Bicycles!

The thing is that I don't have a choice, it's flat everywhere in a 50 km radius around me... :neutral:

You went up to 440 metres above sea level, the highest point in a 50 km radius around me is about 120 metres. If I wanted to go to 440 metres above sea level I'd have to cycle about 230 km - one way... :ninja:
 
OK, yeah, that’s pretty flat. I just need more fitness to be able to utilize the mountains 10-ish miles away.

Speaking of fitness, I engaged in some active recovery today. Needed to get some CBD/THC products from a nearby dispensary, and what better tool to use on a gorgeously sunny 72°F/23°C January day than a bicycle?!

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So far I’ve managed to hit my weekly four hour goal each of the four weeks in January, and I really don’t want to stop now, so it’s working. 😂

Brief little hour long spin this morning, trying to squeeze in some riding before the 9am animal obligations followed by work.

Ideally I’d love to do a more intense short ride on Tuesdays, a light short one on Thursdays, a long one on Saturdays, and a short recovery one on Sundays. Reality makes this hard, but striving for it has paid great dividends so far.

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I have a Strava route I named “PDR Laps” (PDR is Playa del Rey, a nearby area with some small but steep-ish hills), that contains a circular-ish section I could repeat. I’ve ridden it three times according to Strava, but each time I only did the lap part once. Some day that will change. Yesterday was not that day. 😂

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Due to rain over the next few days and work related travel next week, I had to get some 2 hours and 15 minutes in today to reach my weekly 4 hour goal. I had planned a spicy version of my frequent beach route with 900 feet of elevation gain and a couple of relatively brief, steep inclines topping out around 12–14%, but slept too little for the second night in a row, so I didn’t really feel like riding at all. Not willing to give up my streak after four successful weeks, I just took a flatter version instead.

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Y’all may recall I’ve been blabbing about tires for a while, and ordered a 35mm Continental Grand Prix 5000 AllSeason TR set through my new shop. Well, they arrived yesterday and I picked them up today. However, I was thinking yesterday about how I worried I was likely to now just give up on gravel if I don’t have anything other than slicks available, so I ordered a 40mm Schwalbe G-One RS set, and because that warehouse is just 75 miles away, they arrived today. So now I have two amazing sets of tires.

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I also ordered a pair of Tubolitos to bring as spares. I had to order the CX/Gravel variant because of my tire sizes, and I chose the toughest casing because the whole point is to bail me out, so they’re on the chonky side, but still thinner (and lighter) than butyl ones, so I don’t mind.

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I also blabbed on Telegram about wanting a second set of wheels, and that being a bit of a challenge with my weight. I weighed in at 283.4lb (128.55kg) this morning, and many wheels state a maximum of 265lb (120kg) or even way lower, and that’s usually for the whole system, so add another 30lb (14kg) of kit + bike + accessories + hydration + food. Reserve explicitly states no weight limit, but their 40|44 set starts at $1,800. Enve’s Foundation 45 is also a great option with explicit lack of limit, but $1,400 is also pretty steep. DT Swiss has some good options: E/G 1800 and ER/GR 1600 are $550 and $750 per set, respectively, and their max is 285lb (130kg), so I’d probably be OK, but that’s still a lot, and also still aluminum.

While talking to @CraigB about this, I came to the realization that I basically wanted another set of my cheap stock wheels, since I know they can cope with my weight OK, and they’d be, well, cheap. They retail for $350, but I bet someone upgrading would unload theirs for half that, right? WHELP, I fired up the good ol’ Craigslist machine and found the perfect fucking thing! 😂 Mine are Bontrager Paradigm SL and these are Comp 25, so exactly one notch higher. It would be a pointless upgrade, but it’s the perfect second set for me right now, especially at $200. I’m going to see the goods tomorrow. Hopefully I find myself needing to order a cassette, a pair brake rotors, and another set of valves. 🤞
 
altoid said:
They retail for $350, but I bet someone upgrading would unload theirs for half that, right?
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That seems to be the law for anything that could ever come stock on a bike ever. Isn’t it nice? Hell, that’s how I ended up with a pair of brand new force cranks for 100€ to replace the wrong sized rivals on my road bike - why not upgrade at that point? 😜 also: who in their right mind would buy a bike and instantly upgrade the cranks from force to red? Makes zero sense - apart from the looks they’re basically the same thing. Unlike the rival to force switch I made you know… 🙈
 
Wind blew over my wife’s bike and it seems to have fallen straight onto the shift cable as it extends way too far out from the levers before following the down tube…
I was actually very positively surprised to find that correctly adjusting an Alfine seems to be the easiest thing in the history of bike maintenance: shift to 4, adjust cable at the lever until two yellow lines at the hub align, done.
Sadly, the cable got partially ripped during the fall, since a few strands fray out at the lever end… so the adjustment goes out of wack after a few shifts anyway and the cable will probably rip completely, sooner than later. So yeah, will have to exchange that on the weekend, or tomorrow… I expect that to be no more than a 10 minute job, and that should be including the search for all required tools and the new cable. Still annoying to have to do this.

Also, re maintenance: checked the cargo bike brakes because the pads should be DONE by now… but apart from a bunch of mud and grime causing weird noises, the pads were still early at 50% or so. Weird. Especially since they were the cheap kind.
Also decided to measure the disc thickness, since that’s the 4th set of pads after all… but there’s no measurable wear on the disc at all (ie the interwebs tell me a new tektro disc should be 1.8mm and I measured more than 1.8). That confuses me.
 
eizbaer said:
the interwebs tell me a new tektro disc should be 1.8mm and I measured more than 1.8
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I know that there are special brake discs for heavy bikes with 2.1 mm so this might be the case here. When you clean that mud and grime from the inner parts of the disc there might be a writing with the nominal and minimal thicknesses.
 
