Trouble at the Farm!Rode to Yoga today about 9 km each way.
Beautiful sunny morning, warm, great weather for riding. Jumped on the trike, first time I was using it this week. For the month of the challenge I was going to mix using different bikes and trikes, and for this week I had been using Em's hybrid bike. Trip to yoga felt fairly quick. We have some good shared paths in Melbourne and I am lucky enough to be able to travel most of the way on a shared path. Feel stretched out and relaxed after class.
Made a terrible discovery! Came out of yoga and for the first time noticed something that I had never seen before. A crack in the paint. Had a closer look and got quite a shock! It wasn't just a crack in the paint, it was several cracks right through the frame that had, by the amount of rust on them, been there for quite some time.
This is what I saw when I looked down at the cross member of the trike.
One of them was a few millimeters wide! I wondered how come I had never noticed them before? Perhaps because I am often riding when it is dark? I was now worried if I would make it home, my trike is a home built trike, made from Greenspeed plans and it is quite large. This means that I can't just ring someone to come and pick me up while we take the trike home in the car.
The damage was greater than I first thought, as can be seen by this picture taken directly under neath the cross member.
I tentatively sit on the trike and begin to pedal trying to avoid every bump, crack and pot hole in the road and path. I feel every slight little, bump and crack. I keep a watchful eye on the frame. It only took me 25 minutes to get to Yoga and it took me about and hour and a quarter to get home. One of the few times I have ridden the trike and it has been an anxious experience rather than a relaxing one!
I have lots of intrusive images of the trike breaking as I cross major intersections and bump over tram lines. I see the left cross member bending down and snapping off as the wheel takes off at a weird angle to the trike. I see myself sitting on the trike leaning back trying not to fall over as the trike frame scrapes along the ground with sparks flying everywhere before it comes to a stop in the middle of the intersection. I think about how embarrassing this will look, and if I will get run over by drivers who just don't care. But none of this happens.
I finally realize what that clicking sound is that seemed to be intermittent, which I had put down to the chain either hitting the frame at the rear when in low gear or one of the ball joints on the steering arms. It was the frame cracking!
I guess I have been very lucky, here is the count of my lucky stars.
- Lucky the frame hasn't broken on me
- Lucky that I discovered it on a day where I didn't have to be at work
- Lucky I wasn't riding on the road and it broke
- Lucky it wasn't in the middle of the night
- Lucky it wasn't in the pitch black of the early morning
- Lucky it didn't break while I was riding in traffic
- Lucky it didn't break on me when I was 50 km from home
- Luck it wasn't pouring with rain
- Lucky I have just recently bought a welder
Looks like I'll have to change over to the upright for the rest of the challenge! Looks like I'll have to start to practice using my welder.
Even though I did build some of the trike myself the particular welds that cracked were the ones I had done by professionals! Oh well part of the learning curve I guess!
As I think about it a lot of things that I have found to be difficult about the trike over the past few months suddenly make a lot more sense. The slight change in the feel of the steering that I attributed to the change to cheaper tyres. The slightly odd looking wear pattern on the old tyres that I thought was due to them being a different brand than the previous set. That clicking noise that I could not trace to any of the parts, and concluded was the one of the rod ends on the steering, that I would have to get around to replacing.
Forecast for today, Sunday
Partly cloudy with a light shower or two about but fine for most of the day.
Moderate north to northwest winds, freshening later.
Precis: Mainly fine.
City: Max 18
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