greg collins' posterous

So what is our position then?

Thank you Cathy Wilcox of the Sydney Morning Herald. You made me smile.

Top bike for a top ride #cycling

n+1 #Strida Mk 3.2.5, multi-modal eBay bargain gets an upgrade. With pictures... #cycling

Well, project 'perfect Strida' is underway in which having established the suitability of an old #Strida 3.2 for multi-mode commuting and work related cycling I'm seeking a to tweek it a bit and ensure its longevity.

What's been done so far....

Bended Steerer kit has been sourced and fitted.  Basically a pair of bent folding hadlebars (the standard ones fold but are dead straight), new 'shorty' levers, needed to clear the pedals when folded in case you are wondering, grips and 'parking brake loops.  These bars changes the handling a bit but gives me more knee room and as enabled me to raise the saddle significantly, though I still think it can go a notch or two higher.

Wire rear wheel sourced from the lovely people at Velorution and fitted. This turns the bike, in my eyes anyway, into a Mk 3.2.5 as the Mk 3.3 had wire wheels.  No one in Europe seems to have a wire front wheel though so I'm talking to some other lovely people at Areaware in the states to see if a deal can be done on a pair of wheels.  I won 't ever fly with her so for me wire wheels and the higher tyre pressures they support are the way to go. Only problem is the 3.2a snubber doesn't work with 3.3 wheels.  Velorution have the bits in stock for me though so that is easy enough to sort.  Back brakes got new shoes and a problem with the rear brake actuating arm was sorted, well bodged, at the same time as the new wheel went on.

Also changed are the shoulder bolts, the heads were gone on the original stainless ones and it wasn't possible to torque them up correctly, the new ones aren't stainless but do have 6mm allen sockets over the 4mm ones in the originals. 20Nm no bother now.  You may just be able to make them out in these pictures at the joint between the steerer tube and the bottom tube.

The strida has also been, as we say in these parts 'festooned' with lights. Try to avoid SMIDSY when the clocks go back. Some hopes.  If they aren't looking.....

Nothing I've done affects the superbly simple fold. Once folded as shown you just wheel the bike alpong on its wheels.

I've got hold of an aluminium bottom bracket housing from a Mk 1 to replace the plastic one you can see in the 'nearside' photo above.  As it turns out the belt tension adjuster nut has sheered off so it all needs to come off anyway and I'll swap the housings over and, at the same time put a new 'chainwheel and belt on.

 

In the mean time I'll just ride her from the station to work and vice versa everyday and see how we go.

n+1 #Strida Mk 3.2, multi-modal bargain or eBay waste of dosh?. Episode 6 My mind's made up #cycling

So. Here we are. I've been riding the Strida for a while now.  Every day when I've been working in the office it has come with me on the train. I've only not used it on London work trips becuase I haven't sorted the brakes out. We've pedalled ourselves up the hill to the office nealry every day and passed at my colleagues walking so that I'm sat at my desk drinking soffee and 'working' by the time they get in. The ride back down to catch the 17:46, well I reckon I could go faster but the drag from my silly grin, even in the pouring rain, slows me down. Weeeeeeeeeee! Riding it evenings and weekends on the flat provokes similar child-like emotions. You can't go fast. But you can have fun.

Tomorrow I have to go and commit myself to a monthy season ticket to cement the relationship. Or not. So read on....

I took a long hard look at my choices. I can't afford a new Brompton or similar. 2nd hand they are not a lot cheaper either.  Cheap folders, with one exception are awful. No, seriously they are truly tragic and when you are 6' 2" and weigh as much as I do dangerously tragic too. Bendy seat posts, flexy bars and brakes that are purely decorative.

The only exception is the Compass Marine. As far as I can see it is an old Dahon clone. Singlespeed. Well made, good components, beloved of sailors. "Oh err missus!" But it folds badly, has to be held that way with bungies, and when folded is, well, frankly, huge, and ungainly and, to be honest, unattractive.

The Strida?  I hardly ever have to carry it. My local station has these big steel gutters on the stairs so you can wheel a Strida up and down them with ease. Can't do that with a 20" wheel bike or an 'ordinary bicycle'. It unfolds in seconds flat, and if I unfold the bars and pedals whilst the train is pulling into the station, I'm off and cycling within 5 seconds of reaching the roadside.  The look on the faces of passers by is amazing. They see you coming out of the station wheeling something that, to be honest, most looks like some sort of children's buggy, then kapow, it turns into a bike. and I'm off and away.

