Today was a beautiful day, so I took the bike out in the afternoon to test it some more. I started with the descent from my house near the UC Santa Cruz campus downhill about 380 feet to downtown Santa Cruz, where I stopped at a hardware store for some things I needed. I compressed the wheelbase but didn't completely fold it into the super-compact configuration. I rolled the shortened bike through the store to find my purchases. Again, people stop to comment on the bike. I had to explain that it folds even smaller and that I don't ride it in this shortened shape but rather stretch it out again.
Then I leisurely rode through downtown toward the coast, through Depot Park on a bike path to the new
Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Center. I parked it next to a bench for this photo:
Then I continued along the beach road bike lane to the amusement park, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, which is the last of the historic coastal amusement parks along the California coast:
The bike was dwarfed against the mass of the big bikes parked in front, such as the beach cruiser bike behind the little bike here. That may have been one of those 29" wheeled cruisers:
On the way, I noticed that the entrance to the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf (where there are tourist shops and restaurants on the pier) had a sign saying that the parking lot on the wharf itself was full and therefore closed to further cars. I put my bike next to that sign and thought of another use for the bike: Can't park next to your destination? No problem. Go find another parking place farther away. Take the bike(s) out of the back of the car and ride back to the destination, where you can fold the bike and roll it in with you on its luggage wheels.
Then I continued along the frontage of the Boardwalk, which has a scenic train railway that takes tourists from the Boardwalk up into the Santa Cruz mountains. A section of the track has exposed railroad ties with gravel between them, not quite coming up to the surface of the ties. I figured this would be a good test for the suspension and steering. I rode along the bumpy path between the railroad rails for about 15'.
(When you look at that picture, you can't help but be struck by the small size of this bike. I'm even surprised now that I look at myself with the bike.)
The suspension took the harshness out of the ride and the steering did ok as long as I continued rather straight, parallel to the rails. If I turned too much to the left or right, the wheel would be deflected by the leading edge of the tie, where perhaps a larger diameter tire would have continued un-deflected. So this is something to be aware of when riding over especially rough terrain. Likewise, when crossing railroad tracks in pavement, you should take a curved path that lets you cross perpendicular to the tracks rather than at an acute angle, which could catch the wheel in the track groove and deflect the bike, causing a fall. This is true of all bikes when riding over railroad tracks that cross streets at an angle other than a right angle.
After I left the Boardwalk, I proceeded to the Santa Cruz Harbor, where there are pleasure boats. On the way back, I had to climb a short steep hill which was a seldom-traveled road, so I could use the full width. I tacked up the hill and sat part way and then stood on the pedals the rest of the way. The grade I'm sure was more than 3%, but with the zig-zag tacking technique I handled it well. Standing on the climb gives you a good upper-body workout as you pull against the handlebars for more power, which is one reason I don't ride my recumbent bikes as much as I used to do. On a recumbent, your upper body really can be quite lazy as the legs do the power work.
Returning home through downtown to the 380' climb at 3% grade to my house, I was just a little too tired to want to challenge the climb, so I walked most of the way up along a pedestrian trail in the median parkway of the road. I thought to myself that when riding this bike one has to think of how cyclocross racers do a combination of riding where they can and carrying the bike where they can't ride, only with this bike it's riding where you can and walking it where you must. That's true of any single-speed bike, probably even more so in the others since most single speed bikes have 60 to 75 gear-inches and this super-compact bike has 46 gear-inch gearing, which can take hills better.
MapMyRide recorded my route today. I rode 11.55 miles with an overall average speed of 6.8 mph, but the last part of that was walking at 4.2 mph uphill. Through the flat areas of downtown, I rode 8.7 to 9.2 mph in the bike lanes next to parked cars and traffic. This corresponds to a cadence of a little more than 60 rpm, which is a comfortable touring cadence in the city. On the initial descent, I let it get up to 16 mph before slowing for safety in traffic and to make a turn. I discovered that the front caliper brake pads just aren't doing much, but the rear band brake works quite well since I adjusted the cable this morning. Next I'll try refreshing the surface of the front pads with a belt sander, not only to roughen them a little and remove any oil or glaze, but also to improve the angle of the pads when they contact the rim. These simple caliper pads don't have the full adjustability that V-brake pads do. If that doesn't help, I'll replace the pads with some larger V-brake pads that I have as spares for my full-size touring bike.
This was a good workout with the little bike. MapMyRide estimates that I burned 572 Calories (kcal). I haven't been riding much in the last few months, so this is a good start to the riding season for me. I'll sleep well tonight.
(Update on the morning after the latest ride: I tried the sanding of the existing pads, but that didn't improve the braking. I installed some fully-adjustable V-brake pads that have a bolt and washer arrangement which allows tilting the pad in all directions to obtain the best pad-to-rim contact possible, including a slight toe-in to avoid brake squeal.
Testing on the ground by leaning forward against the handlebars while applying the brakes, I feel that the front braking is significantly better with these pads. I'll road-test and report.)