News and Events

Keep up to date with the latest news and events of Modular Bikes.

Monday, August 24, 2020

Jamis Crate Bike













Hi, a week ago I picked up a damaged Jamis bike. I thought our friend Zoe might like it and checked with her before I picked it up. Yep, she wanted it.  The derailleur was broken, the chain was twisted and it just needed a bit of love.  It has frame bosses and a rear rack but that is still not enough to actually carry anything. Anyway along with the other fixing, I added a milk crate.

The pics above show the details. As per my other load carrying efforts, the crate isn't cable tied to the rack, its got a custom made adapter. I've made a sort of minimal viable product here, only clipping in to one part of the rack and needing an ocky strap for extra security.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Zoe very happy!



Thursday, August 13, 2020

New MBB trike part 10

Working trike as seen from....

left and......

right.

Big Expedition! Actually, I have done 2 of these Big Expeditions. Ok, I am exaggerating a bit. Our friends lives about 500 metres away on a flat road, but I have dropped off Hummus chips and cooking magazines to them. They do the same sort of things for us on occasions.
Hi

The moving bottom bracket recumbent I've been working on for a while has had its frame front replaced now, and I've put the whole trike back together. Quite happy with the way its come together but at the moment there are about 5 joins in the steerer causing confidence-killing wobbliness and squeakiness.

I'm not convinced by the reverse fork, and the steerer is too low to get on and off the trike easily as well. Plan is now to make another new frame front from aluminium with a new fork, and make a new, solid non-wobbly steerer to suit. 

Regards  Steve Nurse  

New Panels for trike

Cutting out decorative panels for the side of the bike. The fabric stretches a lot so there is no need to cut a border at the edge.

This is how the cloth attaches to corflute (red, yellow, white) and the corflute to the bike (black)
On the bike out the front.....
and in action, picking up some Hummus - fundraiser for Red Cross Lebanon - from Bar Saracen in the city.


Hi

About 10 years ago I had a bike with a cloth fairing. The fairing at least has long since been dismantled, and somehow some of the cloth ended up in a hobby box in our loungeroom. Anyway, not wanting to waste it, and thinking of making masks for covid 19, I made some bike panels from the material. Here is the video including the original bike. A few years I had different fabric covers on an Audax 100k ride, here is the link.

Regards  Steve Nurse

And more blast from the past, found some more photos of the original faired bike in this issue of the OzHpv magazine, Huff. A couple of pics below, this was from an OzHpv gathering in Canberra.


 


Saturday, August 8, 2020

New MBB Part 9

Printer enclosure with miracle! hairdryer attachment.

Glueing m8 tee nuts to their holders.

New front frame for MBB trike

Inside the new frame. The holes at the front are for the fork bearings.

Front frame area on fixed bottom bracket trike.

Whole new frame.






Hi

Here is today's progress on the trike. Basically I have a new frame now.

Last night I redesigned the tee-nut holders which fit inside the frame, and this morning I printed them. I'd had problems with the printer being cold first thing in the morning before, and the prints peeling off the build tray. But I seem to have fixed it by shoving a hairdryer into the printer enclosure and heating things up for 3 minutes or so before printing. So no problem printing 2 new parts!

Besides printing, I drilled the frame parts to suit the new spacers, and put the frame together. The whole assembly is an updated version of the  pic below, which comes from the thingiverse build files at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4201871/files

The pic below refers to the earlier build shown 5th pic down.
The new version replaces 4 m5 screws and 4 m5 tee nuts with 4 small timber screws and the spacer assemblies are the same top and bottom, so fewer different parts are used.  

 
More to follow of course, Best Wishes

Steve Nurse

Friday, August 7, 2020

New MBB Part 8


Sawing aluminium for new front part of frame. Taking time to ensure it's all sawed square.
Wooden dowel inside the frame as a knocking bar to remove the wooden front part.
3d printed parts to be used as spacers and thread supports. The larger parts will sit between the front and back parts of the frame.

front part of the frame, now sawed and drilled for the front fork bearing.

Rear bottom bracket support castings, crush bars and spacer pins.





Hi, bit of progress on the trike today.  I'm making the frame stronger by replacing the front timber frame with an aluminium version.

I couldn't find the cad file for the inner thread supports, so drew and printed a new version. It will be simpler than the old type, using screws instead of an m5 screw and tee nut as shown here.  

Regards

Steve Nurse

Monday, August 3, 2020

A bike is good...

Sizing up parts to use for the project. This is an ancient Scott triathlon handlebar extender.
After day 1, doesn't look like much but I had swapped over the handlebars, cut apart the Scott extender and started trying on a crate for size.
End of today and proving its worth by carrying a basic unit of currency, a slab of beer.

This is all the workings of it. Downstairs, a small prop which keeps the crate away from the headstem. Upstairs is the equivalent of 3 sets of mountainbike bar ends which support the crate and provide stops to stop it slipping.

Just in case orange is your colour, not green.

Hi

A bike is good but a bike that can carry stuff is better. That has never been truer than here and now!  In Melbourne we are coming into stage 4 coronavirus restrictions, and there are limits on exercise (1 hour per person per day) and shopping (1 person trip per household per day). So the load carrying bike turns shopping into exercise, hooray, who woulda thunk it? The bike I've started with is an Avanti Illusion as described here.

Anyway, this bike is just a trial, it puts a load carrying milk crate on a bike in quite a civilized neat way without first having a rack to tie the crate on.  Not sure if this is a good idea, but I have put it out there.  And it hasn't carried any real loads yet, just posed for photos in the back yard.

Regards

Steve Nurse

ebay Pic, Scott bars in original form

And my pair in use. installing these bars doesn't have to involve removal of brakes and handgrips from handlebars.
So here are a few postcards from out and about on this crate bike and the recumbent I usually ride. In Melbourne, we are now in day 2 of a 6 weeks lockdown to help stop the spread of coronavirus.


Trenerry Crescent, a walker in the cycle lane for social distancing.

Woolworths supermarket, Hive shopping centre.

Hive shopping centre, Nicholson Street. I usually give Anthony (seated on the footpath) a few dollars and he watches out for my bike for me.

Shopping list

New bike lane in.....

Elizabeth St. Richmond. A few weeks ago I came off my bike in the same street, this is a definite improvement.

Wellington St Kew, a free book library

Corner Charles and Wellington, a scramble crossing is installed, a good idea, pedestrians are prioritised at least for part of the light cycle. Hardly any traffic at all today though.