Eye-Q said:
I know that there are special brake discs for heavy bikes with 2.1 mm so this might be the case here. When you clean that mud and grime from the inner parts of the disc there might be a writing with the nominal and minimal thicknesses.
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Thanks for the warning! With tektro that’d even be a chonky 2.3mm… But being the engineering marvel that this piece of junk is, these are just very regular tektro auriga sub (hd-t520), not even an e-bike specific model (although it seems the only actual difference there is a brake sensor) 🤦‍♂️ never mind an actual cargo/heavy weight one. Brakes alright, though…
 
Adunaphel said:
'Babboe cargo bikes regularly break in half', NVWA is conducting research (nos-nl.translate.goog) This might be relevant to @eizbaer's interests...
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Haha cheers, another Dutch friend of mine also sent me that. My reaction:
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After the experience I’ve had so far, that doesn’t surprise me in the least. Also nothing I can do about it, really. I could try and ditch the bastard and go get something proper, but it’d be an expensive I trade up and I’m not sure how long we’ll be able to run or kid around in the thing anyway… so might also just ride it out 😐
 
Adunaphel said:
'Babboe cargo bikes regularly break in half', NVWA is conducting research (nos-nl.translate.goog) This might be relevant to @eizbaer's interests...
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THAT WENT SUPER WELL THEN…
www.nvwa.nl

NVWA: Babboe moet handel bakfietsen staken

De Nederlandse Voedsel- en Warenautoriteit (NVWA) heeft bakfietsproducent Babboe verplicht om per direct de handel van al zijn bakfietsen te staken. Ook moet het bedrijf bakfietsen met een ernstig veiligheidsrisico terugroepen. De NVWA wijst het bedrijf op zijn wettelijke verplichting na...
www.nvwa.nl www.nvwa.nl
  • Ban on sales of all Babboe models
  • Forced recall of all sold bikes
  • Advice to not ride the bike any more until recall is complete
Yeah… we need the bike every day. So that last part we won’t care for. NVWA write they will inform all other corresponding EU bodies, but I have to idea whether the Germans will care or do anything. As it is, I’d suspect the residual value of the thing to be close to zero now, even after the recall. Nice. Assholes.

Edit: and as I write this, I get an email from Babboe basically stating that nooo it’s all fine and they only have to file some paperwork and everything will be cool and they’ll be in touch about a recall maybe. Tootles!

Edit 2: looking a bit closer at the actual frame design this whole thing doesn’t surprise me in the least. Whoever designed this clearly didn’t think too much about what they were doing… the place where this thing always breaks… it just has to break! All the forces, right in the middle of the bike, forced through a single pipe that’s weakened by the steerer going right through it.
I don’t believe their recall will be able to fix anything, as their esrlier recall didn’t fix anything either. I fully expect the company to fairly quickly shutter and go bust over this and us to be sitting on an unsafe and completely worthless cargo bike rather soon. Ugh. 😑
 
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It’s been 11 days and much has happened. Well, really only one notable thing happened: I got my road setup set up! 😀

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The Contis roll so damn nicely, especially compared to the stock Bontragers. I even rode through some glass .8 miles from home, but survived. 😬 Really looking forward to having a dedicated road setup that’ll be on the bike the vast majority of the time.

Right before I was able to get them on I ended up doing one of my bigger recent rides. My left thumb started hurting like a bitch right before the first climb, so that was a lot of fun. I was listening to Johnny Herbert talking about driving through his epic injuries on Beyond the Grid, so I felt like I’d be a wimp to bail, even though I probably should have, given how much less front braking power I had for a good 75% of the ride. 😅

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And as a bonus, bedding in the brakes got me a nice 8 minutes toward my weekly 4-hour goal. 😂

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If I’m lucky, I’ll find time tomorrow to try installing the Schwalbes on my original wheels, so I can ride a little bit of dirt this weekend. 🤞

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I’m supposed to do a “light” gravel event next weekend and would like to have the new gravel setup ready and shaken out. 😎

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🚴‍♂️💨
 
eizbaer said:
I could try and ditch the bastard and go get something proper, but it’d be an expensive I trade up and I’m not sure how long we’ll be able to run or kid around in the thing anyway… so might also just ride it out 😐
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TIME TO EAT MY OWN WORDS!
We will basically have to transport the kiddo until she starts school - so another 3.5 years at least. Also after the rather strict nvwhatever decision and having a closer look around at the internets, I really don't feel comfortable riding the piece of shit any longer than absolutely necessary. I just have to convince my wife to think the same, since she probably will only accept that the stupid thing is actually dangerous when it actually does collapse under her. which, surprise, I’m not really prepared to wait for…
Currently strongly considering the cube offering. With the same enviolo hub, Bosch cargo drive unit, mayyyybe the dual battery option because it’s just 300€ more. The negatives of that thing that some reviews state really don’t apply to us, the whole thing feels much more solid, and it doesn’t cost that much money (not like R&M or something)… may just order replacement on the weekend. Ugh.
 
IMHO a good source of information is the youtube channel Radelbande since they are a family of four without car as well. Once you narrowed the options down you can search if he has reviewed the bike, for example the Cube he did.
 
Eye-Q said:
IMHO a good source of information is the youtube channel Radelbande since they are a family of four without car as well. Once you narrowed the options down you can search if he has reviewed the bike, for example the Cube he did.
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Yeah I watched that exact video right before making the post 🤣 hence my decision that the drawbacks he mentions aren’t really all that relevant to our use.

Edit: aaaand the cheapest seller has increased price by 750/900€ for the 500/1000Wh models respectively. Yup.
 
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