Been a while....

Actually I wasn't planning of doing two blogs anymore. One in English and one in my native tongue Dutch is a bit much. But since I sometimes do a small post in English on Facebook that gets out of hand and with a bit of work becomes long enough for a blog post, I guess I might as well post it here. 
So here goes....

Two of my three Mangos are riding again. The latest in my stable is called TransforMango. It's a crashed Mango, a total write-off that was rebuilt from scratch with some large-scale tweaks to the body, steering, frame and seat by Delta Hotel (his username on Velomobilforum). It interested me to see what these changes meant and since Delta Hotel moved on to another project, I bought it. I made my own tweaks to it: light weight wheels with wide rims and bladed spokes, Shredda tires, rear axle with ceramic bearings, a customised 10-speed lever shifter from Microshift (on the vertical column, so leaving the steer free for my hands and preventing unwanted steering input), 11-34 cassette (34cogs is definitely the largest that still fits), 150mm cranks, Gingko 14teeth chain idler, custom placement of this idler, KMC X10SL light weight chain. I did not want to wait for an ordered adapter middle chain wheel (Alize K from TA Specialite) to fit three chain rings to a powermeter from power2max. So for now I will go with the two chainrings that were there when I bought it. 
Because both have powermeters, I will be able to compare my trusty Twango with TransforMango.
I have planned some more major changes after I made a "zero" measurement. Because of these ongoing changes, the idea came to me to call it "TransforMango". A Mango to test new ideas...

I rode it home today in Beaufort 6 to 7 and was pleasantly surprised that it handled so good. Gusts were not a major problem. I'm not sure yet why. It may have to do with the lowered body and that my body weight is shifted more to the rear. It felt quick, but with a tail wind of this magnitude it's not surprising to fly home. So I went around, into the wind and could still keep a nice speed. And that was without the aero tweaks that I use on Twango. I'll have to wait until the powermeter is built in before I can say for sure which of my Mangos' is the fastest.

Despite a slow start of the season because of a persistent problem with my achilles, everything has turned around. I have been riding close to 11.000km/6800miles and I'm even racing again.

I feel like next year is going to be a good year! I wish my readers all the best for next year and for now, a very pleasant Christmas and turn of the year.