Great Southern Randonee 2021 Intro

 

359 wheel with shutter Precision dynamo. The dynamo suits 15mm thru axle and 700c wheels. So it will be running overspeed and I'm not sure about its generating or friction.

Back of tailbox with Ventisit / ACS10 on the base. This stops vibration and rattling of tools and seems to be doing the job sofar.

Trike out the front. The one in front is my regular ride, and I plan to use the one behind as a test rig for the dynamo.

Speedo just visible between handle bar and fairing and ...

Mounted on timber fairing support.

Rumble Shoes, top is what I use now, bottom arrived today.

I used the old rumbles today, here you can see my sock poking through on the left hand side of the shoe.

Starting the tailbox surgery. This is a box that was stacked into and later repaired, so as slightly damaged goods I don't mind ripping into it and modding it.

Rubber tube-section in lap-counter mode

and in handbrake mode.

Hi

Back in 2008, I attempted the 1000k Great Southern Randonee, a long Audax ride on what I consider home territory stretching between Anglesea and Hall's Gap in Victoria's West. 

Although I didn't finish that ride, I have since finished two flat 1200k rides, and have come to see the Great Southern Randonee as unfinished business.

The ride's only held every four years. Last year the ride was cancelled due to covid, and this year the ride is limited to local (Australian and maybe New Zealand) riders.  

Anyway  I'm keen to have a go at the event again, and have been bike tweaking, and training on the Kew Boulevarde, an unbroken 6.5k stretch of hilly, windy road located close to where I live and close to Melbourne City. Rather stubbornly, I intend training for and trying the Great Southern Randonnee on my own tilting trike, and am using Simon Watt's SABOT rule for finishing hilly long Audax rides.

SABOT (my acronym, you get to think a lot of useless thoughts when riding)  stands for Stay ABOve Ten (kph on hills). So instead of just riding, I fitted a wireless Speedo, so I could SABOT. It seems to be working sofar. To count the laps I do on the boulevarde, I am putting my handbrake (just a bit of old bike tube) to a second use, rotating it 90 degrees in its home to indicate 1 lap done.

For the GSR itself, lighting need not be a huge issue. There's 10 hours between sunset and sunrise, and a bit of twilight before sunrise and after sunset, so maybe 8 hours when serious lighting of the road is required. This could be covered by battery lighting, and I'm quite prepared to use that if my generator hub doesn't work.   

Actually I'm not really obsessed by the GSR, but if it happens it would be nice. Other good things that could happen would be a phd study position or regular work, and those would probably trump finishing the GSR.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Fairing repair, I glued and screwed plastic plates under the top of the fairing to repair fairing cracks and missing pieces 

Update, April 25, 2021

For better or for worse, I have signed up for the Great Southern Randonee 1200k ride. Now I am going through Audax and personal calendars looking for opportunities to ride and qualify. Qualify means a 600k Audax ride by August 31. In the near future I want to do 100k on the local hills, and am continuing with bike tweaks. Regards  Steve Nurse