([] denotes "translated from blinking light speak")
LAST NIGHT
ME: (plugs battery into bike)
BATTERY: [all fired up raring to go!]
BIKE: [no battery. battery plz?]
ME: ??? (takes battery out, plugs it in again, fiddles with key, even unscrews bits of it)
BIKE: [oh, there's my battery! let's rock!]
(cycles halfway across town, when suddenly, on a busy road...)
BIKE: [where's my battery gone? MOTOR STOP NAO]
ME: ??? (takes battery out, plugs it in again, fiddles with key, etc)
BIKE: [no battery. battery plz?]
ME: GRRR!
(cycles rest of way, and back, on foot power alone. Gets home very hot and puffed.)
ME: (consults intarwebz)
INTARWEBZ: Perhaps your fuse has blown?
ME: (lightbulb comes on! takes out both battery fuses, one is clearly blown to fuck. Replaces blown one with spare one I have lying around.)
NEXT MORNING
ME: (plugs battery into bike)
BATTERY: [all fired up raring to go!]
BIKE: [no battery. battery plz?]
ME: ??? (checks replacement fuse... blown. Obviously not big enough.)
(cycles manually to hardware store)
ME: Y halo thar. I can has little glass fuse which can take 25A?
HARDWARE STORE: Sorry, only has big glass fuses of that power, and little glass fuses which can't take that power. Try electronics store.
(cycles manually to electronics store)
ME: Y halo thar. I can has little glass fuse which can take 25A?
ELECTRONICS STORE: Sorry, out of stock. Try auto parts store?
(cycles manually to autoparts store, now getting tired and pissed off)
ME: Y halo thar. I can has little glass fuse which can take 25A?
AUTOPARTS STORE: Sorry, only has big glass fuses. Try electronics store?
ME: GRRR!
(cycles to work manually, hot, tired, 95 minutes late. rings electrobike dealer)
ME: Y halo thar. Fuse has blown in battery. Cannot find replacement.
ELECTROBIKE DEALER: Oh, go to autoparts store.
ME: Done that. Did not has.
ELECTROBIKE DEALER: Oh? Go to electronics store.
ME: (annoyed) Done that. Did not has.
ELECTROBIKE DEALER: Oh? Try speciality electronics store on other side of town...
ME: (weeps silent tears of despair)
ELECTROBIKE DEALER: Oh, almost forgot. Has a spare battery for your bike! Come over get fuse out of that and I'll order some more from manufacturer.
(cycles to electrobike dealer)
ELECTROBIKE DEALER: Y halo thar! This is fuse.
ME: Looks too little. Right fuse?
ELECTROBIKE DEALER: Of course! Got it out of other battery.
ME: Right. Top fuse, or bottom fuse?
ELECTROBIKE DEALER: ... there are two?
ME: *facepalms*
ELECTROBIKE DEALER: Oh, sorry, here is bottom fuse. You were right this one is much bigger.
ME: (plugs in fuse then plugs in battery)
BIKE: [oh, there's my battery! let's rock!]
(cycles back to work, under full power, without further incident)
THE END....?
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
So... how's it going?
The first thing to emphasise is that Auckland is freakin' cold in winter. A nice big thick coat buttoned up to the chin, plus a scarf, plus serious business gloves, is pretty essential to make cycling a realistic option around the frigid parts of the year.
Secondly, perhaps a bit of buyers' remorse. Perhaps I might have blown an extra $2000 and got an actual electric scooter? PLUSES: Double the speed and therefore double the effective range. MINUS: still exposure to the elements. Extra costs with getting leather jacket, helmet etc. Much more difficult to get fixed. You need to register it. You can't do your grocery shopping on it.
(Oh, I don't think I mentioned, I got a rear basket as well, so now I can carry up to about $100 of groceries home from the local Foodtown. There are benefits with a smaller, lighter, more manoeuvrable vehicle.)
