Bike Pride and the Wynyard Quarter

Was tickled to show the Yuba off to David Haywood and whanau on they way out of the Orcon Great Blend last night. Apparently they've considered a cargo bike with two child seats. Hope I restrained my enthusiasm below the boring fanatic threshold.

Then cycled through the Wynyard Quarter due to open tomorrow. Nice spaces, and a handy ramp up to the viewing platform. That nice existing frontage around half the Viaduct Basin will hopefully connect right around (timeline suggests 2013?) and should benefit from having more outdoor punters in the area rather than the restaurant/bar clientele of the Viaduct. Speaking of which, the bridge provides nice pedestrian access between Wynyard and the Viaduct which could change the dynamic of the whole area.

Got several comments appreciating the bike lights as I cruised around, but uncertain how much to value the opinion of the guys peeing off the wharf.

Did I make it to Christchurch?

Yes. And wasn't the weather beautiful!

So it's been almost 3 months, but here's my report for the record from the polo comp in Christchurch.

Winter Whack - 3rd Place Winners!

Our team started out with a good couple of wins, but couldn't sustain the intensity and got wasted by in 3 minutes flat by the eventual champs - Polo Disco. In the 2nd/3rd playoff we put up stiffer resistance, but eventually the same team which twice beat our fellow Aucklanders put paid to us as well. Props to Glenn who sorted out the Auckland teams - he must of done a good job of balancing us up as we came out 3rd and 4th at the end of the day.

Play was pretty intense at times - you had to commit the body right up to the action, which resulted in a bunch of spills. At one point I lost my rear brake in our first game, and eventually traded the bike off for Glenn's. Playing so many games at that intensity did take it's toll, and I reckon that was a factor in the later games. Polo Disco was clearly a cut above us in skill as well. Not just us, as they swept up the entire field pretty handily. I think they had 3 goals scored against them all day, but thankfully nobody enforced the down-trou rule or there'd have been a lot of flesh on display.

The whole tournament had a great atmosphere, and everybody seemed to have fun. There was quite a range of skill levels, with people drawn in to make up teams or whole teams of occasional players. No way could Auckland have fielded 21 players like Christchurch did, but hopefully a return tourney will pull out a few of our potential/interested people.

Everybody's first question on arrival was why there were so many vegans in the Auckland delegation. The Chch crew is based around fathers who can't get out for mountain-biking like they used to, whereas I can't think of any player from Akl who has kids. Very different demographics didn't hinder us enjoying a night at the pub together beforehand and an aftermatch dinner at the Dux (which has several vegan options).

One last thing to point out - the club house next to the courts is a great idea. It allows them to store edging for the court, rather than losing the ball under the raggedy fence edge or digging it out of weedy gutters. We need something like that in Akl.

Cycle Friendly City

Christchurch was truly fabulous to cycle in. Lots of cycle lanes. Nary a hill through much of the city. A beautiful park with good tracks to ride through. Most importantly - lots of other cyclists to keep the drivers in the habit of looking and waiting.

They also allow bikes on buses, and I went 30kms out to Rangiora for $5.80 each way to visit a colleague. Get off at the other end with your bike, cycle to a store to pick up a drink and choccies, and find your mate's house. So much harder on foot. But do allow for the fact that the first bus after school gets out may have a full rack.

So thanks, Christchurch! Thanks to Craig for being the main man behind the tournament, and thanks to Mads and Malcs for putting me up and feeding me lots of warm, scrummy soup. (I did get sunburnt on the big day, but it wasn't always warm down there.)

Enough from me. Check out more photos from the day.

New Polo Bike

I've been experimenting with a more upright posture for polo, using a small mtb that a neighbour dropped off. I feel more free to reach around, as my hands are unweighted. My centre of gravity is also lower, which I think makes me steadier at very slow speeds. I do sometimes oversteer, but hopefully will learn that the bike can't actually turn right angles.

Compare the new posture with two of us on roadbikes in this picture. I'm struggling to reach behind while my balance is tied to the handle bars, and my friend is falling off with hardly an increase in his forward lean:

ps. Having a new bike has been handy since my fixie is off the road - more on that later, once I discuss it with my LBS.

pps. Dig the cap that Heather made me!

Helmet Hair

The warm weather and my recent haircut have combined to produce a new level of helmet hair, where the ventilation stripes remain clearly visible after I get off the bike. Heather has been most amused.

Mundo Maintenance

AS my Yuba comes up to it's 2nd anniversary, I've needed to do a bit of maintenance. Unfortunately, the final element proved challenging due to being a non-standard part (or from a very different standard).

