Now that the rain has stopped ....

.... and winter finally arrived, I pulled my XP out of the garage today. It had been parked inside there for weeks, since all we got the last weeks was rain, lots of rain. No problem for my (new) velomobile, but not for the "naked" bikes like the XP. But today was different : last night temperatures dropped, wind had changed to N-N/E so yes, finally a day without rain. A bit on the cold side (below 5° Celsius) and a mild wind, but who cares ! I put on enough layers to last a couple of hours and off I went. Wow, I almost forgot how much fun it was riding a LWB, it had been that long ! I did not care that my feet turned cold after 1,5 hours, I did not mind that I had to stop for several Pinkelpauses (as the Germans call it), I did not mind that I was waaaaay slower than my velomobile, I simply enjoyed riding my XP again, every minute of it !
I did not meet many cyclists outside this afternoon, but the few I did cross, had the same grin on their faces that I propably had. Let's hope this weather lasts a couple of weeks, so I can crank up the milage on this wonderful bike for these last weeks of the year !

New XP-rider

At the last edition of Cycle Vision last july I was contacted by a few people who where very interested in the Stratus XP. Three of them took a short test ride and just last week I received an e-mail from Wim H. telling me he finally got his own XP. He got his bike completed by Tempelman. He also wrote me that Tempelman is likely to import some XP-frames and build them up as complete bikes. Now that would be interesting, seeing more people on XP's on the road !

Wim's XP's color is dark silver and he really loves his bike. Maybe it's time to start a LWB riding group over here ;-) !

Wim's new Stratus XP

And then some ....

Last weekend, I renewed the seat mesh back. I had a new mesh lying around for almost 2 years, but especially during the latest 100km ride, I noticed my back touched one of the braces of the seat frame during pedalling. And since the mesh had been tightened all up the way, it was time to replace it.

Putting the new mesh on was not easy. I had to use a big screw driver to get the 2 holes over the braces at the back of the seat frame to get it in place. And when I finally managed to get the mesh around the seats frame, I noticed that the mesh has not been put together symmetrical : the enforced side walls of the mesh are not the same width on each side, but I don't think that that'll be a problem . Anyway, the moment I took my next ride, I noticed the difference immediately, my back no longer touches the seats frame anymore.

This afternoon, after my early shift at work, I took the XP for another ride. I was riding on the bike path between Hoge Mierde en Poppel, when a SUV slowed down besides me and the driver asked me to stop. I'm used to cars slowing down to have a better look at the XP when I ride by, but this was the first time that a car actually stopped and wanted to know more about it. He asked me lots of questions about the XP and as usual, I referred to the RANS' website for more information. Maybe I should consider taking some pieces of paper with me with the RANS website on it for future rides ....

Nice wide bike lanes in the Netherlands ....

The 100km ride in Limburg

It's getting a tradition that one week after August 15 (which is a national holiday in my country) one of the members of our forum organises a 100km ride. Start and stop is always in Helchteren in the provence of Limburg. Last year I participated with my velomobile, but since yesterday promised to be an excellent summer day, I decided to take my XP this time. Since Helchteren is around 65km from where I live -and to avoid that everyone had to wait for me like last year, I left home early in the morning, around 06.30 am. I arrived in Helchteren around 09.30 am, where others were arriving and were greeted with fresh coffee and pastries. Around 10.00 am we started with a group of 16 riders on different kind of recumbents.

We had lunch in Schaffen around 01.00 pm, where most of us enjoyed spaghetti. After this break, we continued the tour. It was pretty hot, but luckily there was a breeze to cool you down while riding. After almost 70 km, 2 riders weren't able to ride with the group and headed straight to Helchteren to get home. Since we made 2 stops for icecream (okay, that's my fault, but hey, I cannot help that I'm addicted to icecream!), we arrived back in Helchteren around 07.15 pm. After saying goodbye to everyone I drove back home, where I arrived around 10.00pm with 240km on my bike computer. Not bad at all (did he say in all modesty :-)

Group picture at the second ice cream stop

Finding out the hard way ....

