The Other Way

hi paul, i have just read your comment. thanks mate, that was a really nice thing to say. i am glad you like the look of the trike. anne marie has fattened me up and i am feeling strong again. i needed a rest. as for the money thing thank you for the offer , i will see how this week unfolds and let you know where i am at. with regards to the prodution company i agree it could be right up their street. i hope they get back to you,
cheers
nick

this morning after making anne maries breakfast as she is having difficulty seeing after her double eye laser op i went into remalard and met one of anne maries friends, marie pierre, who took me to the equivalent of a charity shop. the only difference is you pay five euros for a sack as opposed to individually pricing stuff. i now have ski boots, balaclavas, gloves, trousers, work boots, shirts and a hoody. in one hit i have managed to sort my innapropriate clothing out. i wasnt quite walking around in swimming trunks, but i didnt have proper winter gear. marie pierre helped me with the boots as i couldnt squeeze them into my bag and i only had five euros which anne marie had kindly leant me. i think as much for her benefit as mine as i dont think she liked seeing a tramp walking round her house in old ripped clothes. i managed to destroy practically all of my clothes at lovelo. anyway , marie pierre wants my help next week insulating her roof and so i said i would do it in exchange for the boots but she said she would pay me as well.double whammy. the best part of the day came when i borrowed a pedal from one of the kids bikes and rigged my motor up to a second crank to get a better ratio for my motor and although not quite there the result was good. i have slowed down the motor with regards to synchronisation with my pedalling and taken half the pressure off it thus extending battery life.
on ebay i have found the right crank with the right ammount of teeth andthe vendor said he can post it here. the next mission is to get the forty quid to buy it. I am going to put my loop pedal on ebay  and see how much i can get for it. its a boss rc2 if anyone is interested. they sell for about 100 and with that cash i can refund annemarie, buy the crank and the fabric i need to finish the trike. Its a plan, wether it all comes together like that is another thing, but its a plan.
My brother anthony is on his way back from ghana as i write.
because of his support i was able to work uninterrupted at lovelo.
twice i emailed him and asked if he could lend me 100 quid . he did it without hesitation. western unioned it across and it kept me going for about 8 weeks.
Big thanks to you chubbs.
Must find a way to pay him back and move forward with the project
After resting and not really thinking about the trike i am looking at it with fresh eyes and i like what i see. a few more modifications and it will be excellent. lightness is the key.
i am also changing the colour to green.
anyway, i am in the middle of making a thai curry. i have just blended the paste and am letting it  rest and fuse while i type this. i have a gin and fresh apple juice on the go and anne marie is in bed. i am listening to air on the computer and all is well,
just spoken to my mum and everyone is fine and happy,
cheers
nick

pretty much finished, well as finished as i could get it.howeve its not really the finish...... its just the beginning

the first few kms were a drag as the wheels werent tracked properly. i stopped , got the kettle on , parked up for the night and fixed the problem in the morning.

