It’s amazing how a few drinks and some time wilth friends old and new can leave you feeling refreshed and recharged. I’ve been working my socks off so far this term and now I feel ready to rock all over again.

The Guv'nor

More here: http://www.pashley.co.uk/products/guvnor.html

Xtracycle helping to move house!

It has been getting a bit of use lately - the picture above is from a few months ago just after we moved house - In the racks there is;

1. Hoover (upright)
2. Bin (full size kirchen bin)
3. A crapload of other stuff inside the boxes

I didn’t even have the wide-loaders on. As always it performed beautifully as I span the 6 miles home, both on road and light off-road.

On a more general note;

The sub-frame is still holding up well - no twists or bends yet although I have managed to scrape the paint off some of it. The paint is tough but I’d love to see a little rubber bumper (fender) for the cross bar at the back - I’ve wrapped mine in some old innertube now and that seems to be working ok. I should explain that it’s not a problem except that I tent to store the bike stood up on this section and it’s the bit that bangs into stuff.

The various accessories are doing well - a few complaints but nothing major - the wide-loader fabric has shrunk a little and it’s really hard to attach using the original Velcro, but that’s solved using some Velcro from the local fabric shop.

The other thing that annoys me slightly is the interference with the brake I’m using. I use a cable operated brake (avid) on the back & when the panniers are fully loaded there’s some rub on the actuating arm on the brake. It’s a silly little niggle and not a design fault really. There’s nothing that can be done about it save for running Hydraulic discs.

I still think it’s the best thing since sliced bread!

Plans for the Xtracycle:

Firstly - I would quite like one of these:

Obviously - I’d attach it to a bracket on the back of the snapboard so that I could tow other bikes along with it easily. No real reason for this unless I get the next item on the wish-list:

The Stokemonkey:

When you want help, you turn a variable-speed throttle on the handlebars to engage the motor. The motor drives the pedals, just like the stoker of a tandem bicycle helps the captain. You cannot use the motor without pedaling along, but you can pedal normally without any added resistance, and coast whenever you let go of the throttle. As you shift gears to maintain comfortable pedal speeds, you keep the motor operating between its most powerful and most efficient speeds, for more than four times the torque, higher top speeds, and better range than similar motors driving wheels directly.

The manufacturers claim a life of almost 50 miles under normal assist use which is plenty! I’m still not sure of the legality here in the UK but I’d like to get one and worry about that when I get stopped

Complete Stokemonkey kits start at $1350.00 unfortunately and although as they put it “Stokemonkey pays for itself every few months when used to replace a typical car” it doesent if you’re already pedaling everywhere. Damn!

Incidentally - as I spellchecked this before posting (an unusual event, I know) the spell checker tried to replace Xtracycle with “Gigacycle” and “Megacycle” which seemed amusing and appropriate. The kit certainly makes an ordinary bicycle into a MEGA-cycle!

Cool as ..!

I like the fact that they’re a use of old packageing materials, can be used to package stuff again and eventually it’ll biodegrade (if you use the right paints). What a cool alternative to plastic.

Environmental Vandalism

It really makes me mad to see this an a beautiful projection on the shores of Loch Lomond - they had left everything from the tent pegs to the sleeping mats. I would have loved to pack a load of it out but we were already heavily laden. It was horrible to see and really spoils the countryside if people behave like this.

Bastards