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.

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.

11,000 mile tires...

Specialized Armadillo Hemisphere tires are unbelievable! These were rotated regularly but 11,000 miles is a lot for any tire. This is over the course of about five years too. I didn't just rack up a bunch o' miles in one season. The tires have mostly ridden on my cargo bike and have battled goatheads in the Northwest, actual armadillos in the midwest, and chunks of coal on the road here in the Appalachians. They carried people and large touring loads at different times. The kevlar casing seems to be the key to the durability of these particular tires. I've gone through many other tires due to sidewall cuts.

Coincidentally, both tires messed up in the same week. The tread had just gotten so thin that it tore and started coming off the casing. It was like a bologna (baloney) skin. I was alerted of this problem because the tread was flapping against my fender and it make me think it was either a sidewall bulge or a bent rim. The actual cause was more of a surprise and I was unprepared for this event.

Had to ride these tires in this condition for about a week as I waited for new tires to arrive on the big brown truck. I expected that the casing was probably tougher than the tread so I didn't worry about a blowout. I did have to be careful cornering though because the casing is slick when you hit that spot, plus the tread was wallowing around on the casing a little bit. This gave the bike a bit of a vague feeling in the turns so I slowed down.

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

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