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Fixing a Watch Band (Again!)

Remember when I fixed my watch band? Well, it didn’t last. The replacement (from my old Fitbit) lasted a few weeks, but it also broke, so I went back to using rubber bands, until…

I thought to myself, just 3D print one! And I thought about doing it with TPU. But then I got lazy and just made one with PLA. I figured I would give that a try first, and… it does work!

I think I was convinced it needed to be soft and flexible but the PLA one has been under daily testing for over a week now and it might be just fine. The tricky part is I needed to make it just a little bit larger that the piece of metal it needs to slide over to get onto the band. But I didn’t want to make it too much larger. The size is a little annoying because I wish it were smaller, but without the flex of rubber or silicone or whatever, that isn’t happening. (And TPU probably wouldn’t have much stretch anyway.)

Just in case you need to do this too see the Watch Band Holder files in my OpenSCAD repository. Cheers!

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Aventon Level 3 Handlebar Upgrade

I recently upgraded the handlebars on my Aventon Level 3 to a set that was a little more swept back. Not exactly cruiser bars, mind you, but not as flat as the stock Level 3 bars.

I got these SENQI City Bike Handlebars (31.8mm) and they’re a great fit. When I rode Matt’s bike back in August I liked the handlebars on it, and I figured I would replace the stock Level 3 bars at some point.

The stock bars are little too aggressive. In fact, I find the bars on my Trek 7200 a bit too aggressive but they have the shifting integrated into the bars so they’re not easy to swap. Basically I wanted a little more upright position for riding, since I am mostly commuting to work, not out to win any races.

As for the swap, it probably took me about an hour. I didn’t rush, and I probably spent another 10 minutes after just making adjustments and riding in the alley to see how it felt.

The swap involved removing all of the stuff… grips, brakes, throttle, control pad, display… and my bell and phone holder. The pages on doing the Level 3 Handlebar Install and Handlebar Upgrades helped, but it’s not too complicated if you go slow, make notes, snap a few photos, and keep track of all the bolts.

Using a bike hex tool set wasn’t great so I’d recommend a screwdriver handle with a set of bits or separate hex keys. The fold-up sets are great for travel adjustments but not for this specific task.

(Above is a photo with the old handlebars right before I did the swap. I had tried to go for a ride but got rained out… good time to work in the garage on bike stuff!)

The cables for everything on the bars didn’t quite reach long enough for me to swap the throttle and control pad, so I gave up on that idea. (The idea was to move the throttle over since I don’t really use it. I wish disconnecting it altogether was easier.)

I do need to say that while I like the Aventon bike I am disappointed in the lack of specs on their components. I mean, this handlebar page doesn’t even have half of the information I’d like it to have. I would have perhaps ordered the bars from Aventon but experience tells me they don’t have specs on some things (or are not willing to share) and I may have another post about that soon.

Anyway… new handlebars, done… and I like them!

Note: This post may contain Affiliate Links. Read More.

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Bike Commute to Work

As I mentioned in I eBiked to Work! I am now riding an ebike to work. I do this whenever I can. I rode 17 out of 22 work days in September. There were a few days it rained, or I had appointments during or after work that I could not easily get to by bike, but overall I prefer biking to work.

I’ve basically replaced my old morning routine which was; get up, go for a local bike ride, go home, then go to work with the new improved get up, do whatever at home, bike to work. And I of course bike home at the end of the day. I had feared there were days I’d be too tired to ride home but honestly I get excited to ride again at 5pm!

Anyway, I wanted to map out my route. The route changes as I mix it up, but this is the old standard “I don’t want to think about it” route. I leave Enderis Park and head west usually on Hadley, or maybe Locust or Chambers, and take that up to 92nd street. Crossing 76th and 84th is not too bad. The rest of the streets are not busy, sometimes I don’t even see a car on this segment. It’s typically under 10 minutes…

Once I cross 92nd street it’s free and clear and I can open it up and speed (25mph) all the way to the Menomonee River Parkway. I pass Mount Mary (on the side) and then get on the Menomonee River Parkway…

I take the Menomonee River Parkway riding with car traffic, trying to keep around 25mph if possible, and then almost always have to stop at Burleigh… Once past Burleigh it’s a smooth ride with no stops until I hit Mayfair Road.

Now Mayfair Road can be terrible. (See this post!) But again, once past it I get some smooth riding at top speeds with almost no car traffic. I take this to the end where it meets Congress…

And then I’m on Oak Leaf Trail, and then into the woods, right next to the river, and it’s the best part of the ride. (Except for the occasional swarm of bugs!) I get to ride under Capitol Drive. Super thankful I don’t have to cross Capitol!

Once I cross under Hampton I need to get back to road level and… deal with Hampton. It can be bad. I just need to go from Mayfair to 124th street. I cross the river, the railway, and the highway… uphill. I try to go as fast as I can to make being on this segment as short as possible. Also, right now there is construction, which is good and bad. Sometimes I get my own lane, sometimes there are barrels everywhere. It’s the worst but it’s less than 5 minutes.

