Bicycle Technology and Patents

Catrike Maintenance and Repair topics are listed below. If I have a blog post on one of these topics, this contents list will serve as a link to each topic. These posts are authored by participants in the Catrike Message Board. Submissions of posts by any Catrike rider for inclusion here are welcomed. FYI, Catrikes are recumbent tricycles, with more information available at the Catrike Performance Trikes site.

Basic Setup and Maintenance”

Catrike Performance Trike Official 2004 Manual

Catrike Performance Trike Official 2005 Manual

Catrike Performance Trike Official 2006 Manual

Catrike Performance Trike Official 2007 Manual
removing the master link on the chain, and replacing it (page 18 of the above manual).
checklist of initial setup items
removing a front wheel
replacing front wheel bearings
replacing rear wheel bearings
adjusting rear derailer (link to Sheldon Brown’s instructions)
adjusting disk brakes (link to Park Tool page)
replacing disk brake pads (link to manufacturers or Park page)
Bruce’s advice on adjusting Avid BB7 brakes on Catrikes
installing front fenders
fixing a flat tire in front, rear wheels
installing teflon bushings
cleaning a chain, and lubrication

Troubleshooting section:

rear wheel squeek: lube rubber weather seal
Bottom bracket not horizontal when trike is on flat surface: loosen boom clamp, reorients boom, or file guide tooth
after removing a front wheel, my brake pad rubs: adjust brakes, per this link:___________
shimmy in steering: check x, y, and Z, and purchase teflon bushings from catrike
chain routing
brake cable routing
shifter cable routing
setting toe on front wheels of a trike

Upgrades:

Facing the bottom bracket edges

Discussion of After market items and FAQs:

Jerry’s flags
Locking brake levers. These are great!
What is Schlump and other drives?
what would Schlump or Roloff give me over the stock gearing?
Terracyle idlers discussion
Super bright (240 lumens) flashlight for use as headlight, tail light
what size bearings does my (year) (model) Catrike use in the front, rear wheel?
where does one get replacement steel or ceramic bearings (link, or part number)
ceramic bearing vs other bearing experience
options for mounting both a light and a speedometer
list of all tools needed
chain guards, bash guards: Purely Custom, with Catrike Logo available, and many colors, Trice (Utah Trikes) Chain Guard Ring
- Cables: how to order replacements, how to cut to length, how to install end pieces on housing and cable, what tools are needed
- Chains: how to order (how many chains needed/length), brand, types
- Articles on component upgrades (brakes, shifters, derailleurs, etc)
- Common accessories: what has worked well (lights, racks, bags, pedals, mirrors, etc)

- Arizona Whip lighted flagpole

- Tactical Flashlights for lighting system

James Starley’s Rover of 1885 was the first successful bike in which pedals and a crank drove the rear wheel with a chain, but he was not the first with that design.  In 1879 Englishman Harry Lawson  designed and patented a version of a large front wheeled bike with a smaller rear wheel driven by cranks and a chain.   Lawson’s bike was not very well received, and he went on to design bikes using levers for power transmission.  The Bicyclette was a commercial failure, but he had hit upon a superior design feature.

This artwork of the Bicyclette is a version featured on cigarette cards.  This and other bicycle art is found at bicyclegifts.com.  Framed versions of these beautiful cigarette cards, posters , cards, and other bicycle art  recognize that brilliant design is art.

Bruce (trikebkdr) has started a new forum called Trike Doctor which specializes in trikes and their repair issues.  This is the same Bruce who has authored several posts on this site, including the now famous Bad Case of Drillium post.  Here is a picture of Bruce’s 22 lb 3 oz Catrike, which started life weighing 35 lbs!   I like it!  Looks like a seat, a chain, and cables will finish it. Plus helium in the tubing.

This morning I caught the first episode of MAKE: Television on PBS.  The first half of the episode includes a piece on Cyclecide, “an inventive band of performance artists who build outrageous bicycle contraptions straight out of the dump.”  It is beautifully entertaining piece on how creatives and “makers” are reusing what others view as trash.