I've adapted to the twitchy handling and the unusual riding position. The ONLY downside is the amount of attention the darned thing draws. I'm sure this is down to the plastic wheels and the huge plastic frisbee sized 'chainwheel'.  People stare at it goggle eyed. If you are a shrinking violet it isn't a bike for you. I wonder if the wirewheeled and more conventionally 'chainwheeled' Mk 4's and Mk 5's attract so much attention?  People, total strangers, and we are talking about England for pities sake, start conversations with you! "Is it a bicycle?" is a common opening gambit, with "What is it?" coming a close second. The learned grizzled ones shuffle across, and mutter "How many inches?". It is a great bike for meeting new people on.  Actually there is another, albeit small, downside. The rear mudguard is too short and you get a wet arse in the rain. A homemade bodge will sort that shortly. 

I seem to have found some drivetrain spares I can buy and put away until needed.  Moulding the rear 'cog' as part of the back wheel strikes me as a short sighted option, and I think an opportunity may have been missed in not having identical front and rear wheels. I got a bargain pair of tall rider folding handlebars for it from Vanmoof the current Europen distributors and have found a shop in London, Velorution, with a few NoS bits in, including my much needed brake shoes, which I'll get next week.  No point putting the new bars, levers and cables on until I have the new brake shoes.  It may even get upgraded to Mk 3.25 status with a plastic front wheel and a wire rear (pending me finding someone somehwere with a wire front wheel for sale simply so I can put higher pressure tyres on both ends). That's the troble with buying a unique and extra-ordinary bike no longer in production; spares become a worry, and no one will let me trade it in against a Mk 5. You have to take a long view.

Strida Mk 3.2, multi-modal bargain or eBay waste of dosh? Very much the former in my view. I love it. I love it to bits. Best cheap secondhand bike I've ever bought.  I'm so looking forward to turning up at our next local cycle forum on it. The other members pull my leg that I never cycle to these meetings, they are held only 500m from my door and getting a bike out of the shed and locking it up at the venue takes longer than walking does. I'll show 'em.  I'm even toying with the idea of riding London to Brighton on it for charity.  God forbid, and I never thought I'd say this, but when cyclescheme comes around again next year I might go and have a demo ride on one of the Mk 5's. One of the sporty MAS Specials could be splendid fun on a Friday Night Ride to the Coast in aid of Martlets Hospice.

 

 

 

Small wheels #cycling

Well, it made me smile. I overtook someone on the way into work. He had 21 gears and 26" wheels. I've got 16" wheels and one gear....... go figure

n+1 #Strida Mk 3.2, multi-modal bargain or waste of money? Episode 5 east meets west #cycling

In which our hero recieves conflicting advice about the shortage of spare parts or the abundance of same

So where were we. Oh yes, I'd nearly died and had resolved to be more careful. The feeler guages arrived and armed with some loctite I set about my snubber. Jolly good. DAK! banished to tolerable levels in minutes flat. As I always say to my wife "It's so easy when you've got the right tools"

I decided to send an email reuesting information on availability and prices for spare parts to a short list of dealers and distributors.  The responses I got back are confusing and contradictory. In Holland they say no more plastic wheels ( potentially career ending injury for the plastic wheeled Strida with its built in rear sproket - if that wears or you otherwise damage the wheel you need a new rear wheel. If you can't get a new rear wheel your Strida is useless) but wire ones are availalbe for £100 + P+P), in Hong Kong they say not sure about wire wheels but they are about £60 (ex VAT & P+P) if they can get them but they have plastic ones in stock for £25. So i'm gonna get me one of them there wheels from Hong Kong along with a new front disc which is nearly 50% cheaper than in the UK.

When the handlebars come I'm gong to move the saddle up a bit more and that, as they say, will be that tinkering wise for now. Except.... Except well Mark Saunders has told me the most rigid bottom bracker assembly they ever made for the MK1, 2 or 3 was the alloy one fitter to the Mk 1. and I found someone breaking a Mk 1 for spares on eBay, and got the BB assembly for a song.  In lousy nick paintwork wise but nothing some hammerite won't cover up it seems.

