Finally the weather warmed up again and the rain has stopped!
Ruth's daughter, Rachael, is in Ottawa visiting us, so we all decided to take advantage of the nice day and packed up a picnic lunch and headed out for a cycle to a local park. Ruth took her Catrike Trail and Rachael and I took the quadracycle.
This was Rachael's first time on the quadracycle, but she got the hang of the gears fairly fast and enjoyed the ride. We went down back streets and then finally via a paved pathway to get there. We parked the cycles next to our picnic bench and had our picnic lunch under the shelter. We actually didn't need the shelter as it was a little bit cool out of the sunshine and there was no rain in sight.
After lunch Ruth and Rachael tried out the playground equipment and I shot a video of that before we played some frisbee.
Rachael decided that the quadracycle was fun enough that we took the long way home via some more back streets, the local library, more parks and some further cycle pathways. By the time we got home we had covered 10.3 km.
I am sure we will get the quadracycle out again soon, perhaps for the Bike Sundays on the Colonel By Drive, once those start in a couple of weeks.
Already this has been an odd year for weather. In mid-March we had hot summer weather, with temperatures close to 30C, but it only lasted a few days. Since then it has been cool and quite wet, which has precluded getting the Rhoades Car out of the garage.
This weekend though the temperatures have warmed up a bit reaching 15C by early afternoon. Ruth said, "let's get the quadracycle out" and so we did a milk run (literally) down to Giant Tiger for milk. All it took was some air in the tires and it was ready to go.
The ride was only 6 km round trip, but it was a good start to the season at least.
I had forgotten just how much attention the quadracycle gets when we ride it down the street and today was no exception, which lots of little kids saying "Looky mom..." We spend a lot of time waving to people.
Hopefully we will get a chance to get the quadracycle out a bit more this summer and perhaps even take it downtown on the Biking Sundays. Those are always fun to do.
This fall has been incredibly warm and mostly fairly dry. For instance yesterday, 14 November 2011, hit +18C, which is almost "summer-like". While the weather is certainly enjoyable, from a climate change perspective it is unnerving.
So, disconcerting as it is, at least we have been taking advantage of the weather while we can. I have been mostly down sick since Thanksgiving, due to an intestinal bug that just won't quit, but with some antibiotics it now has receded enough to let me get outside for a while.
So with today a pleasant +12C Ruth and I decided to get out and do some quadracycling. We just went for a 15 km local ride, for the fun of it, pedaling around our local neighbourhood streets. We even detoured around some local recreational pathways, which were thankfully devoid of dogs on a weekday.
The trip went fine, with no mechanical issues and a a number of people waved to us, as we often find on our unusual vehicle. At least it almost always gets positive responses!
Back at home we took advantage of the quadracycle being out of the garage to give the garage a sweep out and at least remove last summer's dust and the autumn's leaves. The quadracycle may not get used again so we gave it a good oiling - chains, axle and steering rod so it will stay rust free all winter. Ruth carefully cleaned the seats. Then it was put away.
We may get a chance to get the quadracycle out again this winter if the weather continues to stay warm, but as soon as the snow falls it will be away until spring. The City of Ottawa pours salt all over everything all winter, just on general principle, and that would rust out bikes all out, so they stay safely away until spring returns. Besides that, snow means skiing instead of cycling!
Today we got the quadracycle out of the back of the garage where it has been sitting since I replaced the driver's side rear chain in the beginning of May and we took it for a real run of about 7 km. The trip was literally a "milk run" to Giant Tiger to buy 8 litres of milk, an easy load for the quadracycle!
This time everything worked fine, including the new SRAM chain and we enjoyed the ride in the morning stillness around the quiet post-rush hour streets. It is impossible to beat the side-by-side quadracycle seating for the chance to get some exercise pedaling and chat with your companion while doing it.
Once again this year we haven't been using the quadracycle as much as we had wanted to. There are a number of reasons for this, including that it has been rather wet so far this summer, Ruth's health and also, with the quadracycle in the back of the hangar (garage) getting it out means removing everything else in the garage first. A two car width garage would be a better solution! The fact that Ruth loves her Catrike so much also contributes to the lack of use of the quadracycle; as fun as the quadracycle is Ruth prefers Catriking when she can.
Regardless of the excuses, now that the weather seems to be drying out hopefully we can get the quadracycle out a bit more often.
We recently heard from Aaron Rosenzweig, who lives with his family in Maryland, USA. Aaron noticed a problem, that some of the very best quadracycle designs are made in places like the Netherlands and yes, China, but there are no North American dealers or importers, so it is hard to get one. Because Aaron has a young family and would like a quadracycle to get around with he decided to address this problem.
It seems that the sea shipping for large items like quadracycles is based on container space and you pay to ship a container, regardless of what is in it. A container can hold 20 quadracycles and so if you can collect that many orders then the shipping costs per quadracycle are greatly reduced. Sounds simple, but this requires someone to organize it, which is where Aaron got involved.
Aaron's solution was to start a small enterprise to collect names of people interested and when he has 20 for each model then put in an order, get it filled and delivered. At present he is doing just that - collecting names for his first orders.
