zog blog mk II

Well although functional the front YUS disc brakes on the older greenewheels ebikes were always a bit fiddly to adjust. After nearly a year of service mine stopped being able to provide grip at all. I suspect it is just the brake pads wearing out, but really it was hard for me to tell.. and I was itching to upgrade to something easier to keep adjusted anyway.

Although I can see greenewheels are selling replacement calipers on ebay for this brake, I decided to upgrade to a more adjustable, higher grade brake, as part of the slow gradual upgrades I am doing now the bike is established as my main way to commute.

I got myself an Avid BB7 from Bayswater Cycles online shop after determining my bike has 51mm I.S. type mounts (and that the BB7 has a suitable bracket for for this mount.

Despite it appearing easy it took me a few goes to get it adjusted right, but after I did this brake is working really well, and seems quite easy to adjust. Also due to being one of the main “brand name” disc brakes brake pads and parts should be easy to source for it from nearby bike shops.

tools!
While I was removing the YUS rotor to install the Avid 160mm rotor I managed to strip one of the allen bolts.. I reall hassle as it was stuck. Maybe my set of Allen keys that came with the bike wore out, or maybe I had mixed up my Allen keys with some non-metric ones, I’m not sure.
Anyway before I made too much more of a mess of it I took it to work where some of the very helpful workshiop guys were able to cut a slot in with a dremel and remove it for me with a screwdriver.
Straight after that I went to Bunnings and got some decent Bondhus allen keys.. for under $12 a great investment.

Well I’m nearly up to 3000K clocked up on my bike, and nothing to report except I need to get in the routine of bike maintenance more.. apart from that the greenewheels bike is holding up quite well, I’m riding it in the cold, wet and dark to and from work without any hassles.

Just took a look at the Greenewheels Ebay Store and noticed they have increased their product range again, to include a bunch of spare parts and add on parts, as well as some addon kits for ebike conversion. Nice to see a range of parts available to replace if needed.

Of particular interest is the 350W off road version of the greenewheels bike, would be excellent for those mountain tracks in places where the road rules don’t apply but you need a bit of extra grunt.

A few weeks ago I got myself a Dell Mini9 netbook, purchased from Officeworks.

I actually wanted an ASUS EEE 901 but they appear to be out of production and hard to get.. Probably good I got the mini9 when I did as shortly after the mini9 stopped being made as well.
The Dell is virtually identical in specs to the ASUS, although it has a better keyboard, shorter battery life, and larger SSD.

In the USA they can be gotten with Linux pre-installed.. unfortunately I guess due to economies of scale here in Australia only XP is available, though. This problem was quickly fixed by installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which has worked perfectly on the mini9s hardware (wifi, bluetooth, webcam, sound, etc all work fine). In fact this distro of Linux is so nice to use I would recommend it as a general starter Linux distro for just getting general stuff done.

A few useful Dell Mini9 links:

• http://www.ubuntumini.com/ - Ubuntu on the Dell mini.
• http://www.mydellmini.com/ - Dell mini news and user forum site.
• Dell BIOS download page - given it deep links into Dells support site this link might not work very well, or for long.

Lucky I got a 9″ (aka 23.5cm) netbook with SSD now as it looks as they are getting rare, everyone moving to 10″ netbooks, which are more pricy at the moment, and/or using spinning hard disks rather than SSD storage.

After having 2 laptop hard disks fail in Thailand in 2 years - granted they were old laptops - its time to move on from clunky electro mechanical storage tech and go all solid state.

The small keyboard is not the greatest for typing anything long but fine for casual usage (web surfing, small emails, the odd command) and I really like how this is completely silent and has no moving parts.

A 16G SDHC card from MSY has doubled my storage capacity, and there is a netbook theme for MIXXX so I can have a dabble with some Linux based DJ software on it.

One thing the ASUS EEE 901 had that the Dell mini9 doesnt is a padded sleeve to protect it. I took a punt and got a cheap one from China via EBAY, it cost me $8 but is quite a nice little neoprene sleeve to stop it getting scratched.

Pretty much a link straight into BoingBoing, but interesting:

Evolution, religion, schizophrenia and the schizotypal personality

from The Age:

A mother accused of praying instead of getting medical help for her dying 11-year-old daughter has been found guilty of reckless homicide.

Leilani Neumann, 41, faces up to 25 years in prison. Her daughter, Madeline Kara, died from untreated diabetes on March 23, 2008, surrounded by people praying for her. When she stopped breathing, her parents’ business and Bible study partners finally called an ambulance.

Well I’m up to about 2200km on the bike now and it’s functioning just fine, including riding it in some pretty extreme (very hot) weather.
I installed the pack rack and cable tied the basket to it which has made it a much more practical shopping and luggage carrying machine as well.

Well I finally got one of my Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres (purchased from BikePro on the bike.. starting with the front wheel as it was easier to get off. Unlike various internet comments on this tyre I found it easy to change, I don’t think I’ve changed a bike tyre since I was a kid and I had no hassle.

Only thing I put it on with the “drive” label pointing the same way, but I dont think it will matter too much. Anyway it didnt have any effect on the very hilly 44km ride out to the country and back (to a picnic) that I immediately subjected it to.

Next step is changing the rear tyre.. this is a bit more work as I have not much idea how to get the back wheel off, I’ll also have to get some cable ties as I understand the operation involves snipping the ones that hold the power lead in place.

It’s hard for me to quantify how different the Schwalbe tyre is to the kenda knobbly trye that came with the bike.. mainly as with the Schwalbe I got a pump with a pressure meter as the marathon plus tyres need to be measured with a meter rather than just by feel… turns out looks like I have been underinflating my tyres a bit anyway.

I’m a bit of a homebody nowadays but I will venture out a bit for Earthcore at the end of this month. Should be good for a bit of fun.

Well had an attempt at doing home handyman stuff today and installed a 250L watertank (purchased from Bluetank6 on ebay and hooked it up to the downpipe using some cheap garden hose and a raintap water diverter from Bunnings. Still need to get a bracket mounted above the diverter to make it more stable, but I’m hoping using normal garden hose should make it easy to add more ebay water tanks as needed.

Well I have finally (after a bit of time off the bike due to illness) clocked up 1000KM on the bike. Probably notable for not being notable.. the bike is still working fine and doing its thing, just how I want it. Might get some slick road tires -probably Schwalbe marathon plus as they evidently are the best at not getting holes in them. I notice the newer greenewheels bikes also have road tires fitted now.