Our eldest daughter just turned 5. She's had a 12-inch BMX-style Giant for a couple of years now. It's been good, apart from being unbelievably heavy. It's getting a bit small, though, so it's time to upgrade. We got her a second-hand one, which I made a couple of upgrades to.
Her requirements:
- a stand
- pink
- streamers on handlebars
Our requirements
- front and rear brakes, one lever-operated and compatible with little hands.
- decent tyres (ie not the ridiculous faux knobblies that seem to come standard round these parts)
- decent rims (not steel)
Light would have been nice, but 99.99% of kids' bikes are BMX-style (complete with stickers warning against riding them offroad or using them for stunts), so not much chance of that.
We picked up a second-hand one off eBay. Luckily enough, it had a front-mounted V-brake (although a cheap and nasty one), so we had a really good base. It even had aluminium rims, so using a hand-operated brake wouldn't be a complete waste of time.
I put a better V-brake on the front (some Tektro thing I had lying around for some reason), tidied up some cosmetic stuff and regreased the bearings. I've not had much truck with cheap cheap V-brakes (these were made of pressed steel(!)), but cheap cheap brakes in general are a no-go area for me anyway. I wanted something easy to adjust that wasn't too grabby. It worked well with the existing lever, which seems to have been aimed at little hands. The good thing about a fork with cantilever mounts is that you have a range of more or less powerful brakes to choose from, from cantilever up to extra-long V-brake.
We picked up some semi-slick tyres for reasonable money too (made by Cheng Shin, as I recall). The theory there is that they should last better than the knobbly kind and roll and grip a bit better. They were also slightly smaller, which means slightly lower stepover (good) and slightly lower gearing (also good).
Gearing is an interesting one. I took up track cycling about a year ago and this may have coloured my perspective a bit, because track cyclists talk an awful lot about gearing. Talking about what gear you're on is the rough equivalent of talking about the weather or something. I'm leaning to the view that it's important for kids too. In particular, I think lower gearing is a good thing for little kids (they'll struggle less on hills at the cost of going slightly slower on the flat). It's easy peasy to change the sprocket on a coaster brake hub too (although http://sheldonbrown.com/coaster-brakes.html has a couple of helpful hints I wasn't aware of), so I think I'll scare up a bigger rear sprocket and see how it goes.
It's been a good step up; our daughter's done pretty well picking up some new skills (like dealing with a higher saddle and using a hand-operated brake). In some ways I'd rather do away with the coaster brake (it makes starting off harder than it has to be) but it's what she's familiar with from her old bike, so it's a good transition. She's ridden it to school, both solo (and supervised) and attached to mum's bike (in which capacity it works better than her old 12"). Her little brother insisted on riding it back home. Who said pink's only for girls?
Saturday 31 December 2011
Bobike mini - headrest and windscreen
So we decided to get some accessories for the BoBike Mini. We got a handlebar, which is really a headrest and a windscreen. I think they are popular; it's hard to tell, cause the young 'un thought the old getup was just great:
Here's a photo of the new gear. It makes the bike look even more, um, distinctive:
The black bit is a kind of curtain which hangs over the child's legs.
The headrest has been road-tested (sleep-tested?) and did pretty well. She fell asleep without it, so I assume that comfort wasn't an issue, but if nothing else I like her having somewhere to rest her head. I like the way the windscreen fends off low-hanging plants and (I assume) insects. Overall, we're very pleased with it.
We got the accessories from www.moruyabicycles.com.au, who seem to be running them out at about half price for some reason - a good time to pick up a bargain.
Here's a photo of the new gear. It makes the bike look even more, um, distinctive:
The black bit is a kind of curtain which hangs over the child's legs.
The headrest has been road-tested (sleep-tested?) and did pretty well. She fell asleep without it, so I assume that comfort wasn't an issue, but if nothing else I like her having somewhere to rest her head. I like the way the windscreen fends off low-hanging plants and (I assume) insects. Overall, we're very pleased with it.
We got the accessories from www.moruyabicycles.com.au, who seem to be running them out at about half price for some reason - a good time to pick up a bargain.
Monday 12 December 2011
Rudy Project Zyon Review
Every so often, I have some random thing bounce off my head, much closer to my eyeballs that I'd really like. Generally it's suicidal insects or angry (I'm assuming) birds. I've worn the odd insect in my eye, which a fairly unpleasant sensation, never mind the bad things it does to your concentration. I'm totally sold on protective eyewear for cycling. This probably sounds all wowserish or something. Well, maybe, but even the merely annoying insect-in-the-eyeball stuff was no fun at all. Avoiding that is reason enough for me, never mind the really nasty stuff. I've seen enough of opthalmologists to last me quite a while. I used to have a pair of sunglasses for daytime and a pair of sunglasses for nighttime. Nowadays I have a pair of photochromic sunglasses, which are way better.
Photochromic lenses seem to be quite popular with people who need prescription lenses. I can understand why; two sets of eyewear is a drag. I think they have a lot going for them even if you don't need prescription lenses; a set of safety glasses that automatically darken when it's bright is actually really really handy.
