I've Always Loved to Bike

I can remember being a child, biking to first grade.. loving the ride to school and back.. not caring to much about being at school.  I always though, it would be awesome to have a small motor to help me along.  So, just the other day I realized that I achieved a life time goal.


To be honest, there are times I wish the motor wasn't there as it add's A LOT of resistance to the ride and I am carrying around an extra 125lbs! But it's worth it.  Just the other day, I went for a 45km bike ride, where I was peddling as hard and as long as I could, pushing myself into part of the town I wouldn't normally go with my bike, I could feel the inside of my coat was drenched in sweat and my hands were sore.  I pushed myself to a limit I would normally never go to, since you have to save energy to bring your tired body home too.  But that day, I saved nothing, I pushed and pushed. Felt great... and then I realized I was fairly far from home, in fact two towns away!

So, I turned on the motor, while still peddling to keep the bike moving along.. I got home, exhausted and I ended getting more out of myself then I normally would have.

Along the way home from a long ride, I saw another fat tire bike rider, riding along the side of the road, on the dirt path, I waved a nice "Hello." and in return, he gave me the finger.  Guess he saw that I put an electric motor on the bike and just assumed I converted it to an electric motor cycle or maybe he just doesn't like to be social.

Merry Christmas

Now that the holidays are nearly here for me, I plan on continuing to bike around the city instead of biking to work.  Trying to remind myself that, so that when I do start biking back to work, by legs won't be crazy sore!

So Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

P.S. I've snuck a few Christmas gifts under the tree for myself, in order to have a safer bike ride in the new year! :)

Oh ya. I'm love'n it.

My target for biking into work was until the end of October, then it changed to end of November now, it's any day that isn't expecting 10cm+ snow falls.  I can't believe that December 15th, I'm still biking into work!

When riding into work, I pass another fat bike rider.. and waved "hi" gesture to them and they waved back.. nice to see other people still riding.  However, I came across this one person who was still on a bike and it was one of those high performance bikes with super skinny tires, no studs...  How does he even move in the snow?

Goggles and Riding

The goggles ended up being a flop when it came to real weather, they froze up and became useless once the weather was -15c.  So back to looking for something else.  Guess ski goggles?

As for riding, I'm still coming in to work but not after last nights snow storm.  To much ice and shoveled road shoulders.  Picked up some white LED lights to supplement my main lamp, ones that blink, etc..  All rechargeable via USB ports.

I'm getting a lot of people asking me question about the fat bike.. more then normal.  Guess people just stopped thinking about bikes during the cold snow season. :)

New goggles, oh yeah!

So wearing the sun glasses wasn't working for me anymore.  I've moved onto pilot goggles.  Which fit nicely on my helmet.  The goggles are tight enough to stop from fogging up, once I get my ride on!

The helmet is a ski helmet with fuzzy lining inside of it, which keeps my head and ears warm.  The top slits also open and close, to either let my head breath or keep the heat in, my choice.

These paths belong to me!

I take about 50%-60% of my ride into work is dirt path, which is really nice but today was even better.  There were no other trails on this and it's was all mine! MINE!

New rear tire!

New rear tire has been installed. Tubeless and feels really good.  My pedal torque has traction once again and ripped through the snow like I was on pavement.  Need to adjust the fender as I could totally hear the snow packing up in there, friend of mine gave me the idea of spraying it with PAM on the inside, which I totally forgot to do.

Flat! Again...

Okay, so at first glance. I thought the STANS gave up on me during the cold spell we had, going from -16c to +7c garage. But after looking at the tire, I could hear something moving around inside the tire itself. Removing the rubber from the tire, I got a nail in my tire, the stans held up so good, that the nail just sailed right into the rim and still allowed me to finish my ride before it gave up.

Stopped by the local bike shop in Hull, which sells fat bikes, and picked up a new rear tire for the bike.  This one has huge knobs on it, so it will handle the snow nicely.  I opped out from getting a studded tire, $50 vs $250

Worked on the tire for a while but I guess 26" is not same measurement everywhere.  The new tire is CRAZY tight, which will mean it will have an awesome seal once I am done.

Okay, I'm back.

Step 1, mask.

