I posted a few days ago about the arrival and installation of the Hase twin stand. Now that I’ve had several opportunities to use it with Gareth, I can say with confidence that if you’re going to purchase a Pino for somebody with a disability just order the heavy duty twin stand from the start. It makes loading and unloading Gareth much easier and allows me the ability to actually dismount the bike when he needs suctioned. Before this stand, I had to balance the bike between my thighs while twisting my torso back to front in order to get to his suction machine and then get to his trache.

Speaking of Gareth and riding, we rode three times over the Memorial Day weekend. On Sunday, we rode for an hour or so at the Pennsylvania Military Museum in Boalsburg. The great thing about that ride is that Brandy (my wife, Gareth’s mother) went along for the ride on my recumbent trike. She never learned how to ride a two-wheeler, so I’m thrilled that she took to the trike as quickly as she did.

Later that evening, Gareth and I went on a short ride not far from Colyer Lake as we were visiting his grandparents who had never before seen him ride his bike. And on Monday, we went out for a quick (1 hour) ride around the neighborhood, doing lots of fast turns and running through puddles from the shower the night before.

In adaptation news, Gareth and I have battled for a long time regarding his head positioning while sitting in the stoker seat. Gareth has a tendency to lean to the right. Normally not a problem, but while bike riding, that lean puts his helmet directly in the way of the handlebars as I’m turning left. There have been a few times where that has put us in a dangerous situation. Over the months, I’ve tried lots of possible solutions - different belts, shoulder harnesses, neck/head positioning pads - but none of them were effective. I now have a solution: a foam kayak roof rack. Foam block roof racks for kayaks come with two blocks that have a center channel meant for running a strap through and over the kayak. Those channels are also small enough and tight enough to grip to the side bars of the recumbent seat. Since sliding those into place, Gareth has been unable to get his head past the foam block and into the path of the handlebars. Problem solved. Foam block roof racks sell for about $20 (and I’ll try to get some photos of them fitted to the Pino since what I just typed probably doesn’t make any sense).

And, last but not least, Gareth and I are planning to attend the RBR Recumbent Rally on June 15th. If you’re interested in checking out the Pino, feel free to walk up and say “Hi”.

The twin stand from Hase has finally arrived!  Though, it arrived without mounting bolts and also without instructions.  After a bit of fidgeting, I was able to figure out where the various struts of the stand connect to the bike and now have it completely mounted.

Brandy gave it a test by sitting on the stoker’s seat with the stand down.  It held her weight comfortably with minimal rock, so it should do great for Gareth.  We probably won’t get a chance to try it out until Saturday.

I have to say, though… When you see it, it’s hard to think that it costs $245.

Our latest ride was last Saturday, 5/5/07. We met up with my mother, sister, and nephew at Tom Tudek Park for a ride around the park trails. My nephew tired out quickly on his single speed BMX, especially once he realized that riding fast downhill meant having to ride uphill on return.

Gareth and I took an extra few rides around the park by ourselves until he was ready to rest.

There’s no update on our twin stand from Hase. Two shipments from Hase arrived at RBR, neither containing our order. Hase apparently has not been responding to e-mail, either. I love the Pino dearly, but let this be a warning - avoid Hase. They seem pretty good on the initial sale but stink at follow-up support.

Gareth and I have gone for two more rides in recent weeks: one around the neighborhood; one around the south end of State College.

Neither ride has proper Ride Journal entries.  We seem to have become incredibly lazy about that.

Our ride around the neighborhood illustrated a major problem - Gareth has a very hard time keeping his head upright when riding the Pino.  As a result, his head flops to the right, and I find myself completely unable to turn left since the handles then smack into his helmet.  Not good.

During our ride in State College, I stopped by RBR to ask if there was any update on our new stand (no) and to talk about possible solutions for the head issue.  After some quick brainstorming, I came up with the idea of talking to a local fabricator about making side rails for the seat that would extend from the bottom (where the handles are mounted) to the top where the seat cover crosses.  For the sake of support, I think we would also have to create a rail that goes across the top to keep the seat from collapsing inward, though I don’t know what that might do for Gareth’s comfort when he gets older.

After RBR, we visited the home of my cousin Alex and the home of some friends of our family.

I’m really getting frustrated with Hase at this point.  It has been three months now since I put in the order for the new stand.  While the bike is mostly working well for us, I’m starting to think that we should have just gone with Bilenky since the drive to Philadelphia would have been much quicker than waiting for parts from Germany.

We packed up and headed for the Military Museum in Boalsburg for a two hour ride today.  I didn’t think the sun would be nearly strong enough yet to cause burns, but oh, how wrong I was.  Gareth came back with one side of his face reddened while I somehow was burned even on parts of my head that were fully covered by my helmet.  Time to stock up on sunscreen.

Once we got back home, there was so much stuff to do that we didn’t even crack open the ride journal.  Perhaps tomorrow.

One of the modifications we made to the Pino when fitting Gareth was to forego the use of the standard boom extension and adult crank.  Because we took it out, we were left with a large hole at the front of the bike where the extension would normally fit.  I originally filled that with some foam as a stop-gap measure but am now in the process of making something a little more elegant.  Should you ever be in a similar situation, 1 1/2 inch PVC pipe (about 5 inches) with a cap fits in there perfectly.  I’m going to rubber coat the plug that I made, but it’s working great as is.

And in other modification news, I finally figured out a headlight setup for this bike.  I’m going to be using headmounted LED flashlights.  They’re very common for camping and boating, but it turns out that the slight curve to most of the headmount systems works well with the curve of the boom at the front of the Pino.  I’ll just cinch it down tight, and we’ll be good to go.

Solutions abound today.

Gareth and I got another ride in last Saturday (3/10/07).  The ride journal page should be posted soon, just haven’t had enough time to sit down and scan it in.

In other news, I talked to RBR in early February about getting the larger twin kick-stand for the Pino.  They put in the request but hadn’t heard back from Hase.  So, I stopped in at the beginning of this month to follow up and… still no response from Hase.  This is discouraging to say the least.  We focused on the Pino because of the available support for it, but if this is indicative of their response to their dealers, I’m not sure whether or not that support is worth much.

I’m also trying to figure out ways to mount a front headlight.  Because of the size of the front boom (2″ outer diameter), there aren’t exactly any off the shelf mounting systems available.  I’ll probably end up finding a way to fake it with zip ties or Velcro, though a more permanent system would be preferable.

Finally, one really good day for a ride.  Gareth probably summed it up best in his journal entry.

The weather warmed up just enough to make a ride bearable. So we went for it.  Note the figure 8’s we did in a parking lot.

Since we had the bike outdoors sans rain, I took some photos of it that more clearly show the various components. A few people have said, “I can’t tell how it works.” Perhaps these will help.

Gareth had a lot of energy today and was able to get the bike rocking side to side when the kickstand was down. I think this means we’re going to have to purchase the heavy duty stand offered by Hase. I’ll be visiting RBR this week to see about ordering that.

Two weeks without updates can mean only one thing: it is too cold to go for a bike ride.

Until that weather warms up, we won’t be riding anywhere. Of course, we expected this would happen, but it is incredibly hard to see the bike sitting in the house and not be able to ride it.

Click the thumbnails below to see our journal page for today’s ride and our route as hastily drawn in Google Earth.  We didn’t take the GPS today, so I faked it.