I have a pair of Rudy Project Zyons, which are hands-down the best, most comfortable sunglasses I have owned. Mine have a clear frame and photochromic lenses that fade to (more or less) clear. Aesthetically, they're like most technical eyewear, which is to say that the best you can hope for is looking like some Germanic killer robot (think: original Terminator movie). The clear lenses do not enhance the aesthetic experience; you move down the from pitiless cyborg to someone fresh from some eye-threatening process in some lab or Satanic mill. So they're probably not the sunglasses you want if you're all about looking cool.
For me, the fact that they actually fit more than makes up for their limitations as a fashion item. I have no end of trouble finding sunglasses that fit. The ones that do tend to be fashion sunglasses, with things like glass lenses, so-so eye protection and less-than-stellar durability. The Zyons have an adjustable nosepiece (which seems to be critical to getting sunglasses to fit me) and arms that can be bent into place. I can make them sit just right on my face and stay there. Considering that most sunglasses I try on annoy me in about 30 seconds flat, this is pretty impressive. They can be moved as close, or as far away from your face as you want, within reason.
The lenses are good too. They don't seem especially prone to scratches. I ride around with them on at night and it works fine. Maybe it's the placebo effect, but I find they aren't bad at cutting down the glare from fluorescent lights either. They get dark enough during the day. I wouldn't mind if they got a bit darker on really really bright days, but I'll gladly trade that off for the fade-to-clear thing.
They're tough; I trod on them (gulp) without any ill-effects apart from having to pop a lens back in.
One drawback is that wearing them in the rain drives me *nuts*. I suspect this would be the case with most any eye protection. Oh, and they fog up if I exhale on them, but I've hit on a solution to that problem: don't do it! The other thing, which is in the nature of most photochromic sunglasses, is that they work off UV light and so fade to clear if you're behind glass. This means they're no good as sunglasses for driving, but that's a minor thing when their role in life is as eye protection.
AFAIK they don't meet any of the common safety-glasses standards, nor do they do anything exciting with blue light. Me, I'm more worried about the flora and fauna that barrels towards my eyeballs every so often. A physical barrier that blocks UV light is fine with me.
They aren't cheap; RRP is (from memory) about $400AUD. I got mine for about $160 delivered from www.erudy.com.au, who often have specials on this kind of thing. That's not cheap, to my way of thinking, but it's well and truly worth it. These are hands-down the best sunglasses I've ever owned.
Photochromic lenses seem to be quite popular with people who need prescription lenses. I can understand why; two sets of eyewear is a drag. I think they have a lot going for them even if you don't need prescription lenses; a set of safety glasses that automatically darken when it's bright is actually really really handy.
I have a pair of Rudy Project Zyons, which are hands-down the best, most comfortable sunglasses I have owned. Mine have a clear frame and photochromic lenses that fade to (more or less) clear. Aesthetically, they're like most technical eyewear, which is to say that the best you can hope for is looking like some Germanic killer robot (think: original Terminator movie). The clear lenses do not enhance the aesthetic experience; you move down the from pitiless cyborg to someone fresh from some eye-threatening process in some lab or Satanic mill. So they're probably not the sunglasses you want if you're all about looking cool.
For me, the fact that they actually fit more than makes up for their limitations as a fashion item. I have no end of trouble finding sunglasses that fit. The ones that do tend to be fashion sunglasses, with things like glass lenses, so-so eye protection and less-than-stellar durability. The Zyons have an adjustable nosepiece (which seems to be critical to getting sunglasses to fit me) and arms that can be bent into place. I can make them sit just right on my face and stay there. Considering that most sunglasses I try on annoy me in about 30 seconds flat, this is pretty impressive. They can be moved as close, or as far away from your face as you want, within reason.
The lenses are good too. They don't seem especially prone to scratches. I ride around with them on at night and it works fine. Maybe it's the placebo effect, but I find they aren't bad at cutting down the glare from fluorescent lights either. They get dark enough during the day. I wouldn't mind if they got a bit darker on really really bright days, but I'll gladly trade that off for the fade-to-clear thing.
They're tough; I trod on them (gulp) without any ill-effects apart from having to pop a lens back in.
One drawback is that wearing them in the rain drives me *nuts*. I suspect this would be the case with most any eye protection. Oh, and they fog up if I exhale on them, but I've hit on a solution to that problem: don't do it! The other thing, which is in the nature of most photochromic sunglasses, is that they work off UV light and so fade to clear if you're behind glass. This means they're no good as sunglasses for driving, but that's a minor thing when their role in life is as eye protection.
AFAIK they don't meet any of the common safety-glasses standards, nor do they do anything exciting with blue light. Me, I'm more worried about the flora and fauna that barrels towards my eyeballs every so often. A physical barrier that blocks UV light is fine with me.
They aren't cheap; RRP is (from memory) about $400AUD. I got mine for about $160 delivered from www.erudy.com.au, who often have specials on this kind of thing. That's not cheap, to my way of thinking, but it's well and truly worth it. These are hands-down the best sunglasses I've ever owned.
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