To simplify things further Aaron has settled on ordering two models of quadracycle. The one from the Netherlands is the Quattrocycle an amazingly well-engineered vehicle offered in two and four seat models with additional child seating that can be added. Aaron says "Without question the Quattrocycle is the best family cycle ever devised. Its price reflects this fact but, wow, what a bike!" It costs US$4,595 delivered, but has amazing features like full off-road suspension (are you listening Rhoades Car?), great ground clearance and recumbent Textilene seating.
The Chinese one is the Guangxin GX01 which looks a lot like the old out-of-production ZEM, a good solid quadracycle for four, at a reasonable price US$3,295 delivered.
Aaron isn't really aiming to make money from this, as he has a day job as a government foundation software developer, he just wants to get a bunch of families out of their cars and into pedal-powered transportation, which sounds like a laudable goal. Give the price of gasoline and where it is going, this project should sell itself. The fact that you get some couple or family time together out in the fresh air getting some exercise is a bonus!
If you are interested have a read though his well-laid out website where he explains what he is doing and introduces the models he wants to import. You can also sign up for a quadracycle if you like. No down payment is required until he has 20 people signed up for each model and is ready to place the order.
The month of April this year was very wet and very cool as well. Even here in early May the weather has not warmed up yet. Today we made it to just 15C. Ruth has a plan to build a solar oven to use this summer. We have already made a cardboard model that works somewhat, but she has her heart set on creating a real solar oven out of wood and glass. That, plus the somewhat not-as-cold-as-it-could-have-been day today gave us a reason to go out around the neighbourhood, to look for yard sales and the chance to pick up some glass cheap.
The quadracycle was the obvious choice for this venture as, if we found some glass or even a complete window frame, we could easily take it home in a bin on the back of the quadracycle.
Due to the weather we hadn't had the vehicle out at all this year yet, so I rolled it out into the driveway in the mid-morning cool air, pumped up the Schwalbe Big Apple tires to 60 psi and oiled the chains. I checked it over and it all looked good to go. We made up a plan of geographic areas to cover and set off, but we didn't get far. Just two kilometres from home we stopped at a stop sign. Then when it was our turn to go, I accelerated, heard a quiet pop and lost all drive on my side. Ruth got us around the corner, we pulled over and found a broken left rear chain. The link was popped open and the rivet was gone.
I took out the old rubber gloves, packed up the chain in a plastic bag and Ruth pedalled us slowly home. I wasn't impressed. Once back home we rolled out our Catrikes and completed the trip at high speed, but without finding any yard sales. It was too early in the year, I suppose.
After lunch I had a close look at the chain. It didn’t look too badly worn at all. I measured 24 links at 12.5 inches. My bike repair manual says that test should be under 12 inches. So I took out my old Norco Alpine mountain bike and transported the chain up to our local bike shop, Rebec and Kroes, for their expert opinion. Their opinion was that it was past its "best before date", worn beyond limits. They asked me how many kilometres were on it, but I wasn't sure. I doubt there are more than 1000! They suggested that perhaps the quadracycle is stressful on chains. That is possible, as it certainly was stressful on SunRace derailleurs! Regardless they sold me a new SRAM chain.
So I took the chain home, put on my coveralls and decided to take the easy way out and propped the quadracycle up against the wall, padding the bumper on a piece of carpet. That worked very well and made it easy to inspect the whole underside, as well as easily change the chain. A few minutes later the quadracycle was back on the road and tested just fine.
Now we should be able to get out on the May long weekend and check the yard sales. Maybe Ruth will find her piece of glass?
My only worry now is about the other three chains!
We normally don't do much writing about quadracycling in March. More usually at this time of year we are out skiing!
Last year we didn't use our Rhoades Car very often, preferring the speed and agility of our Catrikes instead. At the end of the season Ruth suggested selling the Rhoades Car to free up some garage space. The fact that we now have a small bike trailer to haul heavier items in even further reduced the need for the quadracycle. Initially I agreed, thinking that if we weren't going to use it we should pass it onto someone who will use it more. But then I considered that we aren't out of room and the quadracycle doesn't cost more than insurance money to own each year.
I have to admit that ever since Rhoades Car refused to pay us for the commission sale we made, without explanation, I have been less charitably disposed to their products, but ours works fine, requires very little maintenance and that doesn't add up to a very good reason to sell it.
So I talked it over with Ruth and we have agreed to hang onto the quadracycle for another year and see if we can't get more use out of it. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we will have a relatively dry summer to do some cycling in this year. We have some plans for some longer Catriking trips, but hopefully we can get the quadracycle out on the Colonel By Drive, which is really great fun!
I have been working on some old video clips recently to create some new movies out of them and we now have some better Rhoades Car videos as a result. This is probably good as CBC seems to have deleted the old video documentary that they did on our quadracycle.
Here are the new quadracycling movies made from older clips:
and we also recently made a movie from new footage shot on The Colonel By Drive on 4 July 2010.
