Searching for an Electric Bike

Before I got my current commuter, I was considering getting an electric bicycle as an alternative... Since I tried cycling to school 3 days in a row last year, it certainly felt impossible to do it 5 days a week... 60km a day is pretty hard on the legs... And besides, if I really decided to buy one, it would become my primary means of transport...

So searching the web... I found what I think was the most suitable and good looking Electric Bike.


Behold the Tornado STA-1020 :

It has a range of 60km, which was exactly my commuting distance... And I was rather surprised that this was actually the E-bike with the longest range out of all that MKP had... The batteries were Lithium, which would mean a lighter bike, longer range and longer life. I want down to the Jurong branch and saw the actual bike, it looked good but the hefty price tag! $1299 I believe... Decent considering they come with warranty and other extras...

I eventually decided against it when I search the net and found I could "parallel import" one for about $800... And than proceeded to scrap the whole idea when I bought my current commuter. Who knows? Maybe in the future if the price tags drops...

And while searching for electric bikes in Singapore... Check out this:

I especially like the "Fusion" version... Although considerably heavier than the Carbon one...

V-brake wear on Wheelset

If you haven't heard, once of the disadvantages of running v-brakes is that the braking surface of your Wheelset, more specifically the Rims will be worn out after extended use.

This is especially true, if you constantly go offroad (debris like mud, sand acts like a file/sand paper wearing your rims down faster), don't know when to change brake pads, and just generally cover a lot of kilometres...
Most of which I am rather guilty... Except maybe about the distance!

Well than, take look for yourself:

I put a flat metal ruler to contrast the amount of metal that has been eaten away, my iPhone camera doesn't do much justice... But it's pretty significant and put a huge dent on my confidence on the wheels after I saw the damage, I even put a pretty big dent in the rims while offroad... Probably because the rims have gone weak and have lost some integrity.

Well thankfully I have upgraded to disc brakes! Ride safe all, it's good to be back writing again.

tags: v-brake wear, bontrager race 1999 v-brake wheelest

The TTT experience.

What do you do, when tomorrow is your long awaited Team Time Trials?
The one where you have been putting in the time to train ever 2 days, doing painful interval sprints, going all the way down to Changi Coastal just to ride a flat straight with no traffic lights, when gathering 3 other dedicated Team oriented team members to ride in that same straight line...

Okay, let me get to the point. You prepare! You take your Mum's weighing machine meant for measuring the very precise measurements needed to go into the mixture of flour and baking soda and whatever it is that you use to make cakes and use it to find our which bottle cage is lighter and use the lighter bottle cage for the race!

 

Not just the bottle cages actually, the bottle cage bolts I swapped out for lighter ones to, took out the chain stay protector, tweaked the aero bar position slightly and of course wiped the bike down for that showroom shine!

And so I rode down the the race venue, taking my time and treating the journey as a nice slow warm up, only to be passed by a elite looking time trial rider all pimped out with a full skin suit, aero helmet, rear disc wheel with those dizzy white and black spiral patterns leaving me slighty light-headed as he whooossed pass me.

As a reached the venue, and saw the pros warming up on trainers:



The atmosphere to me was eye opening, the difference in level between me and the pros were pretty big! The bikes all drool worthy, carbon everything! I was told a T3 carbon TT handlebar cost $654... That's more expensive than my whole bike! I was soaking it in and can't wait to start!

However, now that I think about it... I didn't see much media covering the event, just basically cyclists with cameras... Oh well...

A pretty refreshing sight were also the hand cyclists! Some had rear aero disc(s) too! Pretty hardcore!

 

Pictures Courtesy of dirtraction.com

I'm back from exams, expect more reading material!