| Re: My 'Bent Is Starting to Annoy Me
<bigjim@backpacker.com> wrote in message
news:1167157428.453941.321050@a3g2000cwd.googlegro ups.com...
> Get a real bike and more people can fix it!!!
Big Jim has a good point here, but he does not realize how much we recumbent
cyclist insist on comfort, something that you can never get on an upright.
When I ride an upright and it starts to cause me pain I get so freaking mad
I could kill myself for being so stupid as to think an upright could ever be
comfortable for more than half an hour. Screw all uprights all the way to
hell and back! The g.d. things are nothing but torture racks. One thing is
for sure, they were never designed for the human anatomy.
Regards,
Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota
> Prisoner at War wrote:
>> Okay, so I've been putting through my HP Velo SMGTe through all kinds
>> of conditions around town for almost a year now. After all the
>> potholes, rain, mud, grit, heat and cold I finally managed to really
>> **** it up Sunday. A chainring got bent slightly, and eventually the
>> chain itself broke and messed up some drivetrain components in the
>> process!
>>
>> I only wonder how folks manage to take this model 'bent on them Third
>> World tours if I'm having issues with it from simply riding around
>> town! From the beginning the rear air shock suddenly stopped working.
>> In another two weeks I managed to shred the top teflon tube somehow.
>> Then the front disc brake rotor became permanently warped. Then the
>> back ones. Did I mention the rear mudguard cracking in two? Sunday,
>> about the whole drivetrain came undone: broken chain, a bent chainring,
>> the idler spring clamp kaputt. Interestingly, the Thracian wheelset
>> has held up just fine, AFAIK.
>>
>> Good God, but this is starting to be like dealing with your PC: "now
>> what???" comes to mind more and more. And this seems to me
>> recumbency's fatal flaw preventing it from wider adoptation: it's too
>> ****ing complicated! And I can't believe how many of the nuts and
>> bolts on my SMGTe do not seem to be off-the-shelf stuff you can get at
>> a hardware store. Also, there should be a re-assembly instruction
>> sheet for owners included with the bikes, since not all LBSes know or
>> care about servicing 'bents.
>>
>> Recumbents are fun when they work, but mine is finally going to make a
>> grease-monkey out of me! The HP Velo SMGTe is still the most
>> comfortable 'bent around, but it requires a lot of attention, not like
>> my other bikes which I just ride and take to the shop maybe once or
>> twice a year. So far, I think I've spent $250 getting my 'bent
>> serviced and refitted in one way or another. JFC!!
>>
>> I've now almost completely disassembled my 'bent, so as to clean out
>> all the grit and grime and reinstall the chain, etc. Damn, this is
>> going to be some education in bike mechanics! I'm really learning the
>> hard way...on my own. I'm kind of looking forward to it, out of
>> curiosity. Just wish I had the space to lay things down properly and
>> leave them around.
>
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