Saturday, June 21, 2008
A trike. We haz it. Sort of.
So The Clone decided she wanted a bike. A comfy, grown-up bike, not the kinds available here aimed at kids or sporty adults. Naturally, we went shopping on eBay.
You may recall I have a virtually unused wheeled eBay purchase of my own under wraps in the barn, a moped. I had chickened out trying to ride it because my knees threatened to walk off the job if I even THOUGHT about it hard. I had a vague plan to work on knee strength and come back, but it stayed in the planning stages...until I spotted the TRIKE!
It was only $269 including shipping! Being a trike, I could NOT fall off it and damage myself irreparably! So I could use it to go to the store and the PO and save money and strengthen my knee and get exercise! Naturally, we ordered it!
What I hadn't quite realized was that I would get so much of the exercise just doing the assembly. Like so many other things, bike mechanic-ing is a young person's game. If I ever have to get a job doing this, I want to be paid by the hour, not by the bike.
So far I have about six hours invested in the project. I have to take the blame for some of the delays, because a couple of times I put something on crooked, backwards or upside-down, and had to re-do it.
But part of THAT is due to the instructions. I think this trike's instructions take the prize for the WORST I have ever seen. Here they are, you tell me.
The corner bit tore off in the wind when we were first unpacking the box. Mike managed to catch the rest of the page, but he might as well not have bothered. There are three blurry illos and less than 100 words. That's it!
Luckily we had read the seller's feedback on eBay before ordering, so we had one of the secret tricks for success already planned. A company that makes a somewhat similar trike has assembly instructions available online for downloading and printing. Not an exact match, but it helped, especially considering where you have to start in the assembly process.
When I quit for the evening last night, I had assorted muscle strains and some pinched fingertips, but also a trike-shaped object. Today I plan to see if the air stayed in the tires, connect the hand-brake to the back wheels, do a final tightening up on all the nuts and bolts, and put on the fiddly bits -- the baskets, reflectors and the jingly bell!
I'll keep you posted!
You may recall I have a virtually unused wheeled eBay purchase of my own under wraps in the barn, a moped. I had chickened out trying to ride it because my knees threatened to walk off the job if I even THOUGHT about it hard. I had a vague plan to work on knee strength and come back, but it stayed in the planning stages...until I spotted the TRIKE!
It was only $269 including shipping! Being a trike, I could NOT fall off it and damage myself irreparably! So I could use it to go to the store and the PO and save money and strengthen my knee and get exercise! Naturally, we ordered it!
What I hadn't quite realized was that I would get so much of the exercise just doing the assembly. Like so many other things, bike mechanic-ing is a young person's game. If I ever have to get a job doing this, I want to be paid by the hour, not by the bike.
So far I have about six hours invested in the project. I have to take the blame for some of the delays, because a couple of times I put something on crooked, backwards or upside-down, and had to re-do it.
But part of THAT is due to the instructions. I think this trike's instructions take the prize for the WORST I have ever seen. Here they are, you tell me.
The corner bit tore off in the wind when we were first unpacking the box. Mike managed to catch the rest of the page, but he might as well not have bothered. There are three blurry illos and less than 100 words. That's it!
Luckily we had read the seller's feedback on eBay before ordering, so we had one of the secret tricks for success already planned. A company that makes a somewhat similar trike has assembly instructions available online for downloading and printing. Not an exact match, but it helped, especially considering where you have to start in the assembly process.
When I quit for the evening last night, I had assorted muscle strains and some pinched fingertips, but also a trike-shaped object. Today I plan to see if the air stayed in the tires, connect the hand-brake to the back wheels, do a final tightening up on all the nuts and bolts, and put on the fiddly bits -- the baskets, reflectors and the jingly bell!
I'll keep you posted!
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