Arriving UFO

The hot news is that my Terracycle Tailsok arrived. A tailsok (sic) is I suppose primarily an aerodynamic device, designed to reduce the negative pressure zone that forms behind the rider of a bike, or the bike itself in the case of a reclined rider. One might say the pressure zone sucks, because its existence pulls energy from the forward movement of the bike, and that means more energy is needed from the rider for a given speed. Of course, since air is a fluid, the effects of all this are more pronounced the faster you go, and on the level, 25-27mph is about as fast as I can go with a naked bike. And that's based on having enough smooth tarmac at my disposal; otherwise it's on the steep and all-too-short hills that I encounter, where I might touch 40-45mph before hauling on my brake levers. But on the other hand, those same hills I often have to tackle in the opposite direction later on, where 10mph is a good speed! At those speeds, less of my biological energy is used up pushing the air apart and more of it used in gaining potential energy, and aerodynamic devices are not much more than expensive extra weight.

I also have a front fairing for my bike. I bought my HP Velotechnik Streamer a few years ago from Bikefix, in London, and it sat for two or three years after I discovered that the mounting system was incompatible with the front of Speedy's chassis. I bought my P-38 with an express purpose of being able to use a fairing on it. But having more or less discredited the go-faster theory, given how much of the time I spend gaining elevation, rather than elevated speeds, why am I bothering? Because a fairing on the front also keeps the weather off you (or at least, my feet and shins) and a fairing on the back is highly visible if you make it out of brightly coloured stuff. Note that I'm only saying visible, in the pure colour sense; it would be unwise of me to state outright that bright yellow for example equals safe. A lot of the time, you make your own safe, depending on how you ride on the road. There's also a school of thought that suggests motorists give a wider berth to something they don't know about, and something that's thin and half the height of a normal bicycle and rider, and with a pointy-out bit at the back and no pedal movement, is a bit strange.

My tailsock is bright yellow -- not quite hi-viz vest yellow, because it's probably faded in the sun in its former life -- on the upper half, and reflective black on the lower half. I've always been partial to reflective black, ever since spending £12 on a piece of A4 vinyl with 3M watermarked on the back. My new helmet is black, but tastefully adorned by me with great big strips of reflective black, lovingly cut by hand. On the positive side, I commuted two days running this week with the tailsock and early impressions from the behaviour of my fellow road users were good. However, the aluminium framework over which the sock is stretched, like pulling on a sock over one's foot, manages to obscure just enough of my pannier rack that it's a Complete Bloody Faff to attach my rack bag. And that's quite apart from the additional faff to unhook three of the four corners of the sock just to get at the rack. Speedwise I'm not sure there's much in it; my commute, even when it's right across town, which it usually isn't, involves just a bit too much starting and stopping at traffic lights, jinking around potholes, and dabbing the brakes and scrubbing off precious momentum as the car in front hesitates a fraction of a second longer than I would like. A better technique, I've learned, is to leave in the morning before everyone else clutters up the roads. You can reduce your commuting time by up to 13.2 percent that way.

The second test was in pouring rain: the sort of precipitation that collects in the folds of my Goretex jacket, then seeps underneath the storm flap (which W.L. Gore frustratingly designed with itty-bitty pieces of Velcro, rather than a single long strip à la Freestyle) and through the zip to give me a rather lovely damp tummy; the sort of weather for which a fairing is really rather good. But while the fairing is polycarbonate and thus shrugs off water, my tailsock simply went soggy. Of course, these things are usually designed in California where it never rains without permission, and all the roads are long and straight and smooth, and everyone rides to work carrying only a credit card and a CO₂ canister and has no need for bags or racks. Since it was raining, and November, and my fleecey gloves were lying on the shelf below my old Roland synth in my house, my enthusiasm for speed records was ... dampened, shall we say, as my fingers cheerfully turned white as they poked out through the holes in my mitts. There was also altogether too much traffic and traffic lighting, interspersed with buses and roadworks. The Lothian Road to Tollcross area of Edinburgh, it has been said, has had continual roadworks since about 1970. In fact, I'd go so far as to say continuous, and not just continual; it certainly feels like it when I ride through town most days.

But what with the elements, traffic management and the urge to experiment, I digress. Having both the Streamer and the Tailsok in place, my P-38 begins to look every inch a human-powered vehicle, with road presence in spades, and I think that size is a big, big chunk of being safe on the road. The person who invents a bicycle-portable opaque hologrammatic projection of a Leibherr LG1550 will be raking it in. Goodness knows they travel at the right sort of speed.

So now that I'm armed with weather protection and aerodynamic bright stuff, today I rode my none-more-black Speedmachine instead. I rather fancied the suspension, to be honest.

