S
smapadatha
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Front rack, basket, and lights
Next up was a front rack, basket and light. In addition to providing a place to mount the front light, it holds a knapsack with road kit, a 5.2 amp 12v battery for the front light, plus plenty of sundries. If I need to make a quick stop at the grocery, I put the knapsack on my back and put a bag of groceries in the basket. A front basket is incredibly convenient.
The Elektra Townie 21 comes with a suspension fork. The Cold Springs front rack from Old Man Mountain can attach to a suspension fork and it provides a place to mount the front basket and head light.
Although the cutting boards make the front basket incredibly strong, the Townie stem just doesn't hold onto the fork firmly enough, given the weight of the basket and the stuff I usually carry. The Townie stem attaches to the fork with only 1 bolt which is torqued to about 118 pounds. Even with a light load the basket wobbles from side to side alarmingly. If I hit a pothole at speed, I'm a dead man.
For this reason I will probably swap out my beloved suspension fork for a rigid fork and a threadless stem that attaches with 2 bolts torqued at about 85 pounds each. To make up for the loss of front suspension, I'll swap out the 1.95" Armadillo Hemisphere tire for a 2.35" Schwalbe Big Apple balloon tire. Like the Hemisphere, the Schwalbe tire is kevlar belted, but is a smooth road tire with none of that "reverse tread" nonsense.
http://schwalbetires.com/node/61/ok
Hopefully this will eliminate basket wobble, but I may have to give up on a basket on this bike and go to front panniers.
The lighting on the bike is the simplest possible 12 volt system. The headlight is actually the top part of a 25 watt halogen worklight from Home Depot ($25). The top of the worklight easily unbolted from it's base (which contained a tiny sealed lead acid battery), and already had a power switch and heavy cigarette lighter connection. Add a 5.2 amp 12 volt battery and voila, massive bicycle headlight. I never tested it, but I suspect the burn time is about 90 minutes, more than I need for commuting and evening errands.
To prepare the headlight for the stress of being on a GEBE-ified bike, I put a supporting metal plate inside the plastic case and fabricated a heavy steel bracket to attach it to the basket. There's also 2 layer's of closed cell foam hot-glued to the back of the headlight to provide a cushion between it and the basket. (6 foot roll of closed cell foam from the WalMart camping department, $8 - incredibly useful stuff).
For the rear light I was going to mount a rear LED tractor light, but I ran out of energy and bought the CatEye 1100 instead. The CatEye is extremely bright and doesn't require any more cables to be threaded along the bike frame to the engine, which means removing the engine is still fairly simple. I mounted the CatEye to the spark plug cover using a longer M5 bolt and a chrome plated stand-off from the auxiliary gas tank (not installed yet). I don't know how durable this mounting will be yet.
-Sam
Next up was a front rack, basket and light. In addition to providing a place to mount the front light, it holds a knapsack with road kit, a 5.2 amp 12v battery for the front light, plus plenty of sundries. If I need to make a quick stop at the grocery, I put the knapsack on my back and put a bag of groceries in the basket. A front basket is incredibly convenient.
The Elektra Townie 21 comes with a suspension fork. The Cold Springs front rack from Old Man Mountain can attach to a suspension fork and it provides a place to mount the front basket and head light.
Although the cutting boards make the front basket incredibly strong, the Townie stem just doesn't hold onto the fork firmly enough, given the weight of the basket and the stuff I usually carry. The Townie stem attaches to the fork with only 1 bolt which is torqued to about 118 pounds. Even with a light load the basket wobbles from side to side alarmingly. If I hit a pothole at speed, I'm a dead man.
For this reason I will probably swap out my beloved suspension fork for a rigid fork and a threadless stem that attaches with 2 bolts torqued at about 85 pounds each. To make up for the loss of front suspension, I'll swap out the 1.95" Armadillo Hemisphere tire for a 2.35" Schwalbe Big Apple balloon tire. Like the Hemisphere, the Schwalbe tire is kevlar belted, but is a smooth road tire with none of that "reverse tread" nonsense.
http://schwalbetires.com/node/61/ok
Hopefully this will eliminate basket wobble, but I may have to give up on a basket on this bike and go to front panniers.
The lighting on the bike is the simplest possible 12 volt system. The headlight is actually the top part of a 25 watt halogen worklight from Home Depot ($25). The top of the worklight easily unbolted from it's base (which contained a tiny sealed lead acid battery), and already had a power switch and heavy cigarette lighter connection. Add a 5.2 amp 12 volt battery and voila, massive bicycle headlight. I never tested it, but I suspect the burn time is about 90 minutes, more than I need for commuting and evening errands.
To prepare the headlight for the stress of being on a GEBE-ified bike, I put a supporting metal plate inside the plastic case and fabricated a heavy steel bracket to attach it to the basket. There's also 2 layer's of closed cell foam hot-glued to the back of the headlight to provide a cushion between it and the basket. (6 foot roll of closed cell foam from the WalMart camping department, $8 - incredibly useful stuff).
For the rear light I was going to mount a rear LED tractor light, but I ran out of energy and bought the CatEye 1100 instead. The CatEye is extremely bright and doesn't require any more cables to be threaded along the bike frame to the engine, which means removing the engine is still fairly simple. I mounted the CatEye to the spark plug cover using a longer M5 bolt and a chrome plated stand-off from the auxiliary gas tank (not installed yet). I don't know how durable this mounting will be yet.
-Sam
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