I have a Diamondback Voyager II. I had a Diamondback Sorrento for a short time and came to the conslusion that the frame was a bit too big. My taller son decided he would take it off my hands so I bought the Vogaer II. After having ridden it for a couple of weeks, I am very happy with it. It is my first bike with front suspension, and it took me virtually no time to realize that I liked it. The picutres that follow below are of my Sorrento. I have since moved my radio, antenna, and and lights to my new bike. I will try to get the photos updated sometime soon, although the installation on my new bike is virtually the same as my previous one.
The first item for the bike was a radio. I thought about attaching a mobile bracket so I could use my IC-706 (my wife rolled her eyes), but the task of balancing my Cushcraft R-6000 on the back of the bike was a bit more than I could manage. So, my thoughts turned to the next most likely candidate, a Yaesu FT-530 dual-band HT. This HT has seen sporadic use lately so I decided that this one would become my bike radio. I bought a new Yaesu FT-50 some time back which made the FT-530 available for this bike project. I believe the FT-530 was one of the best HTs made by Yaesu. (You can read my equipment comments on both the FT-530 and the FT-50 HTs).
The dual-band receive lends itself well to my bicycle use. I leave the UHF receiver monitoring our local Cactus repeater. I usually put the VHF receiver on a simplex frequency. This provides easy bike-to-bike communication, and lets me stay in contact with a couple of the local folks that monitor the same simplex frequency. For bike-to-bike, I set the VHF xmit power level to the 500mW minimum (I wish it went down to something around 50 or 100mW), as the 1/2 watt setting is a bit overkill.
As far as mounting the HT on the bike, I had one basic requirement. It had to mount on the bike, and not me, so that I would not have a problem with the antenna coax should the bike and myself part company. At first I thought that mounting the HT on the bike was going to be a compromise. While digging through my junk box, I found an old Yaesu FT-470 (I had that one before the FT-530) mobile bracket. The bracket is quite solid and was designed to let you hang your HT on the top of the car's door panel by slipping it into the window track. Amazingly, it fits the FT-530 quite well, and with the help of a couple of self-adhesive felt pads, it makes for a snug fit. So, I have a good mount, but where am I going to put it on the bike? Obviously, the bike had no door panels, let alone a window track on which to hang the mobile mount. After examining the available options, I drilled a hole in the top of the mount and attached it to the large hex bolt that clamps the handlebar to the stem. This places the radio directly in the middle of the handlebars, and within easy reach for adjusting the controls. The HT can be easily removed from the mount if I need to park the bike while running an errand, etc.
I put the speaker-mic on the radio, but found that the tiny speaker produced audio that was too low to be easily heard with a small bit of wind noise. My other concern was my ability to safely use the HT while riding the bike, especially in traffic. I found I really did not appreciate having one hand tied up with a speaker mike while negotiating traffic. Considering that one has front and rear brakes, along with front and rear derailleurs controls, the last place I want my hand is off of the bars when a car cuts me off. So, down to the local HRO store to see if they had anything to help me out. Gary, the manager, is also a biking person, so he understood what I needed. HRO carries an HT add-on, an "earpiece with mini-boom mic" made by Premier. The model number is SPM-400 (it varies depending on the HT you are hooking up). The unit fits into your ear and a very small....I mean really small boom mic wraps about 2/3 of the way around to your mouth (we had a lengthy discussion about this and Gary demonstrated the finer points of "talking out the side of your mouth"). Anyway, it really does work, and I like it so far. The setup comes with a PTT switch, located near the end of the cable that plugs into the HT. With the help of some self-adhesive Velcro tape, and a cable tie, the PTT switch was located adjacent to the right grip shifter, and is within easy reach by my thumb. It lets me carry on a conversation with "both hands on the wheel". Should the bike and myself part ways in an accident, the earpiece will easily pull out of my ear without any problem.