1. Rear tyre
   I've had two rear tyres go bad on me recently, on different bikes. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but possibly dragging the rear end around while the tyre has little pressure? Certainly I haul the tail of the Yuba around, as its turning circle can be a bit of a pain for parking. Either way, the rear tyre started to stretch alongside the bead on one side. This was new to me, so I was slow to realise that this was the cause of a wobble on every turn of the wheel.
   
   
2. Brake pads are wearing out faster than I expected. Possibly I'm dragging the rear brake too much?
   
   
3. Rear Hub
   This was the doozy. I tried to adjust the cones at one point to fix the wobble from the tyre, and stuffed it up. I had already broken two rear spokes, drive side, so had to remove the cluster to replace them. (No hurry, though. With 46 of 48 spokes, the wheel still ran sweetly.)
   The rear axle is a 14mm BMX axle (grumbling tech details here), and I didn't have proper cone spanners in 19mm. I managed to approximate one spanner, but couldn't get the freewheel cluster off since my removal tool (Park Tools FR-1) doesn't fit over the 14mm axle! I ended up pulling the axle right out, taking the cluster off, replacing the ball bearings (as I lost one carrying the wheel to my friend's to use his vice), then reinstalling. Naturally, I forgot something so had to repeat. I never did get the spoke guard back on.

So that was a pain, but it has been running nicely again now. Next time I'll probably drop it into the shop for the rear hub, but hopefully that won't be for ages.

Underbike Lighting - Construction Details

How to get the fun and safety factors of the Down Low Glow (DLG) without spending too much? Here's what worked for me.

LED Ribbon

A couple of years ago a colleague heavily into car audio (and thus close to the boy-racer scene) recommended a then-new product - waterproof led ribbon - that has finally started turning up on TradeMe. Turns out that ribbon strips are super easy to use. They can be cut every few cm (3 leds on mine) and have clear soldering pads which are easily exposed by trimming a couple mm off the plastic casing. (It felt like cutting through a firm gummy-bear, but without the guilt factor.) Each block is wired in parallel to the others, so you can cut or append with ease.

Each block has the necessary resistors etc., so you just need to hook up a 12V power source such as a lead-acid car battery. If you put the power through the wrong way they just do nothing, rather than blowing up. Finally, the self-adhesive backing which they all seem to come with worked really well.

Few electrical safety precautions are required with low current 12V dc. You can just pinch the wires together between your bare fingers for testing, for example. I did put in a fuse to make sure that the battery couldn't be shorted, and built some basic weather protection.

Supplies

I bought 1m of green ribbon, pre-cut into 2x50cm strips and wired on one end, and two 30cm offcuts of red. All fully waterproof, so long as you seal off the ends after soldering on your wiring. I chose green as it was the brightest colour available from my supplier.

The red off-cuts were super-cheap and I thought some extra rear visibility wouldn't hurt. They were an older, dimmer model (leds get brigher ever day, it seems) but that was okay as they face directly at drivers and the blinky served for initial long-distance visibility. Conveniently their black presentation was more suited to exposed placement than the green strips.

My friend, Glenn, lent me a spare neon car tube and two sealed lead-acid batteries. One never charged back up, so awaits the next hazardous waste collection, but the other is working sweetly. It should give me about 5 hours, but isn't in perfect health and I'd be happy with 2. Frankly, I rarely ride for hours in the dark - mostly commuting, not the PBP. I charge the battery with a Battery Doc which I bought when I had a motorbike.


Lights

I exposed the other end of each green strip and soldered on the wires from a red strip. To provide weather protection I put shrink-wrap over the connection. There was never much space between the end of the strip and the first led, and wrap wide enough to fit over the strip didn't shrink enough to really grip the wires, but it seems to be working okay. I tried putting wrap on the 'open' ends of the red strips, to seal them off, but it didn't stick so well without the wire and I left it off.

Then I peeled off the backing tape, wiped down the mounting surfaces, and stuck each pair down. Simple as that. I put electrical tape over the 'open' red ends, to seal them and to hold that end down. I wasn't sure if the ribbon would adhere to the tubing, but the tubes are fairly wide and it seems to be working. The green strips had shrink wrap forcing up both ends of each strip, but was placed under a flat surface and seems to be gripping well.


The blue neon went on the down tube, just taped on. This light is possibly illegal, as NZ car lighting regulations require that you can't directly see cosmetic lights. (That's partly why I put the green ones underneath running boards, not just on the rear wing tubing, although they'd soon enough get crunched against a curb if I put them there.) The tube is pretty heavily frosted, so I'm not worried that it will blind a driver or anything, and who knows exactly what regulations apply to bikes.

