Sanyo Dynohub Install, pt2, tailight!

Busch and Muller Securlite

After the initial installation of the Sanyo dynohub and Lumotech headlight, I began planning the addition of  a dynamo driven taillight. Because, well just because.

I ordered the Securlite tailight and an extra 185 cm of wiring from Longleaf, and I was pretty amzed at how fast I got the stuff in the mail. It was like 4 days. I had ordered an extra 185 cm of wire with the taillight, when I opened the box, I found that the light comes with 210 cm of wire. I thought I probably didn't need  the extra length. But as things turned out, it was a good thing that I did.

I spent a long time thinking and planning how I was going to run the wire. I first thought about having the wire follow the rear brake cable stops along the top tube, then snake it down a seat stay to the rear brake bridge and the under the fender to the taillight. I finally decided against this for two reasons: One, the wire would be exposed at the top tube, probably easily snagged and it was not a very clean look. Also, running wire down the stay would not look great either.

I decided to run the wire inside the down tube, by drilling one hole up near the head tube, and another in the bottom bracket. That's not as crazy as it sounds, since I've had several bike which had opening in the BB shell.

Slightly fuzzy picture of the first hole in the upper down tube.

Gee, drilling through the down tube was easy! A little unnerving I guess. I had to enlarge and refine this hole to a slightly oval shape. Drilling a hole in the BB was a little trickier, but it worked out okay. It happens that the BB I'm using, (a Shimano UN72) will allow plenty of room for the wires to fit inside the BB shell. I've heard reports that other BB's don't allow that much room so be warned if you try this at home. You might want to put the exit hole in the bottom down tube rather than the BB shell.

Another fuzzy shot, but you can see the hole in the BB shell.

After having these two holes prepared, I then had to fish the wire through the down tube. It was tricky to do, not as tricky as the fork blades, but I still had to work at it to make it through. I then brought the wire through tp the chainstays and began planning my next wire run. At this point it was obvious that the supplied 215 cm of wire was not going to make the run I wanted. It was a good thing I ordered that extra wire!

I decided to run the wire from the BB to the bottom of the rear fender, then along the inside of the fender to the light. It was probably the cleanest path I could come up with. I wanted as little wire showing as possible.

Here's a shot of the spliced section of wire.

Wire running up the inside of the rear fender, eventually to the taillight.

I fixed the wire to the inside of the fender using metal tape I had left over from a storage shed assembly. This stuff is amazing. It sticks well and is very strong. I have a lot of confidence in this installation...even though it looks like crap! It's inside the fender, so nobody will ever know.

Completed installation. I've wrapped the wire with electrical tape to protect it from the edges of the hole.

Rear view of completed installation.

So that was the installation. I was pretty satisfied with the overall look, with very little wire exposed. Actually getting the light to work was a bit of a challenge for me. At first it ran all the time the front wheel turned! I had wired it so it apparently bypassed the on/off switch. I tried several wiring schemes, even emailed Anthony at Longleaf about it. He had not heard of the problem before. Well, I pulled all the wires from the headlight and re-installed them and this time they worked! the proper combination ended up being this:

(Looking at the back of the headlight, left to right): taillight lead, black/white left terminal, then solid black taillight lead  on the right terminal, Dynamo lead, black/white left terminal, solid black on the  right terminal. 

This ended up giving me the proper ability to switch both head light and taillight with the switch on the head light! 

Sanyo Dynohub Install

Sanyo H27 Dynohub

My commute to work often entails riding in the dark, especially during these short days of Winter, either my ride in is in the dark, or the ride home. On a bad day, I could be in the dark both ways. So, I've always needed a light for commuting. Over the years I've tried many battery powered lights, beginning with the old square wonder lights of the late 70s!

Bicycle lighting wasn't ever of huge interest to me until recently. I've found that the technology has improved tremendously over the last few years. Probably the most important development has been the introduction of LED bulbs. These are so much more efficient than the old incandescent bulbs, it has really revolutionized the field. 

A few years ago I finally decided to invest in a better quality light, and found a Sigma Pro on sale at Nashbar for over 50% off. This is a really fine battery powered light. And it's built extraordinarily tough, with an aluminum body. It's small battery pack has a good life span, and the LED puts out a strong beam.

Motobecane with the Sigma Pro LED

I have been interested in generator hubs and these too have seen some exciting developments take place over the last few years. Combined with the advances in LED bulb technology, they are looking like a great combination for reliable bicycle lighting.

