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Monday 23 June 2014

Sawtry and Grafham

I took bike.5 out today, and it was not a success. It has 20 inch wheels, and 26 inch is definitely better over rough ground. And it has no rear suspension, another disadvantage over rough ground.

But the biggest ptoblem, was that the motor overheated. Running it at 8s (29.6 volts nominally, actually 33.6 when fully charged), the controller let the motor have as much current as it wanted, and as a result, it overheated. I put my hand on it, and it was too hot to keep my hand there.

This led to a grinding noise; I think it's the clutch inside the motor. When it cooled off, the noise went too. But I think this rules it out as a caching bike.

So I had another think, and I'll tell you what I've come up with later - see next blog.

The caching was good, but with some exceptions, I went round the Woodwalton Whichway. My first mistake was to lift the bike over a stile without removing the battery pack. My reasoning was that this bike is a lot lighter than bike.1, my usual bike, and even with the batteries, it would still be lighter than bike.1. But the battery pack makes it a very unbalanced lift, and I nearly strained my back. I think I got away with it, though. I'll see how it feels tomorrow.

The biggest problem with the circuit, came between caches 13 and 14. The track went through a field of rape, and at this time of year, it's fully grown and in seed. The track was very overgrown with the plants, and they're very tough to get a bike through, because the stalks grab the bike and won't let go. It took me ages to get through that lot!

After I finished the circuit, I went to pick up some drive-bys, including "Alconbury Amble #1". I've had four goes at this already, and this fifth go was another failure. Grrr!

Then to Grafham, where I started off with two DNFs, but then things got a lot better, and I finished the day with 47 finds and three DNFs.

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