Sturmey
Suffolk
Ah, Suffolk.
My best friend from school, Ross, has just married a lovely lady called Cath. Something must be wrong with me, since it did not occur to me the whole time I was at their wedding party to actually take a picture of them. Instead above is a picture of the back drop to the event. Not a bad spot I think, and by amazing unusual co-incidence for summer ‘08, fantastic weather that weekend.
Anyway I started off foolish. They were having their party at Moat Farm, and rather than read the invite properly, I let Google suggest to me that it was near Diss. Diss! I checked for train tickets and got them for only £6. Of course, as soon as I’d booked them (non-refundable), I realised the mistake. Diss! I mean, really. It was actually near Sudbury, and despite being a bit closer, that ticket was £28. Hmm. Anyway the morning of departure came, and as per my last blog post, I was going to cycle to the bike shop in Notting Hill to drop off the new hub, and then straight over to Liverpool Street.
But it was the 1st presidential debate the night before, which I’d watched, so I woke up late and started slowly. I started packing and where is my pillow? My Tempur Travel Pillow. My expensive camping luxury that gave me such a good night’s sleep last year. Hmm, hmm? Well, I still haven’t found it, and I wasted several hours on Saturday looking for it. So I had to take my old light and useless Vango pillow.
In fact, by the time I left for Liverpool Street (no time now to deliver the hub!), not only was I too late to get the mid-day train, I was too late to cycle for the 1pm train too. Eek! I rushed over to Catford Bridge to see I’d just missed the Charing Cross train, but luckily a Cannon Street train was on the way. I made it onto the Sudbury train with under 5 minutes to spare. My bike shared the cycle space with a Pedersen, another weird one.
At Sudbury, I had quite the oddest accident. I managed to drop my bike, chain-ring first onto my ankle. It is still healing now, and made the 7 mile ride up to the farm a bit uncomfortable, but not too much though. That ride was mostly uphill, a bit tougher than I expected. I decided to use the iPhone rather than Viewranger for directions, and although I didn’t get lost, I did have a few moments where I wasn’t sure where I was along the route. Turn left after 2 miles it says. How far is that then? Turn right on Church Street (but there’s no street names!), and so on. But I was late, so I hurried on.
When I got there, there was a Punch and Judy show going on for the kids and wine for the rest of us, delightful! The whole thing was great, and in the hangar next door was:
this. Cripes.
Whoah! Hawker Hurricane restorations! I had no idea such a thing existed. Not preservation, but actual aircraft restorations as effectively new working planes.
Amazing.
That night the pavilion where the party happened was lit up with Christmas lights and candles. It looked enchanting. I took this awful pic with my iPhone.
I didn’t dance: so many excuses, wrong shoes - too grippy, cut up ankle - too painful, but mainly too shy. Silly boy.
My best friend from school, Ross, has just married a lovely lady called Cath. Something must be wrong with me, since it did not occur to me the whole time I was at their wedding party to actually take a picture of them. Instead above is a picture of the back drop to the event. Not a bad spot I think, and by amazing unusual co-incidence for summer ‘08, fantastic weather that weekend.
Anyway I started off foolish. They were having their party at Moat Farm, and rather than read the invite properly, I let Google suggest to me that it was near Diss. Diss! I checked for train tickets and got them for only £6. Of course, as soon as I’d booked them (non-refundable), I realised the mistake. Diss! I mean, really. It was actually near Sudbury, and despite being a bit closer, that ticket was £28. Hmm. Anyway the morning of departure came, and as per my last blog post, I was going to cycle to the bike shop in Notting Hill to drop off the new hub, and then straight over to Liverpool Street.
But it was the 1st presidential debate the night before, which I’d watched, so I woke up late and started slowly. I started packing and where is my pillow? My Tempur Travel Pillow. My expensive camping luxury that gave me such a good night’s sleep last year. Hmm, hmm? Well, I still haven’t found it, and I wasted several hours on Saturday looking for it. So I had to take my old light and useless Vango pillow.
In fact, by the time I left for Liverpool Street (no time now to deliver the hub!), not only was I too late to get the mid-day train, I was too late to cycle for the 1pm train too. Eek! I rushed over to Catford Bridge to see I’d just missed the Charing Cross train, but luckily a Cannon Street train was on the way. I made it onto the Sudbury train with under 5 minutes to spare. My bike shared the cycle space with a Pedersen, another weird one.
