today as I have to work soon, and I'd have to take the wheel off to access the tire/tube, partly due to the doubled-up tire. Maybe tomorrow on my day off.

 

[amberwolf]

Found a really old version of a Cycle Analyst

:lol:
(it's my tiny tire repair kit, that I can't remember where I got. I thought it came with the Nishiki that will soemday be the Nishik-E, but a quick ES search finds that was a larger version of the kit, so I dunno where this came from)


After several hours of problem after problem, most of them caused by me being too hot and tired and screwing up reassembly/etc., I got the tire issue fixed, and the front disc changed from the e-bike-kit 180mm (which doesn't grab enough to even slow down at all) down to the promax 160mm, which even though the pads don't even touch more than several mm of the rotor edge, still works better.




First, I got the left wheel off to get the tire adn tube off to see what the leak cause was. That was relatively easy, as was taking the tires and tube off of it.

At which point I got to see this:
View attachment 7



which isn't soemthing I've ever had happen before. The "inner" tire (an old one that is in fairly advanced dryrot stages, used mostly as an "emergency" liner for when the outer tire (worn hookworm) gets too worn and tears thru, probalby during a turn. Then I'd be able to at least limp home without having to stop and change the tire itself (whcih presently i don't have a spare on the trike for). That's the plan, anyway.


But that plan only works if the tire bead wires don't come out and poke the tube. :/

BTW, it didn't just poke it, there was well over a foot of it inside the tube--everything to the right of my fingers in the pic:



Dryrotted bits...



I cut the bead off the inner (rotting) tire and saved the steel wires for later use tying stuff down (on something), and patched the tube. Then I inflated it, checked it with soapy water for leaks, found none, and set it and the tires (washed of the debris in the previous pics) out in the sun to dry.



But came back to find the tube flat, and the patch failed along one edge. I'm out of rubber cement, so the patch will just have to wait till later for fixing up, and I went back to an old similar tube that I had as a spare. (cuz it has some issues with delamination of layers around the valve stem base, since for some reason they did not make the tube as a single casting, but did it as at least two layers, maybe more. probably it will not have failure becuase of it, but it could, so I'd set it aside as a spare till now, when I need it as the best of my spares).


While I was waiting for that to dry, I'd opened up the freewheel, whcih came with no grease, and packed it with red wheelbearing grease, which made it MUCH quieter. Unlike the rest of the day, that part was really easy.


Talcum powdered the insides of the two tire layers, and dusted the tube too. Put the tube in the inner now-beadless tire, and that inside the outer hookworm tire. Then isntalled on the wheel, all easy enough.




Installing the wheel back on the trike, though...that was an adventure full of naval-level bluestreakiness and sweat and tears...no blood though. Managed to avoid any sacrifices.


Basically I just couldn't get the hardware to fit back into the same space it came out of, for the torque washer I was using as a retainer to prevent forward movement of the inner axle end, to keep that side from being pulled forward by pedalling (in the hopefully rare event of having to do that, which I have had to do for more than a mile once already, and barely managed even that cuz the gearing is wrong).

In the process of retrying over and over I also kept putting the hardware on the other end back wrong, in different ways, as I got tireder and tireder, hotter and hotter, and more and more frustrated. I broke a hose clamp by stripping out the slots on it, and had to dig out a replacement.

Eventually I gave up trying to get the tabbed torque washer to fit back where it should, and just tightened down what I could, and cut a block of wood off a scrap of 2x4 to be just a hair too large to fit between the axle nut of the motor, and the crossbar/axle of the trike frame, and used the sledgehammer to tap it into that space.





It's a VERY tight fit, but I still need to drill a few little pilot holes for some long wood screws to secure it to the planks of the cargo area, so it can't fall out from eventaul vibration/etc.



I test rode around the neighborhood, accelerating and braking and turning, checking fit and tightness after a few of those each time, readjusting if needed (mostly not), and after no more adjustments were needed after many of those, I called it a day, parked it, and sat down for food and posting this....but it was a while before that could happen, cuz internet was still down for my neighbor (wifi worked, but no ISP connection at his end; had been down since just before 9am this morning).


Of course, I was also walking away from everything now and then when Tiny or Yogi came to see me or get me for soemthing, and to go move the waterhoses for the tricklewatering of the trees/lantana/etc.


Maybe I'll get to adding the lightswitches and stuff on the next day off.

 

[amberwolf]

Didn't get anything done on the trike today, just too hot to dig thru the sheds for the stuff I needed for it (>110F; some readings showed 115F, most closer to 110-111, depending on where in the yards I measured).

But no problems with the tire / wheel repair yet.