After my summer holiday's unexpected output of the bottoms of my larger panniers being ground along the ... ground, and thoroughly worn through, I bought a pair of Arkel RT-40s for more capacity and to sling under the seat on my RANS V². There's no substitute for cubes, as they say, and these have plenty of those, shared on each between a decent-sized main compartment, a decent-sized pocket on the outside with stretchy mesh on the outside of that, and a little end pocket with a quirky but effective diagonal zip. I used my pair of Edinburgh Bicycle universal panniers constantly from about the beginning of 2003, in which time they'd been soaked, gritted, stood on, stuffed with spiky things, and towards the end of their hitherto exciting but unforseen short lives, turned inside out and attacked with a soldering iron, electric drill and pop rivet gun (Carradice hooks - 1; Rixen & Kaul hooks - 0). They featured just a big main compartment and a low-riding outside pocket, which was invariably home to my puncture repair kit and multitool, and perhaps a mobile phone, pedal/headset spanner, etc. When one makes the transition to new panniers, it is a very good idea to:

1. mentally note the number and location of each new feature; and
2. mentally note into which pocket you place each precious item, lest one of them apparently go missing over a weekend, leaving one with rather more grey hairs than one had before.

It just wouldn't be cricket not to mention another top secret bicycle-related project, would it? This time though, I've enlisted the help of someone who has better tools than I do.

Seasons change

Spring forward, fall back; and as of last night there is one hour less of daylight in the evening. It won't be very long before the gloom penetrates the morning, but never fear, I'm prepared.

Recently I attended a seminar held by Philips Lighting: the same parent company which makes all those toasters and televisions. Heralding new developments in LED lighting were a number of presentations, in which we learned all about semiconductor theory and practice, phosphor deposition tolerances, dispersion patterns, heat transfer and luminous efficacy. Naturally, Luxeon was the operative term, and to a smaller extent, Nichia, but I did get an opportunity to ask about Cree too. What with the old guard of cyclists swearing by their Vistalite and Lumicycle halogen systems, the new breed waves its lithium-ion powered death rays; some sporting the supermarket's latest LED torches and minor handlebar bodgery, some adopting the brand name approach: Cateye, Blackburn, NiteRider, Dinotte ... and a whole bunch of others whose names I can't remember. Speaking of developments, how does a four inch diameter, 12V white LED grab you? My eyes! My beautiful eyes! I have yet to adopt this newfangled technology, except for my battered Cateye EL200 (the old, silver-coloured one), and pulling out the spare parts for Vistalite lights that I bought a while ago, I finally made something with them.

Rumour has it that in the creation of its seminal Nightstick range of lights, Vistalite used the bodies from Blackburn Mammoth Mountain pumps. And it's a good rumour, because I have one of those pumps. I suspect that the aluminium tubes were simply from the same supplier, and while Jim Blackburn was busy machining threads onto the ends of his, Mr Choi-Hancock was stuffing rechargeable cells into them. My original Nightstick set was pretty good: a 2.2Ah Ni-MH battery powering 5W and 10W halogen pods. Of course, I was way ahead of that idea in 1994, having drilled a hole in my Cateye HL1500, soldering a long wire onto the bulb contacts and using a battery pack from a radio controlled car. I overvolted the bulb as well, for more photons, if also more visits to Maplin for spares. In a curiously ironic twist, both Vista and Blackburn were later bought out by Bell Sports. So with a couple of spare battery tubes, I followed the onward march of Ni-MH technology until this summer when I bought five 4.6Ah cells from Vapextech. Four and a half ampere-hours! Vapex has been a good name in battery circles for more than 15 years now so I wasn't complaining. After a new soldering iron tip and a couple of evenings' work, I had a second power pack for my lights and the ability to run all 15W of light on my bike. Hurrah! I'm still using the excellent (if now superceded, by the Cavalier I think) Pro Peak Prodigy digital charger.

Of course, lighting wasn't much of a problem in August, with hours and hours of lovely warm sunshine for cycling. Scotland wasn't having any of that, apparently; I was in the USA, riding the entirety of the Erie Canal Trail. I first had a few days with my friend in North Carolina to reset my body clock and acclimatise to 95F temperatures, and then jetted up to Albany to meet my best friend. Not only was I doing all 400 miles of the trail, but I was also doing it the wrong way: into the wind. I hurt my left knee on the first day, recovered by the fourth; got bitten through my Buff by flies on steroids; chanced across Don Saito as he was triking his way around America; bumped into Dale and Nina Oswald on their Vision R82 tandem while I mended a flat tyre in Jordan; I destroyed two tyres, two inner tubes and ultimately the bottoms of my panniers; and singlehandedly I caused a statewide shortage of Oreo cookies. By Niagara Falls there was time to spare, and I found bike shops run by men with names like Wayne and Bill and Chuck, with their embroidered name patches and petrol station appearance. Then, with a display of multimodal transport infrastructure that would have made even ScotRail's Steve Montgomery weep, 50 cyclists from across Buffalo, Tonawanda and beyond (and me) -- and 50 bikes and trikes -- boarded The Bike Train at Niagara Falls for Toronto. Louisa, Justin and Peter were super enthusiastic and the operation ran like clockwork. Hanging out at the Hi-Toronto hostel was a whole bunch of people from BentRider Online: Tom Barone (who'd organised the Canadian trip) on his titanium Bacchetta; the remarkably prolific Jim Artis on his RANS Citi crank-forward bike; Joe on his Fold Rush; Dana and Carmella on their ICE trikes; Nancy and her dad Richard ... and so many more people whose names escape me right now. I visited Ray and Martin at bluevelo for a spin around the waterfront in a Quest velomobile, and later tried out the rush hour traffic on Pape Avenue; and then all of us took off from Queen's Quay to Burlington, and I ended up thoroughly soaked from a mid-afternoon thunderstorm, which was enlivened by a chance meeting with a man riding a Tour Easy who knew the quickest way to the Holiday Inn. The day after took us from Burlington to Niagara-on-the-Lake, and there was much fun to be had with the 'roadies' from Buffalo and their insufferable paceline jargon. A late afternoon sprint back to the Canada border in an even worse thunderstorm, and a two hour wait in a bus station, was followed by a relaxed drive back to Albany. With 515 miles covered by Beckypower alone, if I could have carried on riding, I would. Absolutely I would.