I brought the three sets of wires, from front neon and left and right green/red pairs, to a single point on the frame near where the battery would go. Then I taped it all down - not super beautiful, but effective enough.


Battery and Circuitry

I built a simple case out of coroplast for the battery. I'd wanted some experience with this material, and learned a few things. The lid has no fastening, but sits pretty snugly around the base. I built the base taller than the battery, so that there was room to put in the wiring. It took a bit of practise to figure out how much allowance to make for the curvature/thickness of bends in the board.

The base box is held together with packing tape and has no overlapping surfaces. Very basic, but not much required either. The lid has overlaps, and I found that I got a strong join by cutting off the inner surface of the overlap and applying hot glue. Probably didn't need to cut off the inner surface, but that way the overlaps are flatter. I had read about 'welding' the plastic with a soldering iron, but couldn't make that work.

I wanted to be able to to swap out the battery pretty easily, so have connected to it using alligator clips. First thing connected to the positive terminal is a fuse, then there is a switch toggling between connections to the leds and the charger. The negative line just joins directly to those two connections.


Both sets of connections come out the back of the box, threaded between the lid and base. I put one extra loop of wire around the cable-ties holding the box on the frame, just to keep my options open, then soldered the wires from the battery box to those from the lights. Passing the charger connection above the cable tie seems to have kept it away from the tubing and prevented banging.


Now I plug my bike in every day when I get home, like I used to do with my motorbike. (The main charger unit sits on the rack of a Raleigh 20 which hangs from the carport roof in the forlorn hope of refurbishment.)


Results

Overall, I'm stoked. The light cushion is nice to ride on and I feel more visible on the road. Too soon to say if I get more road space, but I've had some positive feedback from passersby.

The neon is good for side visibility, but isn't as bright as I might like. It takes about the same power as one of the green strips, so is less efficient (no surprise). I could perhaps replace it with some leds, but would probably still want to diffuse the light in some way. I don't know that the green leds throw out as much light as the DLG, but then I could always add more leds. Not for a while, though.

So far I've spent NZD$80.20, but that doesn't include the blue neon, battery, or charger. Most expensive of those is probably the charger, but with a basic model charger and battery I'd still have some money to play with. My battery is probably heavier and cheaper, but the Yuba was never a weight weenie.

There's also the pleasure in making my own system, which I can alter as I please. Definitely worth the trouble taken.

On a Technicolour Cloud

After a trial run at the May Critical Mass, my new bike lights had their maiden voyage (appropriately enough) on the way in to a public consultation on NZ's 2020 carbon emissions commitment. Inspired by Rock the Bike's Down Low Glow, I've attached some led strip lights under my running boards and down the back carrier support. A friend lent me a standard 'neon' car tube as well, so I've thrown that on the down tube.

In case you can't tell, the first photo is the view from my saddle, taken with my phone. It felt a bit wierd in the darker segments of the ride, glancing down and seeing an ethereal cloud in place of mundane concrete. Not to mention the blow glow on my feet. The light kept grabbing my attention at the bottom of little dips, when the bike shifts up and the pool of colour races forward into my peripheral vision.

Construction details will come in time, but here's a front and rear shot taken in the bike shed at work.

Running Boards

The highlight of my respite weekend was making running boards for the Yuba in my pastor's shed. I wanted running boards because my sack of onions often falls mostly through by the time I get it home from the market, but it actually happened because it's a pre-requisite for a future project. There is a downside risk that I can't put the wheel of another bike through the wings when towing like I used to, but I have a couple of options if that really proves troublesome. I do like the increased visibility (and always wanted the red model anyhow).

My pastor generously donated a plywood offcut, and had the suitable tools for the job. I started by tracing the front and back curves of the sideloaders onto the wood, far enough apart to allow overlap for the clamps I attached it with (more on the clamps below). Conveniently the sideloaders have a long straight edge to align the ply against. After cutting the shapes out with a jigsaw, I found the band sander very useful for smoothing up the amateur-hour result and balancing the curves nicely.

I was surprised by how easy it was to get a passable shape. The front and rear of the sideloaders both have short straight sections on them, and I found it helped to establish them on the sander before working on the curves. With the straight edges established, I was able to smoothly transition from one to another, shaping the curve by the pace of rotation. It also helps not to lean too hard on the thing, taking longer but making mistakes less severe and easier to sand out.

Drilling the holes and painting were pretty straightforward, although one set of holes only just worked for me. The plywood surface cracked slightly when the bit emerged, so I drilled a small hole from the back where I'd marked the placement and then the full size hole from the front to the back. There was a similar problem when I tightened the bolts down hard and the plywood surface cracked a bit.