Yesterday, I took my XP to go to work. Nothing wrong with my velomobile, but since the temperatures are still rising (yes, we do have a good summer this year!) I preferred riding the XP. When I was riding home on the tow path near the canal, I noticed a man walking besides his road bike. I stopped and asked him what was wrong. Turned out he had a flat tire but nothing with him to fix it. Since I carry almost everything except an extra tire to fix flats, I offered him to help. With the tire levers I gave him, he got the inner tube out in no time, but neither one of us could find any puncture in it. We then checked the outer tire, but nothing there either. Put the inner tube back in and I handed out my compact SKS CYBER ZOOM pump. The pumps head has 2 positions, one for schrader valves and one for presta, the position of the lever at the pumps head decides which one you need. Although we pumped like madmen, we only managed to get a little bit of air into the inner tube, but nowhere near to be able to ride it. We tried both positions of the pump with the same result. Strange .... Could it be the valve itself ? When looking for what was going wrong, I noticed that during inflation, you could hear a faint hissing of air. I mentioned this to the other guy and he could hear it too. Seems that while pumping, air was getting back into the pump. Hmmm, so was there something wrong with the pump or with the valve ?

Although I've always carried the pump with the XP, I actually never had to use it before. We then stopped another rider passing by asking for a pump. Turned out he also had a SKS compact pump, but a newer version than mine (2 different openings in its head). But nevertheless, the result was the same. I felt sorry for the road bike guy, since he had to walk a couple of miles to get to the next bike shop, so I rode home, picked up my TOPEAK floor pump and returned to the tow path. But alas : the same thing happened, so it had to be the valve. I wished the guy good luck on his walk and returned home.

Back home I took the compact SKS pump and tried it on a couple of spare inner tubes lying around the garage. But no matter what kind of valves the inner tube had, the result was the same : I could not inflate them propperly. Whenever I started pumping, I heard a hissing sound of air getting back into the pump. The SKS pump is now where it belongs : in the trash. Have to get me a decent one that works !

Trash !

Getting the headlight right ....

As I wrote before : the sensor of the CYO is located right at the bottom (end) of it, so in order to let it do its job, there needs to be some space around it. The it was mounted at my bike, it did not work at all. So yesterday I visited the local DIY shop and bought 2 small metal plates for less than a buck and some black spray paint. Back home I painted the silver plates black and let them dry in the garage. Then I went through my collection of nuts and bolts until I found the right size and length. This morning I put everything together, so now the set-up looks like this :


I did not have time yet to see whether the automation on/off function is working correctly, but I'm pretty confident it'll work -no doubt since it's made in Germany ;-). I'll sure find out in the next days to come ...

Life is good ...

Start working early in the morning so you can stop around noon. Get into your velomobile and on your way home, receive a call from a friend asking you to accompany him on a maxiscooter ride. Get home, change into motorcycling gear, get the scooter out of the garage and leave for a nice 2 hour ride with a drink stop on a nice terrace. Get home again, enjoy dinner with your wife and then leave for another 2,5 hour bike ride. When returning home, you have this awsome view to enjoy :

Life is good !!!

New headlight

My recent pair of bike sandals are pretty much worn out and need replacement. I really like the Shimano SPD-sandals, but the latest version has 3 closing straps on each shoe, making it not as airy as the old model (which has only 2 straps). The latest issue of ACTIV RADFAHREN, a German Bike magazine, had an article comparing several bike sandals and one of the best to come out of this test was the Red X SS502 . This brand is not available in my country and can only be ordered online from Germany. Since it's almost impossible to find your correct size through the internet, my wife and I rode all the way to Bocholt in Germany, where the Bike Town of ROSE ( a big German online bike retailer) is located.

When you enter the shop, it's almost like entering bike heaven : only bike-related stuff on 3 floors/ 6,000m², wow !!! Thank God my wife was holding my credit card, or I might have bought way too many things !

After finding the correct size of sandals, I visited the bike light section. It's not that I'm not satisfied with my FLY IQ SENSO PLUS, but I need that light for my RANS 700X. So I went shopping for a new light. Finally I purchased another Busch + Müller LED headlight : the CYO SENSO PLUS. It has an output of 60 lux, which should be plenty enough to see where you're riding at night. Only minor thing is that the sensor of this light is placed right at the back of it, so in the position I put it on the XP right now, the sensor's pretty much useless. I'll need to figure out another way to attach the headlight to my bike.

