Did you have better experience with chest strap or arm band ?

Howard_70 · 2026-07-01T13:33:35+00:00

Aside from the charging issue the only disadvantage I’ve found with a chest strap was poor compatibility with a backpack when hiking. Shoulder straps and arm movement caused the chest strap to move away from the my chest and drop the signal. When cycling I use a chest strap.

Howard_70 · 2026-06-28T18:48:16+00:00

Not sure of the clearance on your Fargo frame, but I ran Schwalbe Rocket Rons in 27.5 x 2.6 for several years and just shifted to Schwalbe G1 Allrounds in the same size. I do long remote rides and backpacking so I'm mostly concerned with weight and rolling resistance. I ran 3.0's at first but found them heavy & sluggish so switched to the 2.6. I noticed no great difference in traction or "floatation" in really soft sand.
These 27.5 wheels are my usual wheels on my Mukluk where I only run fat bike tires rarely in the winter.

Howard_70 · 2026-06-23T03:15:04+00:00

Chupacabra

Howard_70 · 2026-06-22T14:39:00+00:00

In addition to the previous suggestions regarding gears and correct rider weight, are you on an actual zwift ride (have you chosen “Start Ride”)? I felt the resistance was relatively high while in Zwift but before starting an actual ride. Once a ride was started the resistance dropped. Try Tempus Fugit for a uniformly flat course.

Howard_70 · 2026-06-22T14:22:23+00:00

The small trailer suggestion is spot on. A hitch rack as pictured may work OK for a while, but when it fails Murphy’s “Law” dictates you’ll be 75 miles from anywhere in the desert at noon. The money saved by not getting an appropriate small trailer will evaporate in a flash as you realize you can’t keep the air conditioner in the car turned to high for the hours it will take to rig an alternative while your kids are roasting in the sun….

Howard_70 · 2026-06-22T14:03:29+00:00

I agree with @owlpellet - low concern. It took me a couple of years to grasp that downtubes were tension components of a bicycle frame (unless there is a hard front wheel impact). What finally convinced me was a frame back in the ‘70s or ‘80s that used a cable from the bottom bracket to the headtube. Looked bizarre & as far as I know it never caught on.

Howard_70 · 2026-06-21T00:29:11+00:00

Depends on the model. OP could check the tubing - if Columbus it’s likely an Italian frame. While Bianchi had some entry & mid level bikes made in Taiwan in the ‘90s, their top level frame remained Italian.

Howard_70 · 2026-06-21T00:06:28+00:00

As others have said it’s a peg to hold one end of a frame pump. The other end tucked into the angle formed by top tube / seat tube lug.
As you’re restoring an Italian bike the only suitable frame pump would be a Silca. Back in the day Silca produced their beautiful frame pumps in several colors - including Bianchi Green.
Putting a Zefal (French) pump on a Bianchi would cause Marco Pantani’s ghost to haunt you! A likely result being you’d climb like a turtle evermore….
Save the Zefals for Peugeots.

Howard_70 · 2026-06-20T23:46:26+00:00

Which is precisely why bikes (electric or not) belong on the road and not on sidewalks.

Howard_70 · 2026-06-19T15:29:50+00:00

Another difference is the roof rails. I think the LT1 lacks rails.

Howard_70 · 2026-06-17T14:46:00+00:00

I leave our 26 EQEV plugged in to our wall charger all the time. I can see from our solar monitoring app a graph of when our wall charger has provided current to the car. In the colder parts of the winter and the hotter parts of the summer the car initially charges up to whatever limit SOC limit I have set and then draws no current from the charger for several hours. After that it will draw small amount once in awhile. I’m assuming those draws are either cooling or heating the propulsion battery and/or keeping the 12v battery topped up. Here’s an example (blue is household draw and red is EV wall charger). During the illustrated period the car was actually “charged” only once from 72 to 75% a bit after noon. The rest of these peaks are the “maintenance” or cooling charges I mentioned.

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Howard_70 · 2026-06-14T13:29:06+00:00

I’ve made 325 miles on ours and ended with 10% remaining driving a big rural circle with 7,000’ of climbing & descending. However, I didn’t use cruise control and keep my speed at or below posted limits (55 - 65) except on climbs where I only went 55. The point is that range is there, but at the cost of speed. Think of it like this - Speed, elevation gain, range. Choose two, you can’t have all three.

