Surly Big Dummy Baby Mods

Xtracycle Pea Pod III / Yepp Maxi Easyfit Installation & Review

We've been looking at different ways to get our baby out for a bike ride. Burley trailers seem to be the most popular way, but they just don't seem to be practical to pull any distance. I looked through the different options and thought the Pea Pod bike seat sold by www.xtracycle.com to be the best option. Plus, it'll maximize my Surly Big Dummy's true potential.

Instead of taking the easy route and just ordering the seat from Xtracycle, I thought I'd try and save a few bucks by using my REI 20% off coupon and dividend check to buy the seat from REI, then separately purchase the flight deck "easyfit" adapter from xtracycle. I did some research and found that the Pea Pod is actually a Yepp Maxi seat imported by Gazelle Cycle Imports from europe. So, that information in hand, I ordered the Yepp Maxi from REI and the Easyfit adapter from Xtracycle. When they arrived I quickly learned that there are actually TWO types of Yepp Maxi seats- a "standard" model that clips on to your bike's seat tube, and a "easyfit" model that clips to the easyfit adapter. Unfortunately the model REI sells is the "standard" model which is totally incompatible with the easyfit adapter.

I contacted Gazelle with the hope that they could sell me a conversion kit to change the "standard" into the "easyfit". No such luck, but, they did volunteer to exchange seats and only charge shipping! Now that's service. A few days later the Yepp Maxi Easyfit showed  up at my door and I was in business.

The Easyfit adapter was a snap to bolt onto the Big Dummy's flightdeck. One thing about the Yepp seat- there is nothing flimsy about it. I think the adapter weighs a couple pounds- it's welded bent steel tubes. No aluminum here.

The Yepp Maxi seat seems very nice, solid, well built and thought out. It securely locks (with a key) to the Easyfit adapter, and easily removes when not needed. A+ all the way around.

Surly Big Dummy- pre Easyfit adapter

Easyfit Adapter on Flight Deck

Installed!

Happy Customer! (helmet used during riding, of course)

Xtracycle Kickback Centerstand Installation & Review

The next order of business was to replace the stock kickstand with something a little safer- I didn't want to tip the bike over when loading the baby. I chose the KickBack centerstand, also from Xtracycle. They don't give away their products, but they are pretty heavy duty and I can't imagine the volumes are big enough to bring the cost down on their products. 

The Kickback is a nicely welded piece of kit. I was pleased at how easily it installed- until I discovered that it wouldn't fold up properly. The "stub" on the centerstand seemed to contact the stock kickstand mount too soon. That won't due for carving corners or riding off road!

Maximum retraction before trimming the "stub"

I contacted Xtracycle, and they immediately replied. They said they've never heard of this happening before, so there must be something unusual with my Big Dummy or the Kickback. They were able to also get me the contact information of Surly. But, at the end of the day, the real solution was to reduce the height of the stub. I did some initial measuring and estimated that 5mm needed to be removed from the stub height. I pulled off the plastic bumper, clamped the centerstand in my vice, and broke out the hacksaw.

Initial cut started- I don't do this to expensive bike parts every day!

 It turns out that removing 5mm from the stub seemed to do the trick. The centerstand isn't completely parallel with the chainstays now, but it's very close. I'll have to pick up some silver paint to cover the steel exposed in the cut.

The only cheesy thing about the Kickback is the retraction spring. It isn't some sort of coil that incorporated into the mechanism- as you'd expect from a premium priced product like this - it's a linear spring covered in a nylon bag. You attach a screw to your chainstay by the rear wheel, and the spring just runs from the centerstand to the attached screw. The supplied screw mount didn't fit the Big Dummy - the Dummy's chainstay tubes were too beefy. Luckily the screw itself fit with a locknut in a pre-cut slot in the rear dropout.

Spring attached to rear dropout

Attached to centerstand

Success!

 It seems to work well inside, but time will tell how well it works in the real world. The spring seems a little weak, I think it'll rattle when riding on rougher surfaces. But, it does securely hold the bike in place much better than the stock kickstand.

Bike maintenance in the sun

Nothing like a 75 degree evening in mid March Minnesota to get some bike maintenance done.

Blood on the Ice

Three aircraft plus batteries & hand warmers in the cooler

 Today my venerable Parkzone P-51 and the not-so venerable Balsa Babyshark met their doom. After a long hiatus from flying, I brought my two high performance aircraft (big mistake) and my Super Cub down to the ice for some flying before the weather front moved in. The Cub flights were uneventful- like normal.

I thought, hey, no problem with the cub, so let's break out the P-51. After launching and running some laps around the ice, I decided to try some basic acrobatics.  I may have misjudged minimum altitude for pulling out after a dive, or if the elevator failed, the world will never know. In either case the P-51 impacted the ice hard enough to completely shatter the heavy duty spinner and the front nose of the airplane. It was a very impressive crunch, loudest I've heard yet from an RC plane hitting the ground. (John, this is a challenge!)

Battery, ESC. You can see the rest of the plane in the background

All the parts re-united (that I could find, anyway)

It was a sad end to the airplane that I've probably had the longest and put the most amount of batteries through. Even when it was well used and held together by plywood patches and Gorilla Glue it still tracked straight as an arrow. One thing I've never seen before is that it hit hard enough to blast both aileron linkages right off the servos and ailerons- even though the plane hit the ice spinner first.

Links as found on the ice

The home-made motor mount for the Turnigy 35-36 1400kV was solid as a rock, though. No damage what-so-ever, even though the prop shaft had broken clean off the end of the motor.

