Kudos to Apple

I have a second hand 13" white Macbook. Like most Macbooks of that vintage it has developed cracks in the palm rest where the ridges in the lid push on it when it's closed. I recently found out that Apple in the US are still fixing this problem for free, I guess because it's seen as a design defect.

So I thought I'd call up Apple here in the UK and see what their policy is. It turns out that as long as your Macbook is less than 5 years old they will fix it for free - even a second hand one like mine!

I didn't know when my laptop was bought and it turned out that the original owner hadn't registered it when they bought it. However the AppleCare guy was able to determine that it must have been bought after November 2007 (I guess from the model number) so it was still within the 5 year window. After checking with his supervisor he told me that it would be fixed free of charge, gave me a case number, and told me that I'd need to make an appointment in an Apple store to have it done (actually he offered to make the appointment for me, but I needed some time to work out which store would be most convenient so I did it).

They do also recommend that you back up your computer, presumably to cover them in case they accidentally break something.

Making an appointment at an Apple store is handled on their website and is a pretty nice experience, you pick from a list of available dates and times and leave a message explaining the problem.

When I got to the store today it seemed that they hadn't actually read the message much in advance as the person helping me told me they'd have to check that they had the parts in stock. Fortunately they did and I was asked to come back in about 90 minutes.

I had read that the palm rest, keyboard, and trackpad are all one unit so I was hoping for, but not expecting, a new keyboard and trackpad. As it turns out, I not only got a new keyboard and trackpad, they also replaced the bezel around the screen, I'm not sure why. Perhaps the new one is less likely to break the new palm rest, but it looks the same to me, only much cleaner - the original looked like this:

So credit where it's due, I'm very impressed with the way Apple have stood behind their product here, and as a result I'm happily typing this on a brand new keyboard.

Tyre Update

I've been using Schwalbe Marathon Pluses for a few months now (switching from the original Kojaks), so I thought it was time for an update.

Since moving house there isn't anywhere near as much broken glass around on my commute, so it may not be a an entirely fair comparison, but nonetheless I've been puncture free since switching tyres.

The Marathon Pluses do seem to have very slightly more rolling resistance than the Kojaks. I'm not sure if that is due to the make-up of the tyre or just that they can't be inflated to as high a pressure as the Kojaks.

However, given that I cycle to get to work and back, and to get some exercise, the slight increase in pedalling effort is more than made up for by the extra reliability.

Broken Mudguard

I managed to break the rear mudguard on my Brompton recently. I don't think I put the bike down any harder than I normally do (it was parked), so my best guess is that the recent extra cold weather had made the plastic more brittle than usual (I keep the bike in an unheated garage). I managed to tape it up for a few days, but then the remaining bits of plastic snapped and I was left with what you can see below.

This rapidly got annoying, as whenever the bike was folded the little remaining bit of mudguard got pushed round onto the wheel so I had to move it back every time I unfolded the bike.

Fortunately a replacement mudguard doesn't break the bank at £11.50. I've also scraped the metal screws attaching the mudguard to the remaining wire a fair bit, so I ordered a replacement plate and screws for an extra £3.50 (both including free shipping from Simpson Cycles).

As you can see below, the mudguard comes with instructions for replacing it.

Actually replacing the mudguard is fairly simple if you've taken the wheel off before. First you need to remove the back wheel, which involves a few steps. Brompton have a handy video explaining it, although I prefer to deflate the tyre to get it past the brake blocks - they take me a while to get adjusted correctly again if I undo the cable as they suggest.

Then you just need to undo the allen bolts holding the mudguard to the wires and the nut holding the rear brake and mudguard onto the frame. The nut is a little tricky to get at so you need to be patient and undo it 1/6th of a turn at a time until you can turn it by hand. Once it's off you just need to remove the washers and rear light making careful note of the order, pull out the bolt, take off one last washer, and then finally the mudguard:

Fitting the new mudguard is simply a matter of reversing the process and re-fitting (and in my case re-inflating) the wheel.

Bye Bye Baldy

When I was originally ordering my Brompton and looking through the myriad options, the one I thought was simplest was the choice of tyres. The Schawalbe Kojaks were high pressure - so low rolling resistance, have a "Raceguard" strip, and are lighter than the alternatives. A no-brainer, or so I thought.

Now, nearly a year later, I'm not so sure. On my full size bike I have some Kevlar lined tires and they have lasted for years with only two punctures. I was hoping that the "Raceguard" part of the Kojaks would work similarly effectively. Unfortunately it simply doesn't - I've had around 7 punctures in under a year, cycling perhaps 3 miles per day (and I wasn't cycling for a couple of those months) which is too many for me. Below you can see some of the chunks gouged out of my rear tyre by bits of glass and sharp stones.

Having looked around a bit, it seemed that the Schwalbe Marathon Plus is the way to go for reliability, so I ordered a pair of those. I saw a number people online complaining that they were very difficult to fit. Fortunately during my research I also found a video that explained how to fit them fairly easily. The trick is to squeeze the sides of the tyre inwards so that you can push them into the well in the middle of the wheel, this then gives you enough slack to get the last bit of tyre over the rim without needing any tyre levers.

I'll update this blog in a few months with details of any punctures or any other issues with the new tyres.

