Well, my cynical side was just waiting for something else to happen to the velomobile, and today it did – in the cold Olympia rain.

Heading out from work I found I had a flat tire. My first velo-flat! I didn’t notice anything amiss until I got onto the big hill heading down to Capitol Lake and I started hearing the awful sound of rolling on a rim. There was nothing to do but hope I didn’t ruin the rim and ride it out to the bottom where I could get pulled over off the road.

On the bright side, I left work before dark today so being able to see what I was doing made it less bad. Still, it wasn’t much after I got my tools out and started trying to get the tire off the rim that my hands got numb and my jeans got soaked. Things weren’t going very well and my mood was starting to turn as foul as the weather.

Fortunately a great guy with a pickup truck stopped and offered me a ride. I love friendly people! We got the Team hoisted up into the bed and strapped in and headed to my house where I can fix the tire in the relative comfort of my garage. I wished that I could have offered him something more than my thanks for his help, but I never carry cash or much else of value. In any case, thanks Jeff!

After way too long I got the lights finished and I’ve been back on the road again the past week. I have to say it feels really good to be riding the velo again.

I delayed myself an extra couple days just building up the guts to cut a hole in the shell for the new headlight. Even after planning and measuring to excess you can see that I still managed to get the hole slightly off center. It’s not too bad, but it rubs my perfectionist side the wrong way. At least the fiberglass didn’t shatter or something worse while I was drilling. I masked the area with tape before cutting and the edges came out nice and smooth.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, the Magicshine is insanely bright. I wanted to orient it slightly downward so that it wouldn’t blind or infuriate other drivers. As it turned out, the Magicshine seems like it was almost made to go in the Team. Not only is the mounting hole a perfect match for the bolt on the original BLT light, but when mounted upside down on said bolt it points downward at a perfect angle. The only problem was that since the BLT is so long the Magicshine didn’t extend far enough to be flush with the shell. To remedy this I used a bit of PVC coupling as an extension tube, fitting it over the housing of the light and extending to the shell. This keeps too much water from blowing into the area where the lights and the wiring are housed. At some point I’ll probably cover this with a lense to reduce the extra wind resistance it creates and give it a more finished look.

I also replaced the tail light, which was having intermittent problems. I had never really liked that the tail section was bolted in place because it made the rear area around the wheel less useful and difficult to access. This was painfully clear when I was trying to get at the rear light to replace it. I had to shimmy my upper body into the hole behind where the seat and BionX battery are (after removing both of course) and undo the bolts mostly by feel before my arms went numb from lack of circulation. It was fun.

However, since I had the tail cover off I decided to implement my vision of an open-able back hatch (not to mention that I never wanted to have to crawl inside there again). I played with a bunch of different ideas for the mechanism ranging from hinges to elaborate sliding pop-up contraptions, but I was getting tired of watching my velomobile fester in the garage, so I opted for the most basic, jury-rigged method I could think of. Shock cord. I simply laced a length of shock cord through the existing bolt holes along one side and tied it off tight – this actually ends up working like a hinge surprisingly well. I did the same thing on the other side, but left slack that can be pulled out when I raise the lid – when I want it shut I just tie it off tight as well. Using it over the past week it has proved more effective than I originally had hoped. When tied down it’s remarkably secure and it opens up enough for me to stuff my bag back there. Not bad!

I still have some further lighting ideas cooking in the back of my head including the rear flasher and some kind of rip off of the Down Low Glow, but I’m feeling a lot better now that all of my lights are consistently working.

Update: Mountain Bike Review has now posted a review of the Magicshine light. See it here: Magicshine Pro Review

The yellow velo has gone dark for a while now, both figuratively and literally. Shortly after it started getting dark near the end of the workday, I headed home one evening to find that the headlight was barely glowing. I nearly got hit twice on my way home by cars coming in from side streets (neither one actually stopped at their stop sign, so it wasn’t totally my fault). Thinking that maybe the battery was simply run down I gave it a full charge overnight and headed back to work the next day. That evening I rode home in the dark again.

The headlight, a BLT (Better Lighting Technology) Firewire 4.0, is a 4 watt LED headlight that had been bright during previous night rides over the summer. Now it was extremely dim, but not out altogether, which seemed odd. So I did some troubleshooting to narrow down the problem among the battery, wiring and light itself. Everything right up to the LED leads was fine, so apparently I just got a headlight with a bad LED. It happens sometimes.

Unfortunately, this meant that I had to wait to get a replacement in from Canada. While I was waiting and the days kept getting darker (and rainier) I got to thinking about how I could further avoid getting run down once I got back on the road. As a sometimes driver, I can attest to how extremely difficult it is to see pedestrians and cyclists and even other cars when it is dark and raining. I get downright angry when people are riding or walking in dark clothes and inadequate or no lighting, so I felt like the only responsible thing to do was to stay off the road until I knew that I was more visible.

First I added even more reflective tape to the sides of the velomobile where visibility from my head and tail lights would be minimal during future potential broadsides. Then I started drooling over the Down Low Glow from Rock the Bike. This seems like such a smart idea and really helps with the side visibility problem. After some research it turned out that they haven’t quite worked out waterproofing on them yet, so that makes them a no-go for Olympia. They are a little on the pricey side too (perhaps because they use neon lights?). In any case, it got my DIY gears cranking and I have some plans to work on an LED version that I can make fully waterproof. That’s a slightly longer-term project though.

Then I decided that if I’m going to be riding 20-25 mph in the dark and rain I really want to see and be seen. The BLT headlight is pretty bright on its own, but not super-strong. It also is just a steady light, which can sometimes be bad for visibility to car drivers. So I went all out and got a somewhat insanely bright Magicshine headlight that has steady high, medium, and low settings, flash, and even an SOS setting (in case I roll over into a ditch again?)

I keep learning that doing any kind of maintenance or upgrades on a velomobile is exponentially more involved than a regular bike. Being a bike light, of course the button for the Magicshine is on the body of the headlight where it would do no good for a velonaut. Again those DIY gears started cranking in my head. I needed to get the headlight in the front of the velomobile and the switch up by my hands, so out come the Dremel and the soldering iron and I proceeded to hack my brand new headlight to pieces. With some smug excitement I discovered that the mounting bolt hole on the Magicshine is a perfect fit for the one on the Team’s BLT headlight, so I can install the new light inverted onto the existing one. The switch will be housed in a small pvc cap fitting and attached in a yet to be determined spot in the cockpit. I had hoped to avoid using the evil pvc, but after scouring the hardware store, Radioshack, and a local electronics store it was the only practical choice.

I now have the light fully rewired (and still actually working!) and ready to install.

The next and most frightening step is cutting a new and rather large hole in the velomobile’s shell. I keep putting it off because even the thought of it makes me cringe. I can only hope that I don’t screw it up, otherwise I’ll have to teach myself fiberglass repair.

After this project is complete I’m going to look at doing something similar in back, which arguably should have been my first priority, safety-wise. The Team’s tail light has a single steady LED and then the brake light. I’m feeling strongly compelled to add a nice bright flasher to keep myself out of trouble.