Thirdly, it's really important to keep the servicing going on. Flat tires or brakes that don't quite break anything are not the kind of thing you want to be worried about on winter nights in Auckland.
Secondly, perhaps a bit of buyers' remorse. Perhaps I might have blown an extra $2000 and got an actual electric scooter? PLUSES: Double the speed and therefore double the effective range. MINUS: still exposure to the elements. Extra costs with getting leather jacket, helmet etc. Much more difficult to get fixed. You need to register it. You can't do your grocery shopping on it.
(Oh, I don't think I mentioned, I got a rear basket as well, so now I can carry up to about $100 of groceries home from the local Foodtown. There are benefits with a smaller, lighter, more manoeuvrable vehicle.)
Thirdly, it's really important to keep the servicing going on. Flat tires or brakes that don't quite break anything are not the kind of thing you want to be worried about on winter nights in Auckland.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Auckland PT - I'm giving up...
That is, I'm giving up reading Auckland public transport related forums. The main reason is, I can't stand the endless negativity.
I'm not saying that there's nothing worth being angry, pissed off, or sad about. Indeed, we have a government in control who are brainwashed by the road lobby, endless delays in making the investments that would give us a truly world class PT system, and so many teething pains bedding in the current round of improvements.
But the attitude of PT supporters in Auckland is absolutely terrible. The forums are utterly filled with people who spend their whole time crying and complaining about everything that's wrong with Auckland PT - and thinking that this is good tactics. I've been told "we can't tolerate mediocrity" - in other words, we can never allow ourselves to be happy with anything because it takes pressure off people to be perfect. If they tried that attitude in a primary classroom they'd be fired, or told to go back to the 1950s. I've been told that "PT bigwigs appreciate our input on how things will get better". I'm sure they do. And I'm sure they also roll their eyes and grit their teeth every time another chorus of whining sparks up about OMG MY TRAIN WAS 10 MINUTES LATE I'M LEAVING PT FOREVER AND BUYING THREE SUV'S.
We are all responsible for what kind of energy we bring into the world; or, to use less mystical language, what memes we propagate in our interactions with others. If your goal is to make pro-PT activism in Auckland a cesspool of defeatism and negativity, ensuring that it will suck the energy out of activists rather than inspiring them, and put off sensible people who don't like to be miserable all the time from participating, then congratulations, you're wel on target.
What's worse is that the PT supporters have been sucked into the Labour Party's chosen mode of campaigning against the Government's plan for a single Auckland council (the "Super City"). Again, don't get me wrong - Rodney Hide's plans are patently anti-democratic. I support a democratic Super City, with a 40-member Assembly elected by proportional representation, and local boards with serious powers.
But Phil Twyford and his buddies in the Auckland Labour caucus are inundating the public airwaves with such relentless and over-the-top negativity - talking pretty much about how the Super City means the end of all democracy in favour of corporate rule. Two points about this:
1) this encourages the illusion that the existing state of Auckland governance is any kind of "democratic" at all. All that is really happening here is that the bloated, undemocratic bureaucrats, local bigwigs and philistines who run things in Pakuranga, Henderson and Takapuna are shitting themselves at being put out of office by the bloated, undemocratic bureaucrats, local bigwigs and philistines who run things in Queen St and Newmarket. Meet the new boss, not actually much worse than the old boss. Anyone who rants about "the end of local democracy" is required to show that the current system is democratic in any way, shape, manner or form.
2) Labour's campaign is utterly negative - in that they show absolutely no positive alternative for how a democratic united Auckland might operate. This is clever tactics politically speaking, since if you don't have your own goalposts the opposition can't score against you. But it means that the people who have bought into Labour's OMG DEMOCRACY IS DOOMED DOOMED I TELLS YA narrative end up endlessly recycling worse-case scenarios, perpetuating a meme that "this is the end" for everything worthwhile in Auckland. This renders them not only useless politically (except as Labour-aligned cannon fodder), but very unpleasant company.
