After getting only 5 hours of sleep in the past 2 days, we are still pretty tired, but eager to take Rollin out for a ride on our home terrain to see how he does. How will he like our hills, and can he really open up on the flat trails? GreenSpeeds are noted for how fast they go. Tandem trikes are slower than other trikes and bikes, but GreenSpeeds (GTT's) are the fastest tandem trike made. Last year in PALM, we usually saw a GTT briefly in the morning, and maybe at a few early water stops, but after that, it left us, and many others, in the dust.
I got the ratchet straps loose and the pieces of foam we had taped on Rollin came off easily.
Upon examination it looks like he took the trip well, even with all the bouncing around on those WI roads. The tires all needed some air, so Tony took care of that.
By the time we got going, it was mid afternoon. Temps was 55, with winds around 10 MPH. We wanted to see how Rollin did on hills and flats, so we opted to ride into town and spin the White Pine Trail. When heading home, we would take 18 mile Road, which is awash with hills, and go around the rest of lake on 140th.
You have all been good sports, (or at least I think you have.) about listening to me go on about our Schlumpf Mountain Drive and how much easier it makes our life, when riding hills. Some of you might be wondering what the big "hoo ra" is about this mountain drive.
In 1992 Florian Schlumpf, who lives in the mountains of Switzerland, invented the mountain drive, which adds lower gearing to bikes and trikes, making it easier to climb steep grades. Florian is an avid unicyclist, and has a put a mountain drive on the hub of his unicycle. This allows him to ride up steep alpine passes with it. I can't imagine riding a unicycle in a parking lot, much less, up a mountain. Florian has been making the Schlumpf mountain drive in a small shop, behind his alpine home. In 2012, the manufacturing was turned over to a factory in Germany, so he would have more time to come up with new and better innovations. Unfortunately, this has caused the price of this wonderful device to increase by $200.00.
I am not very good at explaining things of this nature, so I copied most of the following explanation from a website that explains the Schlumpf Mountain Drive, much better than I. Hopefully, you can understand it. I won't be of much help, if you can't. This might get a little technical, so feel free to skip over it if this kind of explanation drives you nuts.
The Schlumpf Mountain Drive is a planetary geared crankset spider that acts like 2 chainrings on the front of your bike. (on a tandem, it is on the back.) In high gear, it uses a 1:1 ratio and gives you a gear of whatever chainring size you have installed. In low gear mode, it bumps the chainring size down by a factor of 2.5 for a 2.5:1 gearing ratio.
The mountain drive gives any bike or trike an ultimate granny gear by gearing down the exisiting drivetrain. Without a front deraileur, the mountain drive, in conjunction with a conventional rear cassette, gives the rider a huge gear range with almost no gear overlap. With a front deraileur, the gear overlap helps ease transitions between higher and lower gear sets. Our trike has a front and rear deraileur.
With a 20 inch rear wheel, which is what we use, using an 11-34T rear cassette, and 2 front chainring sizes of 53T and 39T (which means the gear ring has either 53 or 39 teeth.) you can expect a gear range of approximately 8.6 - 90 inches, with a fair bit of overlap. (that is NOT a typo.)
Please don't ask me to explain all of that. I can tell you this, with Schlumpf Mountain Drive on our trike, our gearing is low enough that we could probably ride up a tree, if we had too. Granted, we don't race up a hill fast, but one of the advantages of riding a trike is we can go as slow as we want, and we won't tip over, we can also look at the scenery as we go. However, it would not be a good time to meet up with a skunk or a bear.
With our mountain drive engaged, we don't have to push hard, (called mashing) on our pedals to get to the top, but can slowly spin our way up. On some hills, we go so slow that the wheel won't register the speed on the computer, yet we are still moving forward. We call it "zeroing out." Someone walking, could easily pass us, but the point is to get to the top, and with our trusty mountain drive, we get it done, and that is what counts.
So it was imperative to us, that Rollin have Schlumpf Mountain Drive. Since we have a Mountain Drive, on Rosie, we already knew he would do well on the hills. So no surprises there. Our biggest question was how he would do on the "flats."
Our best speed on Rosie had been about 18 MPH, and that was when we were racing a thunderstorm in PALM. Yes, we won, and the prize was staying dry.) With Rollin, we can achieve that speed without working nearly as hard. When we did our test ride, I had him up to 20 MPH, without too much huffing and puffing. I expect to improve once I master the gearing combinations. Tony also needs to practice getting the feel of the new Mountain Drive. He is having some trouble getting it out of Mountain drive, once we are done with a hill. It will come, just takes miles of practice.
We stopped at the bank, where I asked a guy to please take our picture. It didn't turn out , so you will have to imagine us in our biking tights and jackets, red helmets gleaming in the sun, smiling like 2 little kids, next to their new wagon. Only in our case we were next to Rollin, wearing the "trikers grin."
Our turning ratio with Rollin is smaller than with Rosie, but bear in mind that we are still nearly 10 foot long, and don't turn on a dime. Rollin is also 5 pounds lighter, weighing in at 63 pounds, of course that is without any of our gear on the trike.
Once we got on the trail I had a chance to practice my speed gearing. It seemed different to not know the sweet spots to coax the most from Rollin, like I do on Rosie. I know the exact combinations I need to make her sing. Rollin and I, we're still learning the scale. We still managed to get him up to 21 MPH without extreme pedaling. I have a feeling this boy, can really fly!
Green grass is abundant now, we saw evidence that some folks had already put their lawn mowers to work.
The new side mirrors are round and earth like instead of the oval I am used too, framing what is behind us into what I call, "my world view."
Rollin seemed to handle the gravel section of our road fine. I would say he passed todays tests with flying colors. The only concern we have is that the seat might be just a tad to close for Tony's stoker position. He is right on the borderline of needing the next size frame. The seats aren't adjustable. If it makes problems for him, but we might be able to move his cleats back a bit, or go with longer cranks. Riding to close to the pedals can cause serious knee problems. We are hoping this will not be an issue for him. Time will tell. We'll be watching Tony's knees closely on our next few rides. Won't be selling Rosie, until we know Rollin will work for Tony.
We rode 28 miles wonderful today. Welcome to our world, Rollin, we're glad your here.
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