@#$%^& taggers

I've been told that graffiti taggers don't hit public art such as murals. Well, I guess the "good" ones don't and the stupid punks do. The re-Cycles shop had both its front door and volunteer-crafted mural (and the wall of our neighbour's house) hit last week.

Fortunately, they used white paint and not black, missed pretty much all of the front door's lettering, and hit mostly the blue background of the mural.  We had kept the mural's paint colours for touch-ups, and we were able to cover things up rather nicely! Thanks to volunteers Melinda, Carla and Matt for their hard work, and also for the weather for giving us a 20C day in the middle of March!

Internal gear hub tear-down

Winter bike #2, the one with the Sachs Spectro hub, made a cracking sound one night and then was reduced to about 3 gears. So I had to open it up to find out what went wrong. Fortunately RGB has overhauled these hubs before, and so we met up at the re-Cycles shop.

I only thought of videoing once he started showing me how the gearing-changing mechanism worked, and it's now on YouTube.

New old winter bikes

My faithful old winter bike was getting pretty rusty after 8 seasons, and I was also getting rather tired of the mtn. bike frame geometry and wide tires. It was a very stable set-up, but with a studded front tire it was annoying to ride on those days of clear dry roads. Sure, I could have another wheel handy with smooth tire and swap it in, but I also felt the need for a second bike for back-up purposes, if nothing else.

So as an experiment last winter I took an old CCM skinny-tire bike, swapped in an aluminum front wheel (for decent braking) and used it as a "dry roads" bike. I ended up using it as often as the mtn. bike, and quite enjoyed how much faster and lighter it was, especially when towing one of the two trailers.

This year I wanted to go the full route and build up a pair of hybrid bike frames; one with smooth tires, another with winter tires (studded front, knobby out back). This way I would have my choice of bike for whatever road conditions, as well as a back-up in case one bike flatted or broke something right as I was heading out to a gig. So through the season at the re-Cycles shop I kept an eye out for suitable frames / bikes. Both bikes were to be built with very low gearing for trailer-towing in winter conditions, so top gear is usually the cruising gear, and everything else for uphill or towing. If I want to go fast downhill I'll happily just coast...
 
First up is called Winter Bike #1, only because it was the first one I put together (WB2 is further down). A late-80's Nishiki touring frame came in. It needed a fork, and the one from my deceased (hit by a taxi) hybrid bike luckily fit just right. The frame has some rust and even a small dent in one tube, which allowed me to not feel bad about using what was once a nice frame as a winter bike. This beast has smooth tires for those days when roads are clear and I have some distance to travel and don't want winter tires adding drag.

I ended up with very tight clearance for the 46-36 double chainring due to the cartridge bottom bracket I happened to have on hand, and should perhaps put in one with a longer axle. Yes, the rear shift cable just touches the underside of the front derailer cage.

Indispensable front "crap flap" was added to the bottom of fender to keep slushy salty spray from hitting (and sticking to) the frame.

Modern v-brakes added for excellent stopping power (remember that I often tow a loaded trailer in winter since the Mighty Cargo Trike goes into hibernation).

Yellow crate on rear rack adds both practicality and visibility. Seasonal Xmas led lights run off a small 12v battery w/inverter, though will be removed very soon.

Adjustable stem is great for getting the bike dialed in, but needs a little attention to keep from gradually wearing out and getting loose.

Simple non-indexed drivetrain, with nice wide-range 6-speed freewheel of 14T to 32T!

Lightweight aluminum handlebar, fat grips for winter mitts, and light and bell stuffed on there. Note stylish yellow cable housing.

Winter Bike #2. It was a complete Nakamura hybrid bike, showing some rust and so like WB1 no qualms of using it for winter. I kept the cantilever brakes but had to build new wheels (my 6th and 7th times ever doing so), since the front was getting a new generator hub and the rear a used internal-gear hub. (Yes, these Xmas lights are also coming off soon.)

 

 This is what a studded tire looks like. It does a nice job of grabbing in slippery conditions, and you know it's working when the non-studded rear end fishtails. Having the rear wheel wash out is usually recoverable, but having the front end do so usually means a wipe-out.  :P  On the old bike I did try riding both tires studded one year but the amount of drag was not worth it.

This bike gets an added treat - a Shimano generator hub! This little device will supply power to the not-yet-installed custom led lights RGB is putting together for me. No friction from this thing like from those old sidewall generators that leaned against the tire!

Shifter for the Sachs 7-speed hub. Now only available in twist-grip form (which I dislike, especially with big winter gloves) this thing is like gold, as the entire unit of shifter/cable/hub clickbox has to be replaced as one. 

