The Dollar Bill Trick

It’s been coming for a while - I’ve been expecting it.

The tread on the front wheels of my Catrike Expedition has failed to be visibly present for some time now, resembling in texture something more like what you might see on the rear of a top fuel dragster. But those with experience know that there are a lot of miles yet to be had, even as the wheel starts to get smooth.

For a while, a year or two ago, I struggled with an excessive amount of tire wear. It turned out that my front wheels were not in proper alignment - one of the hidden joys of riding a recumbent trike is that you have to maintain alignment between the front wheels in a fashion not dissimilar to that of an automobile. But I’d resolved that issue, and I’d gotten upwards of 4800 miles out of the current tires. They just kept on going. And going.

Until they didn’t. Of course.

I noticed it about three miles into a ride. As I was rolling along I suddenly got a repeated “thump-thump-thump” coming from my right wheel. I briefly thought it might be an imperfection in the pavement, so I moved into another part of the lane to see if it went away.

“Thump-thump-thump”

It was hot out - almost freakishly so for this time of year. Here in the upper Midwest we went from the low 60’s to the low 90’s (F) in a day. Given that, I thought (well, hoped, if I’m being honest) maybe I’d just picked up a chunk of tar. So I pulled off to the side.

I… I… I’m just so tired…

Nope. Not tar.

That wear pattern was not on the tire the last time I rode it. Because they were far along in their rubbery lives I check them fairly regularly. I’d like to say that I checked it before heading out for this ride, but I did not. But in either case, I suspect the heat may have accelerated its inevitable demise.

I actually have spare tires - I ordered them a while back. Given the wear they were showing, and the supply chain issues of our current era it just seemed better to go ahead and get them. I did not, however, have the foresight to keep them on the trike. This essentially meant my ride would need to be cut short.

I texted my support crew (My Lovely Wife) to put her on alert, but I figured I would try to limp home. I was only about 3 1/2 miles out, and the tire had not yet failed, so it seemed like it was worth a shot, taking things very slowly.

I made it another mile. What’s more, although I knew it was imminent, I still screamed like a child when the tube popped.

I could have given up then and texted for MLW to come get me, and I did consider it. But, while I didn’t have spare tires with me on the trike, I did have tubes (always). So I could swap out the tube and try to make it the rest of the way home. But I knew that, if I just put another tube inside that damaged tire it would almost certainly pop again, the worn spot not providing sufficient protection from the road.

I’ve seen the idea of the dollar bill trick described and discussed multiple times on social media. In general the idea is that our “paper” money is actually made of a durable combination of cotton and linen, the better to help it survive all of that folding and re-folding, and so can function as a temporary tire patch to get you home.

I was certain that I had some denomination of paper currency with me, but I wasn’t sure how well the bill itself would come thru the adventure (I wasn’t excited about trying, say, the twenty dollar bill trick…), so I did spend a few minutes casting about for other options by digging into my panniers. I did have a roll of rim tape in there, and I made a brief, abortive attempt to fashion a patch using that. It was very quickly clear that the tape was not going to do the trick, so I started sifting thru my cash. As luck would have it George Washington was in fact present and ready for duty.

George is on the job!

I folded the bill in half and inserted it into the tire over the hole, between it and the tube. I rotated the wheel so that the patch fell towards the bottom of its arc to better keep it in place. Then I used my Kool Stop Tire Bead Jack (seriously one of my best purchases ever) to get the tire seated on the wheel, and headed out. Slowly.

It worked - I made it home without further incident. While I was riding, I noticed that the thrumming had stopped. Apparently the dollar bill was evening things out enough that the tire was behaving more normally. And when I arrived home, George was definitely a little more worn for the wear, but still in good enough condition to return to his more… typical service.

Made it thru with minimal wear and tear

My trip back on the dollar bill was about three miles, and it’s clear that I probably could have gone a little further. It’s also clear that what I should have done is gone forward with the dollar bill trick when I first noticed the thrumming and saw the damaged spot. Then I probably could have saved the tube that was already in place. Hopefully I’ll remember that the next time around.

Curing the Shakes

It’s a beautiful winter day - the sun is shining, the snow is glistening white, a resplendent blanket over the earth. You see all of this because you are riding your recumbent trike thru it, taking in the scenery.

And it occurs to you that this moment would make a good picture. You take your hands off the handlebars to grab your camera. This should not be a problem because you are on a trike - three wheels on the ground, inherently providing stability.

