Big rain moved in today right around my favorite time to ride. No problem, I was a little tired from my ride yesterday anyway. Rain passed rather quickly but unfortunately if did bring high winds and a torrential down pour. Don't mind the rain that much but with all the high winds and downpours it is just littering all the roads near me with debris, not to mention what it has been doing to the local MUP's. Downed trees all over the place and a real pita. No doubt the County will be busy with the chain saws for the next week or so. I hate to think what all the bad weather is doing to the local MTB trails. No doubt there are going to be multiple downed trees across trails for at least a couple weeks.
Because the rain came somewhat early I knew I could get a ride in later on after sunset. By the time I knew I would ride I figured the roads would be mostly dry but sadly it turned out with the high humidity there was still mostly damp or wet roads. Wet roads mean that the throw from my low beam lamp wasn't going to carry as far as it usually does hence one of the reasons I hate riding on wet roads. Sure was going to make it harder trying to avoid all the road debris.
I thought about canceling the ride but I wanted to test my theory that I could keep the battery from cutting out when hitting bumps. Just before leaving I took three of my buckled Velco straps, joined them together and then used them to wrap around the top of the battery, all way round and underneath the platform that holds the battery. I did away with the idea of wrapping a strap around the battery and down tube. With the strap mounted long-ways around the battery you really can hardly tell it's there because the black straps blend with the color of the frame so it looks completely natural. Oddly, it turns out it also makes the battery look smaller which I consider something positive.
Didn't do too much of a ride, just about 6 miles but in that six miles I put the battery strap idea to the acid test. I hit every manhole cover, crack, rumble bumps I could find. I even rode it down that bumpy ol' MUP I mentioned in an earlier post. Then, as if that wasn't enough, I decided to drop the bike off a curb. ( BANG, BANG! ) I figured if it didn't lose power with that big of a hit then it wasn't going to lose power. It didn't lose power, all of which I find very encouraging.
Hopefully the Velcro straps I use will hold up over time. The plastic buckles tend to be brittle on these cheap Velcro straps. At least replacements are easy to find on Amazon and fairly cheap.
BTW, I forgot to mention in my last post that my ride that day only used one bar on the handlebar module battery indicator. This of course doesn't mean it used exactly just one bar. The indictor on the module doesn't show half bars or any such thing so could of used more than one bar. Later when I charged the battery the indicator on the battery itself showed two bars that needed to be charged ( two lights blinking ) so fair to say I used a little more than just one bar.
Last edited by 01 CAt Man Do; 06-02-19 at 11:43 PM.