The wheels I mentioned last time around were for Victoria, my latest acquisition. My lovely RANS Velocity Squared Formula 26 came with the most bombproof wheels I'd ever seen, and I fancied something a little lighter. I added a Terracycle Easy Reacher underseat rack and an Inertia Designs seat bag, both of which performed brilliantly. And with some tweaking of the seat angle and handlebars, and once rid of the pedal extenders fitted by the previous owner, I was completely comfortable for miles and miles and miles. I wrote very positively of my P-38's seat before, here and in print, and I still do; but despite its weight, the RANS seat is a thing of beauty. With a mesh back that doesn't sag when it rains, and a thick foam pad atop a polypropylene base with cutouts for the thighs, and endless tarmac and canal towpaths, I was in heaven. Victoria is also about eleventy feet long, which was entertaining in stairwells and a right bloody pain in lifts. In the streets of Edinburgh, one feels a little out of place: it's kind of like riding a Goldwing to the supermarket. Once I add my Terracycle tailsok and Mueller fairing, Edinburgh won't know what's hit it.

Annie the Blue Bike is now sporting some new riser handlebars, in an attempt to alleviate the shoulder pain I get if I ride too hunched over. There is still hardly a better bike for commute-or-die riding and lugging stuff, but I need to adjust my position. I think I need to buy a taller stem as my initial experiment with a quill-Aheadset adapter and my old Race Face stem isn't quite enough. After trying an ICE trike fitted with Schwalbe Big Apple tyres, I'm quite taken with their ability to smooth out the roads and yet be so easy running. I've used Panaracer Paselas for years, but since my holiday I've lost faith in them somewhat, and although they're light and fast, they've never been the best for wet weather riding or bad tarmac.

And finally, though it sounds awful to preface it with such an abrupt yet wearisome phrase, Speedy has gone to a new owner. The girl who thought it ridiculous and madness to own two recumbent bikes had found herself with four. I think three is a nice round number. One for the rough roads, one for commuting and hills, and one for distance. Do I really need the rough roads one? The jury is currently out.

Magnum Opus

The Bicycle

Once upon a morning cloudy, I set out, still with head so drowsy,

In search of legends known to some - Hugo, Carri, the mighty Si.

At length was heard the sound of squeaking, then a breathless voice was speaking,

A tall girl pulled up, nearly reeking, reeking from her valiant ride.

"'Tis some visitor" is muttered, "seeking all of those inside." -

-- "Is this Cake Stop?" I replied.

"Unclip thyself from thine recumbent", such disapproval surely unmeant?

Still questioning as one went through the door and being eyed.

Worrying of little matter, flapjacks laid on yonder platter,

Forsooth a dish ne'er lush or fatter, fatter from the sweet inside -

and thirst to quench through foreign teas, none I'd seen or ever tried -

-- This be Cake Stop, I decide.

And the lycra-clad sodality sporting hellbent road mentality

Scared me - dared me with their verbal sparring and intrinsic pride;

Then the door, it opened quietly, Reschim of recumbent piety,

"'Tis some visitor" - indeed, a friend and sometime wheeled guide.

In quest to seek heroic roadies from whom mortals cannot hide -

-- Cake Stop here I shall reside.

Gradually, 'spite fear retreated, hesitant I would stay seated,

Diffident towards the others, except the one who sits alongside.

Confidence I'd gain with meeting, acquaintance though appearing fleeting,

Riders busied with their eating, eating all would Kaie provide.

To that end we tarried, chatting, equating our machines beside -

-- A Cake Stop curio implied.

Long I listened, growing obsessed, tales recounted; century conquest,

Sometimes venturing opinions - rarely shared and quite untried;

And at length although still learning, certain topics found returning

Certain stories held me yearning for the open road outside,

"Chronicles" enthralling all, an Authoress clearly in her stride,

-- The Cake Stop listens open-eyed.

Such adventures rife with action, heroes battling fuelled faction

Mighty foe of many number, set against one raven-eyed.

Armied and of worthy fight, her grip on evil ever tighter,

Petrolled pallor ever whiter: "Curse thy cycling fiends!" they cried

As the Priestess most revered, o'er the land she would preside

-- Thus was the Cake Stop story plied.

All at once the air, it altered, drink containers gripped and faltered,

Then were voices loud and craven - "Wasn't me!" Evil Hugo tried,

A league of gentlemen agreed with haste to confiscate his steed,

When in weighed Gardeaux, the stampede halted, quick it would subside.

Presently an "Is red faster?" argument would soon divide,

-- Cake Stop opinion: opened wide.