Step 2, Glass's

So I noticed a lot of that crazy ice had melted away, so I'm back to riding and after just two days of not riding, it really effected my mood.  It's so strange.

The ride is a little longer as I'm going a bit slower but it's still nice.

Still want to get studded tires and I need to inspect my break pads.  Here's where I wish I had a working garage to work on my bike in some warmth. Instead, I have to hit my LBS every time I need anything done.

Step 3, Helmet

I'm done for now.

So after a few days of driving in this cold weather I'm done.  It's not the weather but the frozen ground with smaller tire ruts in it, is causing me to flop all over the place.  When there is snow, there is no issue at all!

Last night, it took me over 2hr to bike home.  Which is crazy!  I need to let the paths melt and then resnow again before attempting to bike anymore.  

Also, drivers have totally forgotten that bikes exist! In all my time biking, in the last few days have I've had to avoid being 10 times.  


I'm now going to look into getting studded tires just for the ice. 

-15C and still biking

The FAT tires at slightly lower tire pressure (20psi) are going over the snow perfectly.  My ride in this morning, I took the shoulder off the main road (most cars were at a standstill, so it made it that much better!) but when I finally got onto the bike path, the path was horrible.  Frozen ice skating rink with other peoples tire ruts all over the place.

Over all my ride went from 50min to 1hr long.

Face was fine even though I had to remove my face mask, it was causing my glasses to fog up to much. My legs were fine, hands were fine but my toes were frozen, mostly due to the fact that I had frostbite on my toes when I was younger.

During this kind of weather, I think it's more important now, more then ever to obey all the traffic laws.  But yet, I still see other people who are on their bikes crossing the roads on a red, making no signals they are turning, etc..

Your a CHEAT Part 2

I would say about once every two days I will hear someone yell at me “Cheat!” I would really like to know what rules I am not playing by.   Really, biking laws are left up to the cities to decide on and how I ride my own bicycle is up to myself. I just find it fascinating.

On another topic, winter is here and I’m still biking on my Fat Bike!  Enjoying the slush, puddles and all that goes along with it, mostly due to the fact I’m the only one on the bike path!  IT’S ALL MINE!!  Still waiting for my facemask to come in, should be in any day now.

PAS : Updated

So I contacted the OEM of the controller I am using and they said they have fixed the code from 60, 70, 80 and 90% power assist to 20, 40, 60, 80%.  But they want 100$ from me to replace my existing controller.  I've passed on it as I've come very use to using the throttle to adjust and manually adjust the power as I require.

However, I've been re-thinking it and I might want to get it for the spring. Because I have to hold the handle bars all the time, my hands go a little numb at times.

Over 5000km

Looking at my odometer, I noticed this morning that I just passed 5000km on my fat bike.  I think this is 5000km that I didn't take the bus nor driven in my car.  And I'm proud of myself for getting this far but at the same time my "progress" bar isn't going down.  I have dropped two belt holes and my shirts have become loose on me, but my weight is staying the same.

Almost every morning I start with a "green smoothy" from my Blentec.  Then I bike to work, where I then down a 1 liter bottle of water and then often go for a coffee.  Might go out for something for lunch or just have a protein bar for lunch and then bike home at the end of the day, where I then drink another tall glass of water and have a meal.

I've noticed my front pads on my breaks need to be replaced now, where previously I only got the rear done.

Lessons Learned:

• Inspect the bike daily
• Inspect the tires weekly
• Oil the chain monthly

Fat Bike riding when it's cold

I have to admit, I am enjoying biking in the colder days.  On the way into work, I am coming across one or two other hard core bike riders and that's about it.  Feels like the paths are all mine!

I still need to replace the tires and the other set of break pads before it gets to cold.  One thing at a time.

Rear bag

The weather is a little crazy right now, so it's very hard to judge what is good wear for the entire day. If I was going for a ride, that would be simpler but I'm leaving when it's dark in the morning and coming home late in the evening.

I've come to the conclusion I needed to add a secondary bag to the back of my bike, so that I can offload a jacket or sweater when needed.  It doesn't fit in my small utility bag in the front of my bike.  I'm not to keen about putting a bag on the back.. and I really don't want to carry around a backpack.

