Catrike headset bearing swap PART 2

Today was the day of the Catrike bearing swap which means I replaced the plastic top bearing in both headsets with a Cane Creek cartridge bearing and compression ring.

I like it when the hidden parts are so colorful ! The green bearings are mountain bike spares that I added to the picture just to show how Cane Creek seems to love fun colors.

This is all I needed for the swap. One 5mm wrench, two 38mm compression rings, and two 38mm bearings.

This swap took about five minutes.....The handling difference isn't huge but it's noticeable. The steering is smooother now and i like it!

2012...

I suspect 2012 is going to get it's rear end whipped by this beast.

Catrike headset bearing swap...

Catrikes are built with two headsets to allow a strong and smooth pivot point for the front wheel assemblies and  this just seems like such a high quality and good looking setup.The headsets are readily available from most any bike shop and they'll almost never wear out when they're properly assembled and maintained.

Both of our Villagers use Cane Creek ZS22 headsets with one oddball piece. Catrike swaps out the top bearing for a plastic bearing which is probably some sort of nylon or delrin. They supposedly do the plastic bearing thing to slow down the steering to make the trike more stable.

It takes a lil' more guesswork to properly tighten a headset with plastic bearings compared to a normal set of caged or cartridge bearings like I've done thousands of times, soooooooooo, in comes some Cane Creek cartridge bearings and  I'm sure they must be more durable than a slick piece of plastic. It's nice that we can easily get these tiny parts with a few clicks of a mouse and minimal searching by going to www.canecreek.com . The conversion takes a pair of 38mm bearings and two 38mm compression rings. I haven't done the switch over yet but there will surely be joy in the land once I get around to it.

Once the switch is completed, we'll have a spare set of stock Catrike top bearings for Jetaime's trike so she should be set for years. There's no real notable reason for me to want to switch from the plastic top bearing to cartridge top bearings other than simply wanting to do it. I've not heard of any issues with the plastic bearing but I'm just a guy who likes what I like and the cartridge bearing is my preference. We'll see how handling and durability might be affected since we can observe these sibling trikes as the mileage accumulates.

New wheels..

I love my Catrike and I love Mavic rims sooooooooooo, now they're together. I've been using Mavics for a lotto' years and they're on all my bikes. It's easy to find a nice Mavic rim in 26" and 700c sizes but not so much in the 20" size. Luckily, there is one on the front of my Tour Easy and I just bought a stockpile of them so the XY's are flowing like water around here.

I measured the ERD of the stock Catrike rims and the Mavic XY rims to see if they could be swapped out without buying new spokes.....As luck would have it, they match up very well.

The XY rim and the stock rim. The XY rim is twice the width of the stock rims and this spreads the tire out better and makes for an improved ride. Made in France with supa' high quality.....Oui. 

This is an easy way to do a straight rim swap. Bread ties keep the spokes in place. Another way is to tape the rims together and move the spokes over as you take them out of the old rim. 

Here's what the bread ties do. I use beeswax on the spoke threads when lacing them back up. 

Mmmmmmm, harmony.

Halt!

My home state has a reputation among touring cyclists.......Many who travel the entire Transamerica Trail remember this state as having way too many dogs out on the roads chasing after the cyclists. That's not flattering but I must admit that I'm used to it. Being a good bike handler gives me enough confidence to battle off the dogs on a daily basis

Because of my youth revolving around bicycles, it just never occurred to me that a person who is less than 100% confident in their handling abilities might be scared of a charging dog. My wife became a pretty serious bicycle commuter well into her adult life and never built up the skills of a freestyle riding, dirt jumping, downhill mtb racing youth. She's confident with dogs of any sort when she's on foot but she's MUCH less confident if they pursue her while she's on two wheels. Where I might kick both legs towards the dogs while simultaneously squirting them with a water bottle, she worries more about simply staying upright. She's a very competent rider but this variable of a dog that can hit her front wheel or otherwise knock her off balance is just a little too much of a worry. She has helped change my own attitude towards charging dogs.

Back in the old days, I would ride along and ignore a charging dog. Never got bit but I did get rammed a few times and even accidentally ran over one dog but it was okay. Now that I'm more aware of how uncomfortable a dog can make a cyclist, I've changed my methods. Now I actively train people's dogs for them. One thing to use is "Halt!" dog repellent and it works well. It actually does train the dogs if you regularly ride that area. Another thing I've used is a frame pump. These things aren't that tough but I have used them for a swift whack on the snout. Another method I've used is direct conflict with the owner and this could easily lead to fisticuffs so I don't suggest it. Honestly, any of these methods can lead to a fight with a protective owner so it's all done at your own risk. Weigh the pros and cons to see if it's worth it to you.

 I'm training all the local dogs for the sake of my wife being able to ride with confidence and others will probably benefit too. There is no good reason for a dog to pursue/attack anyone on a public roadway so it's a no-brainer for me to help them stay in their yards.

In this photo you can barely see a busted Zefal frame pump poking out of the Carradice bag because it had a meeting with a dog snout. 

Getting around by bicycle...

There is a festival in our town that shuts most everything down for a few days and it's known as the Apple Festival. We live in the shutdown zone and it's impossible to conduct normal business or go about our daily routine. The town's population swells by about 500% during this festival and that's a lot of people and traffic. The good thing is that there are food booths that are operated by the volunteer fire departments, churches, schools, and some others. The fire departments and churches make the majority of their yearly operating budget at this festival. The extracurricular school activity booths that are put on by groups like cheerleaders and little league are also helped tremendously by these sales. This festival gives us all a chance to support the organizations and groups we care about while getting various oddball food items in return. I only buy from volunteer fire departments, schools, and churches because those are at the top of my list of importance. At the bottom of the list are the political booths. I'm sure everyone has a different list of "booth priorities".

