Ebikin' it 6: Wheels within Wheels

The time has come to talk about wheels. I said, way back in Ebikin' it 2, that my existing wheels were doing the job without complaint. Well, that's no longer true. I've had more than half the spokes on the drive side of my rear wheel fail, one or two at a time.

What does this mean? Well, I reached out to Jeff who built the bike, and he assures me he never got into building wheelsets, so I really have no idea how old these spokes are. If we assume the rims were built into this wheelset when they were new, these spokes go back to the early 1990s. And they're on mountain bike rims. It's not unreasonable that they are just fatiguing out, especially with the sudden increase in load (me) and rotational stress (the motor.) This was my thought process up to last week. Then, in the process of re-truing the wheel, I took all the tension off it and had a look at the shape the rim would prefer to be.

It was kind of like a potato chip. Not especially round, and in no way true. That, and the tension map I get when I measure the spokes when the thing IS true(ish) tell me that this rim is pretty much toast, alas.

My local bike shop assures me that 26 inch wheels, except for mountain bike downhillers, are pretty much extinct. This... isn't quite the case. As it happens, 26 inch wheels are also favored by the cargo bike and touring bike crowds, and they're fairly common in ebike circles as well. You just have to find them. Well, I have the Internet. The world is my shopping mall.

What I read is that standard wheels, if there are such things, assume a rider in the 150 pound range. My rims, being (in their day) hardcore mountain bike rims, apparently are good for somewhat more than that. The rims I ordered (from a bike shop in Germany, since Ryde's American rep doesn't answer his/her/it's email) are these: https://www.ryde.nl/andra-40. They were recommended on a touring bike forum, where in addition to the 150 pound rider, the bike can expect to support another 50 to 100 pounds of gear, plus a heavy, durable bike. These rims are rated at for a system weight (rider+bike+gear) of 180kg, or about 390lbs. That's more than sufficient. They're also designed with ebikes in mind. And as high class rims go, they're cheap at about 30 bucks each. Plus shipping. From Germany. Still cheaper than most of the rims I was looking at in the U.S.

For hubs, it should surprise no-one that I'm getting Sturmey-Archer drum-brake hubs. I've talked about them before. Here's the thing. Ever since I've been using them (which was when I was in my single digts) I've //hated// rim brakes. Always out of adjustment, lousy when wet, and if your wheel isn't exactly perfectly true, they drag, or you have to adjust them so loose they don't work very well.  I like disk brakes fine on cars, where they're protected from the elements by the car's wheel. On bikes, they're right out there in the open, where they get dirty and (worse) greasy, and stop working reliably.  I don't especially want to wash my bike every time I ride it. Doubly so for the brakes.

Sturmey-Archer drum brakes are internal. The weather doesn't get in. There are a lot of varying reviews on how well they stop, from one guy who bent his front fork in an emergency stop with his 90mm S-A front drum, to people who say they don't work well. I used drum brakes on my first car with reasonable success, and unlike 1968 VW brakes, the S-A ones are self-adjusting. I have a suspicion that either some people's brake handles don't work well with S-A drum brakes, or that S-A's included cables are a bit too compressable. I suppose I'll find out. I have a 90mm S-A front brake+hub and a 70mm rear brake+hub+cassette coming for my new wheelset.

Yep. I'm building new wheels. Meantime I'm keeping the old ones cobbled together (the front is no trouble at all) so I don't have to do wheel building my first time on an "emergency" basis. I'm starting to understand why people keep more than one bike around. I'm not sure I'm ready to build up a second ebike for myself though.

Okay, I'd //love// to build another ebike, now that I have the tools and (some of) the knowhow, but it remains to be seen whether anyone I know will ask me to. So far, no bueno.

I'll keep y'all posted on the wheel building. Should be fun. :P

-JRS

Ebikin' it 5

Degreasing

This is a post about degreasing. Not the bicycle, even though my ebike's drivetrain is, let's say, thoroughly greased and oiled, This is about degreasing oneself after working on such a bike.

For guys, at least, the tried and true methods (Boraxo or Lava soap) involve heavy abrasives. This is fine for your hands, but somehow in the process of retruing my rear wheel (again) and replacing the tube after the old one failed (yes, Friday's ride had extra entertainment) I got a sprocket print on my armpit. I was wearing a t-shirt, too. With sleeves. Anyway, Boraxo and Lava (besides not being present in our home) are //rough// on your skin. Like sand it down to the raw, bleeding dermis rough. Not doing that to my armpit, sorry.

Now, back in the day (way back) I did theater. So I can expound with personal experience to the effectiveness of old school cold cream. If you're patient, apply it with care, and scrub carefully, it still utterly fails to do anything useful except give you acne. So what's a bike tinkerer to do?

I am fortunate (for this and many other reasons) to have an SO who does, on occasion, wear eye makeup. She is also not one to tolerate traditional "female" tools that don't work, like cold cream. No. She buys this stuff:  King Soopers Eye Makeup Remover. It's the store brand of a whole family of biphasic (you have to shake it up or it separates) makeup removers. Most of the major brands have a version. This one is cheaper. Friends and neighbors, this stuff works. Not just on makeup, but it //dissolves// grease off your skin like nothing you've ever seen. Shake it up, apply to your greasy hide with Kleenex or paper towel or a cotton ball, and the grease //just comes off//. The skin is not brutalized underneath. This stuff is for eyelids, for Pete's sake. (So was cold cream. Word to the wise, don't get cold cream in your eyes. It stings.  A lot.).

So many thanks to my sweetie, who not only pointed this stuff out to me, but graciously doesn't make me buy my own bottle. Seriously. Try this stuff. It does the job.

-JRS