errantember

(knocks on wood)

The Metro and the scooter have both been running perfectly for 3+ days 40+ miles. I worked on the Metro today anyway, to further insulate it against future issues, but not because it Wouldn't Go.

Gonna take the Metro to Flipside. Then to College Station. Then to fucking Dallas!

You WATCH me.

Got up today just before noon.

Yesterday I helped Amy do a cut-down and back frame of one of her biggest painting that wouldn't fit in her new truck. It took a lot of cutting and gluing and sanding, but we got it done. She worked on painting the new edges and claims it looks great.

Those who care about my health may be slightly alarmed to know that El Scooter is now working. I took the it from home up to Lamar and 71 on two different trips today, and it performed at least as well as it used to. I'm looking forward to longer trips soon, which will save me a lot on gas. Now that I have a rough idea of how often the batteries in the scooter need to be replaced, I can do a better total-cost-of-ownership calculation. It only uses about 1 cent per mile for electricity, but the batteries cost almost $500 to replace.

I continued work tonight on my Permaculture game idea with GameSalad, despite rumors that they're new licensing model will be horrible. I managed to make some rain, and a barrel to catch it in, and a plant to water with it. The tools allow me to work organically, trying out different ideas and physical dynamics to see what works and what doesn't. I have a very rough idea of where I'm going, but definitely not the kind of clarity I had around the Teddybear Eliminators game, which was going to be my first effort.

I got most of the Major Wiring done on Rupert today. I added the extra terminals to allow for checking and charging each battery separately, completed the Satan's Tetris of getting all the new not-quite-exactly-the-same-as-the-old-batteries cells into place, and discovered the longest cable was mysteriously about 6" short. I suspect the actual arrangement of the cables inside the machine was probably slightly different than the diagram. trippedbreaker is looking into whether he can make me a new one from the supplies people who work on electric vehicles professionally just have lying around. If not, I'll build my own tomorrow. In the meantime, I completed the circuit with jumper cables, and the correct total pack voltage of 12V x 5 batteries = 60+V is showing on the meter!

There's still substantial assembly and wiring left, but I can probably complete it in one day once I have some free time. Likely I'll have a functioning scooter by this weekend.

I'm drawing a picture of this, but it's taking longer than I thought.

The pipe on the handlebars of the scooter has only a single bolt to lock it in place over the pipe on the front wheel. Because the tolerances are sloppy, the slightest looseness in this bolt makes the handlebars wobble. You can *tighten* the bolt, but getting to it requires remove about nine screws and half the cowling of the bike, and even with a lock washer and a lock nut, it only lasts about 30 minutes before loosening up again. For that thirty minutes, you experience this thrilling, novel feeling like you are almost in *control* of the vehicle. Unimpeded by simple harmonic motion or random Brownian Effects, you can *feel* the road. When you turn the handlebars, the wheel turns exactly the same amount! And *then* the scooter *goes* there! Around the life-threatening 1/2 inch pothole! Past the blind motorist pulling out in front of you! Up onto the sidewalk and over the toy poodle!

It's all very exciting. But then the jiggle starts.
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I decided to head out on the scooter today to do my Farmer's Market/Wheatsville run and to work on my resume and read The Web That Has No Weaver : Understanding Chinese Medicine as part of my latest head trip. I saw there was a chance of isolated thunderstorms later in the evening, but I figured I'd be home by then. Because the scooter is a) electric and b) is missing 50% of its main body panel, I generally don't drive it when I think it will rain. Not to mention the fact that it's dangerous and uncomfortable and I was wearing sandals.

I was headed north on Lamar when some idiot in a huge black pickup pulled a crazy stunt where he pulled out into the oncoming lane and *stopped* while waiting for a spot to open up in his lane. It had started sprinkling earlier, and I'd already had the thought that it was a very dangerous time to ride because it hadn't rained hard in a long time. All those fucking SXSW (GRR!) people had been hosing the streets with oil from their low-end, poorly-maintained shitboxes and the road was likely to be slick. When I hit the brakes, the scooter tried to lay over. It got to about 45 degrees before I caught it with my *sandaled* feet in Horse Stance and narrowly stopped it from smearing me over the pavement.
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I went from my house in South Austin all the way up to north past Mueller airport on my scooter in very cold temperatures tonight to go to a Re-Evaluation Counseling class I recently signed up for with my old Permaculture instructor Selwyn Polit. The scooter's range is reduced by as much as 40% in very cold weather, as it has lead-acid batteries. I charged the it for three hours there, which is respectable, but definitely not a full charge. I *then* proceeded from Mueller down to Elysium for Combichrist, *then* drove home *without* *recharging*.