I've discovered Bushtaka as another resource for me getting those small odds and ends.

Crazy is what Crazy does

Sometimes I try other routes when going home, makes the ride a little different each time.  This time I ended up on some back streets with a lot of 1 ways and stop signs everywhere, near St.Pauls Chuch.

I think that's where the crazy people drive.  I'm dumb founded by people...

ZONE 1: I turned onto a 1 way street.  Realizing this, I decided to get off that road and move back into a two way street.  Moving from ZONE 1 to ZONE 2.  Blue mini-van see me, they were stopped, white car was stopped and I was cleared to go by the white car.

ZONE 2: Blue minivan comes up right behind me, I'm off to the far right side but stopped at the stop sign.  I don't have signal lights, as I'm a bicycle! I did use my hand gesture but the blue mini-van had no signal lights blinking that I could see.  So I turned right into ZONE 3.

ZONE 3: This is a very short road and there is a car parked on the side, so I have to go out a little bit but now the blue mini-van is hitting the gas and coming right up behind me quickly, felt like they were trying to run me over.  So the up coming stop sign I slow down but don't come to a complete stop as I want to get out of the way of this blue Mini-van.  I coast into ZONE 4, pulling over to let crazy driver go by.

ZONE 4: Person in the mini-van stops before the stop sign and whales down their horn, I look over and they are flipping me the finger.  I should of just let them take off but now I wanted to know why they were SO mad.  They pull forward to the stop sign and I have enough time to bring my bike around the mini-van to the drivers side window.  Asking what there problem was.  She starts screaming at me that I was driving on a one way street, and now just went through a stop sign. 

Which I then informed her she just tried to run me over with her mini-van!  She starts to swear and becomes completely in coherent.  I pull away as she is freaking out and I can't be bothered.  So I pull around and decide that I'm going to stop for a moment.  Where she pulls down her passenger side window screaming "ENJOY YOUR HOT DOG!" Which I didn't understand until I realized I'm stopped at a "French Fry Shop".

Crazy people are crazy.  I don't care how bad you conceive my driving is, there is no reason to use a vehicle to try and run someone over.  I think she just hates people on bikes.. I will never know.

Think I'm going to invest in a Camera as BigRedCylesdale mentioned in a previous comment.

Path Ediquite

Biking on paths is a lot different then when your on a bike path and I on my daily route to work 1/4 of the ride is on paths.  Normally, everything is fine and no one is on the path.  However this morning, there was someone walking their dog.

So I slow down from 21km to 10km, since passing dogs is VERY unpredictable.  I let the person slowly walk to a wider area of the path, slowing me down to 5km (barely moving), so now I have the space to pass the person, I nod my head and say "Good day" and go.

The person starts to yell and scream at me after I passed them "THANK YOU, SO VERY MUCH. YOUR WELCOME, YOUR WELCOME!!" in a very angry tone.

So am I to stop, thank the person that they let me pass? No.

So am I to speed pass them and hit them on the way through the pass? No.

So am I to slow down, pass them when it's safe and pass them at a slow speed? Yes.

So what was this persons problem?  

There is medication for people like this.

Some changes again...

In a quest for the perfect bike for me, I've changed a few things around.  First I moved the controller box that I created from the down tube to the side of the handle bar.  Not sure why I didn't think of this at the start, but when in bed and just about to pass out.. It hit me that I could put it there, totally out of my way.

Second is in preparation of biking in the winter.  I've come across a few places that talk about how to drive a bike in the winter and they said putting the wires/cables enclosed in a old rubber tube can help save the cables from winter exposure.  I'm not sure it will help that much but I moved my running wire from the controller to the front motor to sit behind the front fork and then enclosed it in a old rubber tube.  So now all my wires and most of my gear cables and hydraulic lines are encased in rubber.  It might help, it might not..

Lessons Learned: 

• The down tube should never have anything on it, it's a great place to mount the bike and get off the bike from.

If it's not one thing...

It's another.  So while peddling up a steep hill, I heard a nasty crunch sound from my crank area. I'm guessing the bearing in the crank just exploded!  I've had peddles break on me in the past, which sucks but no where near this..  So now I am down a crank.  Time to hit the bike shop again, shell out some cash. 

