Issues resolving

The word is in on the packrat damage to The Beast.  They got in the intake manifold, built a nest, and then for whatever rattish reason ate the knock sensor.  New sensor: about $100.  Cost of diagnosis and tearing down the engine to get at the part, about $900.  It'll be done on Friday.

The cost of this is annoying, no two ways about it.  Seems unfair to have a major expense before I've even really gone anywhere.  But it's fixed, and it could have been a whole lot worse.

How to prevent this in future?  There's a simple device called a "Rid-a-rat" which is a small strobe light in a box with a magnet.  You clip its leads onto the battery, and it sits there pretty much forever.  The guys at Buck's say it works.  Let's hope so!  Details here.

And about the e-bike:  I've hemmed and hawed about what would make sense.  I'm ordering a bike from e-joe.  It's a full-size bike, not a folding bike.  It has a step-through frame so my back will be happier.  And it was a big range, more than twice the other options.  It's kind of a retro cruiser looking thing:

It just begs for a wicker basket on those handle bars, huh?   It'll require a rack on the Hyundai and the RV to carry around, but the same hitch-mounted rack can be used on both.  Since the bike I'm getting is a 2013 model, I save enough so that the cost of the bike plus racks is less than the folding bikes I was focussed on at first.

The battery is that metal thing which is mounted behind the seat tube. It weighs about 30 pounds; the entire bike weighs just over 50 pounds.  So if I take the battery off to charge it, the bike is really light to heft on and off the rack.  Review of the bike here.

And so it goes.  I'm itchy.  Time to go somewhere.

Roller Coaster

And I'm not talking about the road where I live.

I took The Beast into my mechanic for an oil change and checkover before I really go anywhere in it.  The famous "check engine" light was on -- in The Beast it says "Dealer Service Soon" or something like that. The light was on when I bought it.  Previous owner said his mechanic couldn't find anything wrong. My guys ran a computer diagnosis on it and eventually determined that the a fuse was blown.  They replaced the fuse, took it for a road test, no more indicator. No stored error codes.

Cool!  There were some things that they said should be looked at after a while, but nothing to keep me from hitting the road.  "Have fun!"

I drove the rig back toward its parking lot, and halfway there the light came on again.  I called them and they said to bring it back.  Apparently it takes a while for the on-board data bus to clear and reset, and their road test wasn't long enough.  This time, they come up with some error codes.  Problems with the knock sensor.  Didn't know I had one.  Turns out I may have 2!

But the killer is that they found a "massive" pack rat nest in there.  And evidence elsewhere in the vehicle (license plate light wires)  that rats had been chowing down on the wires.  So they cleared out the nest and started the job of getting at the knock sensor wiring.  Hard to get at, of course.  And only they get in there can they tell what the damage is.  The parts are about $50 apiece; it's the labor, and the possibility of major re-wiring, that will cost.

Won't know until sometime tomorrow.

So I go from "Have fun!" to "Oh, sh*t" in an hour.

And no way to know when or where the rats did their thing:  previous owner's yard, my storage lot.

More tomorrow.  Margarita time.

More on e-bikes

More thinking and reading time.  Joined a couple of on-line forums.  A few observations:

• If my yellow Hyundai is called Buttercup, and the RV is called The Beast, the e-bike if I get one will be called Harley.
• As I noted yesterday, for some people the e-bike phenomenon is something of a movement;  some of the people I'm reading clearly want to cash in on what they see as a growth opportunity.   And it is growing.  One chart I saw showed that bicycle sales are pretty much constant in the last decade or so, but that e-bike sales have a very steep growth curve.  This is on a global basis, and that's a key part of understanding this.
• In a compact urban environment which is pretty flat, and trips are pretty short, these are ideal.  And a lot of the world's population lives in places like that.  It's no accident that one of the bikes I'm considering seems to be made in Indonesia.  
• There's something distinctly un-American about these critters.  Or maybe "un-Amurrican" would be more apt.  They're small, quiet, and for the most part don't earn you macho points.  So motorcycle people look down on them.  But so does a big segment of the bicycle crowd: they're (gasp!) motorized.  They don't go really fast.  So, in the few days that I've thought about this at all, I'm wondering if popularizing these may not face the challenges akin to selling soccer to an audience accustomed to American football.   
• A good parallel for these might be to hybrid cars.  The Prius is a gas/electric hybrid.  These things are for the most part muscle/electric hybrids.  Although some are bicycles in appearance only, using pedals simply as a way to get started and put your feet, most provide a range of electric assistance from none (which is where you can be involuntarily if the battery depletes) to full.  Some actually seem to require muscle power to get up significant hills. 
• I'm beginning to see these as examples of what I'm calling sophisticated simplicity.  There's a lot of engineering goes into motors, batteries, control systems, frame fabrication, brakes, gearshifts, and so on.  But the result is a fairly transparent machine; in many ways like cars used to be.  An average person can, it seems to me, understand how to do basic and even more-than-basic maintenance on a bicycle.  And because in many parts of the world bikes are owned by people who can't afford cars, they often do maintenance themselves because they must, not because they enjoy it. And they can.  

Maybe more thoughts in a while.