We have also added these to our links and home page so they will be easy to find.
Today was our first time out on the Colonel by Drive this year on our Rhoades Car. Over the past three summers since we got our quadracycle we usually made it out on the opening day of the Alcatel-Lucent Bike Days, which is the Sunday of the Victoria Day weekend in May. It wasn't that we haven't been out on the Colonel By Drive, just not with the quadracycle.
Since last fall when we picked up our Catrikes we have really come appreciate their speed and ease of hill-climbing, they allow us to cover much more ground in a day's cycling. This past Friday, 2 July 2010, we did an 80 km Catrike-trip to Kanata and back on the trail network and it was easy work! We have become kind of "catrike-spoiled" recently.
However after our long trip on Friday, for Sunday Ruth suggested that we take the Rhoades Car out for a longer run. I was glad that she suggested it. As much fun as the Catrikes are, the Rhoades Car has some advantages, too. For one thing the seating position is higher up, giving a better view. We have no qualms about taking the quadracycle into shopping mall parking lots, something I won't do with my Catrike. Speed bumps are easy with the Rhoades Car and it is high enough that you are safer with the parking lot car traffic, too.
The Rhoades Car is definitely slower. With both of us pedalling on flat ground we can cruise at about 24 km/hr with the Rhoades Car. My Catrike Speed can do about 34 km/hr without a lot of effort under the same conditions.
The Rhoades Car definitely excels in two other areas over the Catrike. The first is load carrying, as we use it to haul all our heavy loads that a Catrike can't handle, from computers to hundreds of pounds of topsoil. The other is plain sociability. The quadracycle's side-by-side seating is unbeatable for just travelling and chatting as you ride, something that is quite difficult while riding separate bikes or trikes.
The weather was perfect for our run today, warm and sunny with some cloud to give us a bit of shade now and then. The traffic on the Colonel By Drive seemed a bit lighter than in past years, but perhaps we just beat the crowds out the door? There were a fairly good number of cyclists, skaters and runners on the route. The skateboarders all seemed to be still in bed though.
The route is very scenic as it runs along the historic Rideau Canal, with lots of boats plying its locks on this holiday weekend. The grass and trees have been well-watered this summer and were lush and green, but not over-watered like last year with its record rainfall.
We decided to take the opportunity of such a great day to shoot a two minute video of our trip, just to give a taste of what the biking Sundays are like here in Ottawa. For the uninitiated the National Capital Commission bans motorized vehicles from 0900-1300 on all the parkways on Sundays in the summer and opens them up to all non-motorized ways of getting around. We just wish they would make it permanent, so we could use the routes every day for cycling!
It seems that this year we are using our Rhoades Car more as a utility vehicle and less for recreation than we have in past years. The reason is pretty clear for this change, too - our Catrikes are more fun to ride for fun, speed and distance trips, while the Rhoades Car is a much better load hauler. So that is what we have been using it for - hauling loads.
So far this season the quadracycle has carried computer equipment a number of times, with monitors, towers and keyboards stuffed into bins and cargo strapped down on the back deck. It handles these loads with ease.
Today it was our annual gardening trip. Over the past three springs we have needed to go and retrieve gardening supplies without a car. That left us with the option of taxis or pedal power, so naturally we opted for the latter solution.
I must admit that our garden is very low maintenance, having no grass to fret over. Instead we have low-growing junipers and after a number of years they have spread pretty much over the whole garden, covering everything. We get lots of compliments on them, but really they are no work at all, they just grow and look nice. So this year we didn't need much, just a couple of bags of topsoil for potting plants and a couple of bags of bark mulch for the backyard to fill in where the old mulch has rotted away.
Conveniently both these types supplies are available this year at Wal-Mart South Keys, not far at all from where we live. This left it a very short trip to go and retrieve the four bags, pedal home and deposit them on the garden.
The quadracycle remains a great load hauler and we seem to mostly use it as a pick-up truck, leaving our trikes as our sports cars. It all adds up to an environmentally friendly way to get tasks done and it keeps us in good shape along the way.
The weather has been exceptionally warm for this time of year - warmer than we would normally expect form a month from now. Today was +15C and as you might guess from that what little snow we got this winter has almost gone. We had a good rainfall on the past weekend that washed away all the excess salt that the city dumps on the roads, making it possible to get out cycling without rusting our bikes.
Since we got our Catrikes last fall we have been using them more for recreational cycling and using our Rhoades Car 4W2PCP for hauling loads and other utility purposes. Given that, our first run of 2010 was appropriately a load-hauling trip that we couldn't have done any other way, except by automobile.
It is a bit of a complex story, but it starts with our volunteer work at Computers for Communities (C4C), an organization that takes old computers, refurbishes them and installs Ubuntu Linux on them for community organizations and other worthy causes. C4C doesn't normally donate computers to individuals, leaving that up to organizations that C4C supplies PCs to. The problem was we know someone who could really use a PC, so we pooled up our volunteer hours at C4C and traded them in for enough parts to make up a pretty good PC system.
