Winter Lighting

Apr-2008

Seriously, in the first twelve months of owning the Tikit, I've used my other bikes about six times. Fair enough, virtually all of my riding is the commute, to which the Tikit is well suited, but I've also taken the Tikit with me on business trips to Perth and Melbourne and happily ridden it with my old racing buddies (the "Old Hairy Legs" of the University of WA Cycle Club) and surprised a few people on the St Kilda Beach road on a Saturday morning in Melbourne.

For these trips, the Tikit, together with shoes, helmet, tools and a change of cycling clothes goes into the Samsonite Flite suitcase and squeaks under the 20 kg airline weight. It is literally a 10 minute job to unpack the Tikit. It takes a little longer to pack it (since you do want to try to make the packed bike likely to withstand airline baggage handling!).

As we go into winter (and I've not wanted to limit my choice of bikes by moving my trusty halogen lights from my fixie) I cobbled together a surprisingly effective headlight.

Now I know there's a bunch of information on the web from people (mostly mountain bikers) who've put together some very neat light systems, but I wasn't prepared to invest quite that much time and thought. However, I also wanted to avoid investing hundreds of dollars in a commercial set up. So here's what I found, mostly courtesy of Jaycar (). A single-LED intended to be a plug-in replacement for MR16 halogen down-lights: it runs directly off 12V and is well sealed inside a sturdy heatsink (with quite a cool-looking shape). $35. It takes a choice of lenses. I chose the widest spread, since my main objective on my commute is to be seen. So add a switch and build it into a 25mm PVC conduit end-cap; power it with a 12V sealed lead acid battery ($15), which I strap under the handlebar stem in a bag that I had lying around. Total maybe $65. Punches out as much light as $150 to $200 setups and all with simple, easily replaced components.

Tikit Hyperfold Upgrade

Jan-2007

I had my first serious hitch with the Tikit, when I managed to pop open the head clamp when starting off. The clamp is sort of pac-man shaped in cross-section and it has become more opened out. In this case one of the twin cable also failed. The bike was still (very gently) rideable because of two sensible design choices: one being the use of twin cables, the other being the direction of the hinge, so that ones weight the handlebars (particularly when braking) tend to keep the hinge closed.





One of the nicest things about Bike Friday is that you can always get hold of someone who really knows what they are talking about. In this case I emailed over some photos and a phone call got me Tim, who immediately said that what was needed was the new, upgraded head clamp, hinge and cable. They are now calling this really cool folding arrangement the "hyperfold" to distinguish it from a simpler (but slower) arrangement they call the "Model T".

I had the new parts on my front door in Australia four days later. You can see below how much the hinge has been beefed up (the new version is on the right).




Note the "P56" serial number on the old head arrangement: they've changed where they put the serial number on the newer bikes and I'm kind of sorry to be losing the original serial number - "P" for "prototype" or "pre-production"? 56 would be about right for it being the 56th Tikit.

You can also see how much chunkier the clamp on the hinge now is:

Tikit Tidying...

I've always previously advocated the traditional cycle-touring model when it comes to carrying stuff: "carry it on your bike, not on your body". I see a lot of commuters with a bag full of stuff on their back, and in a lot of cases I suspect that the thing stopping them putting a rack and bags on the bike is because then the bike won't look like Lance's.

The Detours bag that I have on the Tikit is pretty good: it's fairly quick to put on and off. However, I have to say that for a multi-modal commute, having a bag on your back works pretty well. The bag just stays on your back while you fold the bike and stow it, rather than being another thing that you are putting down and picking up.

Generally folding bikes seem to present some extra challenges for bags and I found it tidied the bike up to cut down on the under-seat spares requirement using these neat bar-ends from Tranz-x.



There's a different set of tools in each side.

Pimp my Tikit

May-2007

Of course having now got a Tikit: a bike which is first and foremost designed as a commuter, I naturally set about turning it into something slightly different ;-)

I think that I've taken the "pre-production" description of this particular bike to heart and am keen to find out just what it can do.

My commute doesn't see any big hills and my riding style is to get out of the seat and hammer over them, so round one was about tweaking the position and tightening and lifting the gears.

Scoring a 60T chainring from Kraynick's in Pittsburgh was one of those things you do because you "just never know when you'll need it". A $10 price tag probably helped, too. Seven years later ... I needed it! Match that with 11-21 on the back and I've got some reasonable gears again.

Postion dialled in by dropping the bars, a longer stem and bar ends to get me stretched out. And add the fairly minimalist Selle Italia Nitrox seat.


(In these photos, I've still got the 53T ring on there as well as the 60T. You could do this to retain a set of lower gears for hilly riding, but I've really only kept it on there because I didn't have any single chainring bolts to hand!)

The bar ends (and longer stem) do compromise the folded size a little and this wouldn't be ideal for a commute that involved public transport. However my commute is a mix of cycle and a company shuttle bus, so it's not a problem for me. I guess a folding bike has the usual trade-off of any bike: the tradeoff that can be summarised as "light, strong, cheap: choose any two". A folding/commuting bike adds another triangle to be balanced: "fold fast, fold compact, ride well". My demands rate ride and folding speed over folded size.

I got a Tikit to ride

Easter-2007

The Bike Friday Gathering in the Adelaide Hills worked out really well. The girls have a ball riding the triple or tandem (triple on the first day, just the tandem on the other two). Most of the riders were pretty wowwed by the sight of the three of us out of the saddle on the climbs.

Hanna and Peter from Bike Friday had brought along a pre-production model of one of the new Tikits.

At the final night's dinner, Mei was and Katie were happy to be getting a prize from Hanna:



But, since we were fortunate enough to be sharing a table with Hanna, that gave me pole position on getting my hands on the Tikit when Hanna offered it for sale.

So having left Brisbane with one bike in two suitcases, we returned with two bikes in three.



The Tikit makes a really neat package in the suitcase.

Why "This Cycling Life" ?

The term lifecycle is overloaded from use in everthing from biology to engineering and sotware processes.  Which of course means that all the first names I tried were already taken!  

For me, its about the fact that cycling is is a part of life, not just a sport or recreation.  The bikes and riding that interest me reflect that. This is riding that lets me spend time with people I like: both friends and family. It's riding that replaces motor-powered commuting. ...and it's racing, too. Sometimes.

And, for Australians of a certain age range, there's a nod to Roy and H.G.'s "This Sporting Life" program on JJJ.