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The Topeak Mini 9 toolkit. I like that additional 8mm wrench that is missing in other models. |
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The Pocket Rocket DX II hand-pump. You can put it in the car or mount it on the bike, and be prepared for any onsite need. The smart head can fit both Schrader and Presta valves, the locking mechanism is also easier to operate. It is not the lightest hand-pump around though. |
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The JoeBlow Max HP floor pump. It can bring any puncture up to full pump within seconds. |
The main reason for getting the bike is really the double chain ring at 53/39T as well as the drive wheel size of 20 inches. The rear cassette has 11-28 teeth, so this equates to about 20 * 53/11 = 96.4 for the highest gear inches and 20 * 39/28 = 27.9 for the lowest gear inches.
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| Bike Friday - New World Tourist |
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| Wellgo M111 detachable pedals |
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| Wheel-Sport Smart 20-inch rims |
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| FullSpeedAhead (FSA) Vero crankset and Shimano front derailleur |
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| Shimano Tiagra rear derailleur |
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| Selle Italia Flite Flow saddle and Zixtro saddle bag |
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| SRAM MRX twist shifter and Tektro brake levers |
Here is a video for it:
There was one day which I accidentally saved a wrong address as my Home location and I had a hard time figuring out how to change it on my Garmin Nuvi 40LM. I used to be able to able to do it easily on the Nuvi 2465, which often had menu options within the navigation screen. This is not the case for the Garmin Nuvi 40LM.
I managed to find out how to do that one day. As below are the steps required.
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Start from the home screen. Tap on Where To? | |
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Tap on Favourites. (You may need to scroll up or down the menu to locate that option) | |
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Tap on Home (or any other favourite locations that you want to remove) Note: I do not live in Teban Gardens, this is just a bogus address. | |
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A map of the selected location will be presented. Tap on the white speech balloon that is surrounding the address field. | |
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You will be presented with some options that you can use for that location. Tap on Delete. | |
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Confirm the deletion by tapping on Yes. |
That location should then be gone from Favourites.
First of all just to give a brief overview of my home network:
I am using the ASUS RT N56U as the main wireless router to connect to the Optical Network Terminal (ONT) in the living room. To extend the wireless coverage in my study room, I deployed the ASUS RT N15U running on Wireless Repeater mode (The N15U also has the Router mode as well as the Access Point mode). 2 PCs are connected to N15U's gigabit ethernet ports, the printer is connected to the USB port and my other work laptop is connected to the wireless network extended by the N15U.
Initially I was thinking that the ASUS router and repeater must have been acting up to give me weird connectivity issues (the 2 PCs and the laptop start to have intermittent Internet connectivity at around the same time in the evenings). Could it be due to the extra load in the evening caused by the 2 PCs, 1 laptop, various mobile phones and tablets that are connected to the home network, thus causing the strain to the equipment?
I even bought the Linksys E2500 as the replacement for the main router.. but the problem persisted.
...until I read that such wireless connectivity issue could be related to the fact that more and more wireless base stations/routers are springing up among my neighbours - This could cause interference to the wireless signal and effectively lower the connection speed or even cause disruptions.
Immediately I tried changing the N56U's control channel (to a channel that is less used - 13. I found that out by performing a wireless network scan via the N15U) and narrowing the channel bandwidth from 20/40MHz to only 20MHz. Voila! the wireless network speed improved tremendously and the network bandwidth test (for my laptop) at speedtest.net yielded up to 20Mbps upload speed, which I am quite happy with (considering that the laptop is at the other end of the apartment away from the main router and is also connected via wireless).
Now I have to scratch my head to think of what to do with the Linksys E2500 router.
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Recently I have upgraded to the Garmin Nuvi 40LM for my GPS needs. "LM" stands for lifetime map updates, so I should not have to worry about having to pay to update the maps from now onwards.
There are free maps out there that could be downloaded onto the device, but in my opinion they are not as useful as the official Garmin maps. |
| The Compass and Bluetooth functions (can answer phone with the GPS unit once they are paired up) on my previous Garmin Nuvi 2465 were not very often used. As for the voice command, it was only accurate when dictating numbers and not words (maybe it was my diction that was causing the problem) but anyway it did not prove to be useful under most circumstances. |
In fact, two of such bicycles can be folded and stored within the boot of a mid-size sedan (not even MPV or SUV), one on each side of the boot.
What I practically do is to store my bicycle and also squeeze in my son's 14-inch kid bicycle, and we can go to a park to ride our bicycles. This is done without installing any bicycle rack at the back of my car.
This is not entirely true. A bicycle with a smaller 20-inch wheel size may not necessary be slower (or will travel less distance) than a bicycle that has a 26-inch wheel. Wheel size is certainly one of the important factors for cadence, but not the only factor.
What could be the other factor? The answer is gear inches.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gear_inches, gear inches can be expressed in terms of the following equation:
where
Depending on the material cost that you need to incur, you may opt to use different combination of the above method to modify your gear inches.
| I am using the MKS Promenade Ezy pedals on my Bike Friday tikit and I am loving it!
These pedals can be dismantled and kept separately, making the folded bike look more compact. There is however a small issue which is the yellow plastic rings (shown here in the images) that are supposed to prevent the pedals from being dislodged/released accidentally. My bike is primarily black in color and having yellow rings is somewhat a mismatch. |
What I have done is simply to remove the rings altogether and I did not have to worry about the pedals getting dislodged when riding (after 3 trips by now); the quick release design is "smart" enough to prevent the normal riding action from dislodging the pedals.
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The rings are as shown here
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| A video showing how the quick release works (you will also appreciate how the yellow rings keep the quick release in check): |
Have been wanting to blog about my Bike Friday tikit ever since I bought it from MyBikeShop in early Mar 2013. Here is a picture of it (click to enlarge) and below is the list of modifications that have been done to it.
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1. Upgraded from the stock 16-inch rims with Schwalbe Marathon tyres to the 18-inch WheelSport Magic 355 rims with Schwalbe Kojak tyres.
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2. Replaced the stock handle bar (plain old cylindrical) with the ergonomic Biologic - Arx™ Grips with T-Tool as well as replaced the grip shifter with the SRAM trigger-shifter.
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3. Zixtro pouch under the bike saddle. (Can be used to keep accessories, including the bike pedals mentioned below) Note that Model-T tikit does not come with a saddle by default, so I got a simple one separately.
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4. Upgraded the chain-ring from the stock 53T to the Vuelta 60T, together with a somewhat ugly chain-ring guard (chain-ring guard for 60T is pretty hard to find, so cannnot complain - according to the folks at MyBikeShop)
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5. The MKS EZY bike pedal can be dismantled via quick release and then kept inside the saddle pouch - so cool! Bike pedals that are folded are like sore-thumbs sticking out of the folded bike. Having bike pedals that can be dismantled is definitely advantageous. Note that Model-T tikit does not ship with bike pedals by default.
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6. Model-T tikit does not come with a kick-stand by default, as such I got a plain and simple one.
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