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Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Category: Recumbent Bicycling

Cruisin’ the streets

Another Fractured Seat Strut Screw

Having replaced both screws back in March, I wasn’t expecting this:

Fractured screw surfaces

Of course, it broke at the first pedal stroke while pushing off across an intersection, which is why I never try to ace out oncoming cars.

This was, mercifully, on the left side of the bike, so I could replace it without removing the rear wheel. Being that sort of bear, I now carry spare screws and we were back on the road in about ten minutes.

A closer look at the head end of the screw shows some interesting details:

Fractured screw – head

The tail end has matching cracks:

Fractured screw – tail

Notice how the cracks are all oriented in the same direction. The screw fractured at the edge of the brazed-on frame fitting, so I suspect the seat stay clamp must be moving just enough to flex the screw across that plane.

I mooched a pair of hardened socket head cap screws from Eks, ground down the head of the right-side screw for better chain clearance around the sprockets, buttered ’em up with Never-Seez, and we’ll see how long Real Steel lasts.

Right-side screw with ground-down head

I really should conjure up a clamp that mounts to the frame tubing, rather than depend on that puny brazed-on fitting, shouldn’t I?

It appears that new Tour Easy ‘bents come with more brazed-on fittings and a more secure seat stay mounting bracket. A photo was there when I looked.

2010-12-14
New Eyeglasses
Just got two eyeglasses from a different supplier halfway around the planet, with satisfactory results.

The frames have the largest lenses I could find that weren’t totally dorky; I still want slightly taller lenses, but that’s not the style these days. Their 35 mm lenses are slightly larger than the 35 mm lenses from previous vendor, but IMHO still not quite tall enough for progressive bifocals. The closeup curves seem to start lower on the lens, which is fine.

The 20 mm nose bridge is a Good Thing and made the nosepiece adjustments much easier than before.
```
Metal Eyeglasses-Vincent
Dimensions
Width 137 mm
Earpiece 144 mm
Lens width 50 mm
Lens height 35 mm
Nose bridge 20 mm
```
I used a 60 mm Near Pupillary Distance (for the bifocal lens area), which worked fine, although 1 mm might be better.

The regular glasses have the usual options and work fine. The 1.6 “super thin” refractive index (vs 1.5 “regular” in the sunglasses) makes the lenses noticeably thinner than the sunglasses, but I’m not sure it’s worth the upcharge.
```
- I use my Glasses for: Progressive - Bifocal without a line
- Lens upgrades 5: Progressive Lens (no line)
- Right Sphere(SPH): -3.50
- Right Cylinder (CYL): +0.50
- Right Axis: 180
- Right Addition (near) ADD: +2.25
- Left Sphere(SPH): -3.50
- Left Cylinder (CYL): +0.75
- Left Axis: 155
- Left Addition (near) ADD: +2.25
- Pupillary Distance (PD): 62
- Near PD: 60
- Lens upgrades 3: Super Thin (1.6)
- Eye Protection and Eyeglasses 1: Anti-Scratch
- Eye Protection and Eyeglasses 2: Anti-Reflective
- Eye Protection and Eyeglasses 3: UV Coating
```
For the sunglasses I tried Old School with-a-line bifocals and, frankly, don’t like them much at all. The line is very distracting in sunlight, which is where I wear sunglasses. Good news: the line falls directly across the fairing on my bike, so I can see the “dashboard” on the handlebars quite clearly. Bad news: the correction is a bit much for the automobile dashboard and, unlike the no-line bifocals, I can’t tune for best picture by nodding my head.

Their 80% gray tint is significantly lighter than the previous vendor’s 80%; next time go for 90%. Good news: unlike the previous vendor, these folks have no trouble with AR/UV coatings over a tint.
```
- I use my Glasses for: Bifocal - Both distance and reading with a line
  - Lens upgrades 4: Bifocal Lens (with line)
  - Division of lenses: 70% Distance - 30% Reading
  - Right Sphere(SPH): -3.50
  - Right Cylinder (CYL): +0.50
  - Right Axis: 180
  - Right Addition (near) ADD: +2.25
  - Left Sphere(SPH): -3.50
  - Left Cylinder (CYL): +0.75
  - Left Axis: 155
  - Left Addition (near) ADD: +2.25
  - Pupillary Distance (PD): 62
  - Near PD: 60
  - Lens upgrades 1: Standard (1.5)
  - Eye Protection and Eyeglasses 1: Anti-Scratch
  - Eye Protection and Eyeglasses 2: Anti-Reflective
  - Eye Protection and Eyeglasses 3: UV Coating
  - Tint Key: Grey 80%
  - Eye Protection and Eyeglasses 4: Color Tint
```
A list of old frame sizes is there.
2010-12-04
Another Bike Flat: Michelin Hair

Rode around the big block on some errands, stopped at the Vassar Farm garden to haul some squash home, rode off… and the bike handled poorly. Well, with a few dozen pounds of produce in the panniers that’s not unusual, but this was worse. Yup, another flat.

This time, however, our daughter was home and could rescue me in the van. Back in the shop, I found this obvious suspect:

Embedded glass fragment

Once again, however, this wasn’t the problem, as the tire liner was barely scuffed. Those are glass fragments inside the gash, which might actually be the same one as before.