Dynohubs are actually quite an old idea, Sturmey Archer having produced one many years ago. More recently, Schmidt developed their SON, followed by Shimano's nice dynohubs. Now, Sanyo has produced one, the H27, which is now available at a very economical price. I decided I wanted to experiment with this new system

The Sanyo can be found online as low as $35, shipped! I decided on the Busch & Muller Lumotec Lyt N LED headlight, which I purchased from Longleaf Cycles. Now, the reason the Sanyo was so cheap was that it is only the hub itself, you do not get a Q/R skewer or even the plastic connector for the headlight leads. The skewer I had lying around, the connector I purchased with the headlight from Longleaf, they're cheap.

Lumotec installed.

I laced the hub(32 hole) to a nice shiny Sun CR18, and installing the light was pretty easy, I had to remove one spacer to allow enough room on the brake bolt for the sturdy stainless steel rod bracket.

The tricky, (and if I say so myself), brilliant part of the install was the wiring. I dreaded having to zip-tie the wire from hub to light. I then noticed that the Motobecane's fork had small vent holes on the inside. These were just big enough to allow the 2-wire lead to pass through!

Inside top of fork; notice the wire passing through the vent hole.

The process of actually feeding the wire down the fork and fishing it out the tiny hole at the bottom was long and trying. But, after about 20 minutes of careful prodding I finally snagged the lead with a small wire hook I fashioned from thin wire:

Got it through!! Also in the picture is the wire used to fish the leads through the hole.

Man that was tricky, but really worth it, the installations is really clean. Now with the wires run, it was a simple process of slipping the supplied connector ends onto the headlight leads, then stripping the wire ends and installing them into the connector and then into the hub.

Connector installed in the hub.

I gave the hub a spin, and like magic, light! At low RPM's the light kind of flashes on and off rapidly, but at any speed at all, you've got a good steady beam. I haven't had a good chance to use the light, my last commute was not dark enough to really examine the beam, but it looks pretty good. Time will tell.

Motobecane with Sanyo H27 and Lumotec Lyt N

I like the look of the installation, the light mounted at the fork crown looks good, and my handlebars are clean now, with no clamp cluttering them up!

I added a tailight, here's the link.

How many times do you patch a tube?

How many is too many?

The other day I was in the garage, about to pull my Surly LHT off its hook for a ride. As I always do, I first squeezed the tires to check inflation. Ugh, back tire was flat! Well, this bike has Pasela tires but without the Tourguard belt, so it's not a huge surprise when I find a flat. 

So, off came the wheel and out came my patching supplies. I buy 1 inch Rema patches by the hundred in a box for my workshop. Also a tin of rubber cement, sandpaper. A recent addition is a tire "pencil" I found at NAPA autoparts recently, (to mark the location of the hole in the tube). Finally, a pair of steel tire levers, (steel really is the only appropriate material for a tire lever).

Tools of the trade.

And off to work I go. After taking out the tube, I found a hole and patched it. Pumping a little air into it revealed a second hole, so I patched that one too. When I was finished the second patch, I sat back and looked at the tube. I realized I had put 13 patches in this guy over the years! Holy moly! Oh well, I stuck the tube back into the tire and went riding.

This got me to thinking, how many people even patch tubes these days? I remember when working in a bike shop years ago, that we would never patch a customer's tube, it just wasn't cost effective even then, what with labor and then you've got to wonder if the patch will hold, etc. Nowadays, with the armored tires most people use, flats may be so rare that lots of riders don't bother. Just keep some spare tubes around and replace as needed.

Of course, being a cheap bastard, I just can't go that way. Plus, I think I've gotten pretty good at patching. You just need the proper equipment. Rema patches are the best. Always work well and stick on as they are supposed to. Getting a bottle of rubber cement is a good idea. Tubes of glue always dry out. 

Once I apply the patch, I'll wrap the tube in a rag and press the patch in a vice for a few minutes, just to make sure it sets. Then, I always stick the patched tube into the tire, and take the unpatched tube out for my spare. I think having the patch pressed against the tire walls helps set the patch, plus you will know for sure that the patch is good. A successfully patched tube is every bit as reliable as an new tube.

5 of the 13 patches on this tube!