I put the PC together at one C4C workshop day and installed Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala on it. We didn't have internet access in the workshop that day, so I couldn't finish the job of downloading all the updates and required applications. Because we bus it to C4C we had the boss deliver the PC to our house one day this past week when he was in our neighbourhood so we could hook it up to the internet and complete the configuration. That went well, but left us with no way to deliver it to its final destination, since there was about 75 pounds of equipment to move 3 km and we are car-free.
Ruth suggested using the quadracycle, since we only had to move it about 3 km and since the temperatures were warm enough to be out cycling and the roads are now free of salt we thought that would be ideal. Geting the equipment into the bins proved to be a challenge, but it sort of fit, just. With lots of cargo straps we hoped the load would stay in place and not shift on us. We tied it down as tightly as we dared and headed out in the middle of the afternoon.
I have to admit it was nice to be pedalling the quadracycle once again after the winter non-ski season. The trip went smoothly, with no traffic problems and we covered the distance quicker than I thought we would. We had to slow down for some speed bumps in the destination parking lot, but we pulled up on the lawn there, unloaded the goods and locked the quadracycle to a tree for safe-keeping while we set up the PC in its new home. Two hours later we were on our way back to our house with the job pretty much completed. As usual there were many people about, including lots of kids, who must have never seen a quadracycle, as we got lots of surprised looks and friendly waves.
I am sure that in 2010 we will be hauling lots more heavy loads on our Rhoades Car, after all it will soon be time to get into cleaning up the gardens and that will probably mean more bark mulch and potting soil to retrieve. The Sunday bike days will start with the May long weekend, too and even though we will be taking our trikes on many of those I am sure that our quadracycle will out for that run at least once this summer.
Here we are in the depths of the Canadian winter, but at least someone is thinking about cycles and cycling. I just received a note from our Lethbridge correspondent, Gordon Koppang, pointing out a new and interesting quadracycle design he came across.
Called the Animas Quadracycle, it was designed and patented by American Greg Fisher and features really strong suspension and a rear wheel differential. This all adds up to a quadracycle that is pretty quick on the road and also has a very good off-roading capability.
Judging from the blurbs it looks like Fisher is looking to licence his patent to a manufacturer to produce it. I would like to wish him luck in that endeavour as the currently fragmented, over-served and very small market for quadracycles is hard to introduce a new model into right now, especially given the global economic conditions. Of course with the price of oil set to rise, perhaps the market for pedal-powered vehicles is set to expand? One can only hope.
Salt or not, yesterday definitely put an end to the cycling season here in Ottawa, as we received an official measure of 22 cm of snow. There was probably even more at our house, close to 30 cm, so we spent a good part of the day shovelling.
At one point I saw a teen trying to ride his mountain bike in the road, but the depth of snow made it impossible for him to get started. It took him over five minutes to make it out of the street, mostly walking it, while astride the bike. I have never thought two-wheeled bikes were a good idea on snow and ice - they tend you go down very quickly on slippery surfaces and I have met a number of cyclists who have been injured that way.
So quadracycling season is definitely done for this year. The good news is that ski season seems to have arrived early, with lots of snow and no above freezing temperatures in the forecast for the next while. It is great when the "in-between season" is short and doesn't leave us without cycling or skiing for months!
Yesterday brought the first significant snowfall to Ottawa. Well when I say "significant" I mean that when we got up in the morning there was a light dusting of snow, amounting to about 1 mm in ground cover.
Of course, undaunted, the City of Ottawa sent its trucks through the city overnight and dumped thousands of tons of salt over all the roads and sidewalks. We later went out for a walk and found that there was hardly any snow and even where it wasn't salted that it wasn't slippery in the least. However most surfaces were covered in salt, an inch deep in places.
If you think I have a problem with salt you are right. The city keeps destroying the environment each winter, killing the plants, salinating the rivers and lakes, all so that city residents can avoid learning how to drive in the winter. It is an ecological disaster all motivated by pure laziness. I hope I will live long enough to see an end to this nonsense, but I don't hold out much hope.
Anyway, not wanting to see our cycles disappear in a pile of corrosion, we have put away them for the winter, to not reappear until the spring rains wash the tons of salt into the sewer system and thence into the Ottawa River, turning it into a salt ocean.
Last year the quadracycling season was done by 25 November, as the snow came and stayed, but this year, while it has been rainy, the weather has been mostly free of snow so far. It has been cool though; today it just made it to +4C by 3 pm.
Since this was the warmest day in the forecast for the next week and since there is a serious snowfall in the offing for the middle of next week, I thought I would get the Rhoades Car out for a solo run this afternoon, before the sun set.
Cycling of any type isn't that hard in these conditions. The roads are bare and dry and the sun was out, although the shadows were getting long. The high of +4C was one degree warmer than forecast and there wasn't much wind to worry about. The main trick is to know that you will be creating your own windchill and just dress for it. I went for three layers, including a top layer consisting of a fleece-lined windbreaker. I didn't want to forego the bike helmet, but to keep the ears from getting cold a pair of earmuffs worked well with the helmet. Skiing gloves finished the requirements and actually out on the road I was quite warm once I got going.