 

[Chalo]

When you use an inner tire as a liner, you have to cut the bead wires off. That's what allows the casing to stretch until it fills the outer tire, even if there is a substantial difference in size.

 

[amberwolf]

That's what I ended up doing, after teh failure.

However, the reason I left the bead on it (and previous such experiments) was that since this trike when loaded down enough to not tip in a corner can scrub/powerslide around the corner instead (in situations where behavor of traffic behind me when I'm turning "encourages" me to get around the corner as quickly as possible), it rapidly wears the tires, and since all of my tires I can use on this are already worn from mildly to badly (and budget doesn't presently allow new ones), there is teh chance that a tire could scrub thru over enough of it's center surface to allow a tube or tire without bead to slip thru it like a hernia (or to let the tube out the side of the nonbeaded inner tire after that's exposed).

With the bead still on the inner tire that shouldn't be able to happen because the inner tire cannot expand that way, or at the very worst it should allow me to at least get around the corner and to a place I can stop, deflate the tube, cut off the unusable remains of the outer tire, including pulling it's bead wire out of teh way of the inner tire's bead, and then reinflating and seating the inner tire's bead as the new outer tire.


That's the hypothesis anyway, untested.

 

[amberwolf]

The left wheel's tire/tube setup (repaired above) is mostly ok, but is having a "new" issue, where the tube is slowly migrating around, tilting the valve stem. Inflation is 55PSI and hasn't gone down, and this is normally enough to prevent this, without making the tire so hard that it bounces like a basketball on each of teh many bumps of the roads.

The rigthside wheel does not have this problem, but it is in a much wider rim, so 55PSI is more air inside it and stretches the tube more, with more surface area of the tube and the doubled-up tires pressing on each other and the rim, I'd guess, keeping it from rotating.


It's a little odd because I don't even use the left wheel motor nearly as much as the right, and the right has more torque, and also sees "impact torque where the left doesn't. On righthand turns, because they are much tighter than left hand, sometimes the trike lifts the right wheel offground just enough that since I'm throttling thru the turn with it (not usually with the left) it is spinning full speed when it re-contacts the road, and I'd expect this to be more likley to cause tire/tube rotation on it...yet it doesn't happen.

Only on the left side....




Other than that, there's a new rattle that I think is the top rack, on one of it's vertical supports where it bolts to teh stubs on the fender frames. I can't make it wiggle or move by hand, but I think road vibration at the right frequency and intensity causes it to rattle at the connection. If I lean my shoulders back into the front edge of the rack, it stops...but it's uncomfortable cuz I'm having my back beaten by the metal square tubing.

So far it's just annoying...but I haven't been able to determine where the rattle actually is, so I haven't been able to fix it either. I don't have a lot of time to work on it right now with trying to setup the house for me + my youngest sister and our animals, since she's going to be staying here for a while, having lost her home elsewhere. Once she's moved in, I should have more time. I'm also up for a week's "vacation" from work in late September, when I will finally have more PTO (having used what I had left earlier this year when Tiny got sick).

 

[amberwolf]

On my way home from work, as I was turning right exiting Metrocenter, a man in a car(truck?) waiting to turn left going into Metrocenter yelled out his window "that's cool as frock!"....I guess that means he likes the trike...but I'm not entirely sure if it's really meant that way or not.


As usual, each day at work there is at least one, sometimes several, who come in to ask about the trike. A few days ago someone asked where to buy one, another asked if they could buy this one for their dad....but since I am usually the only cashier (with only one other employee in the store who is trying to help several other people at the same time) there is no way I can take any time to talk to them even for a second, most of the time. On rare occasions I can talk for a moment but it's never with the people who are interested in spending money on a bike/trike. And I can't hand out business cards or anything like that at work.

 

[amberwolf]

Is raining today. About to head off for work, so I get to test the trike actually riding in the rain on wet roads for the first time.

I've baggied up the throttles on the handlebars, just in case, and used clear packing tape on the front in-frame wiring area to keep most of the front wheel's splash out (cuz I still haven't gotten the fender built for it) but the rest is pretty much as-is.

 

[amberwolf]

The rain let up before I left, and didnt' start again until after I got home. :/

Hvent' had a chance to check out the rack rattle, or find/fix the tuve/valvestem rotation problem on the left wheel.

HOwever, there is a new problem I have not located yet:

The righthand controller suddenly started having a cutout problem, *if* I use the left mtoro too, during aceleration. It does not happen instantly, it isn't votlage sag (not directly anyway) causing it to go below LVC or whatever,.