The intersection of Hampton and 124th is where I need to take the lane because of people turning right. Again, not ideal but it hasn’t been too bad. After crossing 124th the speed limit on Hampton going into Butler is 25mph and people tend to keep it under 35 there, so it’s not terrible. Finally I get to Menomonee Falls which has no bike or parking lane at all and have to ride on a tiny bit of shoulder for about half a mile. Again, not ideal, but not too bad. I can do this ride under 30 minutes. My best time is 23 minutes, depending on how long I need to wait to cross the busy streets, and if I use top PAS and pedal like crazy!

Now, there are other routes, and sometimes I do mix it up a bit, but to cross the river, and railway, and freeway requires I make a choice of the big roads… Hampton, Capitol, Burleigh, or North, and they all have their pros and cons.

I am mainly posting this so I can look back in the future and see how my route changes. This is the route I discovered that made me decide I could actually bike to work, so I wanted to document it.

Keep on Pedaling!

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1,400+ Miles on a Bike!

Back at the beginning of November 2024 I had biked 500 miles for the year. I did a little maths and thought that if I could bike at least 3 miles per day (or better yet, 5 miles per day) I should be able to hit 1,000 miles in 2025. Well, we passed that goal for sure. Back at the end of July I was at 800 miles and adding 200 in 5 months seemed doable, so I figured maybe 1,200 should be the new goal.

All that got thrown out the window because in August when my bike was in the shop and Matt loaned me an ebike. I started riding to work and then I got my own ebike and started riding to work nearly every day.

In September I rode a bike to work 17 out of 22 days. There were a few days it rained hard, and a few days I had appointments I could not (easily) bike to. I did manage to find routes to some of the grocery stores I used to drive to on the way home, so that’s a huge win.

I mainly started riding a bike for fitness and to get outside more, spend less time staring at a screen, etc. and I loved it. I still ride for fitness (to some degree) but now my knee doesn’t cause me as much grief and I can ride father and spend a lot more time biking. For many an ebike is an assistive device. If I would take an escalator or elevator rather than 5 flights of stairs, I don’t see an ebike any different. (And yeah, I cannot tell you how slowly I would go up a flight of stair with my knee!) Uphill? Wind? They matter so much less on an ebike.

Well, I plan to keep biking to work when I can, and just riding around town, etc. I’ll ride in the winter as well. I did a lot of indoor riding last winter but I’ll try to get outside as well when the weather is nice! Cold doesn’t bother me too much, but the wind and wetness do.

See Also: milesBiked – A Bar Graph Generator

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Mapping Bike Rides (Part IV)

We’re back once again to talk about my goal of mapping all of my bike rides! This time we’re trying out wanderer (or wanderer.to) not to be confused with wandrer (or wandrer.earth).

We mentioned wandrer.earth back in Part II, in case you forgot. It works with the data from Strava.

wanderer.to is totally different! It’s decentralized and self-hosted which means no corporation is getting your data. It’s open source and privacy first. The copy I have running on my own server has only one account… mine! No one else can login and see my data. If that appeals to you, wanderer might fit the bill.

There are a few servers out there running wanderer and it could be a cool thing for a local community or a group of friends to run. There is a demo server anyone can log into and upload their GPX files to try it out. I did this before installing it via Docker. It also uses federation via ActivityPub so servers (instances) can talk to each other. Since I’ve only got my server I haven’t dug into this yet…

Whew! I should talk about what wanderer does! Just like the others you upload your GPX files and it creates maps using the data. The thing is, wanderer, like many of the other applications that are similar, is more about sharing trails, and recording trails.

(I say “trails” as in routes people share for others to ride. I don’t really do that… I just want to see my own rides. One thing wanderer does is look at your GPX files and try to filter out duplicates. Since I ride the same route to work every day it kept flagging duplicates, but I want those duplicates because they are my rides.)

wanderer is a self-hosted, open source, GPX loading-map making application that shows all of my rides, but it’s also sort of a weird fit for that. I mean, it totally works! And I don’t have to subscribe, or be limited to just the last 50 rides, so it’s a winner in many ways.

So yeah, I guess it’s Mission Accomplished for wanderer! It’s still in development, and I am not using it exactly as it’s meant to be used (which is fine) but this isn’t the end of my quest. It is pretty cool though, and I’m glad I’ve got an install to play with! It even forced me to write some new Python code to further clean up my GPX files.

The idea of wanderer is a good one! And a few people have created their own similar things. Nicolas Hoizey has one, though I cannot read it because it’s in French. (Source code is available!) But wait, there’s more French stuff I can’t read! There is David Larlet’s offering Source code is available!) So yeah, what is with these French people!?

These posts have been fun, but in the next one I’ll start to talk about my solution… yes, I do have one! :)

See Also: