Prisoner at War wrote:

I only wonder how folks manage to take this model 'bent on them Third
World tours if I'm having issues with it from simply riding around
town! From the beginning the rear air shock suddenly stopped working.
In another two weeks I managed to shred the top teflon tube somehow.
Then the front disc brake rotor became permanently warped. Then the
back ones. Did I mention the rear mudguard cracking in two? Sunday,
about the whole drivetrain came undone: broken chain, a bent chainring,
the idler spring clamp kaputt. Interestingly, the Thracian wheelset
has held up just fine, AFAIK.

I can't see any way to bend a chainwheel without a really good quality
crash. You're cursed would appear to be your problem.

Good God, but this is starting to be like dealing with your PC: "now
what???" comes to mind more and more. And this seems to me
recumbency's fatal flaw preventing it from wider adoptation: it's too
****ing complicated!

No, the problem isn't complication, it's your personal curse. Repair
work I have done to my similar bike in 5 years is... a couple of flats,
a minor fettle of spoke tension and, errrrr, that's it. That includes
plenty of off-road and fully loaded touring.

And I can't believe how many of the nuts and
bolts on my SMGTe do not seem to be off-the-shelf stuff you can get at
a hardware store. Also, there should be a re-assembly instruction
sheet for owners included with the bikes, since not all LBSes know or
care about servicing 'bents.

I've yet to see anything on the bike that's so non-standard a decent
bike shop with basic mechanical competence can't work with it. Perhaps
your personal curse extends to your choice of bike shop too? I took
mine along to some bike maintenance classes and there wasn't anything in
general running we couldn't deal with using standard tools. The only
obvious changes between the original GT and e mechanically are a
different idler wheel and the seat, neither of which are exactly rocket
science.

Recumbents are fun when they work, but mine is finally going to make a
grease-monkey out of me! The HP Velo SMGTe is still the most
comfortable 'bent around

You have no way of knowing that even for yourself: different people find
different things comfortable and you have ridden roughly 0 other
machines to compare to AFAICT.

but it requires a lot of attention,

Only if you've got a personal curse. It does happen.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/