New Tires are GO

I received my new tires and tubes from Schwable on Friday, but had some plans for the day and the ensuing weekend, so I had to wait until Monday to install them. I am so glad that I learned how easy it is to remove the wheels. It makes tire and tube installation so much easier!

Today was a downright gorgeous day for Bingo, so after making a quick dinner I walked over to the Velo's garage. Of course, it drizzled on me a bit on my walk over. But it was in the upper 70s today, so a little rain felt pretty nice. By the time I'd checked over the velo and realized that I hadn't fully charged the batteries for one of the headlights, the rain had let up. I ignored the little rumbles of thunder and rolled on out for a quick ride around the neighborhood.

What a difference! Even the hills felt easier to master with the new tires. I tooled around for a good half hour or so before I hit another wretched pothole and got another flat. Snakebite. I'll have to look into why those happen so often and what I can do about them. I pulled up onto the sidewalk and realized I'd really like to have two things: something to use as a jack and one of those little kneeling boards for gardening. I think a pint-sized soup takeout container from the Chinese place will work for a jack, and at least it's the season for finding gardening equipment right now.

At any rate, it probably took me about ten minutes to take the wheel off and install a new tube. I brought the flat home for investigation, but figured it'd be easier to pop in a new tube than to sit by the road and patch it--especially given the black clouds moving fast in my direction. Since there's a severe thunderstorm watch on, I figured it was better to beat the worst home and call it an evening.

Here's hoping I can solve the frequent flat problem. I don't think my bank account can stand buying new tubes every time I ride, and you can only patch the poor buggers so many times.

Still, someone pulled up next to me to investigate while I was changing the tire, so I'm still spreading the velo love! Now, if only I can get into shape for the Ride for Roswell.

Waaaiting is the hardest part

After multiple visits to yet another cycle shop, this time Chenango Point Cycles, I learned a few things.

1) The front wheels are super easy to remove.
I was certain from all my research on other tadpole trikes (recumbent trikes with two wheels in front and one in back) that the wheel assembly must be super complicated and I would ruin it when trying to disassemble it. However, when once again faced with the wrong sized tubes, I got a pal who rides bikes a lot to come for moral support and finally gave it a go. All I had to do was pop off a plastic cover, use an allen wrench on one bolt, and slide the wheel off its pin. I also learned that the front wheels have drum brakes rather than disc brakes. Neat!

2) Bicycle shops just don't carry the tubes I need.
After fifteen minutes or so of debate, the new bike shop dude finally admitted that the tubes he'd sold me did not in fact fit. He admitted that it had been four or five years since anyone had brought him anything he'd never seen before. He also hopped on the computer and confirmed that I'd have to buy tubes online. But, he also patched up the snakebite (dual puncture from the rim pinching the tube) I got last time I tried to ride to campus.
2b) Patch glue takes exactly five minutes to prime. I will need to study patience.

3) Schwalbe it is!
While they make many different tubes and tires, Schwalbe is largely known as a wheelchair tire company in the US. It's based out of Germany, with the North American headquarters in Canada. Probably because of the European influences, their sizings just aren't like American sizings, especially for bmx bikes, which is largely the market for 20" tires in bike shops here.

4) Tires get the crap beaten out of them from frequent flats.
It's probably not the sole reason I've had so many flats, but it doesn't help that the sidewalls of my tires were all worn and shredded from the abuse of smacking between the rims and the cruel roads. They also sat around largely unused in a garage for three years, and saw a fair bit of use and abuse before that happened. So new tubes and tires are on the way. I just have to be patient. Ha.

5) Wheel:tube:tire diameter numbers make no bloody sense to me.
I remember feeling like I was learning a new language when my dad first got into mountain biking. I learned "babies' heads" (round rocks poking up from trails), "endo" (going over the handlebars, often because of hard front braking and/or babies' heads), and tons of other interesting slang terms. Apparently, I failed entirely to pay attention to or pick up any of the technical lingo. Time to start learning.

See, look at that. The wheel wells themselves are 20". The wheel's diameter looked like 17 to me (when measured across the center, of course), though it has a stamp that says 19. What does it all mean?!

Another Day, Another Flat

Once again my attempt to ride the velomobile into campus was foiled by a flat tire. This time I made it a couple of miles before things went south, but it was still faster to change out the tube and ride it back to home base than to get it to BU.

At least I am getting better at changing the tubes out. And at least the bike shop guy reassured me that even a tube that doesn't seem like a perfect fit will probably work well enough to get you where you need to be. Now, if only I did have a stockpile of tubes that were perfect fits.

Still, I wonder what I've done so wrong. I've never had so many flat tire problems before. One of these days, those tires will hold up well enough for me to get the whole thing down to the bike shop and get some advice. Times like these always make my father's absence that much worse. I need a bike guru buddy.