It was late in the day so I didn't got far, opting to just take the quadracycle around the local streets a bit. Solo riding the Rhoades Car 4W2PCP is easy enough - it handles very well, with no tippy sensations at all. You have to provide all the horsepower yourself, but then again you are lighter than with two people on board, so it works out nearly the same as having two pedalling.
After a few kilometers I was warmed up and working pretty hard on the upslopes and could feel the blood pumping well, warming me up. I had to unzip the jacket a bit. Quickly the light was failing, so I headed home. The last stretch along the main road is slightly downhill, which gives a nice speed boast on the final run and provides the ability to zip into the quiet backstreet without much effort.
Putting the quadracycle away, I wondered if I would get another trip in this year. It is hard to tell, if the snow, and the salt that always goes along with it, holds off then I will be out again soon.
Total quadracycling for 2009 so far - 353 km
Effective today we are no longer Rhoades Car agents.
Back in early 2007, when our Rhoades Car 4W2PCP was delivered, we signed up as factory agents. They offered a simple plan: refer potential customers to the company and if the new customer purchases a Rhoades Car then we earn a commission on the sale.
In early June 2009 we made a sale and, despite inquiries, the company has never paid us our commission.
Even here in the "in-between season" we get some nice days and this was one of them. This afternoon the sun was shining and the temperature exceeded the forecast of 6C, hitting 8C instead. The breeze was out of the south, always a good sign at this time of year.
I knew this good weather wouldn't last, as there is a major storm on the way for tomorrow, although it will be bringing rain, not snow, so says Environment Canada. That made it a priority today to get out for a short quadracycle ride today, as well as get things ready for winter.
Ruth has been house-bound this week, her MS has flared up and that has made walking very difficult. She has been cheerfully crocheting Christmas gifts, but after a few days on the couch I thought she could use some fresh air. I got the quadracycle out of the garage and helped her to her seat and we went for a ride of about 5 km. With her legs not working she wasn't doing any pedalling, but then that is one of the great advantages of the two seater, even with only one person to pedal you can still go. She enjoyed the ride, even if it is cooler to not be doing any pedalling.
When we got home I helped her get to the house front steps and she watched as I lubed all four chains and the steering rod and rear axle on the Rhoades Car. Looking at the forecast we may not have the chance to get it out again until spring, so it is all ready for a few months of sitting in the garage.
Total quadracycling for 2009 so far - 350 km
Ontario always has an in-between season in the fall.
Usually the summers are warm and dry, although with climate change now, they tend to be cooler and wetter in recent years, in other words spring lasts until August. Once spring is done we have a good cycling season of dry weather, which slowly and seamlessly transitions into early fall. In that season the temperatures are cooler, in the low-teens Celsius and the weather is usually dry, although there are more cloudy days.
Eventually we will have winter, the season of snow, when the recreational activity is skiing, not cycling. It is true that there are hardy souls in Ottawa who cycle all winter, dealing with icy roads, out-of-control car drivers who can't see you because they don't clean their windshields of ice and snow and the problem of rusted and corroded cycles from all the salt dumped on the roads. We park our cycles in the winter for those reasons.
But before we get to winter and the ski season, we have to get through this in-between season, and here, at the beginning of December, that is what we are currently experiencing. This season features rain and snow falling, often together, temperatures near zero, cold windy days and overcast skies. The wind is usually northerly and when it is in your face it threatens of ice coming. It is not a friendly summer-type of breeze.
As I have mentioned, there are hardy people here who keep cycling at this time of year and even through the snows of winter, but for us it isn't worth the risks of the corrosion to our bikes. In the winter we walk and ski. In the early fall we do lots of cycling as, with its cooler temperatures, it is often the best time of year for cycling, but here in the in-between season there is neither cycling nor skiing. It is a time for waiting for the season to get on and change.
We installed a set of four Schwalbe Big Apple 20" X 2.35" tires tires on our Rhoades Car back on 16 April 2009 and with winter nearly here, we have now just about completed a whole season on them. As a result Gordon Koppang prompted me to take this opportunity to write a bit about the Big Apples.
As I wrote previously, the Big Apples replaced our factory-supplied Cheng Shin 20" X 2.125" tires, which we had used for two seasons. The Cheng Shins are okay as tires go, but they are slower and make more noise than the Big Apples. Really the only advantage that the Cheng Shins have for on road use is that they are doubtlessly cheaper for the factory to install than Schwalbes, which are a German-made high-end cycle tire.
Our ratings of the Schwalbes have not seriously changed since the first impressions. After about 330 km on them this season they are taller, faster, give a smoother ride, better cornering and less road noise when going straight and especially when cornering. They also offer better shock absorption, even inflated to 50 psi, versus 35 psi for the Cheng Shins. Other than the price of Cdn $43.50 each, they are superior to the Cheng Shins in all respects.