So really, there is nothing wrong with a 13 patch tube, maybe a little weight. The one thing that would stop me from continuing to use a tube is if I have to patch over another patch. Things start to get a little dicey. But in this case, every patch is well spaced, and all are holding well.

Super compact crank for the LHT

Shimano "STX" crankset. 42X32 chainwheels.

I'm a big fan of compact cranks, the cranks with the 110mm BCD, (bolt circle diameter). This is a very useful size for road riding and gives you the ability to set up a pretty low low gear and still have a high gear approaching 100 inches. Lately I've been interested in the super compact cranks, like the old TA Cyclotourists and now Velo Orange has introduced it's Gran Cru with a 50.4 BCD that uses the same pattern as the old TA cranks. I'll probably have to pick up one of those some day.

VO's GRAN CRU

Anyway, I was mulling over these cranks when I remembered an old mountain bike crank I had bought years ago from Nashbar. It was a clearance sale, naturally, so I got this crank for a song. The Shimano STX 5 pin crankset. These super compacts were the standard for mountain bikes in the mid 90s, but as the style in mtn cranks shifted to 4 pin, these became passe. Added to this was the fact that these were 170mm  arms which are not as popular as longer arms. 

Anyway, I got these a long time ago and have never really used them. Tried to use them on an occasional mtn bike build but I always suspected the the InterGlide (IG) sprockets wouldn't work well with non IG chains. At any rate, they sat in my parts bin for a long time. But after considering the possibilities offered by this small BCD, I decided to investigate the compatability. Finally found a reference to the IG from Sheldon Brown,(who else?), which stated that the IG would work fine with SRAM chains. 

So what the heck? I decided to make a super compact double, by removing the inner granny gear. An unusual feature of the STX is that this sprocket is bolted to the middle cog, not to the spider. 

I tried a couple of different bottom brackets, finally settling on a 110mm UN54. There is ample clearance for both the crank arms and the sprockets on my Surly LHT. But no more room for the spider on the BB spindle!

Lot's of room for sprockets and crankarms, but the inner face of the spider is getting close to the BB!

If you had a bottom bracket you could slide around a bit, like a Phil Wood, I bet you could get away with a 108mm. With the stock 32 and 42 chainwheels, there is no threat of scrapping the chainstays. I'm sure a 46 could fit, and I have ordered one. I thought I would have a problem with the front derailleur, I could not lower it enough to get it within the 2mm's I would usually set it at, the tail of the derailleur hits the chainstay! I got it as low as I could. Testing on the stand seemed to show no trouble shifting or loosing the chain.

Note the large distance between big chainwheel and derailluer.

Took the LHT out on a little jaunt to Lincoln and back to test out the new crank. It is working very well! I have to say that I really enjoyed the 42 tooth big ring. I could easily go over Sierra College hill in it, of course, back in the day, a 42 was my small ring on my Nouvo Record equipped bikes! Shifting was excellent, so much nicer than with a triple, especially if you're a retro-grouch friction shifter like me. With a 32 in the back, this actually gives me a double with a 27 inch low. If you need anything lower than a 27 inch gear, you should be walking anyway.  

Also, the IG teeth have not become a factor at all. The SRAM 8-spd chain I use works fine.

I have a 46 tooth chainwheel on order to fit this crank, so I will have some higher gears, and the gap between the front changer and sprocket should not be an issue any more. But it will probably be a while before I put it on, I could get used to a 42 for my big ring!

Bikes in Germany and Austria

German Postal Bike

Just getting around to showing some of the bikes I saw when we went to Germany last year. This Deutsche Post bike is a true workhorse. It's really built to last, even has wire guards for the tail light! This one's got a full load, which I'm sure is typical. A nice little touch is the flap which covers the seat when parked, keeping the saddle dry during the frequent showers here! 

The most common bike I observed in Munich had a mountain bike frame, fenders, and a bottle type generator attached to the left seatstay with a brazed on bracket. I believe there is a law in Germany mandating lights on bicycles, thus even the most common bike has this wonderful feature. 

A real working bike.

There were a lot of utilitarian, work bikes around. The postal bike is a good example. Here is another; very similar to the old Schwinn "Cycle truck" of the 1940s, I believe Workman Bicycles also manufactures a similar bicycle to this day. 26 inch wheel in back and a 20 inch in front. Note the brakes on this one, drum in front and a coaster in back! That front rack looks like it could carry a hundred pounds! This bike even had the advertisement hung in between the twin top-bars. Finally, notice the stout front stand used to keep both the work bike and the postal bike upright. Super stable, and spring loaded, you just have to push forward and the stand pulls up, out of the way. The bikes in the background are utterly typical of the average citizen's bike in town.

