The end of an era

After riding the trike for a few weeks, I had to admit to myself that I couldn't see it as my every day bike. Yeah, there are times its heaps of fun, but mostly it wasn't working for me. Carrying it up and down stairs. Lifting it up and down paths without ramps, or the ramp is just too narrow. Lifting it between bollards and other obstructions too narrow to pass. I missed being up higher and seeing further a head on the road. Looking up at truck and lifted 4x4s. I missed being able to walking and pushing my bike. The trike is made for riding, not pushing.  

Lots of angst about if to sell it or not. A coupled problem was how to move the caravan without the trike. Eventually I decided to rip the bandaid off and listed the trike for sale. Decision made. 

Sold it to a lovely couple that only ride trikes. It'll have many happy adventures with them.

The caravan as it is currently is at an end. I've been sleeping in it since December, and love it. I really don't want to part with it, but I can't keep it as it is. It was started when 500 watt ebikes were legal. Build decisions were based on the need to have solar on the roof for charging and a 48V charging system inside. With no ebike and now no trike, the caravan is just too heavy for me to shift with a pedal bike. 

I'm exploring options on what to do with it. 

I'll sell it as is, or just the cabin and keep the trailer to build a new cabin on top of, or worst case it all gets scrapped. I'm hoping to avoid that.  

Trike Riding!

Been feeling unsure about my caravan setup. I know people are using unpowered trikes with heavier caravans than mine. But reading about it and having your own working are two different things.

Despite having the trike for weeks now, I've hardly ridden it. With the hub gear it was insanely high geared. I couldn't pedal it up slight rises. As I was living at the bottom of a large hill, I only did a few circles on the road in front of the house.

I fitted a new rear wheel, with a 11-50 cassette. The bottom bracket needs to change to get 22,32,42 chainrings. Currently it's using 30,42,52. I also want to get a 12T on there for a quad chainring setup. Was waiting for that to get done before using it.

Today, decided that I needed to ride it to help settle some of my worries about using it with the caravan. I'll need to ride it next week to finish an adaptor for the caravan hitch. So after a bit of tuning it up, I took it for a ride to the shops. Chain isn't adjusted right yet, but I can access most gears. More than enough for day to day use.

Riding a trike is heaps of fun!

A new doubt: how long the derailleur is going to last. After the first few scraps, I take more care. But lots of uneven surfaces around here and it keeps getting hit.

New Wheels

 

Disaster struck: the ebike died. Rather than repair it, I decided to stop using an ebike all together.

Current state of affairs

 Been a while since the last blog post, but progress hasn't stopped. If anything it has been in a bit of a frenzy of late. The current state: caravan still not 100% finished, but I don't think it never will be. It'll be continual tinkering.

The painting is finished. Pin striping is on. The original tape didn't stick. I vastly underestimated how long spraying the stripes on would take. Though, it wasn't the spraying as the masking that took so long.

Pin stripes done

Electrical panel was wired up and installed. Solar panels mounted and connected.

I've been sleeping in it since 19th December. That day was a 40°C. The house (brick and timber) heated up and retained the heat. The caravan heated up with air temperature, but as it has zero thermal mass, as the sun went down and the air temp dropped, the caravan cooled. The house was much slower. It was cooler in the van. I do have a ventilation fan on one window, but just having the windows open was enough breeze to feel cool sleeping.

By sleeping inside it each night, I've opening/closing the door a lot. Some of the discoveries from this:

1. Three wheels would have been a better choice. Anything I can't reach from the open door, that needs me to step inside needs the back legs down. If I need anything from the front, the front legs need to go down too. Even for just putting them down once, there is an amount of fussing. I added a bubble level to help with leveling.
2. Two locks on the door got old fast. Two locks on the outside and two catches on the inside. The door needs it, but one would be much more user friendly.
3. The door opening upwards seemed a good idea. It does double as an awning when it showers. The door doesn't have support struts, but I do have some supports I can put under it to hold it up was an awning. But that doesn't happen as often as it is get in/get out, or open and get something in/out and close it again. I lift it enough to slip in/out from the side. Or if I need to get rummage a bit, it rests on my back as I do so. In the future I may redo the door to a barn door configuration with one lock.
4. I made the van a little too short. 30cm more would have been a bit cramped getting in and closing the door without being on the bed.
5. I thought I'd sleep with my head at the door end, but ended up liking the other way around. This meant the shelf that my feet were to go underneath was too low. I banged my head on it a few times. It was the first change next day: cut the shelf out and the repaint the wall. I've come to thinking that the shelving I have would be better as soft bags or nets hanging on the walls.
6. The bed is 630mm wide, but with the wheel wells and shelving beside it, there is no room to push off the sleeping bag to the side. The bed is effectively in a well. The sleeping bag is either stuffed to a side, pressing against my back or pushing over my legs/front, or, pushed to the end of the bed. Lately I found that stuffing it in a bag is better. Keeps it bundled up taking up less room even if its down where my legs are.
7. The electrical panel has a surprising amount of lights: blue, orange, green and red. So bright, I haven't needed an inside light. New to me the first night was that some of them flash. All night. I'd never noticed in the day, but at night, it's very noticeable. I'm still using the temporary fix of hanging a shirt over it each night. One day I'll make a better cover.
8. It seemed a good idea to have the electrical panel face the bed. Sit in bed, turn the switches on/off, see the voltage/current/power meters and plug in devices to the USB and cigarette lighter socket. Reality is that I don't need the switches very often. Most things have another switch closer to the business end, or it doesn't matter if they are turned on/off. eg. the ventilation fans, USB devices. I leave the fans on 24x7. The meters, I looked at often on the first few days, but rarely look at them now. The battery drain is so low, and I've so much solar, that even on overcast and rainy days, under the trees, the battery fully recharges. The UBS/cigarette access was a major pain point. I couldn't leave anything plugged in over night as the plugs in stuck into be bed space. Turning over could catch the lead or plug and break it. Anything plugged in really wanted to be on the bed. I still use the sockets when I'm awake, but I installed a cigarette lighter socket and USB plugs on the forward and backward sides of the panel for when I want to leave things plugged in over night. There is shelf space in front and behind to leave devices, rather than on the bed and the cables are out of the bed.
9. The roof was extremely loud in the rain. Light rain was okay, but heavier showers, it was unbearable. I'm parked underneath some trees and larger water drops drop from the branches. They manage to make a loud cracking sound. The raised solar panels are okay, so it was only the strip around them that was the problem. With testing, a piece of fabric is enough to break up the drops to deaden the noise. I wanted green velvet but type I got was too thin. I found a piece of cream corduroy. It works to deaden the noise, but I'm not sure if it will remain. I'll leave it on for now and monitor how the water drains and if it drys enough to not become mouldy.
10. The bed! So many problem with the bed. It was terrible for storage underneath. When I cut the original height down, I thought I was clever by making it 110mm high - the height of a tin of beans. I was thinking that tinned food could be also be the bed top supports. But too many things are taller than 110mm. So I had a storage problem for stuff I had planned on going under the bed. The bed creaked a lot. I laminated it with paper rather than fabric like the rest of the caravan foam. But the paper with glue/paint become very stiff and hard. No give at all. The polycarbonate bed top and floor creaked when it rubbed on them. I could have fixed this, but I made the base a tight fit between the wheel wells and shelving. More creaking points. and as the fit was so tight, no space to put anything to stop the rubbing. New bed base fixes all these and more.

New bed base under construction