Think I'll take advantage of this and try to get a larger sprocket.

-- Edit --
Brought the bike to the bike shop (Velozophie) and the rebuilt the bearing by "repacking" them, greasing it all up and put it all back together. Ya.

Gear: Winter Biking Gloves

I've looked around for a while, for a pair of biking gloves that looks like it would hold up some wind and keep my fingers warm, all while still providing some padding to the palm of my hands.  And I can't find anything I like, in my hand size.

So I came up with this little combo.  I was somewhat happy with the results but I think once it get's to -10c, this won't cut it anymore.

Left = Nylon glove to break the wind
Center = Traditional biking glove
Right = The two combined together

-1 C and my first go at winter gear = FAIL!

(1)

(3)

Okay, so it wasn't a complete FAIL, more like some adjustments need to be made.  The Balaclava that I have looks like this one (1) which worked for keeping my head and eat warm but I was unable to suck in enough air through my mouth to keep me going, with out exposing my nose.  I ended up puking a little bit due to the lack of oxygen or to the fact that I was riding at 4:30am.  So now I am going on the hunt for a mask that covers my head, covers my nose and lets me breath though my mouth.  Also, with this balaclava on, my sunglasses fog up instantly the moment I stop moving.

(2)

I'll look for something like (2) balaclava but I know I will just end up with (3) style of balaclava.  Sometimes the traditional ones work the best.

My toes were a bit cold but that's due to me foolishly forgetting to wear my boots and wore my sneakers!  It's a learning curve.

I also decided to take the route I was planning on taking in the winter, due to the bike paths won't be shoved and I came across a pile of new construction, which is clearly not designed around people walking or biking around.  Scott St is a mess.  I may have to take Summer Set St, which to me freaks me out.  I always feel like if I am going to get "Doored", that's the road it going to happen on.

Lessons Learned:

• Take your time going out the door, you will miss something. Always.

48v conhistomotor controller

I'm using the Conhistomotor controller for the 48v model of motor, it's the largest one I've had to deal with but it's then most I've had the privilege of struggling with.  I think if they can change the PAS from 60%, 70%, 80% assistance to 10%, 30%, 60% would be MUCH better and more widely accepted.

Here is the size of the controller board.  It takes up the entire casing.  I do like the rubber nipples at the end of the controller to prevent wire chafing.

 I took the controller apart to see if there was a way to reduce it's heat sink size.  There was not.

I've gone tubeless!

So I found a shop in Hull that had a little sign in the window saying they sold "STANs" which is an adhesive fluid that allows you to run your tire with no tubes!  Asking the price, they quoted me $25 per tire.. that's the cost of a replacement tube alone.  So I went for it and it's been fantastic ever since. I'm taking more trails then ever before!

The trick is, you have to get the STANs replaced every six months or so, so I've read.  Or you can just add more fluid once in a while, to fill out anything that might be getting thin.  In order to get the tire to install on my 26" rims I had to buy a 24" tire and stretch it over my rims, split the tube in the center, clean out the talcom powder from inside of the tube and let the rubber hang over the side.

Once the rubber was on, put a little pressure on the tube to force the walls to extend out to the lip of the rim and then gave it a shot of air.  Boom, sealed!

The Ghetto is the addition of the inner tube vs just packing the rim and hoping the seal is good enough for the lip to connect with the rim.




Lessons Learned:

• Let the experts do the work. I watched, learned and assisted.
• The experts were able to do the job in 1hr vs me, which would of taken a few days, I am sure of it.  I would of made it way more complicated then it needed to be.

Doing something right

After biking in, I noticed my heart was pumping hard, legs were a bit sore, was out of breath...  Yes, I am doing something right.  I can already feel that my legs are almost back to where they were before the rear motor gave out.  It's amazing how fast one can loose so much progress in such a short period of time.

Need to find out what the water break away is for fat bikes/motor bikes to ensure my rear fender is actually doing something.

Here is my guess so far but I could be TOTALLY wrong.

And it's done.

 The bike is back to being 100% functional.  The motor has been moved to the front of the bike instead of the back and I've completed a few test rides and even taken it as far as driving to work again.  The bike feels a lot more natural and hard peddling doesn't feel like I'm putting a pile of torque on back end tire.