I did a little motorcycle spotting while in Salzburg and Munich as well. There were a fair number of V-Stroms around, I was surprised how many 1000cc models were there, here's one:

 Seen in Salzburg

Also in Salzburg I saw the beautiful Honda Transalp. Looking a lot like a V-Strom:

Honda Transalp.

One very nice looking bike, lot's of nice stuff on it, but probably costing 50% more than a V-Strom. Still, it would be nice to see these in the States. Sadly they have not been offered in over 25 years!

Single Speed mania is also rife in Munich! I couldn't tell if this was a fixed gear or freewheel, but with no toe clips, let's hope it had a freewheel!

Converting a Tiagra rear road hub to 135mm spacing.

Here's the difference between road hubs and mountain hubs.

As I related in my updates on my LHT page, I wanted to convert a road hub to mountain bike hub spacing. So what follows are a few notes about the process.

First; My reason for needing to perform this modification is purely aesthetic.Today's mountain hubs are chunky, black ugly things. Unfortunately, road hubs are starting to look that way too. I wanted to use the older style 105 hubs, but they aren't available and the current model looks fat, like a Mountain hub. At least it's not black. But since I had to go with that look anyway, I decided to go one level down and get a Tiagra hub for about half the cost. For the axle and spacer, I cannibalized the parts from a broken lower-end Shimano MTB hub.

Tiagra hub is below the old mountain hub.

Converting the Tiagra Road hub simply entails expanding the locknut-to-locknut spacing from 130mm to 135mm. You need a longer axle and 5mm of spacers. Fortunately, the old MTB hub's axle was in fine condition. It was straight and the threads were in good shape. So I figured I could use that. It also had a spacer which would work out fine for my purposes.

So, first step is to remove the axle from the old and the new hubs.No problems here, just loosen the locknut off the left (non-drive side) then pull it out of the hub. Be careful not to drop any of the loose bearings. The cups and locknuts of the Tiagra fit the old hub's axle fine. (I naturally wanted to use these as they were virtually pristine.) Below is a shot of the two axles:

The original axle and the longer MTB axle.

Now it's simply a matter of assembling the Tiagra's cones and spacers on the old axle, then inserting them into the Tiagra hub. But remember you have to add 5mm of additional spacer on the non-drive,(left) side in order to properly center the flanges and take full advantage of the wider spacing.

Putting the pieces back together.

This is a good time to glop some extra grease onto the bearings as well, although I am happy to report that the Tiagra's bearings were well lubed from the factory, but you can never have enough grease on those guys!

That's pretty much it. I then laced us the hubs to some polished Sun CR-18's and installed them on my LHT. These are so much more quiet than the Nashbar hub. 

Now that I have removed the axle from the mtn hub, I decided to strip off anything else that might be useful. Well, there's not much actually, but I might have need of the cassette body someday so I took that off. This is the first time I've removed one of these from a Shimano hub. Turns out to be quite easy: With the axle removed, take an 8mm Allen wrench and tug hard. The threads are conventional; righty tighty, lefty loosey.

Removing the Freehub mechanism.

You're unscrewing this large hollow bolt which holds the cassette body in place. After you've loosened it, (it'll be on pretty tight), you just pull it out:

With the bolt removed, the cassette pulls off easily.

Off it comes!

I'll hold onto this, it's a steel body which is supposed to be a little sturdier than alloy bodies, albeit somewhat heavier.

My ride up to Grass Valley 7/10/2011

On Camp Far West Road

July is the time of year for one of my long rides. The one I always try to do takes me from Loomis, west through Lincoln, up Dowd Rd. to Sheridan, to Camp Far West, up to Grass Valley, then down Dog Bar to Placer Hills, through Meadow Vista and Auburn, then back to Loomis. It's usually an 8-9 hour ride for me. If it's not a hundred miles, then it's darned close

I always try to make this ride around my birthday every year. This gives me time to condition myself for it. This year, I did a lot of hill work early in the Spring, (for Mt. Shasta), so I felt pretty good early on. I decided to do this ride a little early this year. The weather was good, as usual, this year. Even more importantly, the temperatures were running a cooler than normal. 

