Code Neon Blue!

Part of our reason for getting this trike was for exercise. I hadn’t quite realized I would get so much of the exercise just doing the assembly. Like so many other things, bike mechanic-ing is a young person’s game. If I ever have to get a job doing this, I want to be paid by the hour, not by the bike.

So far I have about six hours invested in the project. I have to take the blame for some of the delays, because a couple of times I put something on crooked, backwards or upside-down, and had to re-do it.

But part of THAT is due to the instructions. I think this trike’s instructions take the prize for the WORST I have ever seen. Here they are, you tell me.

The corner bit tore off in the wind when we were first unpacking the box. Mike managed to catch the rest of the page, but he might as well not have bothered. There are three blurry illos and less than 100 words. That’s it!

Luckily we had read the seller’s feedback on eBay before ordering, so we had one of the secret tricks for success already planned. A company that makes a somewhat similar trike has assembly instructions available online for downloading and printing. Not an exact match, but it helped, especially considering where you have to start in the assembly process.

When I quit for the evening last night, I had assorted muscle strains and some pinched fingertips, but also a trike-shaped object. Today I plan to see if the air stayed in the tires, connect the hand-brake to the back wheels, do a final tightening up on all the nuts and bolts, and put on the fiddly bits — the baskets, reflectors and the jingly bell!

I’ll keep you posted!