I needed a location to put the Comet SBB1NMO antenna. Since I wasn't going to be seen with a rubber ducky attached to my helmet, the most likely mounting location would be a rear bike rack. I selected the Comet antenna because it provides dual band coverage, and, as Gary pointed out, I probably won't require a kidney transplant should I get poked by it in an accident! The antenna looks like a HT rubber duck antenna, on steroids. The 1/4" dia. flexible upper section puts the overall height at 16". I installed a regular NMO mount near the rear of the rack. I am sure the radiation pattern is anything but omni-directional, but hey, it's not a perfect ground plane. Many 1/2 wave dual band antennas are around the 36" height category, making it a real pain for swinging your leg around it when getting on and off the bike. Also, I doubt a 1/2 wave would survive anything close to a real crash. This Comet may not either, but if it doesn't, I won't feel so bad. The price puts it closer to the disposable category. The antenna is black, which makes it a bit less obvious than one of those that are all bright and shiny. Also, the 16" length makes it manageable when I want to remove it (along with the radio) when I go into a store.
My work schedule puts me home after sundown for a significant portion of the year. As I have no desire to become a traffic statistic (bicycle rider gets squished by careless motorist....film at 11:00), I decided that either I ride only on the weekends or I had better get some lights for the bike. I was shocked when I started looking around and discovered that I could spend more on a light than I did for the bike! I found a Cygo Light "Night-Rover" rechargeable light system at a local bike shop. It was priced at about $65 and was THE lowest priced rechargeable lighting system that I am aware of. It has a pair of 6 watt Halogen lamps that are powered from a 6V 2.8 Ah sealed lead acid (SLA) battery.
I have a 12V 7Ah SLA that would make one heck of an aux battery system for the bike. I wish it were around 4Ah, which would drop the weight (and size) and make it must easier to mount. I have found that once you start tossing around some weight (like a large battery), the requirements for holding that battery in place become significant. So, I am going to have to look at the situation a bit further and see what comes up.
You can never have enough gadgets, so they say. I picked up an inexpensive (~$20) bicycle computer. It is mounted next to the HT's PTT switch and displays speed, trip mileage, trip time, and total mileage.
10/16/98 Update - the lighting system. I stopped by the Home Depot store and looked through their electrical department. It seems that there are a lot of patio lights made with 12V halogen lamps (they are usually called low voltage lighting systems). I bought a 20 watt floodlight for $9.95. It had the smallest housing and looked like the best candidate to make the transition to "bike light". When I bought it, I thought it had the MR-16 type bulb in it. It actually has a separate bulb and reflector. (The bulbs are available at Radio Shack for $1.99.) I salvaged the mounting bracket from a 2 watt Cateye light (the 2 c-cell variety) to use on the floodlight. The light came with a detachable metal hood. I removed the hood, reversed it, and slipped the light back into it. Since the back of the light was smaller than the front, everything fit just fine. With the help of some metal epoxy, I bolted and then epoxied the Cateye mounting bracket to the inverted hood, which serves as a good base mount.
The light worked great, except that I noticed that it had a very wide beam width. Looking at the reflector and comparing it to my Night-Rover, I could see that the shapes were quite different, leading to the noticeable difference. Another trip to the Home Depot store yielded a 20W MR-11 bulb for about $7. A little trimming on two screw heads in the lamp socket accommodated the new bulb. It fits snugly in the housing, although the housing could now certainly be smaller since the old/larger reflector is no longer in use. It looks like this narrower beam is going to work just fine. I have a much brighter area in front of the bike and the spillage off to the sides is still good enough for others to see me. All in all, it works quite well. I have used it for several weeks and am very happy with it. For the price, you can not beat it. Here is a picture of my light.
Almost forgot to mention the power source for this new light. I used one of the 12V SLA that I mentioned above. It is currently mounted on the rear rack, although I'm not completely happy with the setup. The battery is too large for the rack (or the rack is too light for the battery). I stopped by the local bike shop today to see about a regular battery bag to hang from the top tube. Seems they have another customer that wants just the light assembly, so they are going to order one and split up the pieces. They weren't sure on the dimensions though, so will see how it looks when it arrives. My battery is 6" x 2.5" x 4" high. The battery is somewhat overkill, but it allows me to use the light as much as I want during a long night ride, and I can run the radio all day long on high power without a problem.
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