Our God son and Jetaime were to ride on a float in the parade and that sounds alright......Until the day actually comes around.  The floats are first judged (there is prize money at stake) and later they head out on the parade route. Sounds simple, but the crowds and timing complicate matters. The judging and staging area for the floats is across town. The judging took place in the morning with the parade in the afternoon. This meant Jetaime and Ian needed to get across town and back two different times. Thanks to Big Muddy I was able to transport them there, back, and then back again in a quick and efficient manner. It was by far the quickest way to travel and there were probably tons of jealous people on the sidelines.

I love knowing this big bicycle secret that few seem to get!

The balance beam.....

A Monty T219 mod trials bike is how I keep my bicycle balance up to par.

This one is pretty old.....I bought it from it's second owner way back in the early nineties. It's held up nicely though!! The only real issue it's ever had is that I replaced the headset a few years ago and, oddly enough, this is a Mexican bicycle but it has a French headset.

I actually sold the bike once and it was given back to me years later.....Then I gave it away to someone in need and it made it's way back to me even more years later. It's like when you set free the one you love to see if they come back. Hard to believe I first jumped onto this bike twenty years ago!

You don't need to do anything "extreme" to gain skill from a trials bike. Just jump on and do 5 minute balance/riding stints around the house without allowing your feet to touch the ground. It's helpful for building your strength, balance, and reflexes.

Vee brake stuff...

Brakes have really changed over the years. Back in the nineties, canti brakes mounted a certain way. You've got your post that's brazed onto the frame/fork and then you've got the brake that slips over that post and rotates around said post. That's pretty simple and if you don't look toooo closely, it looks like nothing has changed. But besides the one obvious fact that vee brakes and disc brakes have taken over most of the market it's also now normal for the vee and canti brakes to mount up in a different way.

Back in the old days we bike shop mechanics would have to file many a brake post to get the brakes to work smoothly. Then someone came up with the bright idea of a "cartridge" style mounting method. The way this works is that the brake arm still mounts onto the braze on like normal but now there are two sleeves (instead of just one) inside the brake. One sits stationary on the brake post and is tightened down during assembly while the other sleeve rotates on the inner sleeve whose job is just to sit there on the brake post. While it's more complicated to produce, it's actually a plus for speeding up the bicycle assembly process. No more filing the brake post. It's sort of an idiot proof style of building brakes.

Paul does this type right by sealing everything up with o-rings and making it rebuildable but that's also a pricey way to do it which is why I don't have Paul brakes at this time. <----- Notice the pun...Paul and Price used in the same sentence. I dream about Paul Motolites, though.


Anyway, when building up my Tour Easy, I found that Tektro still makes an old style vee brake that's also dirt cheap. So I bought a set, sanded my brake posts, and slapped them on. That created a nice feeling of nostalgia over a (necessary) ritual of times past. Funny how MORE work can be fun when assembling a bicycle. The "old style" doesn't work better than the "new style" but it's my preference. The facts that they'e cheap and shiny silver also help the cause.

Unhappy cranks...

Cranks live a hard life.....Especially if they're mounted on a cargo bike and ridden by a former BMX'er who happens to be a clydesdale.

Here's what these poor cranks look like after about 9,000 miles. The shape actually created a stress riser at the source of the crack. As much as I want to glorify my thunderous/crank arm murdering thighs, these cranks really just committed suicide.....So I must stay humble. Guess this is why these have been off the market for years.

Clean yo' bike every now and then to find these ticking time bombs. My friend Todd had a BMX crankarm break while he was powering down the street and it absolutely messed him up. Scratched up face and broken teeth. I got lucky with these

.

Setting up the Tour Easy...

Adjusting the fit in a tiny room. Never fear.....I'm not balancing on the kickstand. My left arm is against the wall to support us.

This is actually my wife's yoga room.

The color is british racing green but I'm so "blue collar" that I feel the name is a lil' too fancy for me so I tend to call the color coleman green.

Tour Easy...

In May, 2011 I got a new bike. It's a medium/large Tour Easy from the Easy Racers bike company. Back in 2008 I got a Kentucky blue Tour Easy but had to sell it because of financial reasons. I regretted that decision very much and had been saving pennies for another one ever since. The Tour Easy is what I think of when you say the words "recumbent bicycle". To me, it's the quintessential recumbent that handles well and the position works for me and how I ride.

Now I finally have another and went a step further this time and got a semi-custom color because most of the Easy Racers standard colors feel too flashy for me and I'm also not a fan of black bikes. There's nothing wrong with any of their stock colors but I wanted something that felt more like.....Me. The way their system works is that the powder coater has the E.R. standard colors in stock, plus a few extra colors from past custom work. It's like $300.00 to get a full custom color but that price is cut in half if you use a non-standard color that they happen to have sitting around.

My inner cheapskate won the day so I didn't go full custom but asked them to find me a good color that they already had on hand. I specifically asked for military colors...Grays, tans, browns, or greens and E.R. got back to me and said the closest they have is a nice medium green. I told them "green sounds good". The fork is painted to match the frame because chrome forks look perfect on old Italian road bikes but this is not one of those.

Big box, tiny dog

Well packed frameset

 You can see the well wrapped frame, fork, handlebar/stem, seat and a giant mass of paper....Plus Atlas the puppy

 Those plastic caps are VERY WHITE and are about to be replaced with the corks in the background

 Corked but not yet shellacked