So you own a Strida then. How's that going for you they ask.  Well it has come into it's own several times over the weekend/evenings when an errand has had to be run which normally would have seen me drive or faff about getting a 'proper' bike out of the shed. And has been great for getting into town on at lunchtime. So thus far I'm pleased with it. I drew the line on a 20 mile round trip on Thursday night last week and tool my fast tourer aka le velo noir to do that on; not really the Strida's niche. That niche, and having a clear idea of it in your head is critical to succesful ownership I think.  It is never going to replace a full size bike, or be my only bicycle in a way that, in the past, a Brompton has been. But for short journeys, where I don't want to lock and leave a bike, where I'm riding for utility not pleasure, it fills what is, for me a tricky gap.  Would I ever buy a new one? No I don't think so; the design is a tiny bit flawed in my eyes; belt slippage and the methods used to control and tame it are a bit of a fudge, and my physical dimensions are right out there at the edge of the specification envelope. I know in the far est they now make a smaller model. For me they need to make a bigger one!

A final word for now.  A strida also gives one a huge sense of moral superiority over other folder owners, when riding on a train it can get all up-close-and-personal without covering me in greasy marks and, more improtantly on exiting the train I roll it out along the platform whilst the Bromptonisti lug their shin biting lumps along with sholders trying to burst from their sockets. (Hint; fit some in line skate wheels to the rack chaps and roll it on those)

Very gratifying.

 

 

n+1 #Strida Mk 3.2, multi-modal bargain or waste of money? Episode 4 Dowhill all the way #cycling

In which our hero acquires some tools and narrowly avoids death through the deft application of shoe leather.

So, as I said below, the rear brake is in desperate need of new shoes for the drum.  Ordered.  Also ordered some feeler guages to sort the snubber as per advice from Mark Saunders himself (@77A on Twitter)So off I went from the office and it is downhill all the way from the gates to the station some 1.6km and 35m below.  Lovely job; walk up the path in a fine drizzle to the top of the driveway, the bottom being so steep it would inevitably induce a fit of the DAKS! Elastic bands liberated from the post on the pedals, bike unfolded, lights on.

First event of note is the double mini roundabout at the end of the road.  This requires me to do a right and then an immediate left. Across a strem of A road traffic which at 5:30 is pretty dense. Hmm... Best I master this pushing off technique as pulling away sharpish in the few small gaps the flow of traffic contains with a 56" gear is not easily done under these conditions.  We make it through.  I adopt a strong primary so as not to get squeezed into the parked car on the slope and we are cooking on gas - freewheel-tastic, go look behind, signal a right, lifesaver turn right of the road up and over a hump and then left onto a road running parallel down the hill to the one I've just left but which carries much less traffic.

Decide I'll go around the small gyratory system at the bottom of the hill rather than pavement ride the last 50m to the station entrance whicch is actually on a one-way section of the gyratory.  We reach the steep section of the hill. Stupid Greg! Stupid STUPID Greg! There's a car coming around the gyratory and a give way line coming up fast and a big handful of the front brake on this slope just isn't slowing me down anywhere near fast enough, and I've got to make the turn. I judge that if I don't stop I will arrive on the other side of that give way line a fraction of a second before the maroon Audi A8 (funny how fear gives one such clairity). I'm following the road around to the left so my inside foot goes down, I unweight th saddle and listen as my lovely leather soled shoe (a Chelseas boot actually) is used as a brake block. But it works and I roll to a halt just short of the give way line.

Note to self:- moderate your entry speed to that section and take care cos once on that slope you ain't slowin' down with one brake.

I've since adjusted the brakes some more but I need to chivvy the dealer along on getting the new brake shoes.

I had planned y'day to take the bike with me on the train to central London but decided that this is not a go-er with only one brake.  My attempt to use a Boris Bike (Barclys Cycle Hire) instead is foiled by a late running inbound train and the fact that Transport for London seem to have disabled my account. I got the tube/walked instead.

This morning I arrived at work via train and Strida to find the feeler guages had arrived, thank you Amazon Prime, so tonight I plan to strip the snubber down, remove any play in the bearings with a coke can shim and refit it by the book with a .25mm gap and the judicious use of nutloc. Hopefully this will banish the DAKS! whilst the alarming swaying bottom bracket when climbing is, I guess, just a feature of the design you have to get used to. Also got an email from Strida Netherlands. For €35 the 'chainwheel' can stay cracked.  But good news; the bent hanfldebars can be retrofitted. Roll on pay day! Downside is they have none in stock and aren't saying how much they cost and they didn't answer my question about the availaibliy (or not) of wire wheels.