 
If you've ever tried to mount a single chainring on a crank meant for three, you'll find the bolts are too long, because they are made to join the larger two. While short-stack spacers (used for BMX and fixies) can be purchased, the cheap solution is to take a worn out chainring and carve away just the areas around the mounting holes, leaving nice, if slightly irregular, spacers as shown here

Drive side of Sachs 7-speed hub. The click-box is where the indexing takes place, and it usually comes with a metal guard arm that clamps to the axle and projects out to protect the unit if the bike falls over. Since the rack-mounted crate sticks out even further I can leave the guard off, which means one less things to fiddle with during a wheel / tire change. Rear cog is a 23T from my old winter bike, while front ring is a 38T.

Left side of Sachs 7-speed hub, showing coaster-brake (back-pedal) arm and receiver for trailer hitch (WB1 has same receiver, so both bikes can tow either of the two trailers). Maybe I should paint over some of that rust...

Unlike WB1, this rear wheel did not get full close-fitting fender since that design often packs up with snow. So a plastic spray guard is attached under the rack. And like pretty well all my bike, the rack holds the handy crate.

I fastened this piece of platicized cardboard in place to keep snow churned by the rear wheel from dumping into my boots and also on the chain. Time will tell if it simply just packs up with snow...

Front mount for spray guard, with a twist of stiff wire to keep things in place.

DIY drum case

My latest drum purchase. This is a westernized version of a Thai drum called a "klong yao", made by Toca out of fiberglass. It is quite light, and has a fabulous bass tone, as one can imagine by the length of the body. At local drum circles I am usually one of the more experienced players, so having a drum that can both drive the groove and help steady it is important, and this one is much better for that than my old Remo djembe. Remo makes a similar klong yao, and I tried one out many years ago but balked at the $400 price tag (it also weighs more). The Toca one is around $200 and Dave's Drum Shop here in Ottawa can bring in any Toca product (it was fun browsing the catalogue...).

But of course a drum needs a case! Many folks carry their hand drums in bags, and I'd thought of buying a gym bag and lining it with foam, but since I'm often hauling more than one instrument at a time something that could better protect the drum as I squeeze gear through doorways was needed. For my small jazz kit I had extended a 12" case to fit three small drums, and I used that same idea for this one. So, start with one retro 70's drum case (again from Dave's Drum Shop) and add some foam. Note leather strap with buckle instead of modern plastic buckle.

To accommodate the lengthy drum an extension was needed. My material of choice for this is sheets of (used) corrugated plastic and duct tape (yay for our petrochemical industry). In this case, a stash of abandoned signs from the Reform oops Conservative Party had been found a while back and now were being put to much better use.

Test fitting.

The trick to getting coroplast to bend is to use a utility knife to score one side. Then add duct tape...

Tabs of duct tape hold things in place, and a few full wraps of tape will be added when all sheets are in place.

 

Perfect fit.

Looking good! For now the strap is lengthened with a bungee cord. If I find an old belt that is long enough I could use that instead.

The cargo trike is now in its eighth year of operation. One thing I had to decide upon over the winter was the battery pack for its electric assist, as the most recent one had started to die late last year and I barely squeaked through November with it (though through proper charging and management I did get two years out of that pack, which was darn good).

I'd been using sealed lead acid batteries (SLA) since the assist was installed, but that is not the best technology for the high power drain of such a set-up. Over the years I was advised to look into a lithium pack, but they were darned pricey (SLA was $200, lithium $800 at the time). But the prices have come down, and my friend BlackBurnPete told me of Ping Battery in China. This Ping fellow was getting excellent reviews of his products on e-assist forums, as he apparently has done his homework to make sure the batteries and their technology are reliable.

So this is what I ordered: http://www.pingbattery.com/servlet/the-12/48V-15AH-V2.5-LiFePO4/Detail

My previous pack was 12AH (amp hours) but being an SLA pack something called the Peukert Effect comes into play so the it only delivered perhaps 8AH. The above lithium pack is 15AH and does not suffer the same effect, so I'd be getting almost twice the range! 

One can feel a sense of trepidation sending money to an overseas seller and hoping everything will be OK. And this transaction was problem free. He notified me as soon as the payment was received and that he would let me know when it was being shipped and provide a tracking number. It arrived as advertised, and as the leads are supplied bare I asked my friend Charles R., who had done electrical work on the trike in the past, to add Anderson connectors.