I attached these boards with basic u-shaped clamps. They were fairly simple to use, but I had a limited choice of sizes and the ones that weren't too large fit so tightly that I had to completely remove them to adjust their position slightly. They also cut somewhat into the layer of electrical tape I put on to protect what remains of the paintwork. I found that I had to use a longer screw on one end of each clamp, athough I could remove that after tightening everything up bent the clamp into submission. This is probably partly due to poor hole placement and partly to poor size matching.

My choice of clamp meant that I needed to leave overlap at the front and back. This works okay for me, but will probably cause occassional heel strike. It only happens when I let my heels sink as the pedal rises back up, which I think I do when I ease off after standing up. I've seen some running boards on Flickr (no time to find right now) which look like they are screwed directly into the tubing (which I'm nervous of) or possibly into single-bolt clamps which wrap right around the tube. Something you might want to consider if you're making your own.

The plywood we had to hand was only 150mm wide, but it seems to work nicely enough. The 12mm thickness looks to have provided sufficient strength; the long unsupported edge does flex a bit, but I expect the boards to stop things slipping through and provide comfortable foot placement rather than hold great weight at any one point. The wood was exterior grade, but lacked a nice finish (hence the effort to paint it). The paint is a simple water-based acrylic.

I'll try to update on how it's going after a period of genuine use - haven't even had it out on the roads yet, as I've reverted to my fixie for more intense cardio and (hopefully) fat burning.

Mea Culpa

Today I forgot to swap my front light onto the bike I rode to work, and then left my reflective vest hanging in the locker room as I set off for home. I'd worked a bit later, and a rainstorm came in, making it too dark to be on the road without lights.

As I rode past the zoo, a lady coming the other way realised she'd missed her street and did a 3-point u-turn. I would have been t-boned if I hadn't noticed and sped up, or if she'd come in faster and braked late and hard. I got a bit of a shock, but feel bad that she will have had one too. She slowed down and encouraged me to get some lights, but without the aggressiveness that you might expect from many drivers after such a fright.

I do have a second front light, but can't find it anywhere. Maybe it's time to face reality and get a new one.

Quickies

Halloween critical mass was fun, although I lost the main bunch after waiting for a tail-ender who then decided to call it a day. Then I worked a station for the improvised akfixed.com alleycat, but got there after the lead riders. Oops.

And you might have noticed the little 'glasshouse' in the background. We've been surprised how effective a simple plastic enclosure has been for growing seedlings in. Heather's hard work has been rewarded with a much better hit rate then previous years.

In other news, the city council is scrapping almost all cycle, walking, and public transport spending. They are almost halving the largest roading project, which encourages me, but the Harbour Bridge project seems about to recede another 10-15 years into the future. Grump.

Going somewhere even more different, I often think that we eat quite a lot of salt and wonder how it doesn't affect my blood pressure. Having a few slices of pizza at work today makes we wonder if we don't avoid more salt by simple, healthy eating than we add back in for flavour. I've been pouring in water all afternoon to compensate.

Returning to the positive (which is, of course, about bikes) I've taught a colleague how to shorten his chain for a simple conversion to single-speed riding and then we popped up to check out the new T White's Bikes.

A much needed break

You haven't seen anything for months on this blog because life got crazy busy -- basically work intensified, and I didn't cope with it too well. Things are backing off, and I've hopefully picked up a few tricks about handling things better, but it was great to take a weekend away in mid September.

Continuing my campaign to exploit public transport, I put my bike on the Friday night train to Helensville and cycled four kms over to the Parakai campgrounds. The train service extended this far out about four months back, with a pilot program of one train each way per weekday. I was concerned that this one train on Friday night would be full and they'd prevent me taking a bike (let alone the big old Yuba), but got there several minutes early and nobody quibbled.

The campsite was pretty rundown, complete with sign in shower that it took two to five minutes to get hot water. I took a lukewarm shower after waiting 15, but the next day there was plenty of hot. Somewhat ironic since Parakai is known for its hot springs - as it happens I didn't visit them either as there were too many kids causing mayhem and I was out for a quiet weekend. I found a nice pair of trees for my hammock, and discovered that my friendly neighbour had lived there since 1982! Another neighbour had been a market gardener and his caravan-and-shed were a study in efficient use of land.



Saturday I cycled back to Helensville in the hope of finding a farmer's market mentioned on the internet, but none was to be seen. I enjoyed a morning free to wander the craft shops (looking for somebody's birthday present) with no real deadlines. Not that it took that long to exhaust my options in that booming metropolis. On returning to the campsite I had great plans to fix the rip in my tent netting, or maybe my bag liner, but ended up reading two novels I found in the kitchen. I can recommend Vernon God Little, but not anything by Clive Cussler. [I actually did need to fix the netting, so ended up sewing it as the sun set around 8pm!]

