Back on the road

Hey all I am back on the road with the modifications as discussed in my last post. No photos as yet since I am blogging at work (shhh, don't tell). In summary what I now have is:

• A single speed, 16 tooth rear free wheel cassette
• Brand new soft and comfy hand grips
• Front and rear flashing lights
• A more centred back wheel
• A thumb throttle
• A second charger at work

At this stage I really have to stop and give props to Paul Smith from Smith Cycles, he really has looked after me. He only charged me $63 for parts and labour for this work, eseentially giving me the labour for free.

There are more mods to come though. Today's ride in was interesting. My average speed was pretty good at 33 kph and it seemed that I was getting more power. The only reason I can think of for this is that the new thumb throttle has a higher full power setting. Perhaps the broken twist throttle was never quite getting to full power. The new free wheel clearly has more teeth than the smallest gear on the 5-speed since when approaching 38 kph I really had to sprint. Now I know that I need a bigger front crank set. The only new problem that has been introduced is that the anlge of the chain when on the large front chain ring causes slippage under power. The new crank set I ordered will be a 52/39 tooth two gear set and will allow for a straighter chain angle to prevent this.

I have rigged up a rudimentary "cruise control system" in the form of a large rubber band that I slip over the thumb throttle. This has enough pull that it will hold the throttle on, but not enough that it pulls the throttle on when I thumb it back to zero. I'll run with this for a while until I come up with a better system.

I'll post some more photos soon.