note to self

Your keys? Are on a carabiner? USE IT.

Still, it didn't suck that much when I realized, a block or so from home, that the noise I'd heard a couple of miles back was my set of keys, falling out of my pocket. A neighbor offered me a ride back to look for them, but I brightly answered that I intended to go home and get the car. Except that my *car key* was on the ring, and the other car key was with my husband, who was about 30 miles away. I did keep the pedal assist turned on, even going the direction I don't normally use it. (I rationalized that I needed to get home to walk the dog.)



Part of the reason I started this blog has to do with the shortage of info on this bike. If you Google "Schwinn Campus Electric," you get a surprising number of really elderly links. Even Schwinn's site is lite on any extra images--you get a list of the components, and full images of the (allegedly) black and silver bikes, in their men's and women's versions. I expect this will all change as these bikes move into circulation.

So here is a photo of the right grip with the Micro Shift twist shifter, and the bell. I haven't used the bell for official purposes, but I do enjoy dinging it. The world would be better with more bells and fewer buzzers.



Here's the left grip. The accelerator marked "H...L" on the right of the photo operates the motor. There's a switch that engages the pedal assist, and there are lights that correspond to your speed. (It seems like this could be incorporated into a regular bike computer, but whatever.) [Edited: the lights correspond to the battery charge, not the speed.] The pedal assist doesn't kick in until you reach a certain speed, and it cuts out if you stop pedaling, or tap the brakes, or if your speed reaches 15-17 mph. All of this suits me perfectly--I'm not a speed demon, and I *want* to pedal, but it's not precisely what I was expecting. Toward the bottom of the photo, you can see a large thumb lever, and in other countries, it's the throttle. I was never that excited about an electric-only mode (having ridden into the side of a barn on an ATV with its throttle stuck open at a young age), but in the US configuration, it's not an option anyway.

My old kitty was sleeping on the bed earlier, and he was so groggy I was worried we might be losing him. But apparently he was just sleepy, as he's purring and doing figure eights at my feet now...