There weren’t any other pointy objects embedded in the tire, but the tube wouldn’t stay inflated long enough to find the leak. I took the tube upstairs, submerged it in a pan of water, and found a rash of holes. Not pinholes, not a failed tube, but a series of punctures.

Steel wire fragment

Examining the tire liner revealed the cause: a strand of what my buddy DBM calls Michelin Hair poking through the tire liner. It’s a fragment of the steel belt from a car or truck tire, most likely shed from a disintegrating semitrailer recapped tire.

There is absolutely no defense against these things, because they have razor-sharp points on both ends where the wire fractured. When the tire picks one up, every rotation drives it through the rubber, the Kevlar belt, the tire liner, and the tube. The usual symptom is a slow leak, eventually followed by a row of holes in the tube as it shifts position under low pressure.

In fact, the tube had a slow leak since I installed it a few weeks ago after a tube failure. I wondered if I’d inadvertently installed a fold, but now I think I ran over this wire during the first few rides and it’s been getting worse ever since.

That tube is a goner! I installed another Schwalbe tube and we’ll see what happens; one has been working fine on Mary’s bike for the last three months.

Here’s a look at the steel wire from the side:

Steel wire fragment through tire liner

It was completely through the liner, with only a stub sticking out on the tire side. There’s certainly a matching hole somewhere on the tire, but it’ll be indistinguishable from all the other nicks and gashes.

2010-10-22
Biting Through the Bite Valve

I carry a water pack behind the seat on my Tour Easy, with the hose over my left shoulder and the valve captured by a magnetic thingie pinned to my shirt. On a recent ride I hit a substantial pothole while drinking from the tube and managed to bite completely through the miracle plastic “Bite Me” valve, mostly due to clenching my teeth in concentration rather than from the impact.

Bitten bite valve

A few days later my dim consciousness finally took note that the water kept draining down into the pack between sips: every sip came with a mouthful of air.

A year or so ago, the original valve developed a nasty case of embedded gunk and I picked up a quartet of Genuine Nalgen valves (or a credible imitation thereof) from the usual eBay supplier. I wonder if the reservoir and tubing will outlast the remaining two valves?

2010-10-09
Tour Easy: Underseat Pack Repair Finished

So, after a bit more than a year, I replaced the cracked backing plate in the other ERRC underseat pack on my Tour Easy. The first plate held up much better than I expected: hasn’t cracked or poked through the pack fabric.

This repair followed the same outline, including cutting off the ripped netting on the outside of the pack and marching the pack into the clothes washer for a spin with a few shop rags. Reassembled everything, put it back on the bike, and … the new aluminum extrusion across top of the plate smacked firmly into the water bottle holder clamped to the rear of the seat frame for the amateur radio.

Underseat pack vs radio holder

The extrusion is the lump running horizontally, just under the seat cushion. The corner of the pack extended rearward (left) of the water bottle holder’s black plastic body.

The original flexy plastic pack plate simply bent out of the way, but that’s not going to work now.

So I loosened the clamp, moved it a bit more to the right, and tightened it up again. I’d originally located it at the far right end of the straight part of the seat frame, so it’s now edging into the curved part that eventually forms the right side of the frame, but it’s good enough.

My shop assistant says she wants another water bottle holder for an actual water bottle on her bike. I say she should just go to the shop and make whatever she wants, then install it. Negotiations continue…

2010-09-27
Experimental Determination of Squirrel Sprint Speed

So there we were, biking along the northern segment of the Dutchess Rail Trail, when a squirrel scampered up a fencepost a few hundred feet ahead of us and struck a classic tree-rat pose: standing up atop the post, tail arched behind, front paws together.

As we rolled closer, the squirrel noticed us and, as squirrels are wont to do, panicked.

*Must* *run* *away*

Squirrels tend to escape up the nearest tree, which works perfectly with most predators. In this case, though, the squirrel was already as high as it could get on the post and there were no trees within jumping distance.

Decision time: can’t run up, can’t escape to the side, must not run toward the threat.

*Must* *run* *away*

So the critter lit off along the top rail, hurdling over the protruding fenceposts in a dead run, as fast as its little legs could carry it.

Which, as it turned out, was just over 15 mph. We stopped pedaling and coasted, but this section is slightly down-grade and we didn’t slow very much.

The thing was running at my eye level, about five feet to my left, and kept pace with us for maybe a dozen fenceposts. Finally it decided this tactic wasn’t working and dove off the fence into the bushes beside the trail.

Squirrels must produce adrenaline like I produce saliva.

And I really, really need a helmet camera…

2010-09-23
Bicycle Computer Failure: It’s The Connector

While walking home with the bike, I noticed that the odometer wasn’t matching up with reality. This generally means the front-wheel magnet sensor got whacked out of line and, given that I’d just laid the bike down on that side, that’s what I expected to fix.

As it turned out, the failure meant it was time for the more-or-less annual contact cleaning. The three tiny contact balls on the bottom of the Cateye Astrale tend to collect enough dirt over the course of a few thousand miles to become intermittent. The balls lead to the wheel and pedal sensors, with a single common wire.

Cateye Astrale contacts

You can see that they’re not shiny little factory-fresh bumps. Here’s a detail of the upper-right one on the base to the right. Even through the horrors of a tight crop from a hand-held shot, you can see the problem.

Cateye Astrale – contact detail

No big deal, just wipe ’em off and apply a bit of DeoxIT to make ’em happy again for another year.

2010-09-18