Modular Bikes

Starting the Monsterbike Open Source Hpv Project

2012-02-26T21:56:00.004+11:00

Monsterbike near Melbourne's Yarra River

Hi

This posting introduces the open source bike plans for my long wheelbase bike. Without further adue, the plans are available in pdf form for free here. Blog posts which could lead you horribly astray but containing a ramshackle description of my bike building process start here

Note that I have appied for some patents relating to this bike design. At the moment I have no plans for commercialisation.

The plans which are now free were previously available as an online extra content when you bought my book.

I propose calling the bike Monsterbike. Coincidentally, this gizmag report links to a video called "Monsterbike" and the machine is described as "Monsterbike, the modern day Penny Farthing". My bike could be just that! (See footnote.)

For about 6 years I've built and ridden bikes of this style around Melbourne. The bikes have good load capacity and handling, are aerodynamic and quite fast. Some videos showing the bikes in action are here, here, and here.

My own versions of the bike have included bikes with cloth fairings, wooden bikes, bikes with aluminium castings, and separable bikes. But up to now my best success has been with a fairly simple chromoly steel construction. I also have some aluminium beam frames on order! While I firmly believe that the bikes are good, I don't have the time and resources and will to develop (say) versions of the bike in carbon fibre and aluminium lug construction, which could be slightly lighter than my current bike builds and really go much faster than the Sunday roady crew on Beach Road Melbourne. But I'd love to see someone else build it!

I plan to expand the range of my plans available as open source and welcome your input on what would be a good forum for discussions on the topic of these bikes.

If you're keen and live near Melbourne you can borrow one of my bikes and learn how to ride it.

These are the general design principles for a Monsterbike. Not rules just guidlelines.

* Front wheel drive, fixed botton bracket, recumbent bike with 700c, 26" or 24" front wheel and 20"rear wheel. With a 700c wheel, the chainstays are parallel to the main frame as shown in the photo above, with a 26" or 24" wheel, the chainstays are parallel to the ground as shown in the plan. (This leads to a)
* Sloping main frame tube at about 20 degrees to the ground. This geometry means that a hole for the steerer tube drilled at a simple right angle through the frame will provide the right geometry for bike stability using standard geometry bike forks. I can ride my bikes no hands but not while pedalling.
* The small back wheel allows a simple tailbox to be built onto the bike. (The rear wheel does not bisect the tailbox.) This tailbox adds visibility, storage capacity and aerodynamics to the bike.
* The seat height is about 600mm allowing for good visibility in traffic and easy stops and starts.
* Direct front wheel drive, 8 speed derailleur gears with no pulleys guiding the chain

* The general ride quality relies on rear suspension. Having a large front wheel with good inate suspension characteristics a long way from the rider means front suspension is not required.
* On some of the bikes like the one shown above I use an inertia braking system, turning the brake handles toward the rider, and allowing the natural forward motion of the rider during decelleration to help activate the brakes. Also on the bike shown above there are 2 brakes on the front wheel - this simplifies the bike and also makes it easy to put a home made or other wheels disk on the back wheel. No rim braking required on the back so the rims can be covered by a wheel disk without fuss.
* These bikes work just like any fwd fixed bottom bracket design, that is, the chain comes from somewhere near the steering axis before it goes to the front wheel. So when the steering twists, the chain twists too, but doesn't actually displace much. Standard rear derailleurs mash up the chain in a horrible way during gearshifts, so this drive compromise doesn't worry the bike much. You can either have the chain quite close to the steering axis like some front wheel drive bikes with pulleys, or this bevo bike http://www.velovision.com/forum-new/read.php?5,8669 or limit the steering during pedalling in some way. I have trouser guards or outside catcher rings on the chainring and limit the steering during pedalling by having my knees inside the steering bars and it all works.

Developements I'd like to see are versions
* with a main tube made from commercial carbon fibre tube stock and
* with standard 24 speed gears (I haven't developed front / top derailleur gear arrangements for the bike to date.