At Sudbury, I had quite the oddest accident. I managed to drop my bike, chain-ring first onto my ankle. It is still healing now, and made the 7 mile ride up to the farm a bit uncomfortable, but not too much though. That ride was mostly uphill, a bit tougher than I expected. I decided to use the iPhone rather than Viewranger for directions, and although I didn’t get lost, I did have a few moments where I wasn’t sure where I was along the route. Turn left after 2 miles it says. How far is that then? Turn right on Church Street (but there’s no street names!), and so on. But I was late, so I hurried on.
When I got there, there was a Punch and Judy show going on for the kids and wine for the rest of us, delightful! The whole thing was great, and in the hangar next door was:
this. Cripes.
Whoah! Hawker Hurricane restorations! I had no idea such a thing existed. Not preservation, but actual aircraft restorations as effectively new working planes.
Amazing.
That night the pavilion where the party happened was lit up with Christmas lights and candles. It looked enchanting. I took this awful pic with my iPhone.
I didn’t dance: so many excuses, wrong shoes - too grippy, cut up ankle - too painful, but mainly too shy. Silly boy.
Me and Ross
In the morning, I thought
I left in such good time to get a midday train. So
much time, that I decided to buy some lunch for a few
hours later. Hmm, took a little while to find an open
shop, and then somewhere to lock up, and then oh no,
oh no, a one-way system in town, and such a big one!
I managed to race around (as best I could on 2nd
gear) and rushed down to the station, following the
signs. Rushing down a road I didn’t recognise,
rushing and, um, where’s the station? I had to
ask a local, it was far back up the road. Annoyingly
the last sign for the train was perpendicular to the
road on a roundabout. Coming at the sign, I simply
didn’t see it and took a wrong turn. I missed
the train by 2 minutes. Argh! Next train was a full
hour later. Ack!
So I had a look a the station. Turns out it’s a
community partnership branch line, kept open with
local support, partly demonstrated by the floral
efforts on the platform:
Quite effective in terms of butterflies and bees.
What you can’t tell from the pics is the
cacophony of bird noises around the station, in the
bushes behind. It was like a jungle back there. Yup,
doesn’t take much to entertain me.
Lovely finish to the weekend though. Best wishes to
Ross and Cath on their Irish adventure!
Postscript - hub
I finally managed to get the hub over to Bicycle
Workshop today. I cocked-up a delivery there on
Monday (closed on Monday), but had an exhilarating
fast ride across central London doing so. You ride as
fast as you can, with fingers on the brakes, staying
ahead of the traffic, but out of the way of it
(certainly not on the inside of trucks!). Riding
cross Hyde Park and then back through Bayswater. A
huge work out for the Moulton suspension and a big
smile on my face.
Speaking of which, you can hear about the Moulton
(and hear me for 10 secs at the beginning) here at
the Bike Show.
|
Hub gears
26/09/08 19:41 Filed in: Bike
Time flies by, it really does. It was way back in May
when my hub gears failed reducing me to only 2 gears. I’ve done
around 1,800 miles since then, mostly in 2nd
gear (39-inches), and have become even fitter
than I was before. I had a pre-surgical
assessment recently, for the operation on my
other foot, following Number 1. The nurse was quite a
bit concerned by my heart rate (40-45 bpm). An
ECG later, and apparently I’m very fit
(severe Bradycardia). But I’m still obese.
The effort in cycling in 2nd gear is quite high,
and it left me with a big appetite, and no
inclination to go back to the gym or do Pilates.
Pilates, in particular was actually having an
effect on my belly, at least, it felt so.
I want to lose weight, so I needed to replace the hub. I was tempted by the all-new revised Sturmey 8 Speed, which was due in summer 2008, but summer has come and gone and nothing has happened. In fact it won’t come out till next year now, and apparently the drum brake version will be later still.
Drum brakes. That was going to be the upgrade to make my bike the ultimate low maintenance commuter. Well, disc brakes would give me more options, but the Moulton would require major welding to take them. So, I was going to do the front wheel first with a hub brake dynamo, and then the back wheel with the new 8 speed. Unfortunately, although I thought I had an agreement to make the modifications necessary to take a front drum brake, and had got the front hub and 36 hole rims ready, it seems that negative advice from the factory put off my dealer.
So, must stay positive. What about the rear hub? I decided to look again at the market, and to summarise:
Of course, I didn’t have to spend £180. I could buy one off eBay in Germany. I couldn’t find one, but ironically, at the time of writing, a search for “trommelbremse S7” on ebay.de, finds 3 shiny ones, for €129, not bad. But buying a German model off eBay would almost certainly mean no warranty. Although there were several recommendations on the Moulton mailing list attesting to the durability of the hub, I was still worried about the noise it would make and the extra cost of the chain ring. And given my style of riding, I felt I needed, really needed a warranty.