A Look Inside

After tooling around the park today, I realized that people are really interested in checking out the interior. I'm still not particularly graceful about getting in and out, so I figured I could post up some pictures here to show off the velo's interior.
Here you can see my really classy seat modification, the steering columns/gear-shifters/brakes, and speedometer. The seat is a fiberglass form not unlike the shape of a car seat. The regular "cover" is an acrylic-net-covered very thin pad. It's itchy and uncomfortable, but wicks away sweat pretty well. I decided I'd rather sweat and be comfy, so I bought some posh (and expensive!) foam at Joanne Fabrics and fashioned a seat cushion of my own. For now, I'm keeping it on the seat using an old velo-t-shirt of my father's. The silver things with the blue cloth around the bases are the steering columns. You pull the right one toward you to turn right, and the left toward you to turn left. At the top, you see little levers for changing gears. The right side controls the rear cogs, the left the big rings up front. There are twenty-one speeds, but I generally hang out in the middle in the front and back. The black levers you see sticking out from the columns are the brakes, which are just like the brakes on a bicycle, though the front wheels are disc breaks, since they're side-mounted rather than set between a fork like on a regular bike.This is a pretty straight-forward interior view. You can see the pedals there, which are pretty cool because they're clip-ins on one side and regular pedals on the other. I might look into buying a pair of clip shoes since I can't fall off this bike when I can't unclip, but for now I use the standard side.
Here you can see inside the nose cone. There are the front cogs, the pedals, and the trunk space that's up front. I can also tuck things beside and behind the seat.

Hope you enjoyed the tour of the inside of the velomobile. Let me know if there are any parts you'd like to learn more about through pictures.

Test Ride Success!

Friday I tried to get the velomobile down to campus. Unfortunately, I only made it about six blocks before getting a flat. I'm pretty sure the tubes were still not the right size. I was lucky enough to be just a block from a friend's house, so I parked it behind his place and dashed back to my apartment to get the car. Another trip to the bike shop and the poor guy asked if I couldn't just bring the bike in. Not without a tube, I said. Luckily, I dug through the bag of patched tubes that had been in the trunk and the guy was nice enough to check for leaks. So I was able to put in a patched tube and get the velo back to home base. Hopefully I can ride the velo down to BC Bicycles soon and let him figure out where I've been going wrong.

Today I decided to put that patched tube to the test. I took the velomobile up to Otsiningo Park. I toyed with the idea of sticking to side streets, but I wasn't ready for the big hills up to Prospect Ave, so I rode right down Main and Front--about four miles from the garage to the park. The velo got a lot of looks on the road, and a lot of questions that I didn't stop to answer (unless I was at a red light).

I've noticed the winter road warp plenty in the car, but being that close to the ground encased only in fiberglass really drives home how bad some of those potholes are. So, to any vehicles who may see me swerve a bit: my apologies. Just trying to keep the axles intact.

Tooling around Otsiningo Park was a lot of fun. I do think I might need to invest in a horn. The chain rattling is pretty loud inside of the velo, so I keep thinking that people must be able to hear me coming, but I had to do a lot of shouting "excuse me!" and "on your left!" Apparently, that's not something people are used to hearing outside bike culture. I also feel bad that people seem to think they need to tramp through the mud when I go by. I don't need the whole path. I'm just hoping to scoot by you without nicking an elbow or anything.

For you non-riders: how would you prefer a cyclist to address you to ask you to move over? Would beeping startle you or seem rude?

I got a lot of comments that I looked like a little kid, cute, or just weird. But I got to talk to some cool people and let a couple of kids sit inside. It's too bad it's so hard to adjust the pedal distance. It makes it harder to offer to let people try the velo out unless they're pretty close to my size.

The bottom line: I hope people develop an interest in velomobiles. It can be a good workout (two-ish hours of riding and I can sure feel it) and a lot of fun. And besides, you're burning very renewable fuel (fat!) rather than petroleum. Huzzah!

On Repair: oh, my aching hands and knees

So, other than my annual 44-mile jaunts to raise money for Roswell Park Cancer Institute (the hospital that treated both of my parents and my older sister), the poor velo has been sitting in my sister's garage since we sold my childhood house. The first year we dug it out for the Ride for Roswell, it was full of mouse poop. You would never believe how smelly such tiny feces can be until you're enclosed in a tiny space with it. The next year it was a bit cleaner, but all the tires needed air. Let's face it, you leave tires alone for too long and they just give up all hope.

This brings me to my latest revelation: I hate Presta valves. Oh, it's faster to let the air out, sure. But who cares about letting the air out? How often does anyone want to do that versus putting air in? And for putting air in, there's nothing like a traditional Schrader (that's the kind you find on car tires, you know, the kind that air compressors naturally fit?).


When I lived at home with my dad, I used to be something of a bike guru. He taught me to fix nearly anything. And for the last few days, I've been kneeling on frigid concrete feeling absolutely ashamed about the fact that I seem to have forgotten nearly everything. It took me way too long to wrangle the hand pump into working with the schraeder valve on the front right tire. But when I moved over to the left front tire, it was a Presta valve. The clever little hand pump had a "universal valve system" that only required me unscrewing part and flipping a few bits around to work with any valve. Instead, I flipped things around, pinched my fingers many times, and bent the crap out of the presta valve.