That @sam_wise celebrates the end of rehab with his Dad

Cafe Gerard cafe, Victoria. Well done Benenden Healthcare!

n+1 eBay Strida Mk 3, multi-modal bargain or waste of money? The first commute in... Part III #cycling

Rucksack packed. Weekly season ticket bought, ghastly hi-viz tabard on over day clothes. Fortunately every day is dress-down-Friday in our office.  In two minds about taking/wearing a helmet but timidity prevails, so I have to find a cap as I removed the foam liner from my helmet many moons ago because of the pong. Muxu Ride Cap, a lovely piece of kit from Barcelona, found and it will be worn backwards; not sure my trail helmet doesn't look weird on a folder and a cap under it worn roadie style will border on ridiculous.

Walking to the station reveals a need for some form of elastic band to keep the handlebars tucked in. They keep swinging out and catching me on the leg.  Not unconvinced that some form of strap to keep it all folded up would not go amiss as I have eight flights of station/office stairs to negotiate between A and B. No point riding to the station, it is a one minute walk, if that, door-to-door becuase we bought our house when I had to commute daily to the City of London. Actually we bought a house about 100 yards down the street oriignially so I could walk to work at the software house I was working at; this subsequently went bust and I got a job in London. When we bought our current house we told people we were moving what, eighht doors up the street, as the first house was too far from the station!

On boarding the train I discover that if I sit in one of the disabled priority seats (by the toilet and the cycle storage area - NB non-folders are banned on the peak time services I need to use so this space is wasted and I've never seen a disabled person use them during the peak) I can put the wheels against the partition and have the stem resting on the front of the seat between my legs. I read a book, 'The Girl who kicked the Hornet's Nest' if you are interested and change trains at my intermediate point Three Bridges Station. Luckily I have only a minute to waite as a late running southbound connection arrives.

At our destination I'm sat right by the station 'rear' exit stairs when the train pulls in a few minutes later. I unfold the bars as I exit the station and then unfold the frame once outside. Now the real fun begins.  The run to the office involves a climb of 35m over 1.6km and the steepest section is at the station end.  On I get and off I push, I start pedalling and dang! My feet shoot straight of the pedals. Note to self: don't wear leather soled shoes on this puppy.  This won't be a problem tomorrow as I have lots of rubber/plastic soled street shoes at home I can wear and change out of when I get to work. I am one of the probably few married men who more choice of footwear than their wives!

Feet back on pedals and.... you've guessed it.... DAK! dak! DAK!. Hmmm.... "that's an annoying feature" I think as the steepest section starts to bite "and I spent ages carefully adjusting the snubber yesterday."  I think perhaps we may have a worn drivetrain possibly requiring a new belt and or rear 'sprocket'. Does that require replacing the entire wheel?  Eek! Either that or the tension still isn't right (certainly doesn't take 4+kg of force to move the belt to touch the frame like the handbook says it should) and/or I didn't set the snubber properly after all.

Once the slope eases off the DAK! disappears and we spin our merry way towards work. Certainly gets the heart rate up and on a relatively warm morning makes one 'glow' a little.  Once I turn right into the office driveway it's "Weeeeeeeeeee!" all the way to the office backdoor as a good portion of the height gained on the last third of the journey is lost on site.  DAK! or no DAK! you just can't help smiling when you ride this thing. Bike folded, stairs climbed. Java on to brew.

If the trains run on time I can leave home at 08:30 and be at my desk at 09:20.  In the car I'd be 10 mins or so quicker at this time of day, and on a normal bike it takes between 40 - 50 mins depending on how hard I push it, but then I need to shower and change on arrival.  The rest of this week I'm going to juggle departure times to see if I can get in earlier but avoid the huge crush on the first London bound leg of my journey, ultimately I'd like to leav ehome around 07:30, at the same time as my wife sets off, by car, to the college on the coast, where she teaches.

Already looking forward to the journey home...... and a date with a .25mm feeler gauge. Going to take the snubber apart, figure out how it works, I'm hoping some sort of eccentic, and reset it.

n+1 eBay Strida Mk 3, multi-modal bargain or waste of money? A cyclist's dilemma... Part II #cycling

The weather yesterday was grim, it kept raining, and as my bike workshop is actually our back yard I didn't get to work on the Strida until today.  So here is the next installment of our tale as promised.

The engineering

If I have my have my history right Mark Saunders designed the original Strida back in the 80's.  Various detail changes have been made over the years and as I understand it my Mk 3.2 would have been built in the early noughties.  It is a very simple design, basically a triangle, a wheel at the two bottom corners, bottom bracket bolted to the bottom tube, the entire front tube is a stem, and the steerer comes off the triangle's upper point which hinges when you fold the frame and when you steer the bike; darned clever ball and socket joint..  The wheels are plastic with conventional tubed 16" tyres, cable operated drum brakes, a normal saddle but fitted to a huge plastic clamp which has to be moved up and down the rear tube to adjust the height.  It can be ridden by someone up to 6' 3" apparently and Mr Saunders is a very tall man so I'm told.

