Thursday, August 13, 2015

Gotta Love a Working Shifter....

Today's Tracking

I worked much of the morning installing another new right-hand shifter on my weather-beaten recumbent bike.  The last one I tried was a simple friction shifter only and it did not work well at all, and was impossible to install at a useful angle for thumb-action.

Two Wheel Drive in Albuquerque had the desired item in stock:  a SRAM 8-speed index shifter, new in the box.  My cassette is only 7 speeds but they didn't have any 7-speed shifters so I made do with this unit, and man, it is SWEET. Shifts like butter and installed into an almost perfect position on the handlebars.
Adjusting and setting up a new cable or shifter is no easy task, though the mounting was quite reasonable.
Every time you think you have it adjusted properly, you find it over-shifts (off the small cassette gear into the frame, locking things up frightfully) or under-shifts by at least one gear.  After multiple tries I finally got it working throughout its range, and found I now actually had ALL seven gears on the cassette available: 
For all the time I've owned this rig, the largest  cassette gear (Ultimate Granny Gear)was never available.


Once I finally got it installed, I absolutely had to take it for a ride, right?  Right.  I had both dogs with me but Lilly was sleeping puppy-soundly and Tinkerbell was the one really anxious to go for  a ride.  Although stuck in the basket behind me, with limited movement and visibility, she unfailingly wants to go anywhere anytime for a bike ride.  If I start putting on my biking shirt and gathering up gear, or mention the words "BIKE RIDE", she is ON it, and follows me around closely so I won't forget her.
On the 2-wheel recumbent, I don't have to use a trailer (Unless the road is muddy and nasty), so I can just saddle up and ride away from the house.
I barely got a few hundred feet before I realized I had not re-tightened the brake lever, which I had loosened during the shifter installation.  So we stopped near the neighbors' barking dogs so I could break out the multi-tool and tighten the clamp screw.  A few minutes later, while climbing the hill and grabbing for Grandma Gear, I heard a horrible rattle and scraping:  The previously unavailable Granny Gear now caused the chain to rub raucously against the corner of the plastic fender next to it.  So another stop and grunting and groaning with my trusty Gerber multi-tool knife, and I was able to carve out a bit of fender so the grinding noise would subside.  
Once all this hassle was out of the way, with Tinkerbell patiently tolerating the delays while perched above me in the trusty back seat doggie crate (formerly known as a cargo basket), I found my new shifter was just great.  Going our usual 10 mile route up hill and down dale, I went through most of the 21 speeds available, especially the highest and lowest gear combinations, several times with great gusto and satisfaction.
Just a short blurb of video showing off a beautiful day and GREEN countryside, very easy on the eyes:



Ride Started: 11:15 AM    Ride Ended:  1:33 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:   14.2   Ending Voltage: 13.2  Lowest:  13.1
Lowest Temp  82 F      Highest Temp:  98 F 
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  10.58
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  4.7 MPH                              7.5 MPH                   28.4 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
2 hours 14 mins                     1 hour 24 minutes       49  minutes

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