No problem, I thought. My father was a total girlscout when it came to preparedness, so he had a sack full of tubes in the trunk (which is actually a space in the front nose-cone). I found one with my beloved schrader valve. Of course, this also required me to remember how to remove a bike tire. I had the handy tool. I knew it involved leverage. I had some punk song playing over my headphones to motivate me.

Half an hour later, I called my sister. "Do you remember how to change a bike tire?" I asked. It's a hard process to describe over the phone--and this bike's not like other bikes. I had managed to leverage a tiny section of tire over the rim's edge. I knew this was the first step. "Slide the tool around the rim to get the rest of the tire out" she said. I looked down at my blistering hands and back up at the two tire-removal tools wedged between the rubber and steel. "I'll figure it out. No worries." I tried another ten minutes before calling a local friend who rides bikes often. He didn't answer. Eventually a tiny voice in the back of my head made its way through the music blasting through my headphones. That curved bit, VJ, what would that fit? Why, the rim, of course. Yeah, I'd been using the tool upside down. Once I twisted it 180 degrees I was able to pop that tire off with only minimal frustration.

I slid in the schrader tube, then tried to pump it up a bit before pinching the tire back into place. That was one memory that stayed: Dad saying "inflate the tube a little bit before you put the tire back in place, or it might get pinched." So I pumped. And I pumped. I was sure I must have just screwed up the pump during my attempts to convert it to presta. I took it apart. I reassembled it. I pumped and pumped and pumped. I actually went back home and got my own pump, returned to the garage where I'm keeping the velo, and tried again. I wrangled the tube back out from under the tire and tried pumping it free. I took the headphones off. Hiiisssssss. Schrader tube had a crack right next to the valve. I looked over at the sack of tubes, thought about the patch kit, and packed everything up. I would start fresh and just buy all new tubes. Bike shops never seem to be open at 9 pm, though.

So the next day I managed to acquire new tubes. The guy at BC Bicycles was friendly and helpful, offering me a converter, since all he had on hand were Presta valves, and I had already confessed my distaste for them. Still, I wanted to get the velo on the road, so I took the converter, the tubes, and went on my merry way. Of course, since I have other work to do besides failing at fixing weird bikes, I didn't get around to trying to install the new tubes until today. So after work and a meeting, I headed to the garage. Thankfully, the tire was still free. All I had to do was wrangle the new tube in, make sure it was well secured with a nut (since presta valves are thinner and wiggle a bit much in the holes drilled in most rims), get that converter situated, and pump it up.

I've learned a few things already. Bring a cushion or something so you don't have to kneel or sit on cold concrete. Always assume it will take you longer to do anything than you expect or want. Bring fingerless gloves. Binghamton spring is cold. Oh, and read the tube size off the tire when you take it in. Why? So you don't get four 20 x 1.25/1.50 tubes when what you really need are 20 x 1/8. D'oh! Oh, and check the receipt to see if the bike shop's number is on there, since they close at 6 and you'll be guaranteed to hit every single red light on your way home to look up the number and every single one on the way there.

Still, I made it just in time, got the right size tubes, and got the left front tire finally fixed up. I also had to take the back end off so I could pump up the rear tire. But, the velo's finally road-ready! Of course, I have to drive into work tomorrow so I can take my car in right after for an oil change. Maybe I'll get out for a quick ride in the morning, and if not, the weekend looms!

What is that thing?

You're probably here because you saw this strange contraption rolling along the side of the road or parked on the Binghamton University campus somewhere. What is that thing? you wonder. Wonder no more.

What is it?
It is a velomobile, a human-powered vehicle, a WAW, a recumbent tricycle with an aerodynamic fiberglass fairing. If you want to know more about them, you can start with the wiki.

Where did it come from?
There are two answers here. The short one is a shop in Toronto called BlueVelo.
The longer answer is my father, who loved bicycles, who traded a Versatile for the WAW with the BlueVelo owner. The WAW is faster, the Versatile is, well, more versatile, so a better fit for a shop owner who wants a sleek, adjustable model to wow his customers. No surprise to me that my father would choose speed over looks. (Though the WAW is still pretty cool looking, no?)
I'm sure as I post more here, you'll learn more about my father and why the velomobile's now in my hands.

Does it have a motor?
No. When my father built his own velomobile from a kit, an Allaweder, he did include a wheel-based motor, but this one's totally human-powered, baby!

How much does it weigh?
This model of WAW weighs in somewhere around 50 pounds. I've never actually gotten it on a scale, so I have to go by other people's reports. Riding up hills makes the weight obvious, but it sure makes going down hills fun.

How fast does it go?
The top speed I've achieved is 55 mph, but this was going downhill. On flat ground, you can probably maintain speeds between 15 and 20 mph pretty easily.

Why would anyone want one?
You get lots of attention, that's for sure. But really, exploring alternative energy sources is an important activity that all Americans should be considering. The fairing makes the bike faster and safer, as well as protecting me from the fine weather fits of Binghamton. It also provides lots of convenient storage for grocery shopping or hauling books to and from campus. Plus, I'm burning fuel (calories) that I'm happy to get rid of!

Other questions? Post some questions in the comments, and I'll do my best to answer them.