All the while they sat debating while I pondered colours, waiting,

For so surely would the discourse vitiate itself I sighed,

"How may painting have such bearing?" said I, noting tempers flaring,

Hugo resolute, declaring "Disbelief be cast aside."

Marching through the cafe door his countenance seemed almost snide,

-- No more would Cake Stop be defied.

For a moment the assembled cyclists stared, then slowly trembled

As intention dawned revealing -- dawned, the danger to who'd try;

For the Authoress allknowing of the changes undergoing

Standard time perception slowing of the speeding hero ride --

His velocity increased and rend'ring space and time untied,

-- Gone! The Cake Stop, mesmerised.

How the shifting shining portal seemed to access no mere mortal,

Vanishing an instant after, folding in itself inside,

Only one appeared unfeeling; other minds were brought to reeling --

Many more had started wheeling aimlessly, and some to hide --

"Be this scene a warning, let us hasten for the safe inside..."

-- "To the Cake Stop!" she applied.

"Danger is our friend doth chasing, this unstable reckless racing,

Relativity", said she, "will mean our time now we must bide."

There we waited, hours I reckoned, 'til a strange disturbance beckoned

Waiting not a single second more did certain members try

'scape the confines of the room, lest all be caught and certain fried,

-- Then did Cake Stop two wheels spy.

Slowly, as if quietly rending all of Nature's laws to bending,

Out of nothing came a shifting sense of bike and man and pride;

Soon I heard a frightful braking, felt the heat of Aztecs baking,

And the words: "Mine legs are aching!"; one more clue he would provide --

To that hastening emergence, black as soot his frame astride,

-- The Cake Stop door! Would he collide?

With the awful sound of smacking, "'Tis but polystyrene cracking"

Thought I, turning round: the space of man and door did coincide;

Little left on ancient hinges, panelling reduced to fringes,

Hugo rued his hamstring twinges, someone tending to his side,

But her ferret unbeknownst had slipped away, it seemed, to hide,

-- The Cake Stop too preoccupied.

No, the daring devious creature -- drawn to that unworldly feature,

In such sparkling twisting beauty was an awesome power belied.

For a moment, waried, stalling, curiosity drove him crawling

Instinct bent so on exploring, onwards, inwards through this eye.

Such investigating saw him find himself quite soon inside.

-- A Cake Stop voice just then outcried.

"Estragon! My rash Putorius! 'Til thine end my overcurious

wretch!" wailed Caari, racing over to the strange space-time divide;

Barely did the gateway's random form betray its grasp - her tandem,

Leaping back in fright did pandemonium break out in stride --

Holding fast her steed the portal closed abruptly just beside,

-- Cake Stop left with half her ride.

"Estragon!" she wept, dejected, "Carelessly left unprotected!

To say nothing of my cycle: neatly rent in two!" she cried.

"Strength my lady." an Adonis offered; -- "Thou art surely honest

but that duty", Tor admonished, "'tis but mine alone!" he vied;

"Let at once adjourn, to that ambrosia surcease inside."

-- "To the Cake Stop!" she replied.

"What then" said I, "stays of forum? Thine peculiar decorum --

such intoxicating practice! Cast thy recklessness aside!

Let this day's unbridled lesson check thy coloured speed obsession!

Let there be no doubt or question! -- Leave such fancy at thy side!

Take thy steeds unto the road, and take thy stable ventures wide!"

-- To the Cake Stop: I decried.

And the Authoress, still is telling, Chronicles quite so compelling

That the audience unwav'ring eagerly awaits with pride.

And the kindred still inviting tales of audax, wheels and lighting,

And the Cafe still exciting those who'd perch on saddled hide;

And the legends of my searching certain to be found inside,

-- Cake Stop, there would all reside.

Becky T and cruise-cat.blogspot.com © 2009

One little victory

Gosh, it has been a while since I poked this blog, hasn't it! Before skimming the last post here I had almost no recollection of what I'd written, so perhaps a synopsis of events over the last two years (two years?) is in order.

I built my P-38 in the late spring of 2007, started to ride it at the end of August, and put maybe 200 miles on it until about November. Then I found myself unable to ride for a couple of months. Sometime around the following February or March I was getting back into the swing of things, still not feeling totally fit but I was working on it.

The seat of the P-38 is a lovely design, with a single piece of nylon mesh stretched from one end to the other, a foam pad sewn to the horizontal bit, and the whole thing cantilevered out for passive suspension. It didn't quite agree with me at first, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the potential of the bike. So much potential in fact, that I wrote a review of it for Velovision magazine. Around the same time, I replaced the bike's rear derailleur, acknowledging that eBay bargains are sometimes not all that they seem. A new Shimano Deore XT (RD-M771 SGS) unit was fitted, and to be honest, I think it's is one of the best derailleurs I've ever used.

