When I Can: Lurveseat Update

Winter Storage

It's too early to come out blinking into the sunlight. Local forecasts include chances of snow showers, not just here but down at the coast. It won't be like '76, memories of which are making City people all giddy, but it's enough to set the chatterers to chattering and pretty much cause all eyes east of Denver to roll up in their sockets. It's not too early to start thinking and planning, however, and in fact I hauled this thing out after taking the picture and moved it into the shop into a neat little pile, ready for me to get some welding on as soon as I have actual time for it. That will not be during any of the next three weekends, which are entirely booked up. But soon. And there are weeknights, too.

Welding what? Well, the morning after Decom I found the right front wheel was all out of whack, and after examination of the damage I've decided that the casters I made from the rear dropouts I cut off a couple spare bicycles were too flimsy. They look okay, but if weighted down by some drunken lummox with the wheel at a non-optimal angle, they will get torqued. So I bought some 1/4" square tubestock and sort of plan to rebuild the casters out of a sturdier material.

Sort of. This ain't engineering. This is seat of the pants. Build it. Use it. If it breaks, make it stronger and repeat.

What do I mean, casters? My machine has fully independent rear drive wheels that do the steering, so the front wheels have to spin freely, exactly as in a wheelchair. That's all it is, is a wheelchair. And caster science dictates a certain design, as I learned the hard way last summer, i.e. a trailing distance that is slightly greater than my wheel radius. Hence the dropouts. They just need to bear a greater load.

After all, if I'm going to have half-naked desert chicks hopping onto the seat with me, I can't have the thing collapse.

The unqualified dreaming doesn't stop there, either, but I'll cover it with sunshade and add lights and a stereo later in the year. Much later, at this rate. Meanwhile, I work on it, or at least think about working on it, when I can.