Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Long time ....
Don't know why, buy I only started riding it again a couple of weeks ago. I took the XP to my local bike shop for some minor tweaks in the first week of July and picked it up a couple of weeks later. And started riding it again and realised again what a wonderful bike it is. It's still my favourite bike after a nights' shift from work when the weather is fine like yesterday, when I did a 2,5 hour ride. Just cruising along the canal and on the wonderful bicycle paths in the Netherlands and enjoying the scenery, nice !
Sunday, October 03, 2010
Sunny Sunday ride ....
Although I had planned to ride my Beemer in the afternoon, the weather was actually so nice that I decided to take the XP for a ride instead. Put on my short, T-shirt and bike sandals and off I went. There was a mild wind, but who cared ....
Rode up to Tilburg and Loon op Zand, where I crossed the Nationaal Park de Loonse and Drunense Duinen. It was pretty crowded on the bike paths in the park, lots of people got out on their bikes on a sunny Sunday like this.
When I left the Park, I rode untill I reached Elshout, where I enjoyed the scenery while riding on the dike.

All this for bicycles only !
When I reached knooppunt 87, I turned around and headed back home. I arrived just in time for supper with a little over 60 miles on bike computer. A nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon, if you ask me ;-)
Monday, August 23, 2010
The 2010 Limburg 100km ride
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Fixing the seat issue ....

Sunday, July 11, 2010
The Limburg BBQ ride
Around 21 recumbent riders showed up, 2 of them even with a velomobile. I have to admit that it slipped my mind to take my own Strada for the ride, but with predicted temperatures of + 35° Celcius, I decided to go for the XP. Weather forcasts warned for heavy rain -and thunderstorms, but in the last few days, we did not see any of these, so I preferred an open bike.
It was hot, real hot. The route was beautiful as usual, the province of Limburg is like heaven for cyclist : lots of bike paths through beautiful sceneries, guided by their famous knooppunten-system. Anyway, we did several drink stops (thankfully, since it really was too hot for some riders) and a lunch stop where the most of us ate a plate of spaghetti. After lunch, a small group of riders decided to take a short route back to Wiemesmeer, where as most of the riders wanted to complete the ride as planned. So the last group with Johan C. was back in Wiemesmeer around 6.15 p.m., where everybody welcomed the garden hose to freshen up with open arms ;-).
BBQ was also terrific, Johan C. and his wife Elke are perfect hosts and nobody left with an empty stomach.
Around 09.15 p.m. I decided to ride back home. Jonathan A, who came with his rowing bike, accompanied me. As we decended the bridge and came on the towing path heading north, a strong head wind was blowing us right in the face. Wow, that would be no piece of cake ! Honestly said, I had hoped that the wind would go down in the evening -as it had the days before- but not this time. Looking at the skies, we knew that the weather was changing and that I would not get home without getting wet. We had to work hard to keep our riding speed around 25 km/h. When we reached the bridge between Beringen and Diest, Jonathan took off and I kept on fighting against the wind by my own. A couple of minutes later the first drops of rain started to fall. I stopped to cover my panniers with rain covers and put on my rain jacket. Within 15' the sky turned completely dark and I got caught in a real thunderstorm. I saw lighting wherever I looked and it rained heavily. Now I'm not really scared from lighting, but let met tell you that I was pretty nervous to say the least. I still had to ride about 50 km before I was home, so stopping was no option, I simply had to ride on.
I did stop about 3 times to hide underneath a bridge since rain was falling so heavily at that time that I could not see where I was going.
Somewhere halfway between Kwaadmechelen and Mol, I picked up Teun G. with his rowing bike. He was also on his way home, but did have no lights on his bike and was hiding for the storm. Since my headlight was strong enough for the both of us, he joined me until we reached the bridge between Ravels and Oud-Turnhout. I was home around 00.50 a.m., soaken wet but happy to be home. Total milage for yesterday was 245 km.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Picking up the XP

