Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Morning ride

Did my first morning ride before work today. Tried a slightly different route this morning and I felt it. The cool morning air made it enjoyable. I passed a couple of young boys walking to school when one asked me "is that a bike?" When I said yes he looked to his friend and said "it is a bike!" I also passed 3 women walking and i moved off the sidewalk to go around them without incident. They all commented on my bike. This was all great after my ride last night. As I came up the hill in front of the house I downshifted and thought I had trashed my right-rear derailuer. I managed to repair most of the damage last night but still isn't right. I see a little of what is wrong so I might try to repair rather than replace but not sure yet.

On a different note. On Sunday I email a very nice woman who runs a site called http://www.supersizecycles.com. She specializes in bikes for large people. I emailed her and told her about my decision to build my bike. I sent her the link to the blog and she emailed me back withing a couple of hours. She thanked me for my email and told me if I get my design worked out she might like to buy some bikes from me. This was a big thrill. I don't know I will ever get to that point but it would be nice to know that I might could sell my bike design.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Two-a-day

Today I rode twice. Wasn't able to ride for two days because of family activity and weather. Rode this morning with Tyler and then this evening by myself. Didn't want to stretch out and do another two miler like the other night but maybe in a couple of days. Time change tomorrow will see how the riding changes. Most of my rides have been in the evenings after work. We'll see how that goes next week. I've been trying to get up and ride in the mornings but just hasn't worked out.

Will definitely have to change the front lights. The "head" lights were not designed to shine at a distance so visibility isn't great. Since the redesign (that I haven't posted) of the handle bars I need to see if a standard bike light like i've seen at Walmart will work with a little modifying.

I also played around with a paint design on one of the frames. Took a tribal flame pattern and printed it on a window sticker then cut it out and painted over it. Temperature wasn't right so it didn't work the best but it definitely has potential. Will try and post pictures soon.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Still riding!

I've been trying to average riding at least six days a week. My ride is very short because, and I will admit it, I'm out of shape. Being a big guy I'm hauling around a lot more. It's going to take time but I'm enjoying it and that's the thing. I'm getting more of a work out riding my bike on the same path I had walked before. I've already been able to tell a difference in how I feel. I've made strides in my ability to cover more ground and make it up grades. For example, I've extended my ride to the local school so that I go to the back side of the school parking lot. I am also now able tomake it up the hill in front of my house to my driveway before stopping. Sometimes I don't have to but before I stopped 2 or 3 times. My son is riding with me and now that he has a new bike (present from his paw paw on his birthday) he has been joining me on our evening rides. I'm planning to start stretching our rides out in the next week or so but that presents a problem with the upcoming time change. I'll have to see how that works out. I'm also planning to try and start doing two-a-days on my rides. I'd like to try doing an early morning ride by myself and then one in the evening with my son. We'll see where the road takes me.

I've recently modified my handle bars for a better feel and added steering dampners. I'll post some pictures in the next couple of days. I finally figured out my shifting problem on the left side as being the cable itself. I almost wasn't able to pull the cable out of the housing. This was my discount bike from Walmart. Lucky for me I went by the local bike shop and they were close but I remembered Walmart having cables. For less than $5 I was able to get the cables I needed and now I don't have to get off the bike to down-shift. I going to start painting the bare metal areas starting next week. We'll see how that goes.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Riding

Got off schedule on the riding but started back this week. Rode Mon-Fri. Firs couple of days were a little tough since I hadn't rode in more than a week As the week progressed the riding got better. Still have the top-end problem of not having enough as well as the bottom-end of the same. Also still having the shifting problem. I need to get another derailer for the left rear and possibly consolidate the to shifters to one. For now I'm just going to ride. I am working on another design for the handle bars. What first appeared to work great is now not as comfortable as first tested. I fabricate the new design today hopefully if I ever get off the work phone. My plan is to move the handle bars into a more normal bike handle bar position but above where they normally mount. We'll see how things go.