Urban Assault Vehicle Redux

It is the hottest day all summer. Instead of staying cooped up in the HQ, I was determined to have some fun outdoors after the difficult lawn cutting experience this am, where the Lawn Boy died and I had to borrow another sickly mower to get the job done.

First I got out the Mustang and went to some fruitless house sales. Not one record was even for sale!

Then my delivery from Nashbar came, and I had a new project. Last week, I splurged and got a set of clipless pedals for the Raleigh, since they were $19.95. Nice!

From Nashbar, I ordered a set of Zefal mountain bike mudguards as they were only $16.99.

Putting the pedals on was as simple as getting my pedal wrench out of the toolbox and removing the extant pedals and then putting a bit of grease from my grease gun on the spindles of the new ones and twisting them on the shiny, chromed, cottered cranks.

The mudguards were a bit of a project however. It required that I mock everything up before I starting cutting up the mudguards and their hardware, because in the past, I have had to cut bait on a project and return items as no amount of "modification" will sometimes allow a fit.

The front fender basically fit after I jammed it between the fork legs. The lower legs of the mudguard supports appeared to be too long however. I moved on to the rears to see if I could make the mountain bike fenders fit on the Raleigh Sports.

The rears were a much closer perfect fit. I used all of the enclosed hardware. The only mod I made was where I attached the front of the mudguard to the bottom bracket area with a zip tie instead of a series of bolts, washers, brackets and nuts. I am sure that the hardware would be much more of a situtation where it would rattle loose and cause havoc, (like the stock mudguards on the recent LATE Ride.)

After I ascertained that the mudguards would indeed work on my bike, I started tightening everything down. The fronts still looked weird. I opted to get some powerful hedge trimmers, that I call "The Toecutter," to lop a 1/2 inch or so off of each of the lower support legs. That seemed to do the trick.

As for my grocery getter cart, I recently scored a Burley Delite trailer at a house sale for $35. I found the platform for the trailer in the garbage in front of a mansion. The board was roughly the correct size to fit on the top of the Burley after the sides were folded down. I cut the 1/4 inch plywood board down to size. I then proceeded to drill 16 holes around the edge to fasten the deck to the trailer frame.

I found a can of primer in the garage, so I hand sanded and filed the board to remove any bad splinters, I then applied 2 coats of primer to seal the deck. I then found a can of shiny black spray paint and added 2 coats to the top of the deck.

Then I got some 14 inch zipties from the hardware store for $2 to put throgh the holes and secure to the trailer frame. I just attached the four corners to see if I liked how it worked.

I just took a test ride. The vehicle seems pretty tight. Although the board added a few pounds, while the mudguards took a pound or so off. I have a feeling it is a matter of time until I cut all of the nylon sides and bottom off the Burley to save some weight.