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Wednesday, February 24, 2021

The Novara is now ready

 "When another blames you or hates you, or people voice criticism, go to their souls - penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are.  You will realize that there is no need to be concerned of any opinion they hold about you." - Marcus Aurelius

 After completing the restoration of the Novara, it still needed a little bit of technological improvement.

I installed the old-school vintage Cateye Astrale computer on the Novara today.  It took a while.  It's been a while since I've done this, and it took a couple of do-overs.  Also I did a little more polishing on on the aluminum to remove some more pitting.

The rubber grommets that hold the sensors and computer in place have become compressed over the years.  I had to add shims to get the brackets tight enough to keep the pieces from flopping around on the tubing.

Below:  The computer and display mount to the handlebar, which rotates side-to-side.  The sensors are mounted to the frame, which is fixed.  You need to provide some slack for the side-to-side twisting that can happen between the handlebar stem and the steering tube on the frame.  There is no elegant way to accomplish this.

Cateye, the manufacturer, recommends wrapping the wire around the front brake cable, then going around the fork.  It's kinda tacky, and that's why I didn't do that.  Below is how the Masi was set up before I removed the computer from it.  You can see why people prefer a wireless rig these days.  Hopefully I never snag that loop on anything.

Below:  The cadence, or pedal RPM sensor at left, and the speed or wheel RPM sensor in the center.

Below:  Each sensor with the magnet that causes it to generate an output pulse to the computer.

There is one last thing that I need to do, and that is to input the tire circumference into the computer.  The computer needs this information to calculate distance traveled.  It has a default number, but that value is for a different size rim.  There is a chart that tells you what value to enter, based on wheel size and tire size.  I didn't have that information when I set it up this afternoon.

Anyway, it's all together and both the cadence and speed sensors are working perfectly.  Looking forward to seeing a lot more of this view very soon:












 

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