After I had planned this weekend around train trips out and back, the call went up for supporters at a Sunday afternoon rally advocating cycle and pedestrian access to the harbour bridge. Attending the rally met cycling in to town, which was only 50kms but much more than I'd tried with the Yuba. After some equivocation, and much studying of the unreliable elevation data on bikely and similar sites, I decided to give it a go--after all, I would still be very close to home and could easily organise a rescue if I got stuck.

As it turned out, the ride in was great. The weather was terrific (my first sunburn for the year) and none of the hills too steep. I did take 3:50 for just over 50 klicks, including about an hour of resting and lunch, but the bike steadily ate up the miles with all my luggage on it. (A duffel bag fits nicely on the back sidebars, btw.) I don't think that I could take the Yuba over the steeps on the way to Awhitu, but getting home via W. Auckland wasn't a problem. That was a great encouragement to me. Here's a view of the harbour over the motorway.

The rally itself was boring, and only about 400 showed up. Still, I'm glad that I went. A few disobedient types rode over the bridge, ensuring great coverage in the papers. Wish I'd been there. :-) It seems hard to know which way the various government authorities will go on supporting the cycleway, sadly. After the rally I ended up cruising off to a pub with some of the akfixed.com crew, who I'd been keen to meet. Like this guy's tattoo?

Weekend Away

This weekend was one of my quarterly respites, and my friend Anna organised a group to go cycling together. She booked a couple of nights at a Presbyterian church campsite, and offered to cook for all comers.




The main route in/out was about 65kms, excluding the commuter train ride down to Papakura, with 40 flat kms and 25 a lot steeper. Anna's friend John was the only one game to ride out with me, and the poor chap generously waited as I struggled over the hills on the fixie. It was a bad choice for the trip - the dingle cog allowed me to switch to a lower ratio as we reached the concentrated hills, but I was always slow on the downhills and just didn't have the stamina to cope. I only had to walk once (when using the higher ratio), but since I was always working hard and found it hard to take drinks or snacks I was completely bushed when we reached the end. John was very supportive.

Next day, Saturday, we had a lazy morning as the three guys joining us didn't arrive until noon. In the end two of them rode with us for about 2 hours, and we did a nice loop over ludicrously steep rodes. I took the bike left spare by the one guy not riding, which happened to be one of mine anyhow. It worked well for me, so I decided to ride it back on the Sunday. Check out this hill on Boiler Gully Road - we had to walk the first of two consecutive steeps like this, but had the hang of it better the second time.


Sunday morning we set off a bit late, at 8:30. John needed to catch the 12:10 train, so we had to make better time than on the way in. We managed to avoid the unscheduled detour to Clark's Beach which made for a nice morning tea location on day one, but I did get two punctures on the old tyres the backup bike had. Having gears made a huge difference, and it probably helped that we did the worst hills at the start not the end. We may even have had a tail wind through the flatter section, although I mostly noticed it when it flung sleet into my face on the heights. We made the trip in 3:30, arriving just in time to catch the
train and spread our wet, smelly selves across an empty carriage.

Going in was hard, but coming back was fun (in spite of the wet). All up, this was a good respite and restful. So different from Taupo last year. That old bike from my Uncle did me real well, although I'm glad I swapped seats before the ride out. No more taking the fixie on long trips unless I do heaps of real buildup first (which I won't).

ps - Can't resist showing you how I got the bike over to the guys who wanted to borrow it, along with the rack for carrying the bikes on the back of their car. :-)

Asleep at the wheel

I almost won a door prize on the way to work yesterday, but got just enough warning and was able to shimmy about six inches to the right. My rear wheel slid in towards the car as I shimmied - a downside of the long wheelbase of the SUB, I assume - then straightened as I eased off the brake. The driver had been talking on his cell phone, sitting in his parked car, and I hadn't been looking in the back windows like I usually try to do. I feel a bit silly to have been so close to the parked cars since there wasn't any other traffic on the road.

Sunny long weekend

Queen's Birthday weekend was supposed to be rainy, but we have probably had a majority of sunny weather. I took Heather out in her wheelchair this afternoon, out the road and around the end of the cul-de-sac. She had hoped to take out the wheelchair bike, but I wasn't up to the initial granny-gear grind out of the gully between us and the main road.