In the meantime, this happened:
If you look at the 8pm position on the hub, you will notice tear in the flange. Oh what? I had the wheel built with Tandem spokes for super toughness because any other spokes would break after a few dozen miles (probably because I’m heavy) - but it seems it was too tough now! Instead of the spoke snapping, it ripped through the flange, remaining fully in-tact!
I got a surprise offer from the factory to see if they could secure me an early model of the new SA8. This was a great offer, given that I was now out of warranty, and I went for it, but as time went on, on 27 spokes, I started to get early warning signs, pedal pedal, ping, quiet. Pedal pedal ping. This thing is slowly coming apart! Thinking again about the factory offer, they would get me a 28 spoke freewheel hub. Did I REALLY want another 28 spoke hub? Really?
No. I really needed 36 spokes and a warranty to guarantee me 2 years of use. And the stars aligned. I started ebaying again, and was surprised to find nearly £150 in my Paypal account, earning them interest. By coincidence, Old Bike Trader was now offering the current drum brake SA8 for £135, fully warranted from Sturmey European HQ in Holland. And of course OBT takes PayPal.
And here she is, sleeping in her box, an X-RD 8 Speed:
70mm drum brake on the left, 8-speed hub on the right. If it lasts for 2 years, then hopefully SA will have run out any kinks in the new SA-8, and if it doesn’t, then I’ll be pressing for the new one in a warranty claim. But hopefully, since this is a late revision of the hub, it’ll be a good one. Late revision, since I see it has the new shifter I saw at the Bike Show a year ago:
So, remembering my good experience there last year, I’m going to get the conversion done at Bicycle workshop. They claim they are not afraid of hub gears, which is re-assuring. I will deliver them the rim and hub tomorrow for wheel building, and then the bike for the installation in a week or so. Gulp!
Wish me luck!
I want to lose weight, so I needed to replace the hub. I was tempted by the all-new revised Sturmey 8 Speed, which was due in summer 2008, but summer has come and gone and nothing has happened. In fact it won’t come out till next year now, and apparently the drum brake version will be later still.
Drum brakes. That was going to be the upgrade to make my bike the ultimate low maintenance commuter. Well, disc brakes would give me more options, but the Moulton would require major welding to take them. So, I was going to do the front wheel first with a hub brake dynamo, and then the back wheel with the new 8 speed. Unfortunately, although I thought I had an agreement to make the modifications necessary to take a front drum brake, and had got the front hub and 36 hole rims ready, it seems that negative advice from the factory put off my dealer.
So, must stay positive. What about the rear hub? I decided to look again at the market, and to summarise:
- Rohloff - too expensive, no drum brake option only disc
- Shimano Alfine - don’t like the shifter, no drum, only disc
- Shimano Nexus - hate the shifter
- SRAM iMotion 9 - heavy, expensive, no drum and unavailable
- SRAM S7 - expensive if bought in the UK (£180)
Of course, I didn’t have to spend £180. I could buy one off eBay in Germany. I couldn’t find one, but ironically, at the time of writing, a search for “trommelbremse S7” on ebay.de, finds 3 shiny ones, for €129, not bad. But buying a German model off eBay would almost certainly mean no warranty. Although there were several recommendations on the Moulton mailing list attesting to the durability of the hub, I was still worried about the noise it would make and the extra cost of the chain ring. And given my style of riding, I felt I needed, really needed a warranty.
In the meantime, this happened:
If you look at the 8pm position on the hub, you will notice tear in the flange. Oh what? I had the wheel built with Tandem spokes for super toughness because any other spokes would break after a few dozen miles (probably because I’m heavy) - but it seems it was too tough now! Instead of the spoke snapping, it ripped through the flange, remaining fully in-tact!
I got a surprise offer from the factory to see if they could secure me an early model of the new SA8. This was a great offer, given that I was now out of warranty, and I went for it, but as time went on, on 27 spokes, I started to get early warning signs, pedal pedal, ping, quiet. Pedal pedal ping. This thing is slowly coming apart! Thinking again about the factory offer, they would get me a 28 spoke freewheel hub. Did I REALLY want another 28 spoke hub? Really?
No. I really needed 36 spokes and a warranty to guarantee me 2 years of use. And the stars aligned. I started ebaying again, and was surprised to find nearly £150 in my Paypal account, earning them interest. By coincidence, Old Bike Trader was now offering the current drum brake SA8 for £135, fully warranted from Sturmey European HQ in Holland. And of course OBT takes PayPal.