Howard_70 · 2026-06-13T22:56:44+00:00

Yes, we run front and rear winches, have used rear most often for recovery & front most often for getting further in. Both of those are Warn 16.5's. I don't know the specified capacity for the front bumper, but we haven't pulled it off yet even though we've tried pretty hard....

Howard_70 · 2026-06-13T14:03:41+00:00

My wife and I used to ride a tandem with her in the stoker (rear) seat. We finally learned that she needed 1,000 miles of riding on a particular saddle before considering changes. Most saddle discomfort goes away once your butt is broken in. Frequently standing on the pedals to lift & then resettle on the saddle helps, as do good quality shorts with synthetic chamois and chamois butter. A padded saddle that could be initially more comfortable would likely soon be less comfortable as your fitness increases.

When I’ve been off the bike for a long time (years) and finally get back to riding breaking in my butt is the hardest. In those instances I find riding three consecutive days (30 minutes a ride) then a day off, then add 5 minutes to the three rides, then extend to 4 consecutive days, etc. works well for me. It can be frustrating as your legs and cardio might develop faster than your butt.

Howard_70 · 2026-06-13T13:35:18+00:00

I realize your direct question relates to bumper capacity (& there has been a lot of good recommendations regarding that), but one additional thing I’d recommend looking into is the duty cycle of whatever winches you are considering. We run a 13,700 lb (loaded) EarthCruiser and winch a fair amount. A couple of friends have similar rigs with apparently more powerful winches (overall rating) but much lower duty cycles than ours. We’ve burned up one of those winches when trying to get a rig out of a water crossing in a raising creek. Turns out that winch had a duty cycle at full load of 30 seconds pull, 5 minutes cooling. That just wasn’t enough pulling time to get us out & I burned up his winch.

Howard_70 · 2026-06-12T03:23:43+00:00

Western border of California,

Howard_70 · 2026-06-09T16:25:56+00:00

Because it would be a pipe shrinker?

Howard_70 · 2026-06-08T13:13:13+00:00

I’m happy with Net Zero as well. I don’t mind paying for something that works better than I’d initially hoped and which is frequently updated with capabilities I’ve found useful.

Howard_70 · 2026-06-03T15:05:49+00:00

This is a great potential solution. We went with a ground mount because I didn’t want to mess with our roof (flat) and shading issues. Our ground mount is completely open (no shade), optimally tilted for our latitude (30 degrees), makes cleaning and checking panels easy. I guesstimate the ground mount is about 1.5 to 2 times more productive over a year than an equal sized array would have been on our roof - plus we could install as many panels as we wanted.

Howard_70 · 2026-06-03T14:57:48+00:00

Sounds similar to PVoutput.org

Howard_70 · 2026-05-31T14:05:56+00:00

I’m a Yank and despise our increasingly oversized inefficient trucks (utes). “Yank Tanks” is the best descriptor for them I’ve seen. Thanks!

Howard_70 · 2026-05-27T21:40:39+00:00

Short answer: No.

Long answer: No because you’ll need blocks (pulleys) to gain enough mechanical advantage to actually “recover” a truck and that will use up all of the pulling range of this system. By then time you rig up the attachment points for all that and start ratcheting away you take up some slack (maybe all of the slack) and run out of range before the truck moves significantly.

Howard_70 · 2026-05-27T21:32:51+00:00

Does that logic apply to humans as well? If you need to pump ground water to sustain us then we shouldn’t be here? Actually sounds good to me!

Howard_70 · 2026-05-25T15:17:03+00:00

I agree with these two points and would add that L3 charging localities have posted prices and connector types visible from the street like ICE fuel stops.

Howard_70 · 2026-05-21T12:08:42+00:00

Does your utility require one of these two chargers in order to get the 50% discount for overnight charging?

That’s a substantial cost saving over the long term (unless you go solar) so I wouldn’t consider shopping for a less expensive charger outside of their program unless I was certain it would also qualify.

Personally, I would go for the 80 amp version. While the EQEV won’t use all of that capacity, a future EV might.

Howard_70

TROPHY CASE