The 2008 York Cycle Show was held at the tail end of June, and for the first time I didn't use a car to get there. With a tentative pedal up and down my road on my little Dahon folding bike, for I was missing being able to put weight on myself on an upright bike -- and with the riding position of Annie being bit too aggressive to risk -- I decided to take the Dahon to York on the train, with me weighed down under my Timbuk2 messenger bag and my Landranger map and camera nestling inside my handlebar bag. The cycle show was rubbish. It rained; I got cold and wet and miserable and lonely, and left early to ride the several miles to my B&B to the west, and relatively cheerily ignoring the Velovision evening pub ride which had been my primary reason for attending. The next day was brighter and I followed the pub ride route in reverse, through Askham Richard, to Copmanthorpe, following the old railway path to Acaster Malbis and the pub; I stopped to visit the Naburn swing bridge and a little skate park that had been built underneath the A19; visited part of the scale model of the Solar System; and then rode northwards through Bishopthorpe and back to the racecourse at Knavesmire. I had no intention of wasting more time at the show, and instead spent my lunchtime and a pleasant afternoon wandering around the National Railway Museum before heading home.

Flushed with success of my new upright endeavours, I decided to buy a new saddle for Annie and retire my ancient Flite. Buying the right bicycle saddle is an almost impossible task, but at least I knew what width I needed, thanks to Specialized's 'posterior measuring device'; this was actually nothing more than a thin piece of memory foam that one sits on, and the corresponding depressions from one's sit bones indicate the width of the saddle and the positioning of the padding. Blimey: recumbent seats look like child's play in comparison. Unfortunately all this upright riding wasn't doing me much good, and it hurt my shoulders and wrists for which I'd been riding recumbent bikes in the first place. :-(

July was spent having a lovely summer holiday, cycle touring. The weather was beautiful, the scenery was inspiring, the locals were unreservedly friendly (almost) and my P-38 and I arrived home with 200 more miles on the clock.

Then I changed the bike's 35-622 Panaracer Pasela TG and 35-406 Primo Comet tyres for Schwalbe Marathon Racers, the latter in a slightly fatter 40-406 section. These, as you may recall, were in my original blueprint for the bike but had proved fiendishly difficult to obtain. The roadholding of the Racers is outstanding, especially on tarmac in damp and wet weather; the Pasela tyres while equally fast are a little skittish in those conditions.

In September I rode Pedal for Scotland again, completing the ride in slightly over four hours and riding about 65 miles altogether. I was doing the ride purely for myself this time: no team, no friends, no time restrictions; just two litres of water, half a litre of Irn Bru, three bananas and a packet of flapjacks; Irn Bru is chock full of energy and it doesn't clog my throat the way Coca Cola does. I did see David and Jane from my work on the ride though, and afterwards I bumped into Anth, editor of .citycycling magazine, media tycoon and all-round good guy, and his girlfriend and her Dad, who'd all done the ride. Eric the Trike also did the ride, but I'd taken the train through to Glasgow and gone for a later start than last time, so I hadn't seen him.

By about Christmas time though I was riding my motorbike to work more than I was cycling (the shame of it all), and my fitness was flagging. But it didn't matter because shortly after New Year a broken left hand and a broken right shoulder put an end to my fun, and very nearly put an end to my beautiful motorbike, which is still to be mended. Two impatient months later I was making tentative rides on my P-38 and Speedmachine, which culminated in riding to work. And from then on, while nursing a recalcitrant group of fingers and a hugely unfit pair of legs, it was onwards and upwards. In fact, quite soon after, I broke my record for days' riding to work. Not for two years had I managed to ride to work on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in one week, and I did it almost at the first attempt. I did it the following week, and the next, and the next. Hurrah! I've been adding the miles to my legs as much as I can manage, and the lovely weather in March and April certainly helped. It's now July, and "absolutely stoatin' doon"; of course, one is just as apt to declare, in the Queen's English, or indeed the dulcet tones of Maggie Smith, that there is a quite remarkable degree of precipitation today.

I've rejuvenated my visits to The Bicycleworks, out of which Laid Back Bikes operates, and once again have been helping out David with some of his customers. Although primarily a Nazca and Challenge dealer, he now also sells ICE trikes. But the star of the show really does seem to be the Nazca Fuego, a bike of similar proportions to the Challenge Fujin and the earlier HP Velotechnik Speedmachine, with the now-common 20" (ISO406) front and 26" (ISO559) rear wheels. It has adjustable rear suspension geometry to pop up the rear end for a modestly upright riding position or to slam it down for speed demons; it has very nicely made tiller steering; and the frame is bombproof. LBB is also selling the new front wheel drive Raptobike lowracer; I've yet to take it round the block, but David reckons "it fairly belts along!"

But to bring myself right up to date:

• My P-38 is now sitting with 1,925 miles under its wheels, and a pair of stealthy black wheel discs on the back for (probably incremental) aerodynamic gains. With the new(er) rear derailleur, everything on the bike is working absolutely beautifully.
• My Speedmachine is sitting at 1,844 miles, although I think there might be a missing 700 or so because I reset the computer by mistake once. I didn't make a note of it, unfortunately.
• Annie, being somewhat older but underused these days, is still topping the chart with 2,770 miles since about 2004, which when you think about it isn't very much really.
• Speedy lies dormant in the shadow of my motorbike. It's still hugely entertaining to ride, but I also still have plans to sell it.

And, it would seem, you can't keep a good cyclist down. I have another project. It's a bit different this time, but so far has involved the following yummy parts:

• Mavic XC717 rim, laced 3-cross to a Hope XC front disc hub with DT Revolution spokes;
• Mavic XC717 rim, laced 3-cross to a Hope XC rear disc hub with DT Revolution spokes.