After spending most of the previous day fretting about motor efficiency and realising it was going to be difficult to keep the beast charged i found myself at dusk trying to cross a major highway. The gendarme were on me in a flash, but were very friendly  but didnt want me on the main road for my own safety. they gave me an alternative route and I went on. the first quiet spot i found i made camp. it rained al night and thick clouds covered the sun in the morning. A passing jogger who spoke English with no accent enquired as to the nature of my business. i told him my story in brief and after telling him of my charging problems he offered me a coffee in his house and the chance to charge. i explained that i had boldly and rather stupidly left the charger back at the factory. i hadnt travelled much ground and he offered to give me a lift to retrieve it. after coffee we drove back to lovelo and picked up the charger and my spare motor. i realised the day before that the motor i had chosen was going to be a nuisance as it has a low voltage cut off feature, and as it was now obvious that i was going to be riding at low voltage for most of the time in this part of the world at this time of year, that neat little feature was going to start pissing me  off.
Eric and the team atb Lovelo were surprised to see me but after i bought them up to speed they understood.
once back at phillipes i plugged the trike in and we had lunch. They are such a lovely couple. He emailed me some of his pictures and some text xhich  i have copied  put below. He was acopywriter by trade and has just retired from paris and moved with Edita into the country. His little piece is very well writen but it helps if you understand and can read french to fully appreciate it.
Mardi 19 octobre à 11 heures sur le petite route de la Sablonnière qui va du Luat-sur-Vert à nulle part, je cours sous la bruine avec Pepita lorsque j'aperçois sur l'herbe qui borde la voie une forme indistincte vaguement recouverte d'une protection transparente. Voiture genre Méhari ? Trop petit. Minivoiture ? Trop étroit. Voiture des quatre saisons ? Mais que ferait-elle là ? Voiturette à trois roues ? Mais où est le moteur ? ...Je m'approche et vois sortir de l'Ogni (objet garé non identifié) un homme jeune qui m'interroge du regard. Je me rapproche de lui : "C'est une voiture ?"... "kommpran pââ"... "Een wagen ?"... "Pas comprendre..."... "What's your native language ?"... "I'm English"...Il m'explique qu'il est parti du Derbyshire (Midlands) à destination du Ghana (Afrique noire) où sa tante anglaise de 67 ans a épousé un chef de village ghanéen de 42 ans. Il voyage à bord du tricycle à assistance électrique solaire de son invention et de sa fabrication, et cherche un endroit où charger sa batterie parce que le soleil se fait rare. Son propotype N° 1, à bord duquel il a relié le Derbyshire à Anet (Eure) ayant révélé un grave défaut de conception entraînant la paralysie progressive de la direction, il a trouvé EN RASE CAMPAGNE À 3 KM D'ANET un constructeur de tricycles spécialisé dans les véhicules utilitaires et de loisirs (!), qui a mis son atelier à disposition pour qu'il se construise sur place un second prototype, en échange d'un peu de travail au pair dans l'atelier. Le véhicule que j'avais sous les yeux était le nouveau modèle, fraîchement sorti de l'atelier mais qui avouait un problème de faible autonomie dont la solution impliquait le changement de quelques pièces afin d'optimiser le rendement électromécanique. "Où dormez-vous ?"... "Dans ce tricycle, là, allongé et protégé par ces bâches transparentes"... "Comment vous nourrissez-vous ?"..."Dans ce coffre à l'avant droite, j'ai tout ce qu'il faut pour cuisiner chaud"..."Et pour la toilette ?"..."J'ai tout ce qu'il faut pour me laver à l'eau chaude"... "Comment gagnez-vous votre vie ?"..."Dans cet autre coffre à l'avant gauche il y a une guitare, un ampli et un haut-parleur : je joue et chante dans les lieux publics, cela me rapporte de quoi vivre - sauf en France où c'est interdit". "Votre prochaine étape ?"..."Un petit village dans le Perche, à 80 kilomètres d'ici, où j'ai des amis".Nick Meadows a installé son engin dans notre grange, rechargé sa batterie, partagé notre déjeuner et repris la route vers 15 heures. A l'heure actuelle il est quelque part entre Le Luat et Nogent-le-Rotrou où il dormira dans son engin.Son site web est du genre "theotherway.weebly. machin", accessible via Google. Il montre en vidéo le fonctionnement de son éolienne mobile en développement.Cette histoire est 100% authentique.Question : quelle est la probabilité pour que :1/ je rencontre Nick Meadows2/ Nick Meadows rencontre à cet endroit une constructeurs de tricycles sur mesure3/ des retraités du Luat-sur-Vert partagent à l'impromptu leur déjeuner avec un allumé britannique en toute pour le Ghana ?Je vous le demande....Bises.El Cordo et son Edith philarmonique

This clip is enough to put you off camping in october

At Ferte vidame  I  realised I was running the pedalling gears to high and that every push on the pedals was becoming a chore. I had options though. I changed one of my gear sprockets from a 14 tooth to a 24 and that did the trick. the rest of the journey was pretty easy, but i still wasnt happy with a few things which i will explain more about below.