By the time I was going pulling into the driveway, the E-meter was blinking red. It's the closest call I've had so far, and it's an *awesome* test of maximum range on the bike, since it's rarely this cold in Austin. Taking these kinds of risks is exciting. It helps me feel like I'm pushing the envelope for sustainable transportation, and the consequences of getting it wrong aren't *too* bad.

At least, they aren't when it's not nearly below freezing outside. :)

...the R-20 is now *officially* fun again.

After strapping, glueing, and zip-tying on a few more pieces, the only thing really left to fix is the body panel that needs painting (meeting with Amy tomorrow) and re-reinforcing the trunk. After closing everything up and checking things, I took it out from here to Central Market and back again, and it was a total riot. I can't wait to ride it again when the roads are dry, which hasn't been the case since I got it moving again. The ride is a *lot* more solid now, and the front faring no longer scrapes the front wheel, all due to the improved shocks. The bike *seems* to accelerate faster than before, but I haven't ridden it in about five months, so it could just be the infinite contrast between movement and stasis.

Too bad the bike doesn't spend more time in this auto-mobile state.

After a night of work by myself and trippedbreaker, the R-20 is nearly ready to ride again. A new controller, throttle, DC-DC converter, and shocks were installed, and the motor is responding to throttle. Installing the new controller require physically re-constructing the controller mount, because the new one they sent is two inches longer than the old one. Now I just need to figure out how much of the body, which I'd like to re-paint, should go back on. In the short-term, I may decide to simply try to airbrush over the imperfections rather than re-doing the entire bike in hot metallic pink, which was my original plan.

I've just completed the hour+ long job of removing the controller from my EVTA R-20 electric scooter, which died recently. The controller and the throttle are under warranty, and will be replaced for free. Several other items, all of which were probably damaged due to the inclusion of too-wimpy shocks on the original model, are *not* under warranty despite having been damaged or destroyed by either a design flaw or manufacturing defect. Let me make a short list of what I can remember off the top of my head of things that have gone wrong with the bike since I've had it.

1) Wouldn't recharge when I first got it due to a disconnected charge connector, stranding me at my friend Adam's house and costing me over $100 in cab and towing bills.

2) Front wheel scraped on inside of front faring, wearing completely through the fairly thick plastic in under two months from when I bought it.

3) Speedometer/Odometer slipped out from top assembly, meaning neither work anymore.

4) Front brake cable was scraping against front tire, wearing through all of the two layers of outer jacket and abrading the inner hydrolic cable

5) Consistent problems with bottoming out the shocks, hurting both the bike and my back, and likely causing most if not all of the above problems.

6) Throttle (which is actually the handle you hold onto on your right hand) broke off and literally slid off the handlebar while I was in heavy traffic. I was able to keep it working by jimmying it long enough to get home.

7) One or both rear passenger folding pedals broke off due to insufficient ground clearance.

8) The battery box on the bottom of the bike scrapes in some turns for the same reason

9) The bike would randomly cut out, generally in conditions of what could be overheating. This problem was intermittently present for about four months, but finally resulted in the controller itself dieing a few days ago, stranding me yet again. This time costs were mitigated due to trippedbreaker's help and a near-suicidal U-Haul run where I had to have the truck back to U-Haul in less than two hours during rush hour or face a $150 fine.

I'll be mailing all of the damaged parts in question (at least those I can find) back to EVTAMERICA tomorrow. I related news, I just got a marketing announcement regarding the R-30, the "new and improved" version of the R-20. Read this and tell me it doesn't sound like "The R-20, but not broken anymore."

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So, last night when I went over a bump on the way to poly dinner, the throttle broke off Rupert, my EVTA R-20 scooter. The throttle is basically a sleeve that fits over the end of the handlebar and attaches on one side to a spring-mounted rotator mechanism. The plastic ring that joins the two parts evidently broke. Luckily I got all the pieces, and was able to spastically limp home. Leaving from the downhill-and-over-a-speedbump exit from Planet K directly into heavy traffic on Lamar without any real guarantee I could get the throttle to work was the most thrilling part of the adventure. Today I used Crazy Glue Gel (vastly superior to Superglue in that it's actually possible to use the same container more than once) to try to re-assemble it, and, so far, it's looking pretty good. I don't expect it to hold forever, and I've already mailed the manufacturer pictures of the failure. I expect they will send me a new throttle, but I didn't hear from them at all today.

I hope it holds out to and from the Peter Murphy concert tonight! I've got duct tape, just in case.