I've removed the controller off the back all together, giving the back end that much lighter. I've put some weather stripping around the controller to allow it to breath but this should keep the controller safe from the cold winds of winter.  Next, will be cutting of old tubes to encase the wiring harness.

The motor is a little more obvious then when it was in the back but I'm okay with that.

Updates to the bike

Last time I drove in the rain, my entire back was one long strip of mud.  From my helmet, to my neck, etc.. I expect to get dirty when driving a bike like this but it was a little excessive.  I finally decided to add a rear fender to the back side of the bike.  I haven't tested it to see if it captures the break away water or not but I am sure I'll find out shortly! I had to screw it into the rack as the real estate on my seat post is a premium, due to my short legs!

As for the controller I moved it from the bag to a custom center tube device that give it plenty of breath and out of my way. It's a simple pray painted electrical elbow that I cut the guts out of with a steel saw, sanded and painted flat black. I put on new pedals too as the last ones cause my feet to slip off when they got wet.

Lungs are burning!

So I took the plunge and drove the bike all the way into work for the first time since the rear motor died a horrible death.  I've been driving around a borrowed mountain bike for a while but no super long rides (10-30min) and not the 1hr-2hr rides and my lungs are burning so bad.  With about two weeks off the bike, my endurance dropped significantly. I was shocked!

I feel like this is the first time I've driven into work on a bike, even though I've been doing it all summer long.  However, I had regained that "joy" when I came into work that I was missing..  Fresh air does wonders to my mood.

With the motor on the front, the bike feels a lot more balanced and lighter... It's strange but true.

Lessons Learned:

• Don't stop biking.. 

It's alive!

After a false start of having everything put together, the motor was mis-firing and faulting like crazy. The wheel couldn't even take off on it's own and needed a slight push to get it going.  Once the bike hit about 25km then the motor started to behave.  Reviewing all the wiring on the bike it all looked good but still wasn't working.  So in a desperate attempt I cut all my connections and redid all my splices again.

I worked into the late night, with only a white LED porch light to light up the area in which I decided to work at but I've completed my first drive around the block and the bike works.

So I ended up moving the controller into the front bag, insulated by some foam from the bag.  Moving the controller to the front handle bars ended up making the bike feel unsafe and I actually crashed when trying to get off the bike last night.  Glad no one saw me do that!  But the bike is alive and kicking.  Time to drive it around a bit tomorrow before bring it into work.

I think I'm going to mount some rear saddle bags in the back or just ditch the rear rack and put a nice long fender on the back side.  Over all I'm glad this is working again!

Controller move from the rear to the front

 I've talked about what is under my rear black box for a while and this re-do of the bike gave me the opprotunity to show what is under the hood (to a point) the controller creates a lot of heat, so the box itself is a simple heat sink with a mess of wires of the controller coming out.  The wire hole is cocked with a sealant to prevent water from getting in, in the event that water somehow gets into the box itself.  

Then to stop the rattle noise I put a layer of industrial Velcro to the bottom, to prevent it from moving around. I didn't want to put more screws in.. As that leads to sharper objects that can rub against the wires.

Each wire reads a different sensor from the bike, such as breaks engaged (disconnects the power from the motor), if I am using PAS, the speed at which I am travelling, etc.  The main ones are the Yellow, Blue and Green.  These are the power and halo effects sensors.  The little red box is a simple shunt fuse I added in as a per-caution.

Lessons Learned: 

• With a controller like this, take the time and map out which colour connects to which.  Both sides of the connector don't match up to each other and many of the connectors are the simple male/female two prongs.

Wheels are in!

The weather has cleared up to almost summer weather again! And the new wheels have arrived in the correct configuration this time. Motor on front!  This has led to some reconfiguration of the bike itself.

The operation has started, bike on its head and time to take it almost all apart. It's going to be a few days of working on this on and off to get it back up to road worthy speed.  I still need to swap out the rubber on these, but when the warranty tires came in, it came with brand new rubber.  I have a hard time justifying to myself new items when the old ones are working.