Here is another candidate for the first rear suspension bicycle design, from 1891. Its modern counterpart is shown below.

Here is a very early version of front suspension on a bike.  In this patent from 1891 there is a spring in the headset, and the fork assembly can move back and forth to absorb road shock.

Bruce went crazy with his drill press, and removed, if I read his notes correctly, about 13.7 pounds from the normally 30 pound Catrike Speed!  This is Catrike #CS754, named Holey Spokes.

Now we need to see that thing assembled, a final weigh in, and a test ride to see if it whistles.  Its just remotely possible that Bruce has too much time on his hands. One last picture:

According to USAToday.com:

Now Google Maps is expanding to biking and hiking trails. A Google employee on a tricycle rides around to snap the same wide-area views.

See: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-06-09-biking-maps-google_N.htm. Photos of the trike can be found here.

Yesterday I did a bottom bracket shell facing and thread cleaning job on Bob Shaver’s Speed. I took lots of pics of the job showing the steps in getting clean faces on each end of the shell.

After reading the text below each pic, it’s very interesting to watch them all in slideshow mode. The progress shows up much better that way.

This is the bottom bracket face before it was faced, showing the layer of powdercoat. The external bearing cups press down on this face, and if it is not perfectly flat the bearings are cocked to one side.

This is the Park tool for facing the bottom bracket faces.

This is the cutting tool cutting away the powdercoat layer, and a tiny bit of metal.

This is the face showing slight chatter marks from the tool.

The chatter marks are smoothed off and the face made perfect with emery cloth pressed in by the cutting tool.

The face after the final smoothing and polishing.

This facing of the bottom bracket edge is part of Bob’s upgrade to ceramic bearings in the BB. They are typically much tighter than the steel bearings that come in most bottom brackets, so they will not tolerate as much misalignment as the steel bearings. This is why the faces of the shell must be absolutely parallel with each other and perpendicular to the axis of the bottom bracket spindle when converting to ceramic bearings. The Park Tools threading and facing tool is a very precise piece of equipment that does a beautiful job of truing up a BB shell, even if it is very expensive. Most shops will do this job for about $50 if they have the tool, but most mechanics, in fact very few, know how to do the job correctly. They usually leave the chatter marks. That’s OK, actually, as long as they are even all the way around the face.

As can be seen in some of the pics in Bruce’s flicker photos (linked below), a lot of powder coating gets deposited on the surfaces where the bearing cups tighten. This uneven buildup causes the cups and bearings to cock sideways, as the powder coat is never perfectly smooth. Cheaper and sloppier steel bearings will absorb a lot of this alignment displacement, but better ceramic bearings won’t, and it will often cause bind in the better, tighter bearings. Pictures iL1, L2 and L3 in Bruce’s flicker pics show the non-drive side of the BB shell with a huge buildup of powdercoating. This is enough to cause bind in even a steel bearing. If you look really close at these pics, you can also see the only three small areas of contact that the bearing cup had with this face!

Besides the powder coating buildup, warpage from welding will distort the shell faces. This is shown in the pics as small areas at a time of bare aluminum showing up as cutting progresses. If they had been absolutely true from the start, the aluminum would have shown up all at once as soon as the powdercoating was removed.

If any Catrike riders intend to put ceramics in your BB, or you feel some resistance and just want to feel sure about your’s, and your lbs can’t do this job. Contact Bruce and if you ask nicely he may do it for you. You will need to send him your bare boom/BB and return postage. (Oh, and a pan of brownies!)(Hey! it never hurts to ask!) Contact Bruce at rbb@antelecom.net

This is the link to Bruce’s pics on flickr

Bruce

P.S.  mikeatlbch made a comment that jogged Bruce’s memory, and he is right.  mikeatlbch notes that facing the bb is needed only for external bearings, not for cartridge bearing assemblies.  Thus the Speed, Expedition, and 700 model Catrikes, which all have external bearing assemblies,  need to be faced.  Other Catrike models or any bike/trike with cartridge bearings don’t need to be faced.