Woo Hoo - riding

My quick ride the other day was as a single speed. Decided today to quickly fix the gear changer and work that Rohloff. In a common story, it took way longer than I thought it would. The cable outers for the gear changer ended up being 1870mm long. Easy to cut them - used side cutters and then filed them flat. The liners - scissors. Cutting the inners was hard. The two pairs of side cutters in the shed both didn't want to cut. They mushed and chewed. I thought about using a pair of scissors, but ended up using the grinder. It wasn't the best and I wished for proper cutters. I'm thinking to either buy a pair and carry them with me, or better yet, find a bike shop to precut some inners to the length I need. Arrggh - to do that I'd need to take the cables out and measure them. I don't know how much is inside the twist shifter. So, next time I have to change a cable - I'll try and remember to measure then, and then get them cut to length.

Sadly I had to put a side the nice thick tubed handle bar from Yuba. By the time the brake lever, shifter, and a small bit of grip went on, there was no space left for the bar ends. I did like the extra rise it gave. Used the old bar I had, but will look to replace it with a steel tube sometime. I through on the lights, and old mud guards, adjusted the seat height, and headed out for a longer ride.

The brakes are starting to feel better. The front ended up getting some washers between the fork and the caliper to space it out far enough to adjust correctly.  The rear by careful design by me (yeah right! - pull the other one.) was spot on - no spacers needed.  By the time the rear hose was routed, it was okay for length. The front hose is really too long. I'll wait until I'm at a shop to shorten it. I don't want to risk not having a brake here.

The Yuba cargo bag goes on well. I was going to keep the space look to the frame, but now I'll find something to place on the sides and wide loaders. I want to try and stop lots of mud hitting the bags as I'll end up unclipped them and carrying them into the tent.

First trip - to the post office to collect the mail. Picture above is outside the post office.

How does it ride on the road - really good. Lots of gears - though didn't need any of the low gears here. Need to find some hills to test that out.

After riding about for a bit, I then returned to the chain guard. I need to replace my grandmothers bucket tomorrow.  I cut the bottom off it and placed it over the crank. I cut to more slots out to enable the base to sit as flat as possible against the frame (See the photo below). Its held in with two cable ties. Ideally, the distance up from the bottom of the bucket would be the same all the way around, but because the bucket is a bit soft, it doesn't sit vertically. I put the crank on, and slowly cut bits off until it could turn freely. Just cut anything that hits the crank arm.

On the photo on the right, you can see the slots cut on the back, to help the base sit flat. Cut some slots for the chain and it was done.  Tomorrow I'll sort out the chain runs. Going to go look at poly tubing again.

The guard isn't finished yet. I want to place a disk (I didn't want to upset people by taking another bucket) over the outside of the crank - so there is less of a gap, and to help that bit more with keeping pants clean. I tried with some long slacks on, it does a good job of keeping pants from the chain as it is. The bucket should be cheap - a harder plastic bowl may be better. Now I have a template to start with. I'm still thinking of other options. See what occurs to me tomorrow. I'll be going on a longer ride to the local town. Will be about 30+km round trip. Thinking time, and see how the bucket holds up.

Heres another shot - it does look like it would do a wonderful job of keeping water/mud from the front wheel off the chain. Probably need to paint it - I'm not sure how long it would last in the sun otherwise.  Depending how long, and the cost of a bucket, it might stay the way it is.