I have my wire cutters, shrink wrap, zap straps, torch, Velcro, wrench, screw drivers, pump, I'm ready to go!






I have to: 

• Balance the tires, get the bead on correctly, etc. Stuff I never really had to care about to much when I drove just a mountain bike. You can see the left (front one) looks a bit lopsided;
• Swap out the break disks from small plates to the larger ones;
• Re-align the disk breaks cupplers;
• Strip out almost all the wires from the frame;
• Splice the new motor into the old controller;
• Re-adjusted the rear de-railer;
• Move the controller to the front;
• Re-programme the controller for the new motor (learning cycles)

Lessons Learned:

So much stuff so little time.  I tried to squeeze the time to rebuilt this bike in the middle of doing a pile of other events, such as being an MC for a fundraiser, Ambassador for a gaming convention, spending time with my kids and wife.

No more rear tire...

So here is my bike, with no rear tire on it.  I've used a chair to keep the back end propped up until the replacement tire comes in. It's a lot lighter with out the hub motor on the back end, I was actually surprised.

The bike looks SO naked!

The new rear should fit on nicely, with very little modifications.  The controller will have to be moved at some point.  I've been looking for something smaller to case this in, like a small electrical box but in the mean time I've picked up some 35mm Muffler U clamps that I'm going to drill into the bottom of the casing and mount it to the front area.  There is no reason why this box is this big, other then it was designed to sit and look nice on the rear wheel basket. 

I could just take the controller out of the box and place it in the front bag but I think that wouldn't be a good option in the long hauls.  That controller can heat up a significant amount.  In the mean time, the bike is in the shed.. *sniff*

I've received a FedEx tracking number and it's estimated to delivered to my door by this coming Wednesday! So close...

Weight Balance

I came the conclusion that I should do a little bit of math before I get my new hub motor.  And that's when it dawned on me the weight differences between my front tire and back tire.  The front has never popped a tire, and that's due to the weight difference between the front and the rear tire.  Once I weighted the rear hub motor, I suddenly realized how much pressure I'm putting on the back tire.  Moving the motor to the front just seems like that much better of an idea! 

Bike = 25 pounds

1 = 10 pounds

2=1 pound

3=125 pounds

Rider= 300 pounds

Still want to put a Black Floyd tire on the rear. This tire is thicker then the spider tire treads I'm currently using and is designed for paved roads.  My biggest issue is that the only available Black Floyd tires I can find are the ones with the TAN walls, which unless I replace both my tires, won't look that great.  I'm still going to hold off until Spring comes around.

Also, with the hub motor being pushed to the front, I'll now have a basic front and rear tire available to make this a non-motor "fat bike".  I really can't wait to go biking again! Looking back at a previous post remind me of what I am missing!

Ride to Work

Warranty and Reconfiguration

1=Battery, 2= Controller, 3=Hub motor

With the demise of my rear motor, I've contacted the company I got it from and they will replace my rear motor hub motor, due to it not being installed correctly.

I've requested that the replacement motor come in the form of a front wheel. With me and my leg strength causing the motor to go and combined with the electric motor, the back end gets way to much torque.  Off balancing to the front tire shares the work load and offloads some of the rear weight to the front.

My second ebike was a front motor and I loved it. Promised myself I would never have a rear motor again and well.. here I am deal with some rear motor issues.

I'm really looking forward to getting this back up and running.  I truly miss biking in to work and home again.  My brother has lent me his standard mountain bike, which I've driven around the block a few times, tuned up, etc.. but it isn't the same.  My plan is to use the mountain bike, so I don't loose my biking legs.  Which after my first ride around the area, realized I had already loss some of my leg strength.

All I have to pay, is the shipping.  Which I am not sure how much that will be! 

Spider thread is junk!

So after using these "spider tires" I've come to the conclusion they are junk for urban driving.  The smallest rock, thumb tack, etc.. goes right through the tire wall.  The rubber is so soft after driving 10 minutes my thumb nail could dig a hole in it.  So I'm in the process of taking these off and leaving them for winter or I might sell them to someone who likes these tires.

I've ordered a replacement tires that are higher quality.  Lets see how that works out.

Lessons Learned: 

• You get what you pay for.