I only need to remove the Mavic stickers and replace them with new Scotchlite 3M reflective stickers. I will save that for a rainy day, as long as these hot summer days are lasting, I'd rather be riding my bike !
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Torn rim ...
My intitial thought was that the tire had come from underneath the rims' edge. When I looked a bit closer, I ascertained that there was nothing wrong with the tire, but that the rim was torn laterally ! Damn ! I deflated the tire a bit to put less strain on the rim and carefully drove back home. The Mavic rims were installed almost 2 years ago, one would expect them to last longer than that. Okay, I realize that I was lucky that the rim got torn overnight in the garage instead of getting damaged while out riding miles away from home, but still .... Now the weather finally is improving, I'm going to have to miss my favorite bike for a couple of weeks !
Anwyay, I'm going to bring it to my bike shop today or tomorrow, where the XP is gonna be on display. The bike shop is having an open house for the upcoming Pentecost weekend and the owner asked me permission to display the XP in his showroom together with my new Raptobike lowracer. Hopefully I'll be able to ride the XP to the shop without any trouble ....
Update : I managed to get the XP safely to my bike shop yesterday and according to them, the rim was torn because of the tire's pressure, which appearantly is too high for this rim. Can't quiet understand this, since I run the Kojaks at the same pressure than I did with the Supremes (5 bar) and nothing ever happened while riding them.
Last week I received a call from my bike shop that Mavic will replace the rim at their expense. Mavic agreed that it is not normal for a rim to get damaged like this by a tire pressure of only 5 bar. Let's hope they still have the same rim in stock ....
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Sunday Morning Ride

Sunday, May 02, 2010
New (summer) tires
Tire size is the same, but the Kojak is treadless. It also lacks a reflective lining, but since my rims have 3M Scotchlite stickers on them, that'll be no real problem at night. And to be honest, I quite like the looks of the black sidewalls of the tires !
I will try the new tires as soon as the weather improves, for it has been pretty rainy these last few days.
Schwalbe's Kojak 26 x 2.00
Update : today I used the XP to get groceries just across the border. Wow, what a big difference ! Not only has acceleration improved, but speed too ! I noticed that with the same effort I can now ride between 2 and 3 km/h faster, not bad ! Can't tell anything about puncture proofness or durability, but time will surely tell. At less than half the price of the Supreme, the Kojak is defenitaly staying on the XP for now (thank you Jonathan A. for recommending this tire) !
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Sunday Touring
Around noon we made a lunch stop at a taverne and halfway the afternoon we made a second drink stop at a nice café.
Hmmm, spaghetti !We finished the tour around 3.45 p.m., which gave me plenty of time to ride back home. Got home around 6.45 p.m. with 105 miles on my bicycle computer, enough for this old lad to spend the rest of the evening on the couch. All in all a nice way to spend a Sunday, if you ask me ;-)
A few more pictures can be found here
Somewhere along the route ....
Saturday, March 06, 2010
New pedals

Monday, January 04, 2010
Another year has passed ....
So, what's new ? Actually, not much. The last few weeks we've had snow, we even had a white christmas for the first time in 23 years ! While the snow sure makes nice sceneries, it's pure misery for those who ride their bikes. Since the snow/ice on most bike lanes is not properly removed, it's pretty risky to ride your bike. There's no cleaning at all on the towing path near the canal, making it only available for mountain bikes with fat tires (which I do not own). So for the last weeks, I was condemmed to use my regular bike to commute (yuck!). Just waiting for the snow and ice to melt, but it's supposed to stay for at least another week ....
On my last ride I noticed that the Marathon Supreme tires on the XP are showing little cracks on the sidewalls and contact surface. I've ridden them both for almost 6,250 miles, so it might be time to replace them. Schwalbe has a new model in their Marathon line that looks interesting, the Dureme, but according to their stats, it's a bit slower than the Supreme. So far, I'm very happy with the Supremes; I did not have one flat tire since I put them on the XP in 2007, their grip is pretty good even on wet surfaces and they seem to last quiet a while. Maybe I"ll stick to them as long as the cracks are not getting worse ....
Little cracks like these are appearing everywhere ...
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Now that the rain has stopped ....
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 !
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
New XP-rider
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 ;-) !
Monday, August 31, 2009
And then some ....
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 ....
Monday, August 24, 2009
The 100km ride in Limburg
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
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Finding out the hard way ....
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 !
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Getting the headlight right ....

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 ...
Life is good !!!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
New headlight
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


