Al's Blog-o-Sphere

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I’ve been spending a huge amount of time working on the weather station and I needed to take a break. The Weather station is coming along nicely, but I’m waiting for a few more parts. I decided to work on another project.

A while back, I picked up a strip of RGBW leds in the Neopixel format. We used them to develop some code and ended up putting some Neopixel bars on the Warlocks 2017 robot as signalling devices. So I had a meter of 30 LED/m Neopixels on hand. I had an idea that I wanted to put them on my recumbent trike, but hadn’t decided how to go about it yet.

I’m not a big fan of flags on trikes, or any bicycles. I don’t buy the conventional wisdom that “You’re so low to the ground. Nobody can see you.” That’s a cop out and blames the cyclist for the motorists shortcomings. If you can’t see a low bicycle, how can you see the lines on the road, and why did you slam on the brakes and put your car in the ditch when a cat ran across the road? So, I’ve decided flags are ineffective and not worth the bother 90% of the time. Increasing your visibility by positioning in the road and with bright warning lights are more productive.

But I did have a couple of fiberglass bicycle flag poles kicking around.

So, if flags are meh, but lights are good, why not fill a flagpole with lights? Challenge accepted. Continue Reading…

A long time ago, I built a stand to make working on my Terratrike Tour easier. It was made out of PVC pipe and fittings and is a popular design I found on the internet. It served me well for many years and when I got the Catrike Expedition, I continued to use it. The spacing between the front cradles was a little too wide, though even after I trimmed the plastic fittings a bit. You’d sit the trike on it okay, but when you went to lift it off, the stand went along with the trike because it was wedged in.

I was also concerned the the PVC might begin to degrade from age or weather. It sat in my garage, so it wasn’t exposed to sun, but heat/cold/dampness was all there.

So then I saw an idea for a workstand online. It may even be a combination of two ideas, I don’t recall completely. Continue Reading…

I’ve written several times about bicycle lighting on this blog. You may have read them, if not you can go back and see what I wrote.

As with most technology, it is moving forward every year, and bicycle lights are no exception. I’m currently waiting for the arrival of a new tail light for my trike.

The Cateye Reflex Auto is the newest addition to my lighting stable. It’s not the best, or the most expensive bike tail light, but it represents a significant step forward in bike lights for a few reasons. Continue Reading…

I took a ride today on the new bike before it rained. I parked across the canal in the path parking lot near the Cold Springs Rd. Bridge. I wanted to just take a short ride and check the bike out.

I spent some time today modifying my bike rack to handle the much more awkward trike. I had a hitch rack on my truck that held up to three bikes. I did some measurements and found that if I could rest the front of the bike on the rack, I could rest the rear wheel on the roof of the truck against the luggage rack.

I picked up a piece of 1″ square perforated steel tubing. I had used the same material to build a bike rack for the back bumper of my camping trailer in the past. It’s easy to work with because it has pre-drilled holes every inch and it’s like a really strong erector set. Continue Reading…