Our good experiences with the Schwalbes on our Rhoades Car have spilled over into our Catrike experiences. My Catrike Speed came with one rear Schwalbe Stelvio slick tire and two front Greenspeed Scorcher slicks that were pretty much worn out. After our good experiences with the Schwalbes on the Rhoades Car I had no hesitation in ordering the OEM tire for the Catrike Speed, 16" X 1.125" Schwalbe Kojaks to replace the Scorchers when they started showing cloth. It is worth noting that Ruth's Catrike Trail came with OEM-supplied 20" X 1.5" Schwalbe Marathon Racers all around and Ruth is very happy with these tires, too. We have had nothing but good experiences with all the Schwalbes on our cycles.
It is too bad that Rhoades Car don't offer the Big Apples as at least an option. Personally if I were manufacturing quadracycles I would be using the Schwalbe Big Apples as OEM equipment, because they are a superior tire and make your product ride smoother and faster, which makes a better impression on the purchaser, than using low-end tires. Of course I would also use Shimano dérailleurs instead of SunRace ones, but that is another story.
To anyone buying a Rhoades Car I would say, leave the factory tires on there for a while and, when it comes time to replace them in a few years, or if you find you want a bit more speed and a lot less noise then get a set of Big Apples. The difference is worth the price.
Here it is, the third week in November and we are still out quadracycling, which is pretty good!
We went out for a run after lunch today, when the day has warmed up to its forecast high or +7C. The sun was shining, so it didn't feel too bad out cycling in this weather, especially after a wet weekend. The weather at this time of year has varied greatly in the past number of years. Thanks to climate change you never know what you are going to get. It can be mild, warm and sunny or it can be wet or even snowy, putting an end to the season. You have to take the weather you get and if it is nice, get out cycling.
Today we decided to go for a ride around the local area and go past Giant Tiger to pick up some more soup. With the H1N1 flu virus in full swing you can never have too much soup in the house. As usual I waited in the parking lot with the quadracycle, while Ruth went inside. I spent the time giving the vehicle a clean-up as it was a bit dusty. I had carefully picked a parking spot in the sunshine and I was pleasantly warmed while I waited for her return. We even had one couple drop by to ask questions, something you get quite used to when you drive a quadracycle.
With the shopping done we headed home, but it was too nice out to go straight home, so we took a detour. The nearby housing development at Deerfield Village finally had its streets given their last layer of asphalt, so we cycled around the neighbourhood and enjoyed their new, smooth blacktop. We even quadracycled on their recreational pathways, now strewn with dead leaves.
Finally we made it home, unpacked the groceries and put the quadracycle away in the garage. The rest of this week looks fairly similar to today for weather, sunny and cool, with no snow in the offing. So perhaps we will get some more rides in before the ski season starts up.
Total quadracycling for 2009 so far - 344 km
We have both had a busy week and a half, doing lots of cycling recently. The continuing great weather has been wonderful for all outdoor activities - no rain and fairly warm, but not hot, temperatures.
On 20 August Ruth took a test drive on a Catrike tadpole-style recumbent tricycle and decided to order a Catrike Trail model from the local dealer Les Bicyclettes de Hull. She wanted me to order one, but on 9 September 2009 I found a used Catrike Speed model for sale in the area and bought that. Going out to see it involved a 50 km round trip on my mountain bike - easier than taking the bus to the far reaches of Aylmer, Quebec! I put in 20 km bringing the Speed home from Westboro, where I was able to pick it up. Since then I have done a number of trips on it and have a good feel for its speed, handling and load carrying capabilities.
Ruth's Catrike Trail arrived on Tuesday 15 September. Ruth got the call from Les Bicyclettes de Hull that her order had arrived, had been assembled and was ready for pick-up. She took the bus up there and I rode my Catrike Speed there to be able to ride home with her. That was a 45 km trip.
Since then we have done more trips together and individually, getting used to the Catrikes and what they can do, as well as tweaking and adjusting things, installing racks and saddle bags for carrying gear on the road. We have also done some quadracycle trips, mostly getting groceries and hauling loads home.
The first question many readers may ask is "are we selling our quadracycle?". The answer to that is "no". When we got our Rhoades Car in early 2007 we knew it would not entirely replace our mountain bikes and in a similar manner the Catrikes don't replace the quadracycle. They all do different things for us.
The Rhoades Car is comfortable and carries a good load, but isn't very fast. Also its width restricts it from NCC bike pathways. Our biggest load carried to date was 280 lbs of top soil - something you can't do with many other cycles. Our longer trips turn in consistent average speeds of 15 km/h. It also has the advantage of side-by-side seating, which is much more friendly and enables both people to carry on a conversation easily while pedalling. It makes a great pick-up truck.
The Catrikes are definitely fast - I can cruise mine at 30 km/h without too much effort on a flat road and get 35 km/h out of it with a bit of work. They are both also very comfortable to ride. With my two saddlebags installed I can carry a few items up to about 30 or 40 lbs total weight. They are both very much road bikes and do best on very smooth surfaces. The handling is very light and they are very manoeuvrable, very much like a sports car. They are also light weight, my Speed is just 29 lbs basic weight weight. When we are out together it is quite different from being out on the Rhoades Car - we are almost always in single file and that means that it is hard to communicate, unless we stop for a break. Still her Catrike Trail does give Ruth some mobility when her balance is off, which is often the case these days. Also, unlike the four-wheeled quadracycle, her Catrike can be electrically motorised legally in the future and turned into an e-bike, if need be. We have started a diary of our Catriking experiences.
