Restoration costs

The restoration's done. I'd saved all the receipts, so here's the cost breakdown. Costs shown are inclusive of shipping and tax, rounded to the dollar.

Item	Price
Strip and polish	300
Chain rings and rear cluster	255
ZZipper fairing	235
SPD pedals	54
Kickstand	47
Grip shifts	45
Chain	45
Tektro brakes	32
Frame bag	24
Blinky light	17
Total	$1054

There were a few other items, tools and lubes and polishes; and the new shoes ($85 on sale); but the above are the items that actually went onto the bike.

The upcoming electrification will add another $2000.

Final touches

Here we are: finished. Click to biggify the better to appreciate.

Rear Rack

Yesterday, before riding to the gym, I realized that I couldn't go into the gym with cleated shoes. Which meant, I had to carry my regular gym shoes. Which meant, I had to have a pannier. Which meant, I had to mount the rear rack. I've not wanted to do that, because the rear rack lacks the shininess of the other parts. It has some kind of anodized or powder-coated gray finish and so many fiddly bits it would be impractical to try to strip and polish. But, I can't find anything nicer online. So I put it on. It provided a place to hang the panniers and mount a blinky light.

One option for the BionX motor is to mount the battery within a modified rear rack, so that rack might replace this one. We'll see.

Cleaning out the shop

This morning I spent a couple of hours cleaning out the shop area where I'd worked on the bike. The "shop" is an enclosed piece of the garage with a deeply cracked cement floor, usually a sort of ground-level attic. Before starting this project I cleaned and organized it and set it up as a bike garage. Now the job's done, I cleaned it out yet again.

Fairing

As mentioned below, the fairing I ordered from Zzip Designs was too large. This afternoon I drove over the hill to Bonny Doon, up a rutted quarter-mile driveway through a forest, to where Carl has run a one-man business making bicycle fairings and windscreens for 25 years or so. He told me a lot about how you go about bending and stretching Lexan to make an optically-clear elegant bubble windshield. He has to cook the plastic for a day in a heat cabinet to drive the moisture out of it to get it to stretch without voids.

He had what he referred as a Sport fairing, one of a run he had made for Connie McAyeal and her friends up in Portland, a group of female recumbenteers who called themselves the Golden Girls. It's the Sport fairing because, Fast Freddy Markham told him, "nobody would buy something called the Golden Girls fairing."

That's the end of Phase One of this project. Phase Two, installation of an electric stoker, will begin next week when I take the bike up to Joe at Velolectric to arrange for that installation. I'll post one more update then to say what details we settle on.

Almost immediately after we head out for a 3-week holiday in the RV (one of those condition-killing off-bike vacations). When we get back, we start Phase Three ("in which Doris gets her oats," John Lennon). No, in which we try out the 'letric stoker at different assist levels and on different kinds of terrain and stuff.

First real ride

Over the past four months, Monday meant going out for a 5K run. Over that time these mon/wed/fri morning runs (either on a treadmill at the gym or on the street) began as alternating 50% walk, 50% jog for less than two miles, to steady jogging for the full 5K with only a couple of brief pauses for rest. It was yet another experience of the body's amazing ability to adapt and condition itself.

Anyway, today the bike is roadworthy again, so Monday meant doing what I used to do most mon/wed/fri mornings: ride a 15-mile route to Gold's Gym on Shoreline in Mountain View. The outbound leg is almost exactly 11 miles (ok, 10.97 according to the Cateye) with a few small hills.

I mean to use that 11-mile leg as a benchmark for the difference between muscle-only and the different levels of electric assist.

In 2008, per my log book, I was riding this leg at an average speed of about 14.75 mph. Here are some typical numbers from May of 2008: 14.4, 14.5, 14.7, 14.9, 15.2, 14.7, 14.9, 15.6, 14.2.

Today? 12.3. That may not be as much slower as it looks, because today, unlike other times, I was taking pains to keep my heart rate between 130 and 140 bpm. By regulating the effort level in this way I hope to get some consistent comparison numbers.

If the same level of effort (gauged by heart rate) produces higher speed over the same route, the difference is either due to better conditioning (greater cardiovascular and muscular efficiency) or to the electric assist. Alternating between assist and no-assist days should allow me to subtract out the effect of conditioning.

But that will be later, when the BionX system has been installed. This week I just want to set a baseline and get my legs used to pedalling again.

First test ride

While Marian stitched up the rip in the seat cover, I worked on finishing details: computer, bottle cages, getting the brakes and shifters into the right position, and the fairing. Here's progress.

Here's the cockpit. In a change from my previous practice I put the computer at the bottom of the handlebar instead of the upper crossbar.

The left dial is the computer, the right is a watch that reads out heart rate and altitude. I wasn't sure if it would pick up the heart belt from this distance, but it did. The cadence sensor wire for the Cateye computer is too short to reach down to the pedals, but I used the same trick that I published in the ERRC magazine last year: putting the cadence magnet on the small chainring.

That lets me put the cadence sensor on the main downtube, just a short distance from the computer.

One big disappointment: the new fairing from ZZipper is the wrong size, at least 6 inches too long. It would fit more like a spinnaker than a mainsail.

Marian handed over the repaired seat cover, I put it on, adjusted the cleats on the new shoes, and was ready for a test ride.

Not a very challenging ride, but then I'm in pathetic condition. Three miles, up to Fry's and back. Everything worked pretty well. The seat back slipped a little and needs to be straightened and the stays cinched down hard. The SPD pedals are too tight, they need to be loosened a bunch to make entry and exit smooth. But that's all. In general, the bike feels light'n'tight.

Mentioned below, the chain rings are all three about 10% smaller than before, and this change is very noticeable. I'll be spending a lot more time in the big ring than before.

Oh! and the double kickstand that Easy Racers sells: great! I wish I'd gotten one years ago. It is so nice to have the bike sit solidly upright, with the rear wheel (or the front if you want) clear of the ground. You can sit on it, or work on it, or walk away from it without worrying whether a gust of wind will knock it over. If you have a recumbent with a single kickstand, get the double. Note that as sold, the legs are too long. But they have centimeter marks molded in. I cut off four centimeters with an old hacksaw, and the back wheel still sits a couple inches clear of the ground.

Assembling

I spent most of Saturday afternoon assembling the cranks, front and rear derailleurs, chain and idler. Everything fell into place pretty well.

One disappointment was one of the new grip-shifts. The front one was extremely stiff, so stiff I wrenched off the rubber grip trying to turn it, yet it could not pull the derailleur against its spring. I transferred the cable from it to the old one, which works well enough, although it is worn-looking.

The cobra seat cover has, I discovered, a three-inch tear. The fabric was abraded when I crashed the bike last summer, and now has opened up. My wife thinks she can repair it.

Besides the seat, there's a list of fiddly little things to do: bottle cages, computer, fairing. The rear rack, although I'm not sure I will put it on, at least just yet.