About The Trike & I

THE BASIC TRIKE

The trike is a "Made in China" Tri-Rider from Belize Bike in Canada. It comes with 6 speeds on a rear axle derailer, a V-Brake in Front and a Drum or band brake in the back. Fenders and a basket are included and mirrors and bells may also be added.

Trikes are inherently unstable and new riders should take great care in corners and turns until they have mastered it.

YETI MODIFICATIONS

In addition to assembling and tuning the trike, the craftsmen at Yeti Cycles added a three speed derailer to the crank giving a total of 18 speeds.

They added a special lifting bar behind the basket to make it easier to load and unload in the van.

They created a solid aluminum seat stem to take my weight and give me a longer inseam to the pedals.

They invented and manufactured special clamps for the front fork to keep the motor from ripping out of the fork dropout.

THE MOTOR

The motor comes as a kit from WeRelectrified. It includes 650 Watt brushless motor on a 24" wheel, throttle, controller, charger and 36 volt 12 amp hour battery set.

The purpose of the motor is to improve my speed and extend my range. I use it to help out on the long hills and to fight headwinds. It is ultimately intended to make it possible for me to get back to the car in case of medical problems.

THE GPS

My GPS computer is a Garmin Edge 205 made for running and cycling. I purchased it from Amazon.com on sale. It keeps track of speed, distance, elevation and, of course, GPS. All of this data is uploaded to my PC.

It comes with software called Training Center but I rarely use that software anymore except to go there and export data. (see software below)

CYCLING SOFTWARE

Training Center - Comes with the Garmin Edge device and has limited capabilities for tracking your workouts and rides. I use it to download data from the GPS and then export it to CycliStats.

Cyclistats - CycliStats, by Shasta Software is a commercial software that is excellent for building statistics and graphs on your cycling. It is the software that I used most before getting a GPS. It does not have the ability to download data from the Garmin Edge so I export the data from Training center into Cyclistats and avoid the necessity of manual entries. The charts and graphs in the statistics section of this site are from this software.

SportTracks - SportTracks by Zone Five Software is the premier cycling software that automatically interfaces with the Garmin (and many other devices) and provides maps and ride data in a nice consolidated format. Almost all the ride data and maps on this site came from SportTracks. This is freeware and I recommend that you donate to the developers is you use the software.

MY WEBSITES

This website is provided by Freehostia. It is free for 250 MB of disk space, 5 GB bandwidth, up to 2 hosted domains and no forced ads. If those limits are exceeded there are rather nominal charges for more of everything. I have been very pleased with their site and support.

My photographic albums are hosted on Google's Picasa Web and it is also free. In addition Google offers Picasa software for free and I use it to capture all pictures from my camera and cell phone and then to manage them and upload them to the website.