I can acclerate with both at the same time, then suddenly a second or two into acceleration the rightmtoor just cuts off. I have to let off it's throttle for at least a whole second before it will let me resume using it. I don't have to let up the left throttle at the same time, though if the load is still higher (still acclerating, or climbing one of the couple of small rises (bridge, driveway) on teh way to/from work, then after a secon i twill cutout again.

The left controller/motor does not cutout.

I examined and reseated all power connections, in case it actually was voltage sag. Wattmeter doesn't show sag below previous levels, though I still don't have it setup to see this while riding for eithe rbefore or after compariosn.

Teh rightnand cotnroller does get pretty hot; but I use it a lot mroe than the left. It could be a bad cap in there, killed by heat, exacerbated by load, cuasing the controller to get confused due to voltage spikes/sags on the battery iput cuz of the caps. Have to open it up to see. I suppose it could also be a bad cap in the *wroking*( controller interfering with the other one.


Am still reararanign stuff in the house for my little sister to move in, though she's almost done so once that is complete I may have more time to work on these issues.


The cotnroller issue i need to fix to day if I can, cuz it's dangerous in traffic to not have the power to get out of the way, or to start to do so and then have more than half the toruque jujst go away suddenly--aside from teh loss of torque it also pushes hard to the right cuz I am still not expecting it to happen and it takes a moment to compensate.

 

[amberwolf]

I thnk it's fixed, but it doesn't make sense.

When I baggied up the throttle controls and stuff on teh handlebars for the rain teh other day, that's when the problem started, so I unbaggied them and the problme stopped.

Examining wiring for possible broken / intermittent wires, etc., I found instead that where I'd cut the ebrake wires back when Evoforce and I were riding around and he'd had problems with it engaging the brake/cutting off motor, I'd never resoldered or taped those wires after splicing htem back together.

Neither was touching handlebars or other wieres, etc, but the connections were bare, and so (were touching the clear packing-tape's adhesive, though).

The ebrake wires connect to *both* the controllers, so if it were activated at all, it would be on both. cus that's what hapepns if I squeeze that lever, befroe or after removing the rain-wrap.



So, I rode around the block a lot, accelerating with both motors, and it worked fine.


Dunno why it happend but it works now, so....

 

[amberwolf]

No problems since the above. Stil dunno what about the adhesive in the tape could cause the ebrake that is connected to BOTH controllers to make ONE controller cutout but not brake when the OTHER controller either gets to a certain speed or power usage?

 

[amberwolf]

First collision today, though I wasn't on it at the time.

Parked at work, a lady came in to tell me some van had backed into it, she'd stopped him and told him and he said "yeah I know" but he didn't go in to tell anyone in the store it was parked in front of. So she followed him and got his make/model/license plate info, wrote it down and came back to the store to find the owner of the trike (me).

I was a little confused at first, but thanked her, she left, and I looked out the storefront window to see the damage, but coudln't see anything wrong with it. A bit later as soon as customer traffic calmed down a little, a manager and I went out to look at it. I couldn't see anything wrong, it rolled ok (still locked cable thru the front wheel and frame.

Anyone backing into it would have to be into the front tire, and it appears it must've just been pushed rolling backwards by the van.

There was a business card on the handlebars, with a note written on it to call if there is any damage.

I didn't have time to inspect it closely, so I simply had to wait till time to leave for home to check it out operationally. It worked fine on the way home AFAICT, though there might ahve been more vibration than usual. Hard to tell, it was so hot (still 102F after 10pm when I left work) that I had trouble concentrating, after the long day at work and the very hot last couple of days we've had, whre it has not really cooled down much at night (still >90F by dawn, still >95F by 3am, only dropping around a degree F per hour average).


Tomorrow in daylight I will examine the front wheel and fork closely, and see if anything was actually damaged.



So, this is only the second bike I have ever had that actually got hit by a car.


(IIRC DayGlo Avenger was the first, though I think that was before it was electrified and before it's colorscheme/name; car touched the left handlebar grip tip as it passed me, wtih the expected results. Been so long I can't remember exactly).

 

[amberwolf]

Did my preflight getting everything ready for work, and found the left tire blown--the valve stem blew out. Not surprising since it has repeatedly been forced at an angle as the tire/tube spins on the rim (still for unknown reasons; it shouldn't).

No time to fix it, so will be riding CrazyBike2 again till I have time and energy to deal with it.