But then it happens - perhaps a wheel hits a road imperfection - and the front end begins to tremble, the wheels shimmying back and forth, jostling you about. It stops when you put your hands back on the handlebars, but it returns the next time - and each time - you let go. Your trike has got the shakes.

I’d been dealing with this for the better part of four months, and it was getting progressively worse. What had been an occasional issue, just occurring on certain types of surfaces if my hands were off the handgrips, had progressed to the point where it would start to shake over every bump even with my fingers securely wrapped on the handles.

There are a number of things that this can be due to. Recumbent trikes are more complex than bicycles, especially at the front end, so in addition to the things you might think of on an upright - loose headset or bent wheel - there are things like tie rods, axles, and alignment to be considered (and a special “thank you” to the helpful folks in the Catrike Owners Group on FB for compiling that list).

For my part I was pretty sure I had loose headsets (that’s plural because there are two of them on a trike, one on each front wheel). In part, this was because I’d been messing with them - back towards the end of September I’d ordered a second B&M mirror for my Catrike Expedition, and they mount directly on the top of the headset. And in part, it was because I could see and feel that the headset was loose. I could feel it move when I hit the brakes, which prompted me to pick up the trike and see if I could move it around. Sure enough, it jiggled in place.

Given this, I did what any red-blooded American would do when something is loose: I got a wrench and tightened it.

Which did… nothing? That couldn't be the case, I told myself, it probably did something, but I just hadn’t tightened it enough. So, of course, I tightened it some more. And then some more. And then…

Then I learned that what is inside the headset is called a “star fangled nut” (or just “star nut”). And I also learned, entirely coincidentally, you understand, that it has an upper limit to the torque it can withstand.

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In a way one could consider this a good thing, because it did afford me an opportunity to learn new things about my trike, and an opportunity to buy a new tool. I’d never heard of star nuts before, never seen one in the wild. Now I’d not only become aware of them, but would get to learn how to replace one!

(These are the things I say in my head in order to get the swear words to stop coming out of my mouth. It’s only a moderately successful approach…)

So I ordered a tool (that was clearly made for upright bikes, but I got it to work), replaced it, learned about the torque rating that it’s supposed to be tightened to, dusted off my torque wrench, and… still shaky.

Over the subsequent weeks I continued to gently tighten it, trying to get some improvement without springing the star nut again. The result of this was:

A. It never got any tighter; and 2, I managed to pop the star nut on the other side.

It’s a dark, black hole…

I studied the diagrams in the Catrike Owner’s Manual, asked the folks at Utah Trikes how deep the star nut should be placed (thinking maybe I hadn’t put it down far enough). But nothing I tried helped, and it just kept getting worse, reaching the point I described above - getting shaky even with my hands on the grips. It started making me wonder if it wasn’t approaching the point where it was a little unsafe to ride.

So I broke down and did something I’m always reluctant to do: I asked for help. Specifically, I described my problem to the folks in the Catrike Owner’s Group on FB. I got the list of possibilities that I described above - all of which made sense, and included my loose headset. So I asked a second question: why can’t I get it to tighten?

I don’t know exactly why it always takes me so long to ask for help. It’s a congenital thing, and it happens across the board. I’ll spend an hour in a hardware store looking for the thing I want rather than ask an associate for assistance. I could charitably call it an independent streak, but in many cases - like this one - it’s an impediment.

Why? Because this was an issue of two bolts and about three minutes worth of work. As is invariably the case, when I ask for help I find that the solution is often simpler than I thought, and I feel like an idiot for not asking sooner.

It turns out, as was gently pointed out to me, that you cannot tighten the headset without first loosening the handlebar mount.

They seemed so simple and unassuming. I had no idea they had such power!

Two bolts and three minutes per side. One minute to loosen the two bolts on the handlebar, another to tighten the headset, and a third minute to tighten the handlebar back in place. Six minutes of work and my three year old Atomic Orange Expedition steers like the day it arrived.

I understand, in retrospect, that the handlebar keeps the headset from tightening because it cannot move - it’s held in place by the handlebar. But I’m quite certain that I could have looked at diagrams, and started at it on my garage floor, till the end of time and not seen that. In fact, I was well on my way to that outcome.