Open secrets

It's here! My new frame arrived just a few days after I last wrote, a courier company man turning up at the door with a surprisingly long cardboard box. All the way from California in fact, festooned with customs documentation and mailing labels and an interestingly spelt address, but they got the postcode right fortunately. The exchange rate was rather nice to me, but don't ask how much the shipping was...

So I already had a ton of parts all ready to go, a pair of wheels I'd built at least a month earlier, and...no headset tools. Being the happy DIYer I am, I thought I'd probably just get hold of some steel tube in the right size and bang the parts in myself, rather than paying the bike shop to do it for me. A headset isn't quite like a cartridge bottom bracket where you screw it in and everything lines up because it's all one piece. The two headset bearing cups have to be exactly lined up with each other, and the bearing piece that fits onto the fork crown also has to be exactly right. I started out not being able to find any metal tubes that were the just right match for the crown race bearing, until I had a brainwave and pulled out the main seatpost from the little Helios. It was almost the right size! But it wasn't exactly the right size and my bearing started to go squint as I hammered it on, and then it stuck. Now that was a slight problem, because although it was steel, any squintness might permanently put it out of round. So I hunted and hunted all over again, and eventually I got silly and tried the steerer tube from the forks of the Rockhopper, which were still sitting in the garage having been turned into a makeshift wheel truing stand at some point. Well wouldn't you know, the "Avenger" sized steerer was an exact fit over the "Standard" steerer of the new fork! So I sawed it off and filed it all nice and square and...it wouldn't slide all the way on. The tube was butted inside! Ok, so I'll file out the insides a bit, I thought. Well good quality Tange cro-moly tubing is tough stuff! I resorted to using an internal grindstone on the electric drill, which seemed promising until the grindstone broke. No biggie, there's a spare one, so I had another go and was making progress. Then that grindstone broke off too. I had one more spare so I carried on and tried a different movement with the drill. By the end of the afternoon I finally had a drift tool that would work. Of course, the tool was three inches too short but I was able to use the Helios' seatpost as a secondary drift. A bit of preparation with a hammer and screwdriver straightened the bearing out a bit, and then it was all systems go. It was the tightest interference fit crown race bearing I've ever seen. But it went on eventually, to my relief.

After that I wasn't going to take any chances with pressing the bearing cups into the frame though, and my new headset press made light work of the task. It cost at least as much as a shop would charge to fit a headset, and since Annie needs a new headset at some time as well, it made sense to buy the tool. "Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten", said the uncompromising Henry Royce.

The rest of the assembly went very easily, for the most part. I did have to file off some of the paint from the frame's dropouts so that the axles would actually fit. I had some gear cable housing spare, plenty for the build, but when I came to trim it to the right lengths, it was like trying to cut through armour plating. My wire cutters couldn't do it, my pliers couldn't do it, my electrical wire cutters couldn't do it, and I blunted a chisel trying as well. Come on! So I spoke to the guys in Edinburgh Bicycle's workshop and asked what cutters they were using, and decided in the end to buy the same. Wow, talk about power! They'll last me a lifetime too.

The Lightning P-38 owes its design to their short wheelbased X-2 streamliner originally, back in the early 1980s, and is a more rider-friendly evolution that hasn't really changed in 15 years. It was one of the fastest bikes on the track at one time, especially in its F-40 guise, until lowracers came onto the scene and wiped the floor. But like the Windcheetah or the Brompton or the Moulton spaceframe, the P-38 was fundamentally right from the start, and good designs only evolve over time. It's not as aerodynamic as a lowracer or even some of the highracers like the Challenge Seiran, it's not full of carbon fibre or jawdroppingly light, but it's acceptably light, made of proper 4130 grade steel and it's very stiff. The riding postion is also more closed than most. For that reason, it's still regarded as one of the best recumbents for hillclimbing, and I have to say, I spend a lot more of my time going up than down. My Speedmachine is no slouch on the whole, but hauling 13lbs less metal up a hill should be nice.

There's no suspension on the bike, but in line with recent trends away from super narrow tyres, I've put bigger tyres on it than I'd usually use; it has a mesh seat rather than solid fibreglass, and the padded seat base is actually a cantilever and flexes when you sit on it. There are no disc brakes, because the bike was never designed for them (discs put huge torsional forces around dropout areas) but the v-brakes I've selected are well recommended by the people throwing themselves down mountains. The mesh seat should let my back breathe much better when I'm riding, since a) I practically create my own weather when I ride, and b) "sweaty back syndrome" is well recognised for recumbent riders. I kept an eye on the weight of all the components, but I've not gone too light where it matters: I know from experience that I need strong wheels, and that means touring rims, good tyres and more than a handful of spokes. With my basic LED lights fitted, I weighed the bike at 27lbs, compared with Speedy at 36lbs and the Speedmachine at 40lbs.

This does mean that Speedy is going to be leaving me. I've been its custodian for four of its 13 years and it's brought me into contact with a lot of cool, likeminded people. Like my friend Liz, they're people who are genuinely a bit offbeat at a basic level, rather than people who like to run against the grain as an occasional diversion from normality.

My remaining task is to be able to ride a bike again, but fingers crossed, I'm making some progress.

Stationary traveller

It's getting just a little bit frustrating, thinking of the good weather and the places I might have gone to, while still being stuck in the office.

