Driving Miss Daisy

Me and Mo took Daisy for a spin this evening. She said she didn't want to go, but once we were underway, she was so excited I feared her head might explode like an outtake from Scanners.

Driving Miss Daisy from Chixulub on Vimeo.

I need to put some flags on this oddmobile, and I know we probably should have worn helmets. I had one, but I couldn't wear it and let Mo go bare headed, and I couldn't tell her to wear one if I couldn't follow the example.



And we weren't exactly aiming to merge with traffic. Top speed on Daisy (in my neighborhood) is maybe ten miles per hour. And that's going downhill, as she weighs around 150 lbs, and with me and Mo on board that means you're moving almost 600 pounds by pedal power.



With a steep downhill, we'd be in trouble because the brakes are courtesy of the Flintstones. And on a steep uphill, well, let's just say there was one little corner on our route where I had to sand up and push because both of us cranking didn't make Daisy move.



There are nitpicky issues, too, which Pastor Kurt advised me of before I took possession of this satisfyingly bizarre conveyance. I dropped the chain on my side a couple times because it's too loose; there's no way to adjust it both crank and gear are welded in place and if you take a link out, I'm told the chain is too tight. It's not an insurmountable problem, but it'd be a good one to solve, along with enabling gear shifting to get better hill climbing capability and brakes that don't wear out your sneakers.



Oh, and for some reason the driver's side crank was built on the wrong side relative to the threads that hold the crank together. I don't know if this was for a sense of symmetry or what, but when you're cranking, you're loosening the crank.



We rode by Pastor Kurt's and waved to him as he gazed down from his deck. He told us to have fun, and really, if you can't have fun on Daisy, you're dead inside and nothing to be done.





The route we took includes some streets that aren't on Map My Ride, but we did, I guess, a little over two and a half miles. Which would be nothing on my bike, but is actually a sweaty workout on Daisy. Mo cranked (I wasn't sure she would, but she contributed), but even so I was drenched with sweat when we got back.