Since this pack is smaller I simply cut down the battery box (easy to do when made out of coroplast and duct tape) and added some foam padding underneath, since instead of four solid SLA batteries I now had an assembled bunch of smaller lithium ones, and vibration might cause connections to fail. Perhaps this thing is rugged enough as it is, but it is little effort to add this protection. One addition is the piece of recycled plexiglass added to the top so I can see the LEDs for the battery management system.

This uses the same Anderson connectors as before going to the controller, but the charger uses 3-pin XLR (yes, same as a microphone, which could be confusing for a drummer like me).

The battery management system, the proper design of which is the key to having a healthy battery pack, It makes sure all the cells are properly balanced when charging.

The biggest advantage to this new pack is that one does not have to constantly recharge a lithium pack. SLAs can get damaged due to sulfation if left in any state of discharge, so if the trike is going to be parked for more than an hour or so the pack has to come out and get recharged. So for almost any gig I did I had to take the charger with me, unplug the pack, and take it all into the gig and make sure it was hooked up. And then reverse at the end. It was not the end of the world, but just one more thing to deal with when getting to the job. But just like your laptop, a lithium battery can be drained will not suffer any damage. So unless I have a rather lengthy ride (more than 20km return) I can wait to recharge when I get back home.

Now that part is fabulous. And the more I use this new set-up the more I like this aspect. But in the previous incarnation the pack just sat in a bracket in the cargo box of the trike, since it was almost always being removed. Now it can stay with the trike, but just lying out in the open is not a good idea. Time for a sort-of hiding place...

Cut through the floor, bolt in a cradle made from aluminum strapping recycled from my first trailer (that got damaged in an accident), then line that with coroplast and add the ubiquitous duct tape.

Drop the pack in (notice even more foam, since the trike has no suspension beyond its fat tires), hook it up and off we go!

So far everything has worked out very well. Charles updated the wiring, and later cleaned out a troublesome Anderson connector that had temporarily rendered the assist inoperable. I've very much enjoyed NOT having to always take the battery pack with me into gigs (try taking a duct tape-covered black box with wires sticking out of it into a Federal Government building), and while I've not yet had to test the full range of this new pack I've been happy not to worry about how far it can go for the trips done so far. So it looks like a big thumbs-up for this new set-up!

More water fun

Well, my camera died a second time! Three weeks after getting it back and only my third time using it. Same lens issue as the first, so I waited again (only five weeks this time) for it to come back from warranty. But upon reloading the memory card I was reminded that I did take some photos in May of the still-high Ottawa River overflowing its banks a bit.

Swingin'!

One of my favourite things to do as a drummer is to play swing music. The grooves are fun, and you set the tempos, keep everyone on track, and interact with the sections and soloists. It's even more fun when there are dancers, especially if they happen to be semi-pro / professionals! Back on May 1st the Ottawa Jazz Orchestra (formerly the Impressions in Jazz Orchestra) teamed up with Ottawa's Swing Dynamite for a fabulous evening.

The OJO doesn't tend to play the usual "In the Mood" type of stuff - we like to get into plenty of Ellington, some early Twenties, and more esoteric but still swinging tunes. And the Swing Dynamite gang loves us for it. Below is an edited iPhone clip taken as the end of the evening drew near. But while most folks might wish to start slowing down, this crowd likes to get faster! So these last tunes are pretty up there tempo-wise, but your correspondent was able to keep up.  Exhilarating stuff...

Spring water fun

I'm a bit behind on posting, mainly because my year-old camera got cranky and is in for warranty repair. Among other things, the cargo trike got a new hi-tech lithium battery pack, and I'll post about that as soon as I can take photos.

In the mean time, I have a nice photo spread of the the annual Spring waters here in Ottawa, featuring shots of both Rideau and Hogs Back Falls.

Where the Rideau River meets the Ottawa River there are a pair of falls due to Green Island (site of our former City Hall) sitting right on the escarpment's edge. The western falls aren't that interesting, so it's the eastern one that gets all the attention. And since this river controls the level of the the northern half of the Rideau Waterway, a LOT of water passes through when the Spring melt begins.

For some background on the Rideau waterway and the falls, I recommend this site.

Also, a few years ago I took some video footage of the falls and the blasting that occurs to break up the ice:

The falls in full roar.

This beast is used to lift the square timbers that close the dam.

Not sure where they can even find wood this large anymore.

Some interesting ice formations can occur.

Now up to Hogs Back Falls. This where the canal splits off from the river at Mooney's Bay.

To get there by bike I took the pathway alongside the canal, and it loops over the Falls and back under the roadway. Except that the subway was still filled with ice!

Ah, here we go, the dam is wide open and in full flood.

At this point the camera started to go wonky and the lens would not extend, so that was the end of photos for a while.