I haven't written a whole lot recently, so I haven't mentioned my new wheel truing stand that I picked up for a song on eBay. It's made by Ultimate and resplendent in anodised red aluminium and black cast iron. Ok, it's no Hozan, but it's solid and being one-sided it makes the wheel that bit more accessible. The trueness indicators have spring loaded tool steel tips, so you can spin the wheel and see where it graunches, without worrying about cutting into the sidewall. Having built all my previous wheels using the bike frame as the guide, it's light years more convenient having a proper stand. I also splashed out and bought a proper ergonomic spoke key; my three-way one is versatile but really uncomfortable to use. Like my Park PRS-15 workstand, having the right tools for the job really does make a difference. My Look CX6 carbon pedals had been sitting in a box and doing nothing since January, and after all those knee problems I have no intention of using Looks again. BentMikey bought them from me for his Hurricane upgrade project and he likes them a lot. I've actually been very happy with my el cheapo Shimano SPD pedals, which are on both the Speedmachine and Annie the Blue Bike, but they're a wee bit heavy and seem remarkably rust-prone, so I'll be looking for stainless hardware in future.

Meanwhile...

The big project begins and I'm excited! So far I have in front of me the following yummy parts:

• FSA Carbon Pro Team Issue chainset (in hard-to-get 175mm)
• RPM ISIS bottom bracket
• Shimano XTR front derailleur [1]
• Shimano Deore XT rear derailleur
• Shimano Deore XT 9spd cassette
• Sram PC-951 chain
• Shimano Dura Ace bar end gear levers
• Shimano Deore LX SPD pedals
• Mavic A719 rim, laced to a Hope Mono hub with DT Swiss Revolution spokes
• Sun CR-18 rim, laced to a Hope Mono lightweight hub with plain gauge stainless spokes
• Kore lightweight stainless QRs
• Avid Single Digit 7 v-brake
• Avid Ultimate v-brake
• Shimano Ultegra cartridge headset

Half of the above is actually second-hand, but a carefully chosen second-hand. I'm quite happy to pay £6 for a bottom bracket that's only done a few miles, but I'd only buy a brand new headset. I don't have the tyres yet, but they're on order. They're a new model from Schwalbe and apparently quite difficult to get hold of. I've also got some more 3T cork bar tape, the same as I used on the bar ends on both Annie and the little Helios. It's super comfortable and is nice to hold even in the rain. I also have some very solid padlocks, just in case you're having other ideas.

The frame...well the frame's still top secret because it hasn't arrived yet. None of that aluminium nonsense though. Steel is real, man.

[1] From the days when XTR was burnished blue and aluminium, and looked like jewellery for bikes. I think it's one of the loveliest components they ever made.

Speedmachine front suspension disassembly

I've written this page to be as much of a parallel reference as a standalone. Alex Rice detailed the disassembly of his Speedmachine's suspension fork and I used his notes to aid the disassembly of mine. The moving parts of the fork are inside a rubber boot and inside the frame, so nothing is visible for the uninitiated.

Alex noted that the HP Velotechnik boys are very good at designing bikes and not nearly so good at writing instructions, and I agree. I have the instruction manual for the bike and for the fork it provides no diagrams and no real clue as to what might need to be adjusted, and why. It goes so far as to say:

The adjustment of the fork play requires special tools and skills. Please have your bicycle mechanic perform this maintenance work. The following section refers to the expert.

Many years ago, I was a paid bicycle mechanic. I also have an engineering masters, and I still found the instructions difficult. I have therefore created some illustrations [1], so that one might have a better idea of what lies within before doing any unbolting of things.

There are three main issues you might have with the fork: it can squeak for unknown reasons (as did Alex's, and Dave Larrington's), the movement can become stiff and reluctant, and it can start to wobble as might happen with a loose headset. Mine was wobbling a little, enough to be disconcerting when powering uphill with the front of the bike moving around.

How does the fork work? How does it adjust?

The fork is essentially very simple, but made slightly more complicated by having externally adjustable damping. The fork itself has a long steerer and it slides up and down within a larger tube. Sandwiched between the two tubes are a plastic sliding bearing at the bottom and a teflon [2] sliding bearing at the top. The larger tube rotates inside the two headset bearings, and protrudes at the top where the handlebar stem is attached. So that you can actually steer, the steerer tube has a set of splines which engage with the inside of the plastic bearing, and the plastic bearing is splined to fit inside the end of the larger tube. This way everything turns together.

Friction damping is provided by two flat doughnut-shaped pieces of foam. The larger one is sandwiched between the two tubes, and the smaller is pressed against the inside of the steerer tube. The damping is made adjustable by the black control cap at the very top of the larger tube; as you tighten the cap down, it compresses the larger piece of foam.

The coil spring in the fork sits inside the steerer tube. At the bottom end it sits on a tube and is retained by a washer and a large circlip, and at the top by the base of a small tube which is connected directly to the black cap. As the fork compresses over a bump, the steerer tube slides upwards through the larger tube, and the spring is compressed because the black cap stops it moving upwards and the circlip stops it moving downwards out of the fork. The small tube ends in a flat section where the spring butts up against, and when the fork is at maximum extension, the flat section butts up against a circlip at the top of the inner steerer. Got all that?

