Daily Archives: June 4, 2009

Will this work? 5

accesories/equipment, Catrike 700, cycling • Tags: , , ,

Lighting Placement for Front Fairing [insert]

I have long tried to determine the optimal location to place my DiNotte 400L amber headlights as well as their 400L taillights, all this without the fairings in hand. I’ve used photographs of the two fairings taken by Jeff Bales and others. The fairings’ lines are so smooth [sweet] that I do not want to alter them by placing lights on or within the fairings.

Here, I’ve attached the lights [and batteries] on the trike and as low and as wide as I can. I’m anticipating there will be less air disturbance with them positioned as you see them rather than were they were located as before. The insert above, and other frontal shots, make me think this may work and yet give me the visibility intended. The alternatives are to mount lighting on or within the fairings. I am waiting for the extended version of Jeff’s current front fairing to confirm my lighting planning. I’m not one to wait to receive the fairing to begin planning. I plan to place the main headlight on the backend of the vision tunnel.

No change on the taillight position.

Your comments are welcomed.

Jim

Pileated "Woodie" Woodpecker 4

Uncategorized • Tags: ,
Pileated Woodpecker
On the Live Science Page at Fox News From my yard
   

Woodpeckers make a disturbing sound, especially early in the morning, as did this Pileated Woodpecker [I think I've correctly identified her]. Based on the damage, she or one of her friends has visited my residence before. I figured since she was keeping such a racket, I deserved to capture her on disc. To the right is a collage of photos I took, cropped, and uploaded to my flickr photostream. I even enjoyed watching Woodie Woodpecker Cartoons in my youth. According to miscellaneous facts on this Wikipedia page for this “beautiful” bird, it was the model for Woodie. All this, as I’m finishing up a customer’s computer. I’d loved to have been out riding one of my cycles.

If you are a "hits" minder… Reply

publication • Tags: ,

…as I am, you may have noticed this blogs total PageViews are down by about 190 from a high yesterday of 29,016 or so. That’s because of some miscounting by WordPress.com.

Hi James, The grand total was counting a 20-hour period twice. You should now find your stats to be adding up the way they should. Thank you for reporting this issue. Cheers, ****

I reported this to WP 05/20 following known PageViews fluctuations as WP modified it’s statistics counting to align the stat-day with time zones versus Greenwich [Zulu] time. It took them 2 weeks to find and fix my counting error. I use a spreadsheet to crosscheck their numbers.

They are accurate now [Totals=Totals]. We are doing well. I appreciate your many visits and we’ll be back to over 29k real soon.

email & graphic I submitted to WordPress.com

06/02 questions to Jeff 2

accesories/equipment, Catrike 700, cycling • Tags:

In addition to these questions posted on the Catrike Board 05/27:

  1. Will the larger front fairing also fair the front wheels?
  2. Is a June ship date a possibility for the larger model?
  3. How is your hard shell seat coming along?

I also asked Jeff, these questions by PM on the Catrike Board:

  1. What is your impression of the fairings performance at the races?
  2. Tell us about the shape [the cutouts] of the front fairing [I have been asked this by others].

Hoping for answers soon. Thanks Jeff!

In reply to the last 2 questions above, Jeff says:

  1. The race was a blast. I’m not in nearly the same shape as I was back in ’96 when I was the fastest racer in the velodrome. I was a bit disappointed in my own personal performance, but I still had a great time. With the fairings I was able to sprint to the same speed as a rider on a non-faired 700 that was in incredible athletic shape (Mark/BritishSeaPower).
  2. The cutouts in the front fairing line up with rider/trike parts from the front and sections were removed to reduce the non-needed frontal area that did not directly fair the rider/trike behind it. I really like the front fairing. The trike looks just like a velomobile from the front and definitely parts the air around the rider.

He goes on to say:
I’ll start on the longer front fairing soon. =)
It’s time to head out to the factory in about an hour and start making some fairings! [Maybe my tail fairing ;-) ].

I’m still waiting on responses to the other questions.