Our mountain bicycles are still useful for off-roading and taking routes that require an upright bike. They aren't fast - my long distance speed usually turns out to be about 22 km/h, but they are all-terrain. They can also do something that neither the Rhoades Car nor the Catrikes can do: hop over curbs.
So our garage is getting to be full of cycles of various types, but they all add up to complimentary solutions to getting around without a car. I have to say each one is a lot of fun in its own right!
Total quadracycling for 2009 so far - 322 km
Climate change is weird - you certainly never know what you will get for weather from one year to the next.
This year we had the wettest month ever recorded in Ottawa and that was July! So far September has not only been very dry, but has proven warmer than July was. In fact September is about to set its own record, as the longest rain-free period ever recorded in Ottawa. Essentially it is like summer started after the first week of August!
Of course that did work out well for our end-of-August camping trip to Sandbanks Provincial Park and it has also worked out well for quadracycling and most other outdoor activities, too.
Today was one of these beautiful days we have been having - it reached 22C in the late afternoon, with a bit of wind following a dry cold frontal passage overnight last night. With the Alcatel-Lucent Bikedays over for the year, we decided to head out and do a local quadracycle trip around the neighbourhood for about 14 km, in the mid-morning. We departed just after 1030 when the temperature was a respectable 19C, not warm with the wind, but nice cycling weather. We stopped in at a local shop to pick up some groceries for lunch on the way home and I sat in the shade of a tree with the quadracycle while Ruth went shopping for vegetables. I even answered a few questions from passers-by about the Rhoades Car.
So far the rest of the month is forecast to have highs in the mid-teens and very little rain. In this part of the country we sometimes get Atlantic hurricane remnants coming through here, dumping huge amounts of rain on us, but this year has been very quiet for hurricanes, just like every year since 2005. I think we will have to take advantage of this late-arriving summer while we can, because the onset of winter has proven equally hard to predict. In the winter of 2006-07 we had no snow until mid-January and that meant a late season cycling instead of early skiing. In 2007-08 the snow was on the ground on 25 November.
I think the only strategy is to "make hay while the sun shines" or "cycle while you can".
Total quadracycling for 2009 so far - 316 km
One of the sure signs that fall is almost here is the end of the Alcatel-Lucent Sunday Bikedays on the city's NCC parkways. This occurs every year on the Labour Day weekend, but for us it always seems too soon.
To my mind, at least in the last two years, the end of bikedays has come far too early. This year July was incredibly wet and in fact set a record for the wettest month ever recorded in the city. Summer really didn't get going in earnest until early August, leaving us with just four weeks of bikedays before everything is ended at Labour Day. If it were up to me I would extend the bikedays until Thanksgiving, as this seems to be the period when the best, or at least driest, weather happens. Of course if it were up to me I would just close the Colonel By Drive to motorized traffic permanently and make it a bike-commuter route to downtown!
Today started off a bit cool. We left at 0845 when the official temperature was 11C. By the time we got home again at 1130 it was 17C. With light winds and sunshine it was actually perfect biking weather - not too hot or too cold at all.
The run went flawlessly this time. We made it to the University of Ottawa in good time, made our way through the campus, paying attention to the new "pedestrian-only" mall signs and went to the Second Cup on Laurier for morning coffee break. The university was thick with new and returning students getting ready to start classes on Tuesday. It is the one time of year when you can see fresh young faces, all carrying their favourite pillows to their new life in residence. There were a few tears too, but I am not sure if that was due to separation anxiety or due to the tuition fee increases this year.
On the Colonel By Drive itself there was not all that much bike and roller skate traffic. I think the cooler temperatures dissuaded some people from coming out early. As usual we got lots of waves and positive comments on the quadracycle. The little kids especially seem enthralled by it when we ride by - "Lookit mommy, I want one."
It is always sad to do the last bikeday, as it means that summer is coming to an end soon. Fortunately we will still have at least a couple of months of cycling here in Ottawa before the snow puts an end to the season. We will just be out quadracycling on the streets and other routes, instead of on the parkways on Sunday mornings.
Total quadracycling for 2009 so far - 304 km
Ruth has been doing pretty well with her balance for much of the summer of 2009 and so we have been doing some more trips on our mountain bikes. We have also been doing some quadracycling and the contrast in uses shows where each vehicle's strengths are.
Yesterday the weather forecast was free of rain and so we planned an ambitious round trip of about 54 km from our house near South Keys to Lac Leamy and back. Lac Leamy is a beach in the heart of Gatineau, Quebec, near the casino of the same name. We planned to take a picnic lunch and lots of water as the temperature was forecast to reach 25C. The trip lent itself to bicycling for two reasons:
* We didn't need to carry much, so the pick-up truck capabilities of the quadracycle were not required.
