Better off de-E'd

If it seemed my last post ended abruptly, or even if it didn't seem that way, it did. The good news is I did make it out the door and to physical therapy on time! And yet a whole, or mostly whole, new bike and very fews words about it aside from a bad pun on its name, I felt remiss to miss out on a few words of excitement: new bike!

After inspecting all the varied planes of the bike with road rash, I had a chance to ask Alexis how quickly the car was moving when the bike separated from it. It looked like it tumbled a bit. As I roughly expected, 60mph, but as I hadn't guessed, it happened twice! Oof, tough day, but while we love bikes, they are material things, and we can all be thankful no body was harmed.

The bike, however, it was hurt. The wide rear rack had protected a lot of parts on that end, but it showed its sacrifice. Off it went. The front wheel was folded over severely enough that the seam was separating. That held the hub motor, and Alexis retained the battery which also fit the replacement bike, so I continued depowering the machine to it's bare bicycle bones. Battery and motor need to coordinate with controls, with lots of wiring betwixt them. If you, like I, think internal cable routing is [insert explicative], internal wiring is no better, especially routed through a hole in the steerer tube, but I extracted everything except the lead off the crank sensor. For that, I need to pull the left crank arm.

Much like Hank Williams' bucket, the bike's downtube now has a hole in it, and it's a whole lot lighter! Heck, at that weight, I may not need the E, although yes, I'm pretty excited to salvage the hub and relace the rim with a small one to created the E-trailer of my dreams, and the voltage is even the same as the battery for my electric chainsaw! 

Back to the bike: after wintering on a singlespeed, and taking advantage of its reduced drivetrain parts suffering the the salt, I'm happily a shifty character again. Still, making do through varied terrain with one choice of gearing put the excesses of twenty-four in perspective. Really, there are three basic types of topography: uphill, flat, and downhill. The new bike's choice of three basic gears makes sense to me. Three speed internally geared hubs used to be popular, and while external drivetrains are now up to I-don't-know-how-many gears, and the industry has crammed eleven or more inside, the simple three speed soldiers on, and for good reason. Take a middle, flat, gear, then multiply it for another, downhill, gear. Now switch that multiplier to a divisor for a third, uphill, gear. Simple is good. I'm excited.

That three speed hub also wears a sticker reading, "silent clutch". It's also driven by a belt, and those receive raves for how quiet they are. I haven't truly experienced the hush yet as my only ride has been crunching the leaves of my unpaved access to the road and back, but, did you notice, RIDE!?! Yup, with a front wheel pirated from a mountain bike with the same 180mm rotor, I was able to ride the remnants. Heck, the front fork, with the fender removed, even, barely, clears the 2.2 inch tire!

Shocker, I like it. It's a bike, a three speed bike! With a little more work, and maybe even a spoke wrench, I can further reduce my urgency to replace the waffled rear rim. I'm quite certain I'll take it for a ride as is as soon as the roads are dry enough to suit it's de-fendered tires. I was tempted to do that yesterday, but my priority was to mountain bike before the rain arrived.

This post started with mention of PT.

It's working!

My arm is now limber enough

 to let me clear the bigger log, 

and bonus, 

recover quickly enough for the little one afterward!