And here she is, sleeping in her box, an X-RD 8 Speed:
70mm drum brake on the left, 8-speed hub on the right. If it lasts for 2 years, then hopefully SA will have run out any kinks in the new SA-8, and if it doesn’t, then I’ll be pressing for the new one in a warranty claim. But hopefully, since this is a late revision of the hub, it’ll be a good one. Late revision, since I see it has the new shifter I saw at the Bike Show a year ago:
So, remembering my good experience there last year, I’m going to get the conversion done at Bicycle workshop. They claim they are not afraid of hub gears, which is re-assuring. I will deliver them the rim and hub tomorrow for wheel building, and then the bike for the installation in a week or so. Gulp!
Wish me luck!
And then there was 2
20/05/08 21:11 Filed in: Bike
Somewhere in Southwark this evening, in Surrey Canal
I think, 6th gear got jammed, as did 4th, and I
couldn't un-jam it. I limped home in 2nd gear, where
I can sustain 11.5 mph at about 180rpm for a minute
or so, before coasting. I'll do this till the end of
the week, then I'll borrow my mate's bike.
Hub-Dynamo
19/05/08 22:12 Filed in: Bike
A mixed bag day
07/07/07 21:44 Filed in: Bike
I woke up early. I had to re-adjust my Sturmey hub
which was slightly out of alignment from Friday. On
Friday I suddenly lost gears 3-7, just next to
Waterloo station. So I waited a full hour till 7pm
and took the train home.
So, Saturday, I thought I did it right, re-adjusted the hub, it's not a simple thing, I have to unscrew cables and other things un-fitting for a £1000 bike
, went out and tested it. Fine.
Now all I need is to get the map for my destination. I'm helping a work mate trace his cycle route into work. I need to leave soon, and the TFL route is 8 pages of PDF. Hmm, I don't want to print that but OK, I've got two PDA's here, a Palm TX and a Nokia N70. Well the Palm has a nice big screen, and I've already got Adobe Reader, so I'll just bluetooth the file over.
Um, nope. Didn't work, after a few attempts. OK, I'll send it over using Missing Sync....um, nope. OK, I'll put the damn file direct on the SD card. No no no, can't write to it. Pile of pants. OK, I'm already late now...
Plan B, smart phone, yep so I'll just google for Adobe Reader for S60 and wtf? 6680???*
So, how about printing it then, urgh, too fine to read on the road. Cancel the print job. Ack! Aha, GoogleMaps then. Ah, but that's roads, big roads only. Well, no choice. What to use, again Palm TX is obvious, but that needs Wifi, and I can't be arsed to fiddle with Bluetooth now, so it's got the be the phone on it's own.
Google Maps, well, fiddling bloody stupid T9 input, damn I need and friggin iPhone! Anyway, it's a completely different route to the one TFL gave. But, no choice, off I go.
I get 10 meters down the road and I lose all gears again. Aaaaaaargh! I stop and look. When I left the gears were perfectly adjusted, now they are about 2 cm out. 2CM!!!!??? I really don't want to ride the APB today, something is wrong with the front brake and it's squeaking. I've ridden it so much (the TSR has been so unreliable) that it needs another service! But I've no choice, so off I go.
I get lost twice and end up heading toward Forest Hill rather than Crystal Palace (destination Thornton Heath). But I see a cycle route (LCN 26) to Crystal Palace. Nothing to lose now, so off I go. Biggest bloody hill I have ever ridden up. I mean, it went on and on, and the up and up some more and more. And then I was in Crystal Palace. Back to the Phone what now? Down and down and down, biggest down hill ever. And then I'm in Thornton Heath. A half-hour late, but at least the ABP made it, although it's making ever louder knocking noises when I brake.
It takes nearly 2 hours to ride into central London, but the route is fairly reasonably straightforward, and not too taxing. All my mate needs is a bike that is the right size for him, his bike is shockingly small (knees nearly touching hands), and the gear range, fairly slow.
Then over to Russ for lunch and mail re-direction. All good. Then back over to Hyde Park to watch the Prologue to the Tour de France. At which point I regret not having my portable DAB radio, but the batteries are (still) charging in the back room. So I had no idea of who was winning or anything. I was at the far corner of the road near Exhibition Road, but it was hot (sunshine), so I moved near to the time check display, and then moved again into shade at the end. Um, bikes, racing. Whoo! Well, lots of people wooing and clapping. Most for the British riders. It was fairly entertaining at least, and fantastic weather the whole day.
But just before I got to Russ for lunch, I noticed what the knocking noise was with the front brakes. My front rim had split. Expensive icing on the cake.
*Turned out that I should have googled for Adobe Reader N70 instead. And it works well, if slowly. Too late now though!