The new CYO PLUS SENSO

2009 Sculpture Exhibition - Oisterwijk

A couple of days ago, while riding my motorcycle abroad, I noticed several adds besides the road for the Sculpture Exhibition in Oisterwijk (the Netherlands). Yesterday was a beautiful day and since Oisterwijk is not that far from my home town, I took the XP to get me there. It took me about 1,5 hour to get into the centre of Oisterwijk. I never visited this event before, but I was pleasantly surprised when I got there.
The sculptures were exhibited right in the middle of one of the main streets. Visitors could walk between them, viewing each of them in a green decor, on the grass and between the trees. Now I do not know much about art, but I sure like to look at nice things once in a while. Most of the sculptures were pretty nice and I sure had a good time over there. Although it was pretty crowded, I managed to take some pictures of the sculptures I really liked. If you're interested, you can find them here

Art in the middle of the street

New headset

Since I took the XP out of its wintersleep and started riding it, I noticed some drag in the rear disc wheel. Last week I stopped by at my bikeshop to have it checked out, only to find out that the Shimano discs are self centered and can't be adjusted. But they discovered that the spokes of my rear wheel needed to be tensioned, which probably caused the drag of the disc. Since the bike also needed a new head set, I brought it in earlier this week. Yesterday I received a call that the XP was ready. So yesterday afternoon my wife dropped off so I could pick it up. They installed a Shimano LX head set, 'cause that's the one that is the most reliable. The spokes of the rear wheel were tentioned so the wheel was true again, which means no more drag coming from the disc. And they removed some of the tension on the shifting cable, which caused the shifter to jump out of the highest gears. Since the weather was fine, I did not take the XP straight to home but made a wider tour. Really mild temperatures for this time of the year, so I put on my SPD-sandals and enjoyed the sun. Happy Easter to all of ya !

The new head set

Spring is here !

Last friday I took my XP out of the garage for the first time this year. It was the first mild sunny day of the year and instead of taking my old BMW motorcycle for a ride, I really longed to be on the XP again. Amazingly, tire pressure was still excellent, so besides getting rid of some dust and one cobb web, the bike was ready to ride. Although early in the year, the sun was strong enough to ride in shorts (still wearing a long sleeve jacket though) and I really enjoyed the scenery on the XP during my one hour ride. A lot of fellow bikers must have had the same feeling, 'cause I crossed lots of them on the towpath, with lots of happy faces that I looked into !

Since my velomobile had to be taken to my friends' place for adjusting, I even rode my XP to work yesterday. After finishing my early shift, I took it for another ride, this time for a 2,5 hour ride. Still pretty sunny with a mild wind. And even though it's been a couple of months since I last rode my XP, there was no discomfort at all. The only adjustment I had to make was at the rear brake disc, which started to make a screeching sound halfway into my ride. But that was easily fixed with a 5mm allen wrench. i really love this bike !!!

Spring !

Back again ....

Since our winter has been pretty wet these last months, I did not ride my XP very much. Only the last weeks have been really cold with sub-zero temperatures, making it too cold to be on the XP for long times (I'm a whussy, I know).
Anyway, when looking back on 2008, I managed to ride 2,625 miles with the XP, a little more than the previous year. Sure, I wish I did ride it some more, but there's still my velomobile, and my Zenetik Pro, and my 700X, and .... My total cycling distance in 2008 was more or less the same as in 2007, making it a total of 10,170 miles. Not bad, considering the fact that my commuting distance has been halved since January 2008. And it's still more than the motorized miles in my household, so that's pretty good !

So, what's next ? Well, not much. I do need a new headset though. On my latest rides I noticed that the front fork preferred to stay put and that it more or less popped back in a straight position after taking turns. I already had my headset tightened in the past because of this, so I guess it's time to replace it. It should be standard size, so that'll be no problem. I just need to decide which brand and type. Oh, the choices one has to make ...

Happy miles to all of you out there !