Bicycling Articles

Bicycling is a wonderful hobby and sport and RACE has a number of members who are bicycling enthusiasts. Occasionally these folks will publish articles on cycling that should be shared with more people than are just in our local area, so we will publish the articles here as well. We hope that you will find them helpful and entertaining. Here is the list of articles so far:

Winter Bicycling

Customization

One of the early members of RACE, Dave Wogen, has been leading the way in the Upper Midwest in customizing bicycles for owners with special needs. We are very pleased to be associated with Dave and his business, River Rider Cycle & Specialty of Wabasha, Minnesota. Dave has described his mission in his own words better than we ever could. Contact him if you would like to have some special help with your bicycle, tricycle or quadracycle, of conventional or recumbent design.

Chain Clone Tool

Performing maintenance on bicycles and trikes is an important part of every bike shop's revenue. The shops have the correct tools for almost all of their jobs but they've been making do with a very labor intensive approach to replacing chains--take the old chain, count the links, then do the same for a new chain, cut it and replace the chain. The patent pending tool which we have developed solves this problem in a very ergonomic fashion. If you have a bike shop, you need one of these tools. Contact us.

Top Cap

Assembling new bikes requires the use of a top cap device to preload the front fork bearings before the handlebar assembly can be fastened in place to sustain the preload. The weight of the top cap device is important because most riders want to keep the top cap in place, both to complete the look of the bike as well as to provide a means to realign the front assembly in the field. We have one new patent pending top cap design available now, with another design soon to be available especially designed for retrofits. Both designs are very compatible with fiber-reinforced front assemblies, although not limited to such assemblies. Contact us.

Electric Trike

As our population gets older, they still want to follow their hobbies and they still want to remain mobile. The number of people on electric scooters and motorized wheelchairs on our city streets attests to the fact that even people with severe mobility issues still want to get around independently.

Bicycling is a very popular hobby and it is something which can be done into old age with some hardware adjustment. RACE is investigating developing an electric battery/motor kit for the EZ-3 trike, one of the most popular adult trikes in the upper Midwest. Looking at the trike, it's easy to see why it is so popular. This is a wonderfully built trike to start with, and the design is very accepting of batteries and a motor to provide pedaling aid or full time power. Look for the kit to be available in 2005 for you to install yourself or to have your friendly local bike shop install it for you.