So, Saturday, I thought I did it right, re-adjusted the hub, it's not a simple thing, I have to unscrew cables and other things un-fitting for a £1000 bike
, went out and tested it. Fine.
Now all I need is to get the map for my destination. I'm helping a work mate trace his cycle route into work. I need to leave soon, and the TFL route is 8 pages of PDF. Hmm, I don't want to print that but OK, I've got two PDA's here, a Palm TX and a Nokia N70. Well the Palm has a nice big screen, and I've already got Adobe Reader, so I'll just bluetooth the file over.
Um, nope. Didn't work, after a few attempts. OK, I'll send it over using Missing Sync....um, nope. OK, I'll put the damn file direct on the SD card. No no no, can't write to it. Pile of pants. OK, I'm already late now...
Plan B, smart phone, yep so I'll just google for Adobe Reader for S60 and wtf? 6680???*
So, how about printing it then, urgh, too fine to read on the road. Cancel the print job. Ack! Aha, GoogleMaps then. Ah, but that's roads, big roads only. Well, no choice. What to use, again Palm TX is obvious, but that needs Wifi, and I can't be arsed to fiddle with Bluetooth now, so it's got the be the phone on it's own.
Google Maps, well, fiddling bloody stupid T9 input, damn I need and friggin iPhone! Anyway, it's a completely different route to the one TFL gave. But, no choice, off I go.
I get 10 meters down the road and I lose all gears again. Aaaaaaargh! I stop and look. When I left the gears were perfectly adjusted, now they are about 2 cm out. 2CM!!!!??? I really don't want to ride the APB today, something is wrong with the front brake and it's squeaking. I've ridden it so much (the TSR has been so unreliable) that it needs another service! But I've no choice, so off I go.
I get lost twice and end up heading toward Forest Hill rather than Crystal Palace (destination Thornton Heath). But I see a cycle route (LCN 26) to Crystal Palace. Nothing to lose now, so off I go. Biggest bloody hill I have ever ridden up. I mean, it went on and on, and the up and up some more and more. And then I was in Crystal Palace. Back to the Phone what now? Down and down and down, biggest down hill ever. And then I'm in Thornton Heath. A half-hour late, but at least the ABP made it, although it's making ever louder knocking noises when I brake.
It takes nearly 2 hours to ride into central London, but the route is fairly reasonably straightforward, and not too taxing. All my mate needs is a bike that is the right size for him, his bike is shockingly small (knees nearly touching hands), and the gear range, fairly slow.
Then over to Russ for lunch and mail re-direction. All good. Then back over to Hyde Park to watch the Prologue to the Tour de France. At which point I regret not having my portable DAB radio, but the batteries are (still) charging in the back room. So I had no idea of who was winning or anything. I was at the far corner of the road near Exhibition Road, but it was hot (sunshine), so I moved near to the time check display, and then moved again into shade at the end. Um, bikes, racing. Whoo! Well, lots of people wooing and clapping. Most for the British riders. It was fairly entertaining at least, and fantastic weather the whole day.
But just before I got to Russ for lunch, I noticed what the knocking noise was with the front brakes. My front rim had split. Expensive icing on the cake.
*Turned out that I should have googled for Adobe Reader N70 instead. And it works well, if slowly. Too late now though!
More Ying and Yang
08/06/07 21:52 Filed in: Personal
For zis hub, ze war is over.
I was riding across London from Holborn to Marylebone, along the fast Liverpool Street to Paddington route. After Harley Street I noticed some rumbling in 7th gear. I approached the next set of lights and switched down to 3rd gear, as usual.
The lights went green, I pushed off and:
Ping-pang-bedoowwn....crr---uuunch.
So, it'll have to be replaced under warranty.
Then tonight I'm on the Interweb, and I find that Nokia have delivered salvation to me! Nokia Media Transfer for Mac, iTunes and iPhot integration and access to the phone and card file system through the USB cable. I am smitten, and I've just put the Russell Brand podcast on my phone. Yay
I was riding across London from Holborn to Marylebone, along the fast Liverpool Street to Paddington route. After Harley Street I noticed some rumbling in 7th gear. I approached the next set of lights and switched down to 3rd gear, as usual.
The lights went green, I pushed off and:
Ping-pang-bedoowwn....crr---uuunch.
So, it'll have to be replaced under warranty.
Then tonight I'm on the Interweb, and I find that Nokia have delivered salvation to me! Nokia Media Transfer for Mac, iTunes and iPhot integration and access to the phone and card file system through the USB cable. I am smitten, and I've just put the Russell Brand podcast on my phone. Yay