I had also begun to wonder whether the issue might actually be the mounting of the B&M mirrors on the headset. They are actually made for a different make - HP Velotechnik. I didn’t want to believe that, because they are so much better than the Mirrycle mirrors the trike came with, but I’d considered removing them to see if that made the difference. And now I know it wouldn't have, so I was able to skip that experiment.

So - back on the road, without the shakes! In fact, now that it’s tracking straight, I’m becoming aware that this has been a longer-term issue than I realized. It’s been a very long time since I was able to let go of the grips and not expect that the trike would at least wander aimlessly, following the curve of the road, if not shake me silly.

All in time for a high of 50° and sunshine here on the northern Illinois prairie!

The Ghost (of Winter) in the Machine

When one thinks about the challenges of engaging in winter cycling the first thing that comes to mind is how to keep oneself warm. This is a reasonable enough thought, of course, particularly as you are just starting out. I suspect most folks, if they decide they are going to stick with it, figure out what works for them on that front fairly early on, and then stick with what works. I know that that is the case for me.

The variable that seems less predictable - and thus to present ongoing challenges - is the machine itself. I’ve done winter cycling on multiple machines. Early on I primarily rode my Cannondale SR400 in the winter months - the same machine that I rode in the summer. I would very occasionally alternate this with the Schwinn mountain bike that we also have in the stable. But since getting my Catrike Pocket in 2017, all of my winter riding has been on three wheels, first on that machine and now, since the winter of 2019-20, on my Catrike Expedition.

With the switch from two wheels to three my cold weather riding has increased considerably. I’d originally looked at winter riding as a replacement for cross country skiing. I really enjoyed cross country skiing, but it was becoming increasingly rare for us to get enough snow in our area to get out, and when we did it always seemed to melt before I had a day free to enjoy it. Given that, when I switched I rode in the winter, but not a lot, really. Looking back through Cyclemeter, between the four winters of 2013-14 and 2016-17 I clocked a total of 18 rides.

In my first winter with the trike I clocked in 26 rides - more than the four years prior combined - and it’s gone up every year since. The trike offers multiple benefits over uprights for winter riding, not the least of which is not suddenly disappearing out from under you when you hit a patch of ice (I’d never gotten to the point of investing in studded tires for my upright bikes).

With that increased activity, though, comes the realization that winter isn’t just challenging for your own body, but that the cold also takes its toll on your machine. Anyone who has hopped in the car to head to work on a January morning only to turn the key and hear that heart rending slow churn that tells you the battery has decided to take a powder knows this to be true. But it is also true for cycling machines.

Last year I ran into struggles with my left brake freezing up - and doing so, unfortunately, in the locked position. This led to the only time as an adult that I’ve had to call for a pickup (well, so far, anyway).

This year it’s issues with shifting. As I noted a few weeks ago, my trip up to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving seems to have gotten moisture into the cable line for my rear derailleur. This has been mostly fixed with liberal applications of WD-40. I say “mostly”, because down below about 15° F the problem re-emerges, and I’m then stuck with the three gears to which the front derailleur continues to give me access.

And that front derailleur apparently isn’t super pleased about its increased workload, and is showing some issues with wanting to stay in place, leaving me at times to ride with my left hand on top of the handlebar to keep it still. This is an oddly intermittent problem - I can, at times, reset it and get a couple of miles out of it, and then have it recur and I cannot get it to stay put. So far it’s not clear to me that it’s temperature related - I’ll likely investigate that further today.

If all of this sounds like complaining, I don’t intend it that way. While I may get a bit frustrated with it at times - suddenly, unexpectedly dropping from the middle to the small ring can be a bit jarring - mostly I think of it as representing part of the challenge to winter riding. With the increased cold-weather riding, I’m encountering - and learning about - how the cold affects the machinery, and what needs to be done to address those issues. It’s part of the challenge of winter riding.

This is, after all, part of what winter sports offer. It’s not just the opportunity to get exercise and enjoy nature, tho that is certainly a part of it. Winter sports presents with that additional challenge of contending with, facing, and (hopefully) succeeding at beating down what Old Man Winter presents us with.

Feeling Shiftless

It started on my Black Friday ride. I was rolling down the street to the trailhead, picking up a bit of speed, so I shifted up. And… nothing.

Feet spinning on the pedals just as quickly as they were a moment before, no additional effort, no additional speed. I clicked forward another notch and was rewarded with exactly the same I amount of nothing for my attempt.