The ride through Lincoln and Sheridan were uneventful. I made it to Camp Far West fairly early. Camp Far West Road, (CFWR) is pretty gnarly. At the campground turnoff, the road pitches incredibly steeply, and the road surface becomes very rough. After two very steep, short hills, the pavement ends, the next few miles are gravel.

 One of the better stretches this year!

This year, the condition of CFWR was not so great. There was a fair amount of washboard. I came near bouncing off the road one time. In other words, a typical ride on CFWR!

 The Surly on CFWR.

As you can see, I took the Pacer this year. It handled the rough stuff just fine. You will notice that I've only mounted one bottle cage. There were three reasons for this:

1.) Every year I have, or nearly have, lost the bottle from the seat tube cage on this ride. I needed to secure that bottle better.

2.) By the time I get to a second bottle on a hot day, the water in said bottle is luke warm to hot! Not very refreshing.

3.) I wanted to mount the Zefal pump vertically. Mounting it horizontally under the top tube always results in maddening rattling as the pump bounces off the top tube.

I had been considering these things recently, then started to think about some notes written by Jobst Brandt a while back, about one of his cycling trips through the Sierra Nevada. He had described how he stuck a can of soda in his saddlebag and enjoyed a cool drink after a long stretch. I also noticed that his bike never had multiple water bottles on it, just the one on the down tube. (These are the kinds of things I think about on long rides I guess!)

Anyway...I decide to use a small saddlebag, my Carradice Junior for this ride. This is probably one of Carradice's least know bags. It was the very first on I bought because it was the cheapest! Into the bag went my tool kit, a few snacks, camera, and my warm ups as I shed them. Inside also was my second water bottle.

This method worked brilliantly! By the time I got to the second bottle, it was still cool and fresh. I resupplied at Grass Valley and  refilled both with cold water. Also, that pump was wonderfully silent the entire trip!

Okay, back to the ride. CFWR comes to a road junction with Woody Road. Here I turn left. At the junction is this sign for the Spenceville Wildlife Area. I've got to say though, I've never seen an overabundance of wildlife here, outside a couple of deer and squirrels.

 At the Junction of CFWR and Woody Road.

Woody Bridge, looking south, (The bike is turned around to lean on the rail, I'm riding north.)

That bridge is always a hoot to ride over with skinny tires. Past the bridge, you go over a few rollers, still graveled with ample washboard.  Soon you hear gunfire, and you know you're almost at the end of the dirt! There is a small firing range to the right, I think it's probably set up for folks from nearby Beale AFB. Looks popular, almost always someone there.

Back on pavement!

You return to the pavement at the corner of Woody and Chuck Yeager Road, (which leads to the northeast gate of Beale, if you go left). I'm going right, eventually to Highway 20. Highway 20 has actually improved mightily over the last few years as a viable bicycle route. It used to be quite narrow and heavily traveled. It's still busy, of course, but there are more lanes and broad shoulders now. Not bad at all, except for the climbing part. It's still a long grind to Grass Valley.

But I made it there in fine condition. Last year, I already started to cramp coming into Grass Valley, this year, no problems! In fact, this year I suffered from no cramping at all! It was wonderful. I attribute it to two factors: the hill training I already mentioned, and, this is probably the real factor, very mild temperatures. I started very early, about 6:00 am this year, and the afternoon temperatures probably didn't go over 90 this year. (Grass Valley's high was a reported 85!).

 On Dog Bar Road

I was in Grass Valley by 11 o'clock. I stopped at the Raley's and got a bunch of food and drink. Mostly drink. Just a few snacks and some Cliff Bars for the road. I didn't stay long and was soon on Dog Bar Road, heading south now. This is a great road, very rural, but also hot and dry and hilly! You eventually drop down to cross the Bear River, then a steep climb back up the other side, then a short drop to Placer Hills Road. 

Following Placer hills road, through Meadow Vista, Clipper Gap and Christian Valley eventually to Auburn, you are challenged by a series of short but intense little climbs. this sign is posted at the top of one of the last ones, just before Bell Road!

I pushed through Auburn and rolled back into Loomis by 2:00 pm. eight hours, which is about normal for me, but, like I said earlier, without any cramps!! They didn't start until I was home resting in bed. YEOW!!

Pretty view from Auburn.