On Friday, headed home from Pak'n'Save with a banana box full of groceries, my panniers were empty and I was able to pick up a little basket of flowers for Heather. Carrying flowers has always been hard on bikes.
Yesterday I took a chilli plant around to a colleague who has just moved into the neighbourhood. Earlier in the day, finding myself awake in time to visit the Ethiopian Orthodox who meet at 6:30 in our church building, I was pleased to find that the large frame of the Yuba Mundo kept my long overcoat out of the rear wheel. (It didn't seem to right to turn up in bizarre cycling gear to strangers whose entire culture is unfamiliar to me.) You might have picked up that I'm enjoying this bike.

3 Cheers for Auckland University Sustainability Network!

I think that's who it was who met us at the end of Critical Mass with hot samosas and a tomato-based sauce! What a great way to finish - all standing around in the cool, clear night air and chatting rather than disappearing into a noisy pub.

My dinner plans had been up in the air, so I dug in for two samosas and ate my bowl for "desert".

Need for Speed

Yesterday I had to rush home when Heather cut her hand with a utility knife (making my birthday present!). As it worked out a neighbour drove her down to the doctor for two stitches, and I met them there. Nothing big, but she was worn out by having to make the excursion and sit up for so long in her wheelchair.

On the way home I was wishing for a speedier bike -- the Yuba may be great in general, but I was reluctant to wait for lights, let alone shop or scavenge on this trip. What I wanted was the 'Sunday Sports Car'. I have two spare bikes at work, waiting in the hope of pulling in colleagues for lunchtime rides in the Spring, and ought to set one up for the emergency sprint home. I'll probably configure the fixie with the highest gear I can manage in the homeward direction, which I would not otherwise do since that implies walking at least one section on the way back to work. (Not only is the steepest section uphill on the way in, but anytime after 10am I'm more energetic and limbered up.)

I am still considering whether I am comfortable giving up the motorbike permanently. It wouldn't have helped yesterday anyhow, as I wasn't able to predict the incident. It is good for lunchtime doctor's appointments, and late mornings when I want to get in quickly, but a speed-freak bicycle may help to mitigate the loss in those situations.

El mundo - mi perla

So last month I finally received my new Yuba Mundo after months of waiting, and suffered two tantalising weeks to building it up. Since then I have taken it camping, bought a sack of rice, and commuted every day.

The big rack looks wide from behind, and gets such respect from cars that I plan to retire my blond wig. In reality it is no wider than the handlebars, so I can still fit through the same gaps. You do have to avoid cutting across the front of a car before you've actually passed into the gap, given the extra length. The maneuvreability is really noticeable with a moderate load of 10-20kg; where my old tourer would have become whippy in the tail, this monster truck rides just like normal.

"Monster truck" I said, but clown-mobile is more how I felt the first week. The whole bike is so big and heavy that you feel ludicrous without oversized boots and a giant red nose. Then you become familiar with the commanding presence on the road. You learn to carry momentum into hills, and settle into the steady rhythm of gearing suitably low for the Mundo's immensity. You learn that you can pick up those extra items at the supermarket, without worrying whether the panniers will fit them or regretting leaving the trailer at home. Then you learn that the load doesn't stop you climbing the hill between stationary lanes of traffic to position for the right hand turn towards home.

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For Critical Mass last month I rode the Yuba. One of the ubiquitous fixies had a puncture, and I offered him a ride. He sat on the carrier, and held his front wheel off the ground so that the bike trailed after us. We had to trade off a couple times, as much because it was hard work holding the bike at arm's length, and we walked the last part of the major climb out of town. This was my first real load, and I was pleased with the handling. We wobbled drunkenly for a moment at the low speed of initial movement and just before stopping. In between we were pretty stable. Sadly, although many pictures were taken none seem to have reached the Flickr group and I wait until this month's ride to ask

"Car" Camping

Safe in my hammock, with the fly keeping out the rain, I foolishly assumed myself safe from the weather...Lesson learned: hang your luggage, or pick a campsite that won't flood!

A couple of weekends back I was able to take a respite break and went camping in Shakespear¹ Park, Whangaparaoa. I needed to rest more than ride, and desired an excusion just far enough to test out my new bike and newish hammock. Shakespear worked well because there's a ferry to Gulf Harbour, after which you only have to ride 7km to the very end of the peninsula. Until you reach the park itself you are in residential neighbourhoods, and there would be sufficient hostelry if I had to bail out.

Lacking time to pack tidily and efficiently, I just threw an oversupply of clothes into one of those cheap woven-plastic bags and strapped it on the yuba. 16kgs on one side and about 3 on the other, but it rode surprisingly well. I love the simplicity of this bike.Although this was the last weekend of school holidays, the weather has recently turned cold in NZ so few people were in the park. Probably a wise choice by everybody else, as it rained about 1 in every 2 hours from Friday night until Sunday morning. The last night was particularly fierce, and I realised about midnight that I had been flooded out. Thankfully I'd used separate plastic bags inside the large carry-all, not trusting it², and nothing essential got damaged before I rescued it onto the rack of the bike (under its own tarpaulin).
The only damage done was to my breakfast :-( and a fixable rip in my bug netting when I turned around too vigorously inside the hammock and dragged the corner of my air mat across it.

