Modular Bikes: Ossie Nicholson Ride Prelude

The bike as at April 7

Yarra cleanup with Danella, Bernie and Anna

Only one bike photo here sofar, I hope you will forgive me! A few days ago, I signed up once again for the Audax 200k Ossie Nicholson ride, a ride I did last year. Even though I had intended signing up anyway, signing up when I did was a sort of psychological step for me.

I've just had an email rejecting my phd application in Education at a local university, something I thought I had a very good chance of getting, so am naturally slightly upset about that. So signing up has given me something to look forward to, and an excuse to spend hours on my bike just thinking or not thinking, or generally just processing things and working out what I want to do next.

So am into the training, and as with previous recent Audax rides have used my Garmin as a combined speedo and distance tracker. The only ride I've tracked sofar was 36.8k in an hour and 54 minutes, or about 19.3 kph average on hills. I will be gradually building on that.

Yesterday I also did about 10k riding to and from a local river cleanup, and today I did a bit over 20. Generally just fitting in the training when I can.

I am making a new helmet and plan to fit 2 new fairings on the bike so will blog about that as well.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Some load carrying from last week: I had picked up this rubbish bin in the car and needed to return it to Wecycle. The trike and wooden tailbox coped perfectly.

A nice scratch - and - dent bike donated to Wecycle by 99 bikes. Very nice bike with only 7 gears but a very wide gear range. Thanks!

Some swans near the bay

Some training! With my girlfriend Mary we rode Dromana to Rosebud and back, about 17k through some campgrounds

Lunch stop, we

had 2

separating bikes.

Update April 11. On Sunday I did about 25k, the first 17 from Dromana to Rosebud with my girlfriend Mary, and the next 8ks up Arthurs Seat solo. Arthurs Seat is the biggest hill by far of my upcoming ride. It was a nice ride, drive, and day trip, and we managed to avoid the rain. The 2 separating bikes fitted fine into my small Kia Rio.

The next day I worked on a new helmet, and this included cutting and securing some corflute, attaching reflective stickers, and sewing on ear - flaps with Mary's help. Some photos below, and a link to a previous helmet build with detailed instructions is here . Thanks Mary for the sewing and photos. The old helmet was getting quite grotty, and the new helmet has black earflaps for sun protection. The old yellow earflaps had gotten horribly stained!

New yellow helmet with the faded one it's replacing. Note the very dirty yellow ear flap on right.

Sewing on the earflaps, I used a thick green thread which contrasts well with the black earflap material. This made it easy to sew.

Mary's sewing neater than

mine.

Update April 12

Today I managed to do about 80k (Airies Inlet to Kennett River and return) in under 5 hours, at an average speed of about 17.4kph. Very happy with that, I had a big breakfast of 2 toasted sandwiches and muesli. That got me through to Kennett and back with only a chocolate milk at Kennett for extra sustenance. A bonus was not getting rained on much as there had been rain overnight and there was more rain later in the day. The rain made for nice rainbows!

Kennett River

The stats

Spout Creek

Update April 14

A few pics below of the day before the ride. I did some last minute prep, swapping pedals for ones that click in better, buying a jacket, and my girlfriend Mary provided me with scrogum, a mix of dates nuts, chocalate etc. Also made a box for scrogum on the front of the bike. The scrogum box lid is tied on. This is well worth doing, it would have fallen off about 5 times otherwise. Last day activities also included making the tailbox more waterproof with sticky tape and picking up a free Cruzbike after a text from my mate Dylan at Back2bikes.