So there you have it  The clps of me on the last day at the factory and en route to AnneMaries.I arrived on friday and was very happy to be off the road and in the warm.
The trike got me there but not quite as easily as i hoped.For one thing there is not much daylight this time of year and the sun does not give out as much power as it takes a wide birth from east to west across the sky and  doesnt sit overhead .Also because of the mterials i had at my disposal  etc during the build i am down by 11cells in my solar aray on  the new trike and the maximum reading i got from my meter was 1.5 amps during midday sun. compared to 2.8 during the summer. I am also now running my 500 watt motor through my drive system and have not got the gearing quite right yet, and so the motor although powerful enough to zoom me up the steepest of hills is working to hard and is sucking the living daylights out of the battery . To make matters worse the controller has a low voltage cut off point meaning it will suddenly cut out when the voltage gets too low, which can be very annoying on hills. I have bought the other motor with me and luckily it wont be difficult to sort this problem out. I am going to alter the gearing and do some experiments with both motors. The main problem i have now is the fully loaded weight. Even after deciding to travel without the wind generator the trike is still far to heavy. The front suspension is under so much compression that it barely functions and puts a strain on the steering.The springs are either going to have to be moved into a better position or i need to add more or upgrade to bigger springs. At least these were my first thoughts.
The easiest and first solution i will try is to lighten the whole machine.
As the trike performed so well in earlier tests before i had fully dressed and loaded it i am going to strip it back to the basic frame, keeping the solar roof and batteries, bed etc. and find out the maximum load it will take without affecting performance .
I am going to drill holes in all of the non stress bearing metalwork to lighten it some more.I am going to cut away and reshape the front and clad it in lightweight waterproof fabric instead of rigid pvc. For the time being until i source lighter speakers , stereo/amp, i will play accoustically and once fully road tested will take the tools i need as opposed to half a workshop.
I am lucky to have met anne marie who is totally supportive of me and this project because i have the chance to finish this build properly in a relaxed environment, not necessarily at leisure but at the moment under no real pressure. I am also very fortunate to have bumped into eric from lovelo on that sunny afternoon in june, as without the help of him and his team i would not be sat here writing about the adjustments i am going to make to what i am sure will be a very nice piece of kit, when it is finally finished.
I am as ever without any cash and am putting the feelers out for work to buy the things i need to succeed. I hadnt anticipated still being this far north at this time of year and therefore have the wrong clothes and shoes for this weather. There is a thrift store in the nearby town of Remalard which opens every saturday and i hope to make 5 euros this week busking somewhere so i can go shopping there next saturday. Apparently you can walk out with a carrier bag full of clothes for 5 euros, and i am hoping to find some mittens and thick socks etc. I need walking boots as i only have crocs and the other day in the morning i was in serious cold pain for at least two hours. I dont seem to be designed for the serious cold as my hands stop working in the cold. In the bakers the other day i couldnt open the zip on my  wallet without some serious fumbling.
So i either need to get down to spain next week which is not going to happen or prepare for a cold one , either here or in transit.
Finally, on the wind generator front I am probably going to go back to the factory and get mine because although not 100per cent what i want, it is a great feature on the trike, if not just for conscioyus raising purposes, however i think the best thing would be to find a company who produces small 30 volt wind generators and convince them to let me use one on this journey,
Anyway ,here are the clips so you can see for yourself where i am at.

nick

just before leaving for the factory i spent a week with Anne marie and family. Here she is with her bluegrass band practicing in the garden. This kind of atmosphere sums up the kind of summer i had.

Below are a few clips of the trike in the making. In a few days i will be able to show you the finished article. I thought i would put a few clips up to give you something to look at in the meantime.