So... sorry Josh, Chris, Jodi, Nick, Matt, Lucy, etc etc etc, I just can't handle it any more. You're doing the good work, but are you doing it at the expense of your own mental health? Could you do it in any way which didn't involve living in a cesspool of downers?
===
The bike is still going pretty well, thanks for asking. I'm regularly riding from Grey Lynn to Blockhouse Bay for football practice, and the battery holds up fine. I'm going to have to replace the gear lever, but thankfully that won't take much.
I'm not saying that there's nothing worth being angry, pissed off, or sad about. Indeed, we have a government in control who are brainwashed by the road lobby, endless delays in making the investments that would give us a truly world class PT system, and so many teething pains bedding in the current round of improvements.
But the attitude of PT supporters in Auckland is absolutely terrible. The forums are utterly filled with people who spend their whole time crying and complaining about everything that's wrong with Auckland PT - and thinking that this is good tactics. I've been told "we can't tolerate mediocrity" - in other words, we can never allow ourselves to be happy with anything because it takes pressure off people to be perfect. If they tried that attitude in a primary classroom they'd be fired, or told to go back to the 1950s. I've been told that "PT bigwigs appreciate our input on how things will get better". I'm sure they do. And I'm sure they also roll their eyes and grit their teeth every time another chorus of whining sparks up about OMG MY TRAIN WAS 10 MINUTES LATE I'M LEAVING PT FOREVER AND BUYING THREE SUV'S.
We are all responsible for what kind of energy we bring into the world; or, to use less mystical language, what memes we propagate in our interactions with others. If your goal is to make pro-PT activism in Auckland a cesspool of defeatism and negativity, ensuring that it will suck the energy out of activists rather than inspiring them, and put off sensible people who don't like to be miserable all the time from participating, then congratulations, you're wel on target.
What's worse is that the PT supporters have been sucked into the Labour Party's chosen mode of campaigning against the Government's plan for a single Auckland council (the "Super City"). Again, don't get me wrong - Rodney Hide's plans are patently anti-democratic. I support a democratic Super City, with a 40-member Assembly elected by proportional representation, and local boards with serious powers.
But Phil Twyford and his buddies in the Auckland Labour caucus are inundating the public airwaves with such relentless and over-the-top negativity - talking pretty much about how the Super City means the end of all democracy in favour of corporate rule. Two points about this:
1) this encourages the illusion that the existing state of Auckland governance is any kind of "democratic" at all. All that is really happening here is that the bloated, undemocratic bureaucrats, local bigwigs and philistines who run things in Pakuranga, Henderson and Takapuna are shitting themselves at being put out of office by the bloated, undemocratic bureaucrats, local bigwigs and philistines who run things in Queen St and Newmarket. Meet the new boss, not actually much worse than the old boss. Anyone who rants about "the end of local democracy" is required to show that the current system is democratic in any way, shape, manner or form.
2) Labour's campaign is utterly negative - in that they show absolutely no positive alternative for how a democratic united Auckland might operate. This is clever tactics politically speaking, since if you don't have your own goalposts the opposition can't score against you. But it means that the people who have bought into Labour's OMG DEMOCRACY IS DOOMED DOOMED I TELLS YA narrative end up endlessly recycling worse-case scenarios, perpetuating a meme that "this is the end" for everything worthwhile in Auckland. This renders them not only useless politically (except as Labour-aligned cannon fodder), but very unpleasant company.
So... sorry Josh, Chris, Jodi, Nick, Matt, Lucy, etc etc etc, I just can't handle it any more. You're doing the good work, but are you doing it at the expense of your own mental health? Could you do it in any way which didn't involve living in a cesspool of downers?
