Assembling the Kangaroo, pt 1

First, an explanation. This post is several days late as we actually assembled the Winther Kangaroo at the weekend and I took it for a short test ride on Monday.

The reason for the delay in posting is that I’m inundated with jobs and usually end the day so tired that I nod off at the computer as I update the blog.

So, I’m making a determined effort tonight to catch up with a detailed look at assembling the Kangaroo.

The Kangaroo arrives in a very tall shipping box strapped to a pallet.

To unpack the trike, you need to tip the box gently on its side with the wheels of the passenger compartment on the ground.

We didn’t realise which way was up and if you’re looking for instructions to tell you how to open the box, they’re inside the passenger compartment under the parts.

It’s simplest to simply remove one of the end caps, have a look inside and then carefully turn the box until it’s the right way up.

To extract the trike, remove the plastic bags containing the passenger compartment covers first.

Then lift the rear frame and carefully pull the bike backwards out of the box.

We were working in a confined space while it was raining outside, so we had to pull the Kangaroo out front first but this is not ideal.

Don’t drop the rear or you’ll chip the paint.

The first challenge was fitting the rear wheel. If you regularly build bikes and know your way around a hub gear, then Winther’s instructions are a model of simplicity - “Attach the rear wheel as on an ordinary cycle”.

If you’re an old fogie who hasn’t worked on a bike for more than 10 years and has never seen a hub gear, then you need a little more help.

I dug out the manual for the 7-speed SRAM hub and this helped, but it still didn’t give the necessary background to enable a beginner to confidently get to grips with fitting the wheel.

Fortunately, help was at hand or, rather, dropping through the letter box. I’ve taken out a subscription to Velo Vision magazine and my second issue had just arrived.

And what did it cover in detail? Hub gears! The magazine’s buyer’s guide too me through their strengths and weaknesses, how they work, how they are fitted, and even how they are fitted when the hub also has a brake.

With the magazine and SRAM manual to hand, I was able to confidently press on with the job.

To my mind, the most important thing to get right is the correct order of the parts, so lay the parts out in order as you remove them or make a note.

You need to remove the nut and plastic cap, plus the anti-twist nut, from the left side of the axle, and the nut, shift mechanism, and anti-twist nut from the right side of the axle.

With the Other Half holding the frame up, I then slid the wheel into the frame, keeping it low as I looped the chain over the sprocket and then lifting the wheel up.

The wheel needs to be as forward as possible as the Kangaroo has horizontal dropouts for tensioning the chain. It was a fiddle to get the axle ends into the dropouts, not least because some care is needed to avoid chipping the paint.

Looking at the right side first, the correct order for placing the parts on the axle is: anti-twist nut, shift mechanism guard (the black bar with the flattened end) and then the nut.

The hole in the end of the axle is the shift tube to take the shift rod (not fitted at this point), with the shift mechanism (the grey block with the thumb screw on the side and the red nut in the top) going on last.

On the left-hand side, the order is: anti-twist nut and then the wheel nut with plastic cap. Note that there is a correct way to fix the anti-twist nuts - the two prongs must point inwards and must sit inside the dropouts.

Also on the left-hand side is the torque arm. This is required because of the hub brake - anti-twist nuts are not strong enough to take the braking forces.

The torque arm attaches to a bracket on the lower side of the frame, but don’t fasten it yet - it has a nyloc nut and should only be fastened once the wheel is correctly set up.

With the wheel in place, I sat behind the bike while the OH held the frame just off the ground. I then pulled the wheel back until the chain had only a little slack and aligned the wheel between the chainstays.

I then tightened both wheel nuts until they were finger tight, and then used the spanner to apply a little pressure.

Then it was a matter of walking the axle back in the dropouts.

Loosen the left nut and push the wheel to the side so that the loose, left side of the axle moves back and then retighten the nut. Then loosen the right nut and push the wheel so that the right side moves back and so on.

It is a faff and takes a while as the anti-twist nuts tend to stick, but the result is a well tensioned chain. But remember to correctly align the wheel at the end!

(And if there’s an easier or faster way, can someone let me know, please? This seemed the obvious method to me, but what do I know!)

Once the wheel is correctly fixed and the chain tensioned, the wheel nuts have to be tightened to a torque of 35Nm.

Then, you can return to the torque arm on the left hand side, bolt it to the frame bracket and tighten it to a torque of 3Nm.

The SRAM manual’s instructions for fitting the shift rod and and shift mechanism are straightforward from this point, so I’ll skip over them to keep this somewhat shorter than it could otherwise be.

Well, this has taken longer than expected so I’ll have to resume tomorrow!