27.04.2023 Being stretched on the rack.

 ~o~

 Thursday 27th 2C/36F. Early cloud has moved away. Ride to cook. 

 I am slightly disappointed that the Ortlieb bags. Which are less user battery friendly than I had hoped. A female buckle on the face of the bag would be far more useful than the male buckle strap supplied. I know I am being picky and may come up with a better solution. 

 The female buckles on inside of the back hook rail are difficult to reach. All of this is related to hiding the battery bag under the tops of the pannier bags. It would have been far easier with the Innergy panniers. As simple panniers the Ortliebs will probably work fine.

 The Moustache rear pannier rack has some serious design flaws. The junctions between uprights and horizontal elements are all skewed. Making hooking the bags on a real trial. There is so little useful area of clear top rail to choose from. Most of which is far too close together. So there is no spread of support for the bags. This means they will rock for and aft. Adding unwanted loads on the support hooks and causing the bags to distort.  Rather than enjoying a longer baseline between the bag's hanging hooks. 

 The rack looks as if it was designed only for artistic/cosmetic appearance. Rather than helping the poor end user simply carry some panniers. Perhaps the sloping tubes are to resist forward movement? By providing some triangulation. The rack can't be tied to the seat tube because of the suspension movements. The rack and its loads are unsprung weight. The seat tube is isolated by the rear suspension. 

 I'll have a further look at these problems later. There are different bag support systems. I have removed the protruding items which once decorated the rack. Presumably for the Ortlieb 3 support system. The Classic panniers have the earlier Ortlieb 2 hooks for a horizontal rail.

 7.15. I am going for an early walk again. The wind looks much lighter than yesterday. Though it may be different away from the shelter of the trees. I must leave plenty of time for the very hilly ride to my cooking class. I cut short my walk due to heavy traffic and a headwind. It was no fun.

 It was windy on my rides again today. 22km in an hour on the way. A different route, coming home, saved me a couple of km and some hills. I shall use that route in future. Averaging 25kph at 84rpm for 20km coming home. Mostly using Sport mode. A little Turbo mode climbing a particularly long and steep hill. Just for the fun of it. I was averaging 30kph on the computer going up there. The hills in this area are popular with keen cyclists for training. 

 I maxed at 47kph during today's rides. Battery down to 42% after 42km of deliberately riding quickly but not hard. I was regularly seeing 85-110 rpm cadence on the way. The sun and my sunglasses were hiding the screen on the way home. I was mostly trying to protect my knees. Which were still hurting on the stairs before I left. I wore closely fitting jeans today and had a few moments of discomfort. I am not sure it is my sit bones rather than friction. I shall wear padded shorts and change at the venue next time. The jeans were resisting my leg movements at the knees.

 The Ortlieb panniers were absolutely fine as simple panniers. Loads of room and no noticeable problems. I knew I didn't need the spare battery. So housing it was never a problem. I laid the long and heavy, ABUS Granite lock flat on top of my waterproof trousers. To avoid localized loading of the pannier fabric during the journeys. It rained while the bike was parked but remained safely as surface droplets. There was lots of interest in the e-bike from my fellow cooks. They particularly liked the dropper post. As do I. 😄

 Cooking class was a complex meat dish with a creamy sauce and boiled, new potatoes. That was managed by other members. I made a vegetable salad involving lots of cutting into tiny pieces with a very sharp knife. Pointy cabbage, cucumber and avocados. Dressed with nuts. Others made a thin tart with freshly cut rhubarb. We had vanilla ice cream with that. There were seven of us today. Most of what we cooked was polished off. This is not always the case.

 The bereavement councilor is coming tomorrow morning. So I am cleaning and clearing, vacuuming and polishing. Well, somebody had to do it. The ants followed me home. There were ants on the working surface at the school kitchen. I came home and there were dozens on mine!

~o~