Pedal Update

A few months ago I wrote about how my pedals had detached themselves a couple of times. I thought it was only fair to post an update to say that since then they have behaved perfectly. I also haven't removed them deliberately in that time which may or may not be related.

However, having now started my new commute, I've come to the conclusion that I would have been better off just getting some rather simpler and cheaper non-detachable pedals and using a pedal spanner if I ever had to remove them.

Handlebars

As I mentioned before, I now have some fairly comfortable bar ends on my Brompton, but they were unfortunately set at a less than ideal angle, to keep them (barely) clear of the ground when the bike was folded.

Looking at the variables open to me it seemed like the simplest and cheapest to try was a new set of handlebars. Whilst it seems that you can spend upwards of £100 on handlebars(!) for this experiment I went with a rather more modest set at a grand cost of £11.81 including shipping from Amazon.

The most important thing to look for when buying new handlebars for a Brompton is to ensure that they are 25.4mm (1 inch) in diameter at the clamping point. Some mountain bike handlebars are rather wider. The set that I got are shaped so that the grips are about 3cm above the clamp. I hoped that this would help to stop the riding position from being too severe and also provide some clearance for my luggage (a T bag).

Fitting the new bars was fairly straightforward it was just a case of:
- Removing everything from the old handlebars, noting the routing of the cables. (Also note that if you still have the original Brompton grips you almost certainly won't be able to get them off without ruining them so you'll need something to replace them with).
- in my case undoing the handle bar brace on one side.
- loosening the handlebar clamp.
- sliding out the old bars and sliding in the new ones.
- reversing the other steps above, remembering to route the cables correctly.

The new handlebars went in fairly easily as they only bulge out at the clamping point (the grip ends are at the normal 22.2mm diameter) which meant that the curves in the bar went through the clamp without much trouble.

With everything fitted I found that I could easily position the bar ends at the angle I wanted and keep them clear of the ground when the bike was folded.

However, there are a couple of other clearances you need to worry about when changing the handlebars:
- The clearance between the brake levers and any luggage you may have
- The clearance between the cables to the rear of the bike and the front cog

With these handlebars the brake levers are a little close to my T-bag for my liking, I wouldn't be able to pack it too full. The brake and gear cables, whilst closer to the front cog, seem to be OK.

In use the first thing I noticed was that the riding position felt very strange compared to before. My arms felt quite widely spread, the steering felt a bit less lively, and my knees were getting rather close to my stomach when peddling.

The first two of these changes are down to the fact that the new handlebars are rather wider than the standard m-type handlebars and I got used them fairly quickly. The third change was down to the new handlebars obviously being much lower. I've never owned a proper racing bike but looking at picture it seems that they often have their handlebars down below the height of the saddle so it may just be my overly large stomach getting in the way! (Or it may be that having a longer distance between the saddle and handlebars on a full size bike counteracts this issue somewhat).

After a couple of rides I also noticed that the saddle feels rather less comfortable than before, I'm not sure whether this is down to the change in riding position or just the fact that I haven't ridden a bike for a few months. I may try tipping the saddle forwards a little to see if that's any more comfortable.

Overall I'd say that these handlebars are a qualified success. They allow me a good bar end position but are a bit uncomfortable at the moment - I'd not go on a long ride without a few trial runs first to see if I could get comfortable in the new position.

Given my findings I think I'll try to find another set of handlebars with a bit more rise in them to see whether I can get a better compromise between bar ends and overall comfort.

Brompton Ergon GR2 grips and bar ends

Sometime ago I mentioned that I was going to try some longer bar-ends on my Brompton. The main reason for the change was that I'd cut my first set of Ergon grips to match the original brake levers and then promptly changed the brake levers for different ones.

I thought I'd take the opportunity to try some slightly longer bar-ends as the first ones I tried were a little short. This time around I went for the latest Ergon GR2 grips (the older 2010 version are a little shorter and seem to be made of metal). I thought that if the new ones were too long to fold I'd still be able to use the new grips with the old bar-ends. That turned out to be wrong as the two grips use completely different systems for attaching the bar-ends to the grips as you can see below (note that the GR2 grip on the right is upside down in this picture).

 
Fortunately, the new bar-ends turned out to fold just fine.

The other change I made was to go for the smaller size grips. I found some information on the internet, supposedly from Ergon, that said that the only difference between the grip sizes was the circumference of the grip. Comparing the two grips above you can see that actually the pad area is also a little bit smaller on the smaller grips (although I guess the difference could be down to the different models, but that seems unlikely).

As before I went for the normal length grips knowing that I'd have to cut them down a little. As you can see below, with the new brake levers the grips are only slightly too long.

Unfortunately, due to the length of the bar-ends they need to be pretty much horizontal when unfolded so that they stay off the ground when the bike is folded, and even then one still gets a little scratched. I would prefer to be able to angle them slightly upwards for riding.

I do prefer these longer GR2 bar-ends to the shorter GC2 ones; the extra length makes a difference and helps you to get a decent grip. The rubbery patches on the bar-ends also make them feel a bit more comfortable and less slippy. Whilst overall they are not quite as good to use as the normal bar-ends on my full size bike, they are still pretty good. For anyone looking to get some bar-ends I'd definitely recommend these over the shorter GC2s.