And keeping them there ....

I stayed dry all night long, but when it was time to go home, it started to rain. It gave me the opportunity to test the mudflaps on wet surfaces and they seem to do their job : no more water and dirt spraying up anymore. Close to home, the front mudflap fell off and I heard a loud "ping!" coming from the back. I stopped to pick up the mudflap (the plastic pin connecting it to the fender was gone - as to be expected) and could not find anything else wrong with my bike, so I continued riding home. This afternoon I connected both mudflaps to the fenders with small nuts and bolts so they're supposed to stay in place this time.
While cleaning up my bike, I discoverd that 2 spokes in the rear wheel are broken -hence the "ping!" sound earlier this day ! Strange thing to brake 2 spokes at the same time, but anyway .... I'll bring my rear wheel to my bikeshop tomorrow morning and they promised to have the spokes replaced and the wheel trued by tomorrow night. I also checked the rear wheel sprocket, which turns out to be an 18 tooth cog. I want to replace it by a bigger cog, which will give me more lower gear. Still have to check with my bikeshop whether or not he has bigger cogs in stock ....

Adding mudflaps

I was finally able to take a longer ride today, a little over 2,5 hours. After days of rain it almost felt like spring : blue skies with white clouds and a lot of people of bicycles. Since my velomobile has been taken apart for a complete overhaul, I have been using my XP for commuting for the last week. I noticed that especially on wet surfaces, the water sprayed all underneath my legs and the seat. Also the top of the rear pannier rack got covered with a lot of dust and sand (part of my commuting trip includes a stretch of sand). A couple of months ago, I bought some mudflaps from SKS, but since they are black and my fenders are not, I did not install them. Today, before my ride, I finally installed them just to see if there' s any improvement. Can't tell anything about wet surfaces yet, but the mudflaps sure stop a lot of sand and dust from spraying all over the bike.
The fenders on the XP are SKS Bluemels and I originally wanted black ones, but according to my bike shop, they're only available in silver for 26" wheels. Bummer. Still looking for some nice black fenders though, with or without mudflaps ....
So far, I have ridden a little over 1840 miles on my XP.

mudflap with plastic pin (still needs to be cut)

Change of season ?

Did not ride much lately, mostly due to the bad weather. Since I got back from the Ecotrip, it has been raining most of the time and temperatures dropped quiet a bit. It feels more like autumn instead of summer the last days ... Whenever possible I tried to ride the XP between showers, which means no long rides at all. Hopefully the summer will not be completely gone and the sun will come back one of these days ....
Last week Sunday I took a ride to Lommel to visit the 2nd International Sand Sculpture Festival.
It was only a 20 mile ride one way and no signs of rain that day, so I took the XP to get there. It was my first time to visit sand sculptures and there were a few real nice sculptures I really liked/was impressed by. They charged an entry fee of 8 Euro's, which was way overpriced if you ask me. It only took you about half an hour to see every sculpture, so the exhibition was not that big. Anyway, it was a nice ride near the canal to Lommel and back and at least I took some pictures.

One of the most impressive sand sculptures

Tomorrow after my late shift at work I'll be off to Zutendaal. There will be a BBQ-ride for velomobiles on Tuesday ( 94 miles ), so I'll ride my Alleweder velomobile to get there and join the ride on Tuesday. My wife will take the car + trailer with her Kettwiesel tomorrow afternoon to get there, so the tent should be put up by the time I'll be there. She's planning to take part of the family ride on Tuesday, which is only around 25 miles. Let's hope the rain will stay away for a couple of days ....