I would probably have had time to deal with it if it werent' for the computer problems prior to that--the laptop suddenly decided to BSOD at wake from hibernation, and then startup to "windows xp is not yet activated"

The laptop has the usb-wifi internet connection, which itself isn't fast enough anymore due to defective memory slots limiting me to 512mb, forcing me to use it as a "router" to let the desktop connect thru it (cuz the desktop will not work with the USB wifi thingy--for whatever reason *only* the old broken dying laptop will work with it, and no other wifi setup I can get to work at all will not connect to the neighbor's wifi cuz of security modes. )

So activation can't be done, because utnil it boots to the desktop and waits about a minute or two, it doesn't have an internet connection.

Had to "disable" the activation and reset the oobe timer to 30 days, which requires going to safe mode command prompt, running explorer, and really quickly running regedit and changing some settings, before activation stuff shuts down explorer to prevent a user from using the comptuer without activating it first. Soemtiems it takes me several reboots (which takes a long time on each one) to get this done before the timeouts.

Then try booting normally, which sort of worked but then said there were errors in registry and other files which had to be restored from backup, display at 640x480x16 color, messages about drivers incompatible with "this version of windows" (which is garbage--they're the same they were for the last two years, just like everything else on the system). Etc etc etc.

Eventaully after an hour and a half of futzing with it, got it running well enough to be a "router", and connect to internet thru it.

Then I went back outside (as I had been doing intermittently in the above process) to move watering hoses, etc., and then did my (belated) preflight check....


So, I'm sure I'll continue to have problems iwth the laptop (this sort of thing started happening to a much lesser degree about a year ago)...hopefully not for a while so i have time to fix the trike, too. (and all the other things that've been piling up)


At least it's not quite so hot today or yesterday as it was the previous few. More than 10-15 degrees F cooler.

 

[amberwolf]

Rode CB2 for work the past couple days. This morning just before the landlord's crew arrived to fix the main house AC (just swapping the intake and output ducts, apparently) and a corroded drain, I fixed the trike's tire/tube.


I'm still not sure why it kept having the spin problem with the previous tube/tires, but so far no issues with this one, even after a ride where I specifically used the left wheel hard wherever I could to test it out, both on teh way to and from the grocery store, where I picked up 3 coolers' worth of groceries, around 65lbs of stuff total, for my little sister and I.


Replacing the tube was much easier than the last tiem, cuz I didn't bother trying to futz with the hardware that didnt' go in right before, and just went straight to reinstalling that wooden block to ensure the left inside axle cant' move forward in it's slot if the pedal chain is used.

The tube itself apparently failed at the previous layer-delamination area around hte valvestem, and may not have had much of anything to do with the othe rissue, other than the spin pulling at the valve stem at an angle.


On the way home from the store, a blue Vespa-like scooter rider followed me to comment on how quiet the trike is, and that he liked it.

I also had one grumpy cyclist at the bike lockup area mumbling to himself about the trike, coudln't quite hear what he was saying but he sounded bothered by it. Probably because he was busy hanging bunches of heavy grocery bags on his handlebars, trying to keep his bike from falling over while he did so, while I was easily loading mine into the nice styrofoam coolers that easily stacked and tied down into the big flatbed area.


I've run into that before, even when I just had baskets on all four "corners" of the pre-dayglo-avenger bike(s). Sometiems I have tried to help them by describing what they might be able to do with their own bike to make it easier to carry stuff, but most are unwilling to even listen; even those that will listen are unwilling to try even the simplest of things and just say they will continue doing it on the handlebars (even those that say they have crashed because of the swinging weight).

Some won't do ti cuz they don't feel they are capable of it, and some because it would "make their bike ugly", and others because...well, just because.

 

[amberwolf]

So, now the *right* wheel has an issue: the tire (maxxis hookworm) is worn thru the tread and carcass in a few places and the inner tire (old kenda flame) is bulging out. This is why I did the double-tire thing, though, so it wouldn't be the *tube* which would've just herniated and popped.




Is holding so far, but I need to swap the outer tire out ASAP. I would rather do this only once, and the other tires I have left are not very good. Skedgy Sky has a few 20" tires for $5 each, so I bought those, plus shipping it still only comes out around $10/tire, which is about 1/4 the cost of buying new locally. There is one pair of slightly knobby tires that look thicker/tougher in there, and so whenever they arrive I will try them out on the trike, replacing both the worn tires presently on it. (the existing left outer tire, a Maxxis Ringworm, will become the new inner tire, and the dryrotted old whatever inner tire will be discarded as it is past usefulness for anything I can think of. The existng right inner tire will stay as that inner tire; the hookworm is too worn out).






The problem of the lefthand tire spinning on the rim hasn't stopped, though. It's slower than it was before, but it's still happening. Maybe if I apply rubber cement along the outer tire's bead and the rim, while it's deflated, let it dry, then inflate it, it'll stick in place better, but still be easily removable later?