Sorry for the delay in blog posts. I had actually hoped to be doing more rides and updates but the weather has not been that good for riding and I’ve had a few other things going on too.

Anyway, I had some interesting events before my ride today and wanted to pass on some useful (I think) information.

It’s been in the 40s in the Chicago area and even though it was pretty cold it really was a nice day for a ride if you are dressed well for it. Well, I got all prepared and dressed properly, hopped on my bike and found that my speedometer was not working! Damn!

So I worked out a beautiful plan to swing by our Walgreens, which has a connecting bike path to it, on my bike, get the batteries, change them outside and be on my way.

Here’s the useful information that I wanted to pass on. I have a Vetta wireless bike computer and I have already discovered that the speedometer will stop working when the transmitter battery OR the battery in the main bike computer are weak, even though the bike computer battery is still strong enough to  power the main display screen. So if you are not getting a signal, it could be the battery in the transmitter OR the main unit. I am only familiar with my own wireless computer but this could be the case with other manufacturers also.

OK, back to the story… I decided to try the battery in the transmitter first. So I locked my bike and went in to Walgreens and got a battery for the transmitter. Went out to my bike and ended up turning the transmitter cap the wrong way (duh! It says which way for open and close right on it!). Well, I ended up stripping the plastic cap on the transmitter and then was not able to get it off after that (oh well, accidents happen).

So I need to ride back home and work on that so I go to unlock my bike and the lock will not open!!! (so much for my beautiful plan). So I had to call my wife to drive over to Walgreens to pick me up. I asked her to bring my sheet metal cutters to cut the lock cable. Well, that worked just fine. It was so easy to cut that lock cable! (I am going to add another reply to my blog entry on bike locks about that one later).

Fortunately, I had a cadence sensor for this bike computer, that I no longer use and that had the exact same cap that I could use as a replacement for the one that I stripped. I managed to drill the cap off of the speedometer sensor and replaced it with the new cap.

Now, I get to step two. I checked the speedometer, with the new transmitter battery, and it still did not work. It turned out that it was exactly what I explained above. The problem was with the main bike computer battery even though all of the functions (time, odometer, settings, etc.) still worked just fine.

Well, I headed up to Walgreens and got a new battery for the main computer unit, changed it, reset the wheel size, odometer, time, etc., and everything worked just fine!

I finally got my ride in and it was a really nice ride. I did 17 miles and  saw 3 more deer on the Paul Douglas bike path today.