Bad wire day

So driving to work, I took a sharp and hard turn to miss a runner, who was running the opposite side of the path way on a 45 angle turn and avoiding hitting her.  But my rear tire decided that would be an excellent time to come loose.  My tire right side came loose and brought my bike to a instant standstill with out using my breaks.  

My wires took all my weight and wrapped around the bolt to stop the bike.  Some wires got shredded, which means my bike is out of commission until I fix it.  I need to open the hub motor with some special tools and re-attach the wires to the halo effects sensors.  I think I'm in for a world of hurt!

Shredded wires

I've been thinking that I might just buy another motor and replace this one.  But before I jump to that, I want to make sure it's working right..  If I order a replacement motor now, I could be driving in 2 weeks.  

And me not biking to work and back from work is making me irritable..  I want to bike.

I wish I had ANOTHER bike just to keep myself going in the mean time. 

Helmet!

I really can't understand why SO many people take the chance and drive with no helmet. It's not rocket science to put one on and make it comfortable.

I feel naked with out my helmet and nor would I drive with out it.  Now, since I have almost no hair (partially on purpose) my sweat comes down fast, so I have to wear a cloth skull cap.  Helps a lot with keeping the sweat out of my eye's.

In Ontario and Quebec, there is a rule that mandates all kids under 16 years of age to have to wear a helmet with any bike and all people driving an electric bike has to wear one also.

I've seen a helmet save more then one skull in my time and I've seen some skulls caved in, due to the lack of a helmet.  So why are SO many people still driving with out a helmet...



Lessons Learned: 

• Always wear a helmet!

Every day is leg day

I bike to work and bike back from work and my legs are getting much stronger.  By how much, I have no idea but now I think it's time I start to review what can be done for my upper body.  

Wish I knew more people that ride to work and see what they do.  I've gone down this path before where I start working on one area and then suddenly I'm doing so much stuff to get better, such as colon blower, work outs, eating piles vegetables and then suddenly crash.  Everything stops.

Lessons Learned: 

• Bike is a great cardio work out
• Find the balance between enjoying the ride and working out

I can't stop..

When I decided I needed to have dual disk breaks, I have a feeling that going hydrolic may not have been the exact course of action.  The pressure changes very easily, based on my elevation, climate etc..  So after 3500km my break pads gave up.  I'm not sure what the average span of break pads are but the replacements cost me $25

Reviewing the scoring of the pads, I can tell that my bikes rear breaks are misaligned. I'm sure that most of this was not from breaking but from coasting.  I've taken the screws off my rear breaks and just put the rear breaks on the disk, reviewed it's resting position and figured out how many washers I needed to place to space it to that location.  I have no idea if that's how to align your breaks but it's logical.

Now to see if I got it right or if I drive and feel like my breaks are on constantly.  I might ditch the hydrolic breaks all together and go for a cable based system, which I can adjust a little easier then putting fluid in.

Lessons Learned:

• Have spare break pads, there are SO many different styles out there, finding the correct ones can be a bit of a challenge.

Rainy days

We've had some rainy days recently and I'm getting a bit tired of coming into work, feeling like I just jumped into a pool.  Feet are soaked, pants and shirt are drenched. 

I've recently added in a rain coat to my front bag, it folds up into a nice bundle.  I've also added a ziplock bag to my front bag, so I can put my wallet, keys and cell phone in.  Never know when rain is going to come..

Lessons Learned: 

• Even if your cell phone is in the front bag, the bag isn't water proof!  Ziplocks are however.

Parking the fat bike in Ottawa

Parking this bike with it's 26"x4" wheels is a little more challenging then one might expect.  I don't fit in most of those pre-defined sized bike tire racks that have been around since I was a kid.

The best I can do is, hope that someone didn't park on the ends and lock my bike up to that.  Fat bikes aren't for everyone, that's for sure.  I'm debating about when I get my next set of rubber, that I go with a 26"x3.5".

I'm almost positive that when I parked on the end, once at work.  Someone thought I was just being a jerk and let out the air in my rear tire.  Jerks.  I pumped up the tire (arm is still sore two days later) and I haven't had any issues with it.

Lessons Learned:

• Be mindful where you park.