===
The bike is still going pretty well, thanks for asking. I'm regularly riding from Grey Lynn to Blockhouse Bay for football practice, and the battery holds up fine. I'm going to have to replace the gear lever, but thankfully that won't take much.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Back in action
The Machine is back on the road. All I needed to pay for was a standard bicycle service, plus bigger, harder brake pads - I go down a lot of hills in my daily routine so I need Serious Business brakes. Everything else came under warranty - the problem with the throttle was due to dirty contacts rather than a loose wire. The only real problem was that the gear cable had been attached too short, but that's all fixed now.
It is so much more pleasant to ride now that (a) I can get up to top speed without worrying how and if I'm going to be able to stop in time; (b) it's no longer rattling itself to death. So, in conclusion: if you're buying an e-bike, spring for some serious business brake pads. Make sure that everything's put together right to start with. And also pay no attention to cowboy bike repairmen who make up lies about how screwed things are to get money out of you - just a regular service every six months and everything should be fine.
It is so much more pleasant to ride now that (a) I can get up to top speed without worrying how and if I'm going to be able to stop in time; (b) it's no longer rattling itself to death. So, in conclusion: if you're buying an e-bike, spring for some serious business brake pads. Make sure that everything's put together right to start with. And also pay no attention to cowboy bike repairmen who make up lies about how screwed things are to get money out of you - just a regular service every six months and everything should be fine.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
In the shop
Four months on the road and the Silver Machine is in for a service. The dealer, who mainly specialises in scooters both fossil-fuel and electric, will hand it to his collaborator who fixes bicycles for most of the work, then double-check the motor and electrics himself.
Mostly it should come under warranty. The dealer's reaction when looking at the gear cable was "Yipes! That shouldn't be!" Hopefully back by tomorrow. (Luckily I've moved closer to town so not having my bike doesn't totally cramp my life like it did when I lived further west.)
Mostly it should come under warranty. The dealer's reaction when looking at the gear cable was "Yipes! That shouldn't be!" Hopefully back by tomorrow. (Luckily I've moved closer to town so not having my bike doesn't totally cramp my life like it did when I lived further west.)
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
First break in service
The back tyre got punctured last night. If it were the front tyre, I would have happily fixed it myself, but I really don't feel confident disengaging the back wheel from the gears, let alone the electrics. (I also suspect there's a loose wire in the electrics somewhere - the throttle doesn't work 100% of the time - but that's not urgent.)
So, back to walking and PT for a little while. Thank all the gods who made the gods that one fine cycle shop in AKL has stepped up and said they can get it fixed before Christmas! I will happily pimp them here if they actually come through on their promise. Stay tuned.
So, back to walking and PT for a little while. Thank all the gods who made the gods that one fine cycle shop in AKL has stepped up and said they can get it fixed before Christmas! I will happily pimp them here if they actually come through on their promise. Stay tuned.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
A step towards self-sufficiency
I thought that it was becoming much easier to pedal my bike recently. I put it down to me becoming super-fit. But no, what happened is that my bike was refusing to go past fifth gear (out of seven).
So! how do I spend a glorious Sunday afternoon? Getting greasy and sweaty, turning the bike upside down on the front porch, getting totally confused and possibly making things work, searching the Interwebz for tutorial videos, figuring out what to do, doing it about twenty times before it finally works... but finally getting the gear cable tightened just so, and now everything appears to be underway.
This used to be the kind of thing I'd get the services of a professional for, but (a) I'm flat broke; (b) everything I can do to the Silver Machine by myself makes me feel a little more like a strong independent woman like you see on the sanitary pad adverts.
So! how do I spend a glorious Sunday afternoon? Getting greasy and sweaty, turning the bike upside down on the front porch, getting totally confused and possibly making things work, searching the Interwebz for tutorial videos, figuring out what to do, doing it about twenty times before it finally works... but finally getting the gear cable tightened just so, and now everything appears to be underway.
This used to be the kind of thing I'd get the services of a professional for, but (a) I'm flat broke; (b) everything I can do to the Silver Machine by myself makes me feel a little more like a strong independent woman like you see on the sanitary pad adverts.
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