Immobility

Winter weather, and some still unresolved health issues, have kept me from riding since last I ventured out in *checks* Ocfreakintober!!!

Bark

Hasn’t kept me from tinkering and thinkering, though.

Upgraded, or cross-graded maybe, my cyclocomputer from the Magellan Mio Cyclo 505 to the Garmin Edge 130. I really liked the Mio, but it has, in the end, too many limitations for my taste. One, Magellan has abandoned the American market for bike computers, so there’s no upgrading software or hardware; the 605 available for Europe and Asia is much better kit, but there are no North American maps for it. Two, there’s only one ANT+ channel for speed and cadence combined. Three, it’s battery life sucks. Hard. The Garmin Edge 130 isn’t a touch screen, and it’s small, but it’s Bluetooth capable, has separate channels for speed and cadence (which means I can use both of the sensors I have), and has an 8-10 hour battery. And it’s screen is crazy readable and fairly customizable with regards to data fields.

I added, also, new lights in the form of Cycliq’s Fly6 CE and Fly12 CE camera/light combos. Cameras front and back that link via ANT+ to the Garmin, which means I have 360 degree video coverage of my rides, and they’re controllable via direct button control on device, smartphone app, or by simply turning on/off the Garmin. It’s a network! Neat.

Finally, I upgraded my repair setup. I’d been using an old bike repair stand I’ve had for years, which worked. For a certain definition of “work”. I could get the trike, sans seat, into the stand, but it was difficult and not really all that useful. So, I went back and forth between the TrikeTable and TrikeTight stations, before I decided on the former because I happened to have sitting around the garage some extra Nexel restaurant wire shelving and poles that worked out to make a perfect rolling base with shelves to hold drawers and containers for storage. Witness…

The drawers and boxes, repurposed from elsewhere in the house, hold tools, parts, tubes, miscellanies, for repair work. I even cut four inches off the arm risers, since the whole thing sits so high anyway. And the plastic liner serves as a shelf on top. The stand is bolted down at two points right through the shelves themselves.

So, that’s been my winter. Yours?