* The route is not open to quadracycles.
The route was the key thing. It starts out on roads north to Mooney's Bay, but from there we are much better off on bike pathways, rather than the roads on a workday, with all the traffic that entails. The NCC's recreational pathways vary in width a lot and overall are too narrow for the quadracycle.
The route was the pathway parallel to the Colonel By Drive, over the Corktown Bridge and then down the western pathway to the bottom of the canal locks. Then traverse the top of the last lock to reach the pathway on the eastern side, up the pathway and onto the Alexandra bridge with its bike pathway. Carrying the 160 lb quadracycle over the canal was a non-starter! From there the route followed NCC recreational pathways all the way to Lac Leamy. An easy biking route, but not possible by quadracycle.
With some scenic lookouts and dawdling over lunch at the beach, some popsicles and such, we made it home in about six hours, a beautiful day well spent and really only possible by bicycle!
Today we did a typical quadracycle trip. This entailed using the Rhoades Car's considerable cargo capacity to do a run to Giant Tiger to get a quanity of milk, can goods and other groceries. The route is over quiet suburban streets - perfect for quadracycling. Completing the 6 km run, we were back home in 40 minutes, even given lots of time for shopping. This is really a mission that the quadracycle excels at - hauling loads.
I think this tale shows that both quadracycles and bikes have their advantages and disadvantages, but in the end, they are quite complimentary.
This mix is going to get more complex, however. Inspired by Gordon's stories about Catrikes and her own try on the Leitra velomobile trike, Ruth wanted to get a closer look at trikes. We made a trip to Gatineau to visit the local Catrike dealer, Bicyclettes de Hull. Ruth test drove a Catrike Pocket and was impressed enough to order a Catrike Trail model. It should be here in early September. Once she gets familiar with it we will be able to compare bikes with two, three and four wheels.
Total quadracycling for 2009 so far - 274 km
We recently made contact with Jamil Shariff who found us on though our website! Jamil is an Ottawa-based writer and consultant who works on green projects for The Boxfish Group. He is also the author of 50 Green projects for the Evil Genius and rides a Leitra Velomobile, probably the only one in Ottawa.
Jamil was interested in meeting up with us to have a look at the Rhoades Car. He does fibreglass work and thinks that the 4W2PCP would be a candidate for a full fairing, like the Leitra has. I think that would be an interesting challenge, given the Rhoades Car's width, but Jamil thinks it would work well and probably not add more than about 25 lbs to the vehicle.
We met up with him on Sunday 16 August 2009 at the University of Ottawa. That was a good location, only a few blocks from his home and just off the Colonel By Drive on a Sunday Bike Day for us! We met there at 1000 hrs, which gave Ruth a chance to get a coffee at the Second Cup on Laurier Avenue first and then make the rendezvous. Jamil brought along his Leitra, sans the body fairing, as he indicated that it was pretty warm and humid out for the fairing. We all had a look at both vehicles, took a bunch of photos and then swapped to head out for a run on the Colonel By southbound. Jamil drove the 4W2PCP with Ruth and I tried out the Leitra, then Ruth took a turn on the velomobile.
The Leitra actually works quite well. Without the fairing it is just a welded tubular steel framed tadpole trike with standard bike components, six rear-mounted gears, a single Shimano derailleur, one rear caliper brake and two front drum brakes. The steering is a curious lever-controlled system, operating through a series of scissors that makes for a very compact set up. Actually the whole vehicle is small and compact, as well as low to the ground. The steering is very sensitive, even compared to the Rhoades Car. The gearing has a very narrow range and it took me a few tries to figure out which gears were low and which were high, they are that close together. This model previously had an electric motor installed and Jamil indicated that the gearing worked better with the motor.
The velomobile is pretty light in weight and accelerates quickly. For me at least the ergonomics are pretty good and I could generate fairly good leg power. Jamil has built a carbon-fibre seat for it and I rode on that without a cushion. It really needs the cushion as the seat back wasn't that comfortable. When Ruth tried it she found the set-up was too tall for her to ride properly, but then I should have put her ObusForme behind her!
I found the trike remarkably stable on the road and easy to pedal. I can see how, with the right cushions that you could comfortably cover long distances with it.
Jamil enjoyed his ride on the Rhoades Car and we guided the two vehicles down the parkway for a few kilometres before we had to head home. It would be interesting on a cooler day to try out the Leitra with the fairing installed and see if it provides any speed advantages through drag reduction. With its windshield it would certainly provide good weather protection.
I have often hoped that velomobiles would catch on better in North America, as they seem to be popular only in Europe, especially in Germany, Denmark and the northern parts of the continent. Given what is going to happen to gas prices in the near future (again) there would seem to be a good market for these almost all-weather vehicles here in Canada, with our climate. I think most of the lack of interest is a "social normativity" problem. Here in North America velomobiles are only seen in commercials for green products and thus seem to be considered part of the "ultra-green fringe". Hopefully that will change.
Total quadracycling for 2009 so far - 268 km
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