ICE Blog
Welcome to our blog!
We'll be providing lots of entertaining updates about our bikes and trikes and life here at ICE.
Happy riding,
The ICE team
New Instructional Films
Monday, February 20, 2012 - 07:11 AM
ICE Air-Pro Seat Padding Fitting - The first of many...
At ICE we always aim to give our customers the highest level of service. We have a great selection of information on our website to help ICE riders keep their trikes in top condition, but we knew we could top the industry standard printed instruction manuals.
Fuelled by the success of our promotional films, we decided
to get the cameras out again to create instructional videos. Films provide
something that words and pictures alone simply can’t replicate – being able to
watch the mechanics happening in front of you makes maintenance so much easier.
The first instructional film shows you how to fit the ICE
Air Pro Seat Pads, enabling you to customise the fit of the seat for optimal
comfort. The film is clearly narrated, with accompanying illustrations,
animations and film footage to make the instructions crystal clear. The film is
available to watch now on our YouTube channel.
We are confident that the instructional films will be a great success, and we’ll be making more over the coming months. But if you prefer the traditional method of ink on paper, all of our manuals and instruction sheets are available on our website including the 2012 manual.
We’d love to know which of our instruction sheets you’d like
to see turned into a film. Please contact us to let us know which films would
be most useful to you. Email your request to sales@icetrikes.co
or contribute to the discussion on our Facebook page.
Shiny, bright and lookin' good
Monday, February 13, 2012 - 04:46 AM
Our quality control technician, Nathan Jarvis, is a real
stickler for dirt and likes his trikes to look box-fresh. He’s put together
this handy 5-point primer to keep your trike gleaming like new.
1.
Firstly you need to rid your trike of any heavy
muck, grime and mud. Give it a gentle hose off using a spot of Muc Off bike
cleaner and elbow grease.
2.
Get your chain clean – I love the Park Tool
Cyclone Chain Scrubber. Pop some more Muc Off inside the reservoir to make sure
every link gets a good clean. Make sure you lube the chain afterwards. I like
Finish Line wet lubricant, but if you live in a hot dry place you’ll need to
use a dry PTFE lube.
3.
Get the polish out and give the frame a good
going over. Autoglym Super Resin Polish is great at getting rid of any last
little bits of grease while giving the frame a spanking finish.
4.
Any hard black bits need a good going over with
hard surface conditioner; get to work on the backs of mirrors, cable outers,
gear shifters and chain tubes with Silkolene Pro Prep.
5. Finally, give your tyres some care and attention; a nice bit of Simoniz Back to Black tyre black will have them looking their best (but don’t get them on your treads or disc brakes, or you’ll be having problems!)
With a bit of t.l.c your trike will be looking show-room fresh. The products I’ve mentioned are my preferences but if you’ve found anything better I’d like to know – I want only the best for my trike!
ICE Ages, Chapter 3: Chris Parker
Monday, February 13, 2012 - 04:06 AM
Jumping back in time to 1978 a school boy aged 11 was
starting to turn his favourite toy into a lifestyle. His name was Chris Parker. As time went on
the lifestyle became little short of an obsession as first road bikes then mountain
bikes took over his life. Fortunately time was found for an education and at
the age of 19 he became a self-employed furniture maker and restorer.
By the age of 21 he was at university studying design, graduating
with a degree in Pottery (it was going to be a furniture design degree but
there were lots of nice girls studying pottery). With a pottery degree you can
get a job in adult education, so he did.
To cut a long story short, boy meets girl, girl moves to
Cornwall, boy gets big phone bills, boy leaves job and moves to Cornwall to
marry girl. Boy needs job, jobs hard to find, boy makes two recumbent bikes
from old unwanted machines. Boy rides to visit local recumbent manufacturer
Crystal Engineering. The rest as they say is history.
But most of this history is as yet unwritten and therefore
isn’t history yet so…
Chris found a
workspace in a condemned building for short term rent and became self-employed,
making wheels and other small parts for Crystal Engineering. In his spare time
Chris developed recumbents; a tandem, and then a compact long-wheel based bike
called Road Hog. While R&D is fun,
it does not pay bills and a lack of finance hampered developments. Prototypes
were made by robbing parts from Chris’ slowly dwindling collection of bikes;
the rest of the collection was sold to raise money for new materials and parts.
Moving workshops was a common event as one condemned building after another was
pulled down. The last building available at a low rent was due for demolition
imminently.
Until now Chris’s wife Karen worked as a nurse to pay for
the food on the table and a rent for the caravan (trailer), until the patter of
tiny feet loomed on the horizon! A measurable panic was noticeable in Chris as
the realization that his cushy life was about to end; it was time to get the
bike building business generating a liveable wage, or he was going to have to
get a “proper” job!
Chris knew Peter Ross, the owner of Crystal Engineering, was
looking to sell the business to enjoy a well-earned retirement. However, as money
was in short supply buying a business seemed impossible and Chris was running
out of belongings to sell to buy food. Chris visited the bank manager who
listened politely to his business plan and said “NO”. He needed a business
partner. But where do you find someone with enough money, the right skills and
a belief that the seemingly impossible (in this case making a living from
selling recumbents) was in fact possible.
Chris looked, prayed and waited. There was one week left
until this last workshop was to be pulled down…