Now, on to the nanoplanes.net Balsa Baby Shark....

This was my third flight attempt for the Baby Shark. Both original tries had ended with a nose into the dirt at high speed. I figured that after grenading the P-51, I'd have better luck with an even harder airplane to fly. First try I revved it up, and gave it a hard toss. I over corrected several times when it tried to roll, then managed to bring it in for a quick belly landing. After checking the prop for damage, I brought it to full throttle and tried it again- throwing it hard and straight towards the horizon.

To by surprise I was able to gain some altitude and start flying a very shaky pattern. I was still having trouble giving it much too much aileron input. If I had manged to land it I would have dialed in a bunch of expo. As it was, I climbed to 100' or so altitude, and pulled back the throttle to 30% or so and started to try and trim it out. That was a mistake. The Babyshark is a heavy brick with tiny wings- not so good at slow flight. It promptly stalled, hard, and spiraled straight down into the ice. Crack. Number two for the day. Time to pack it up for the day.

I haven't decided whether or not to fix the Babyshark again. It is certainly doable- the wings and tail are not damaged at all. The motor also still turns. With some care I could re-create the broken balsa. And, it's just too pretty to throw away.

Balsa Babyshark rises from the splinters

I'm still holding out hope that the local lakes will freeze over enough to allow for some flying off ice before spring. I'm also holding on to some hope to have my Balsa Babyshark actually fly more than five seconds. It's been nostril freezing cold the last week- and I fabricated some replacement plywood bulkheads and balsa parts for the babyshark. I am a bit concerned that the thrust line isn't where it needs to be. The new motor firewall fit in the old mounting slots in the fuselage, but with all the damage from the last crash the location may have shifted.

If it hits 20 or higher this weekend I'm going to give it another go on Mooney Lake. I don't have too much more patience for this airplane, though. For as infrequently I go out flying now a 130+ mph micro airplane probably isn't very sustainable.

The motor isn't very smooth running at the high end of the RPM band. I tried adjusting the timing and switching frequency on the Hobby King Mystery ESC, but none of the settings really seemed to do anything. 

 

 

New firewall, held in place with epoxy

Motor, mounted in

Ready to crash!

1st ride of the year

Josh and I had a great ride this afternoon. 20.7 miles- started at the east end of the Greenway on West River Road. It was a blast from the past to ride down to Minnehaha Creek. We climbed the steps down to the trail along the creek, hoping to ride along the creek over to the river. The trail was a total skating rink- barely even walkable. So, we hike a biked back up the steps on the other side of the creek then cut over to Hwy 55. Took the trail along the highway up to downtown, rode over to the river, then took the new Cedar Lake trail extension  next to the Twins Stadium and then back to the Greenway. And, a burger and beer to cap it off at Longfellow Grille. I'll take pictures next time...

2011 Riding Totals- Here's to 2012!

I've been tracking my miles since '04. Every year right around New Year's I record the DIST2 and zero out each speedometer. It's always a good reminder of how much time I actually put in towards my riding goals for the year.

This year with Elliot in the house I'm going to have to put in a more concentrated effort. He should be old enough by the end of the summer to strap on the back of the big dummy (in a baby seat, of course) and take him out riding.

(example of a Pea Pod on a Big Dummy)

With studded tires, cold weather riding gear and lights I hope to keep on riding to work through the new year. I'm also planning on entering the Dakota 5-0 for 2012- perfect motivation to ramp up the miles. I also really want to improve my technical skills. I don't know if I'm going to have to build a few stunts in the back yard to practice on, but I need to get organized and put some real effort into it.

In any case, here is to a great 2012!

Fixing Kitchenaid KUDS01FLSS6 Dishwasher

This is round 2 of a rather crude DIY fix for our KitchenAid dishwasher. We noticed that our dishes just were not getting clean, and there was lots of particulate left on the dishes after washing. We first tried removing the spray bars and looking for any clogs- nothing. We took apart and cleaned the filter screens in the bottom of the tub, also to no avail.

This dishwasher has a two position upper rack. There is a set of rubber seals that only allows water to flow out of the proper hole to the upper rack. We noticed that the rubber seal that shuts off water flow to the lower hole didn't seem to be sealing properly. Rather than spending the money on the replacement part on the chance that was the issue, we decided just to seal it ourselves with some aluminum ductwork tape to see if that was indeed the problem. We disassembled the seal, applied tape, reassembled, and ran the dishwasher. Quite to our surprise, it actually seemed to work. The only disadvantage is that you can't lower the rack to the lower position.

Fast forward just over a year later, and the aluminum tape finally failed, and the dishwasher was up to its old tricks. This time, I decided to make the fix a little more permanent by inserting a small piece of plastic cut from the lid of a dishwasher safe container to form the seal. The combination of aluminum tape plus the small piece of polypropylene should make the fix permanent.

Aluminum tape over lower water outlet. Make the tape wrap around the edges of the part, but not so far as to obstruct the snap-fit features. If the snap-fit features are covered with tape, the cover won't snap on properly.

Polypropylene insert between rubber seal and plastic cover of water outlet. (only visible through circular cutout in rubber seal) You can pull the rubber seal out and use it as a pattern when you cut the polypropylene insert.

"outside" view of water outlet, polypropylene insert visible in lower outlet. This is before re-assembly.

Re-assembled water outlet before installation into dishwasher

All parts assembled and back in the dishwasher. You can see the lower water outlet is now permanently blocked