When I reached the trailhead I stepped up off the trike, lifted the rear wheel off the ground a bit, and cycled thru the gears. Or, perhaps I should say, I attempted to cycle thru them. With each click the rear derailleur simply refused to move, as if to say “you know, it’s a national holiday - I want the day off”.

I was having this conversation with my derailleur - which speaks, of course, in a French accent, and periodically injects expressions like “mon dieu!” and “omelette du fromage” into the conversation - on the Ridgeway entry point to the Military Ridge Trail in Southwestern Wisconsin. After a year off due to the pandemic, we had returned to our tradition of gathering at my sister-in-law’s for the holiday. That tradition, for the past few years, has included bringing along my trike to ride this particular trail.

Looking more closely at what was going on, I could see that the shifter cable was not moving with the lever - it was, in fact, unseating and remaining behind when I moved it forward, sticking out the back side of the lever. And I was stuck on the lowest gear.

I looked back over the drive up to Ridgeway - a two and a quarter hour drive northwards from our Homestead - and remembered that, for much of it, we were driving thru varying levels of fine snowfall. For this trip, the trike had traveled on the roof of the Outback, the inside of what is usually the mobile trike garage being selfishly taken up by my wife and child and our personal paraphernalia (they are obstinately unwilling to ride on the roof).

Now, the trike has been snowed on while on the roof before - most notably on our last holiday trip up to Ridgeway in 2019. But in that case, it was overnight, while the trike was stationary, and it was a real snowfall - actual flakes, not the fine, misty-ish stuff we were encountering on the ride up this time. So, it seemed that the combination of the snow type, and the fact that we were driving thru it, conspired to drive moisture into the shifter line and freeze it up.

Having limited resources in the moment to do anything about it, I played with the front shifter and found that I could, in fact, move between the three front rings. So I resolved to proceed with a much more limited gear set - initially three, well spaced gears, but I also found that if I massaged the exposed portion of the rear shifter cable a bit at the lever I could sometimes get a single gear change out of it. So technically I was riding an occasional six-speed trike.

Military Ridge is a slow trail anyway - the surface is nominally crushed limestone, but one has to use one’s imagination to see where or when that limestone might have been placed. Sand is mostly the order of the day on this trail, solidified a bit by the freezing temperatures, but still very soft. Given that, lower gears are where I would have been in any case, so I decided to ride on.

I managed to make it from Ridgeway to the Blue Mound State Park entrance with this approach - a little over 9 miles in one direction, and of course I had to ride back. In fact, I had my highest average trike speed ever on this trail despite the gearing handicap. This owed to below-freezing temperatures hardening up the trail - on my previous adventures it was above that line on the thermometer, softening the trail and impacting progress. And it was those temperatures, and not the gearing issue, that actually got me to turn around at Blue Mound. I’d packed my cold weather gear based on my prior experiences here, and as a result my hands and feet were getting uncomfortably chilly.

When I got home I put the trike into the mobile trike garage and let the car run a little while to warm it up, and then stored both in the garage. Ahead of my next ride I got it out and ran thru the gears to test this, and it all shifted just fine. I figured the problem was resolved, and sure enough everything was fine for the next three rides.

Then, on ride four, the problem showed back up. As I tooled out of my driveway I shifted up and - you guessed it - nothing.

And looking back at those three prior rides, the ones that had assured me all was well? All of them were above freezing (seriously: 55° (F) in December in Northern Illinois? - I’m not complaining, but it is weird).

I popped on to the Winter Cycling group on Facebook, figuring that if any group of people would have encountered this issue, this would be it. Indeed, my request resulted in a number of suggestions, ranging from warming it up to using WD-40 to replacing the cable and housing to one gentleman’s tongue-in-cheek suggestion that I switch to wireless shifters.

I’d already tried warming it up, of course (which I did not mention in the post), and any glance through the maintenance-related posts herein will demonstrate that I’m always going to err towards the fix that gets me back on the road the quickest. And I always have WD-40 in the garage, so…

Thing is, it worked! I’ve had one below-freezing ride since (it’s still a weird December, and we are almost two-thirds of the way thru), and had access to all of my gears. I will probably eventually replace the cable - either take a shot at it myself or have the LBS do it at the next tune-up. But that’s a ways out yet. In the interim, I may consider bringing the can of WD-40 along with me for rides in case the problem recurs.