If you need to adjust the fork, you can (in theory) do it without removing it from the frame. I couldn't tell what I was really adjusting when I was trying to adjust-out the slight wobble, so I removed the fork from the frame and took it completely apart to find out. Once you've removed the stem and the front brake, the fork can be tapped out of the frame by using a soft mallet on the top of the steerer. Mine was quite tight the first time.

Once you've hammered the fork out of the frame, have a think through the X-ray view here and the following pictures. You won't be able to take the fork apart further unless you remove the spring first so that you can slide the inner steerer into the outer to access the small tube. And you won't be able to hammer the fork back into the frame properly unless you remove the spring first, because the suspension will do its job of absorbing shocks, and do it rather well. So for disassembly, the first thing you should do is remove the spring, and this can be done whether the fork is still mounted in the frame or not. There is a slight preload on the spring: a couple of millimeters, according to the book, so be careful when you remove the circlip from the fork crown. This isn't the time for bodgery, you'll want proper internal circlip pliers.

What's inside, and taking things apart

With the fork removed from the frame, it'll look like this:

Peel the rubber boot down from the top and you should see the splines, the locknut, and the adjusting nut which bears directly on the bottom edge of the plastic sliding bearing:



For reference, here are the components which are sandwiched between the inner and outer steerer tubes:



You can see that if the outer steerer is held tightly in its big bearings, the inner steerer can wobble if either or both of the plastic splines bearing or the teflon upper sliding bearing are worn. The lower bearing is slightly tapered externally, and by turning the adjusting nut to force the bearing upwards into the outer steerer tube, it contracts fractionally onto the splines of the inner steerer, thus taking up any wear. The locknut is then snugged down onto the adjusting nut. I found it impossible to make this adjustment with the fork still in the frame, and very difficult to make the adjustment even when I could see everything. One might use a very time-consuming trial-and-error approach by adjusting the bearing pressure, reassembling the fork in the frame and checking for movement. I set the nut pressure just short of when the inner steerer became stiff to slide up and down inside the plastic bearing. Personally, I think Cannondale's Headshok needle bearing approach might take out some of this guesswork. I used Park Tool's HCW-5 lockring spanner.

That all said, the inner and outer steerers won't come apart until you unscrew the damping control cap from the outer steerer and you then unscrew the top bolt from the small tube that will be visible having unscrewed the cap. You'll need pliers on the small tube to hold it. The cap will then be free and you can slide the outer steerer up and off the inner:

Ok, not much to see there, but that's the inner steerer exposed. It will be a bit greasy and any grit that gets into the splines won't do them any good. Without the spring in place, the small tube can drop out of the bottom of the inner steerer and you'll find attached to it a chamfered teflon piece [2,3] and the second foam doughnut. Here is what's inside the inner steerer before anything is taken apart:

Reassembly

In true Haynes manual fashion, installation is the reverse of removal. More or less. With the spring out of the fork, reassemble the inner and outer steerers with their components, and with the outer steerer in place, check the plastic sliding bearing for the correct tightness. If it's ok, hold the small tube with the pliers and reattach the damping control cap and screw it a few turns into the outer steerer. Remember that it is one of several components that takes the full load of the suspension, so screw it back in until all the thread is hidden. There will still be a few turns of adjustment available and you may not need it screwed all the way in. Slide the fork assembly back into the frame and it'll wobble around until the lower bearing begins to seat itself. You will then need a drift such as a 1/2 inch diameter pipe, 18 inches long or so. I used a piece of lawnmower handle. Put the drift up inside the inner steer and carefully, but firmly, hammer the fork back into the frame. It'll go in anything from 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch more, and you can tell when it's fully seated as the sound of the hammer hitting the drift will raise in pitch and the blows will suddenly feel solid.

You can then put the spring, the spring cap, the tube, the washer and the circlip back into the bottom of the fork. You might want to use the drift again to preload the spring while you put the circlip in place. With the wheel in the fork and the bike on the ground again (you were using a workstand, weren't you?) you can press on the frame to make sure the fork is seated, and snug the stem as far onto the steerer as it'll go. The upper headset bearing cover should be vaguely stiff to turn. This is my main criticism of HP Velotechnik's design; the whole assembly is largely the same as any Aheadset setup, but without the starfangled nut by which you apply the correct preload before clamping the stem. No starfangled nut, no preload - other than pushing on the frame. With the fork in place, bounce the bike a few times and re-check the movement. If it still wobbles, for example, I recommend jumping up and down and swearing, before taking it all apart again. You might get away with knocking the fork halfway out of the frame, until the bearing locknut is visible, but on my bike the bearings were already out of their seats at that point, and the fork wobbled in the frame.

Where did that bit go again?

For comparison purposes (and just because I was on a roll with Adobe Illustrator that day) here are two cutaway views of the fork:

[1] I made some sketches as I disassembled things. I only made one measurement, so the illustrations aren't completely to scale. They're near enough, though.

[2] Well, I'd like to think it's teflon. It might actually be Nylon 66 or something.

[3] I didn't sketch everything, however. Some of the internal components such as the pressure cone I drew from memory and so might not be quite right. I didn't take everything apart again, just to check.