Despite the rain, I was able to open out the fly during the day and make a comfy campsite. I made a good start on my current reading project, mostly sitting in the hammock and resting my foot on the gas bottle.
I must confess that the bottle was not part of my original luggage - the friendly ranger lent it to me after we got talking about bicycles and eventually it came up that I had mis-understood the level of cooking facilities described on the council's website. That bike got me into a lot of conversations, actually -- must get some business cards or something from Stu.

All in all, a good trip. Got more familiar with my gear, and look forward to taking it on a more adventurous journey. I do need to find some kind of cooking solution - exactly what depends somewhat on whether I expect to retain the voluminous storage of the yuba or choose a smaller bike for longer trips. I also need to find a bit more insulation for my feet - they stuck off the end of the insulating mat and that hammock was quite cold on my un-insulated parts.

1) (No, there isn't supposed to be an 'e'.)
2) Actually, the cheap bag was pretty shower proof. I was impressed.

Nuvinci - Riding Report

Overview

I have been very happy with my NuVinci hub over the two months it has been my regular ride. Continuous shifting works well on steady or slowly-changing slopes, although I have not (yet?) developed a feel for wide shifts on sharp dips and rises. The low maintenance and simplicity are a real plus, and the wide range has worked well for commuting and grocery hauling. The weight will put off any racer, but as a commuter and utility cyclist I only notice on my most sluggish days (and could do with burning the extra calories). I have lent the bike to several novice riders who found it intuitive to use.

Sorry that this post is very long, and lacks pictures, but I wanted to lay out the details as best I can in case somebody else there is making purchase decisions. Hopefully my experience will settle your qualms about an adventurous purchase.

General Feel

The hub has provided a simple and reliable ride to and from work. It doesn't feel unique any more, although when I lent it out last week it was a bit restricting to return to big jumps between gears. I never felt that the drive was 'inefficient', however that is measured.

The hub is certainly heavy, but I don't usually notice its weight until I come to park and try to lift the tail closer to the wall. The whole bike is fairly heavy, actually, but I don't swap regularly to provide a contrast and presumably just burn a few more calories on the (fixed length) commute.

I had read that changing gears required easing off on the pedals, but I find this ceases to be a problem if my cadence is over about 70rpm. Perhaps more powerful riders would find this more of a problem, but once I get into spinning rather than grinding mode the gears move quite easily. There is a risk that I overestimate the ratio I can take through a rise, as once I am in too high a gear and pressing harder on my pedals it does become difficult to change down. I did find that adjusting the cable tension helped a bit with smoothing out the adjustment - there is a balance to find between too tight to pull at all and so loose that the controller plays quite a distance before pulling. I couldn't find an obvious sweet spot and the feel varies slightly day to day, but wherever I settled seems to be working now.

Having continuous gearing has helped me to work on my cadence after a bad year in that respect. I have tweaked a cheap computer to show me how I'm doing, and am slowly increasing my average. Unfortunately the old bike I've thrown the new wheel onto doesn't encourage fast spinning by its geometry.

The 350% range allows me to pull a trailer of groceries home (and light trailers on the steeper route to work), but still gives me just enough speed to feel safe on my commute. I am running 36:17 rings, which works out to about 6km/h at 45rpm in low gear and 46km/h at 100rpm in top. My most important downhill runs from 35-45 when congested, so I only fail to keep up if the cars are accelerating into space (such as after traffic lights). (Btw, this is close to the lowest permitted ratio (2:1), so I don't think that the hub (as rated) is ready for really heavy hauling like a rickshaw.)

Continuous Shifting

Adjusting to the new gearing was very easy -- perhaps the hardest part was turning the my wrist in the opposite direction to the friction shifters I had been using. I was certainly tentative about finding the right setting at first, but am now confident of my feel for it.

On flat road or steady climbs the smooth gearing allows you to steadily build speed and intensity. If I lose my cadence at the start of a rise (not uncommon) then I can regroup at a lower ratio and smoothly adjust the ratio as I power up. Similarly, I can ease off the gearing to retain my rhythm as the slope outlasts my energies.