The tail that wags the beast

When Mike suggested I look into an electric bike for use between wherever the RV was parked and nearby points of interest, I didn’t realize he was pointing me at what seems to be something of a movement.   However that may be, I had my first few minutes on a couple of e-bikes yesterday afternoon, and I was pretty intrigued.

Actually, I had a blast, tooling around a parking lot down in the SE part of town.  You get on one, start pedaling, and the assist kicks in. On most models you can leave it at that: you pedal and your effort is multiplied mightily.  On many models, you can also stop pedaling when you want, and use a hand throttle for speed control.  They all seem to cut out at 18mph, to avoid becoming “motor vehicles” for legal purposes.

But let me tell ya, even cruising around a parking lot at 12-15 mph feels pretty quick.  And fun!  Just being on a bike I felt like a clueless klutz for the first few minutes, but the bike “stuff” came back pretty quick.  I felt a nice slightly-worked-out burn in my legs when I was done, and I didn’t want to return the bike to its corral!  You can vary the amount of electric assist you get, which increases the load on your legs and decreases the draw on the battery.  For RV travel, like I thought, sure!  But I can see going for rides along Tucson’s bikeways just for fun.  And exercise!  My balance issues relate to foot stability, not inner ear problems, so I’m perfectly stable on a bike once I get the hang of it.   So this could be the way to gently and enjoyably get some cardio conditioning and regain some lower-body strength.

Batteries:  two kinds of battery in use.  One is the standard lead-acid battery used in most cars.  Heavy, cheap.  Last about a year in regular use.  The other is a lithium battery, which costs more, lasts longer, is lighter, and recharges faster.

Range and battery life.  The more muscle you put into it (the less assist) the longer the range.  And wind and hills also make a difference.  But something like 20 miles seems to be the most you can expect.  So I could ride it downtown, and back home without being too nervous.  I don’t know about places like cafes where you could recharge the bike a while.  

Because of back and hip mobility problems, the classic thoughtless throw-your-leg-over-the-saddle move just doesn’t work for me.  And it certainly didn’t yesterday wearing a pair of jeans.  But, once I got used to it, a “step-over” frame does work.  What we used to call a “girls’ bike.”  Wikipedia outlines the advantages:

• less risk of stretching or ripping clothes when mounting the saddle
• the rider can wear a skirt (also requires a skirt guard and possibly a chain guard)
• very quick to mount and dismount, so is suitable for delivery bicycles, or any journey with many stops
• suitable for elderly and others with restricted agility
• potentially safer than a high crossbar; a rider who loses balance can step through the bicycle without becoming entangled
• compactness provides a popular starting point for folding bicycles.

There ya go.  I could pretend to be a bike messenger, and not a geezer.  No?  Didn’t think so.

So some kind of step-through frame.  But how do I get it from Point A to Point B?  From my house to a bike path?  From my house to the RV?  One answer is two bike racks:  One which fits into the trailer hitch on the RV, and another which fits on the Hyundai.   A folding bike is also an option, and I’ve located some which would fit in the back of the Hyundai.  I need to learn more about this option. Most of the folding bikes are step-through designs. 

Storage.  In Tucson, I think it lives on the back patio, in the newly-refurbished roofed-over area.   It might, if I could get it through the door, live in the RV when it’s stored.  

When I thought of this as an RV accessory, I figured I’d wait and see after a few RV trips.  But the idea of going for recreational rides around home right now, before it gets beastly hot, is pretty exciting.  And it might be really fun to plan RV destinations near places to bike for an hour or so.

I’ve located on-line resources and forums, as I did with RVs, and so I’ll keep learning. 

Good Stuff!

Baptism ...

... by water, actually. Damn near by immersion.

I spent a lot of the day sanitizing the fresh water system in the Beast.  I'd drained the tanks a day or so ago, so I drove it to my friend Bruce's place to push some chlorinated water through it in a location with water, electric, and a gravel drive to drain things into.

Tedious.  Mostly from waiting three hours for the chemicals to do their work.  And then drain it.  And then flush it out until the water doesn't smell like chlorine.  It'll take less time next time, of course, now that I know what I'm doing.

It was hot.  Not Tucson hot, just ordinary hot.   At one point I pulled the drain plug on the hot water tank to make sure I had gotten it fully drained.   I'd gotten it fully pressurized, is what I'd done, and took the brunt of a 6 gallon shower in about 10 seconds.  I smelled like Clorox for the rest of the day.

I did get an email from the manufacturer this morning with the specs fully, well, specified.  Some of it I'd doped out, but the water tank is smaller than I thought (36 gallons, not 45) and so is the hot water tank (6 gallons, not 10).

So now I take it to Buck's for a lube, oil change, filter and then I think I'm ready to hit the road to somewhere.

Hanging with the big dogs

Weigh In

At Tucson Truck Terminal (TTT):

Water tanks empty

LP half full

Fuel tank 3/4

From scale:
Front axle 3300

Rear axle  7220 

Gross Weight 10520 

From doorpost:

Front GAWR 4600
Rear GAWR 9450
GVWR 14050

When the water tanks are full, that would add about 500 pounds of weight.  So that means I can haul around about 3000 pounds of people, gear, supplies, etc.   That's a ton and a half!