The tubes are all alloy nicely finished with a few marks and scars.  This is a used bike after all.  First task; go round every bolt and ensure it is torqued up.  This is where the devil in the detail design starts to prod you in the bum.  Many of the fasteners are dome headed allen bolts.  Shallow headed little things and some of them have, imo, ridiculously small socket sizes for the amount of torque they are meant to be cinched up to.  The drum brakes are a mix of inspired design and nasty nasty pressed steel components with BSO cable adjusters which probalby cost a couple of pence each.  Alloy component screwing into a steel bracket. It is a recipe for electolytic corrosion and siezure.  Good job I had a tin of GT85 to hand.  Let me say, these faults are not the sole province of Strida's, they often afflict mid range bikes around the £500 mark.  Heres' a couple of old publicity shots of a Strida for your entertainment.  Battery is flat in my camera phone at present so I can't get anything real.

Will ask the nice people at Strida in the Netherlands what a completely new set of fasteners will cost me. OK, everything tightened as it should be, front brake adjuster freed off and adjusted, let's go for a ride remembering the back brake is completely u/s.

The first ride

Mentally I was prepared for the unconventional riding position.  Your legs don't extend anywhere near as much as they do on a conventionally framed bike, the bars feel like they are in your lap, and you sit bolt upright. In fact, I think riding a Strida probably does wonders for your posture! Of we went, one gear only, quite easy to spin out on the slope down from my house.  Steering is twitchy compared with 700c or 26" wheels but in minutes your used to it.  Here comes the upslope, put some force into it, DAK!, cmon push those puppies, DAK!, DAK!. Aha! The belt is slipping under load. I'd been warned to expect this by another Strida rider on Twitter.  Still fettling that is fairly simple.  So change tactics, when confronted with any kind of hill spin like crazy thinking 'pedal faster not harder' and for the most part the slippage disappears. I ride on grinning like a maniac and saying 'Good morning' to every cyclist I see.  The 56" gear means you aren't going anywhere fast so you seem to just kick back and relax, sit bolt upright and watch the world go by all the while grinning like a loon. Yes this is one happy making bicycle.  By the time I arrive at my destination 3 miles away I'm singing and whisting and having a whale of a time. Off I hop, and the bike is folded in 15 seconds.  The great joy of a Strida is, once folded, you push, or pull, it around on its own wheels.  Simples. 

Destination was Halfords, by the way, to buy a flourescent pink springy trouser clip thing.   Today I'm wearing baggy shorts but Mon-Fri I'll be riding in normal clothes, so a trouser clip is needed. Yes I could have gone to my LBS but both of those are only a few hundred yards away and that is no test.  The first ride has certainly taught me a few things, I need to move the saddle back a bit, I need the seat a little higher and, if you don't like attention from drivers, pedestrians, goggle-eyed kids, or local bike club members then don't ride a Strida.  On my way back from Halfords I'm overtaken by three pre-teens whilst on the approach ramp to the footbridge that crosses our local racetrack dual carriageway the A24.  We;ve all ignored the cyclists dismount signs if they exist. I can't keep up with them, due to the constant DAK! DAK! but on the other side of the bridge is a long old downhill run.  God forgive me the temptation was too much!  I weigh more than the three lads put together so I let gravity do its stuff, passing the first he bursts into hysterical laughter and his mate turns just as I flash past, they are pedalling and I'm freewheeling.  They call to the kid in front, he looks over his shoulder and... the race is on, he's up on the pedals and I'mhunched forwards spinning as fast as I can, trying to avoid the DAK!, we come to a bend, a sharp 90 degree and I oversteer a bit as the inside pedal hits the ground, he brakes and I WIN!  As I cycle off he stops and shouts "Oi mate! Cool bike!".  You could not make it up.

6 mile round trip done in comfort, and I even fell brave enough to ride off a couple of kerbs.  It is a perfect bike for pedestrian/cyclist shared use routes, you aren't going fast and you have your head up so can see everything

Back home I raise the saddle some more and move it back in its clamp. I may need to look for a saddle with longer rails.  Adjusting the belt tension takes a little while, most of which was spent trying to find a 7mm spanner for the adjuster screw which moves the entire bottom bracket assembly forwards. Quick test ride reveals the DAK! has been banised (for now).

Tomorrow, we ride the train to work.  Watch this space