This is all great when I'm fired up for my ride, but on the down days it probably lets me slack off somewhat - slowly easing down the ratio just when I ought to be pushing into the challenge. I should only bottom out the gearing at two places on my ride, but am periodically surprised how far I've let the gearing drift down. Since I don't watch the indicator most of the time, it is easy to get out of sync with my actual position in the range of adjustment.

One part of my commute crosses a series of short ridges, and I find it hard to shift very quickly. The long overall travel (over a full turn of the controller, which is well past what my wrist can do in one go) and the loose awareness of the absolute adjustment at any time mean that I can't just shift to a known setting. Stepped gearing, with it's limited options, is therefore simpler when you want to crash through several gears.

Two factors do mitigate rapid shifts. At the bottom of a dip, pedalling difficulty steadily increases. This keeps plenty of pressure on the pedals, providing more information to find the right gear. So long as you keep up or ahead of the required change then you're good. If you loosen up too much then you will lose speed but can regroup and rebuild as described above. This is annoying, but not the end of the world if you're focussed on getting places simply rather than in the zone of the ride itself. At the other end of the scale, when I crest these particular rises and drop into the next dip I have gravity assisting me if I don't get into a faster gear as soon as I'd like.

One last shifting context of note is rising out of the saddle. I am slowly learning to ease up the gear from a half-standing posture which allows me to hold high torque across an intersection. I rarely rise out of my saddle on hills, and the first few times I tried it was hard to twist my wrist on the controller while I had more reliance on my hands for riding. Once again, this isn't such a problem for more leisurely cyclists.

Robustness

Two months isn't long on this count, but the hub hasn't seemed to slip or give any kind of trouble. No maintenance is required on the hub itself -- I haven't even oiled the chain, which is probably a bit cruel even on a straight chain line. Despite a couple of heavy loads and slopes that pushed my legs to their limit in low gear, the hub never slipped. There was one curious feature, though: the rear cog still spins a bit when I freewheel, so when I restart pedalling the takeup isn't always quite where I expect it. The external freewheel is supposed to eliminate exactly this issue, so perhaps mine just needs a bit more lube?

I've dropped the wheel off a few kerbs, and even around a couple kms of off-road track (WARNING - not covered by the warranty!) . The biggest risk evident so far is that the heavy hub lands with quite a thump and needs a strongly built wheel and fat tyres or suspension for even small drops.

I have managed to damage one element - the indicator is a bit scratched up from flipping the bike over to fix punctures. Since it sticks up way above the handlebars, the indicator is always going to be a point of contact during roadside repairs.


Novice Riders

My major hope for the hub was that it would be easy for novices to pick up. I've lent the bike to a few colleagues who hadn't ridden bikes since their teens but joined a recent series of lunchtime rides to picnic at the beach. They had no trouble other than hauling the extra weight back up the hill, and were certainly mixing up the gears a lot. They still had some trouble picking the right gear, tending to spin out on uphills instead of settling in to the work. When somebody didn't change down in time they were able to stop, changed down, and restart.

By contrast, two guys on derailleur gears were discovered to be riding the same gear the whole trip. They got the idea of the rear gears fairly quickly, but avoided changing the front ring and therefore heavily reduced their range.

My flatmate, Sarah, took the bike out having not ridden for about 20 years. She picked the gearing up immediately. The only question she asked, once we had gone down and up the big dip in our street and were working uphill on the main road, was whether the cadence she had naturally settled at was 'proper'. It felt slightly fast to her, but was working smoothly, and turned out to be a tidy 65rpm.

Reccomendations

I would strongly recommend this hub to utility cyclists if you are buying new kit, or find one cheaply second-hand. If you're buying new then it's not that expensive, but there's so much good stuff being thrown out that I would encourage people to use that instead. If you've been wistfully dreaming of a Rohloff, then give this one a thought.

If you're putting a commuter bike together for a friend who is new at cycling then Nuvinci would be a great bet. The weight may deter an unfit rider in hilly areas, but give them an old beater until they've demonstrated some commitment and built up some stamina. The heavy hub on a new bike is no worse than riding an older bike with heavy frame.

Hopefully there'll be enough purchasers to keep the company going until they can make a smaller, lighter version and the wider market discovers them. (I fear, however, that the fools who disdain re-cycled gear will lack the sense to buy this nice piece of technology because they think it isn't racy enough.) The technology clearly has promise for electric bikes, and the unicyclist community would kill for a fixed version.

When will we Get Across?

It looks like there's a big campaign coming for cycle and pedestrian routes over the Harbour Bridge. I can't make the launch tomorrow, but hope to get a t-shirt or something to parade around town. They'd have sold a bunch if they'd had them at Critical Mass.

This has been tried before - hopefully the time and public mood are right. I don't think that our beloved mayor will be a fan.