Thanks, Regards

Stephen Nurse

Footnote: My bike is rather big, so the name Monsterbike suits but equally important, the name begins with "MO". It might be dumb pointing this out but the first two letters of my website name "Modularbikes" are Mo. Recently I came home with some stickers from a vintage bike market which were "Monarch". I promptly used them on my bike. Monarch is a rather stately and old world name for a bike but it did get me thinking that I could name all my bikes "something beginning with Mo".

A survey of open source recumbent bike and hpv projects

2012-02-25T15:06:00.051+11:00

Hi

Shortly I will be posting a pdf of my recumbent bike plans on the internet. To aid discussion I've prepared some links to existing open source hpv projects.

http://en.openbike.org/wiki/Main_Page and associated web pages like http://www.python-lowracer.de/ relate to the PYTHON low-racer centre-steer recumbent bike. Lots of projects listed and photographed. Its easy to remember and find a name like Python! (Since initially writing this post, I have posted a new Monsterbike page off the main Wiki page. )

http://www.openwaterbike.com/ seems like a great website, it is gently commercial and works on collaborative principles. Some great designs have come out of this site and an email to me from Rick Willoughby got me thinking about the collaborative approach to bike improvement.

The Tin Lisa Project shows a simple recumbent cycle but there are no sign of any plans being available.

http://jetrike.com/ is devoted to one form of recumbent delta trike. Lots of features like discussion groups.

http://www.n55.dk/manuals/spaceframevehicles/spaceframevehicles.html shows pictures of modular trikes and accessories and cargo trikes made from aluminium tube. There are no plans for the trikes that I can see. The group's home page http://www.n55.dk/Index.html is one of the most underwhelming I have seen but seems to bounce off to a range of interesting ideas regarding recycling and low-tech or no-tech construction.

Instructables, http://www.instructables.com/tag/?sort=none&limit%3Atype%3Aid=on&q=RECUMBENT seems to be a rich source of recumbent bike plans and discussions with several many bike builders contributing. And how could you resist this: "What could be more practical than a bicycle that doubles as a pencil?! " Users pay a small fee to be able to download plans (pdfs) of bikes, trikes and probably just about everything else.

Atomic Zombie has a blog supporting its business of selling bike plans and its home page links to a wealth of bike building ideas, http://atomiczombie.com/

The setup for discussions and postings at Xtracycles is a link to a yahoo discussion group via the Community / Roots Radicals menu selection.

Lastly but not leastly, this link http://grabcad.com/library/tag/recumbent leads to a range of recumbent bikes and trikes and parts designed in 3d cad programs such as Solidworks. Not sure if the plans are immediately useful unless you have Solidworks or a similar 3d cad program. As well drawings, practical descriptions and photos are the things that most people need to start building a bike, I don't think grabcad provides this.

Thats it, I'll be posting a link to my bike plans in the next post. Regards Steve Nurse

Newest Patent Application

2012-01-28T17:26:00.045+11:00

A piece about a patent application from New Scientist magazine.

Over the years I have made several applications for patents and have a granted patent application for my Modular Bike. For me they are not a way of making money and possibly never will be, but if I feel I've invented something, I like to lay claim to that invention. Filing for a patent application is possibly the only way to do that, a proof of invention that can be tested in a court of law.

Patenting is often a middle step between invention and commercialization, it gives inventors some commercial protection and allows them to pursue their dreams without their invention being stolen or plageurised. The inventor's aims can range from making and manufacturing something useful which benefits mankind all the way through to retiring on royalty checks, drinking on a remote tropical beach. Usually there's a bit of both of these!

There is a discipline involved in applying for a patent which involves drawing and describing the invention in unambiguous detail.

As of a few days ago, some parts of my latest patent application have been published on the internet in the form of a competition entry. It's a way of getting publicity for the invention, I might even do well in the competition.

Here is the link to the competition entry relating to my latest patent application. The patent concerns useful packaging for cycles.

Sofar, I have been to Watermark patent attourneys discussing the application and poked my head in the door at Corex, a fluteboard manufacturer. Also , Alan Ball from http://www.evolvetrikes.com/ and I have a conversation about intellectual property every now and then as we procede along Melbourne bike paths. Thanks to everyone who as given me advice!

If you are interested in talking to me about useful packaging for cycles, please contact me,
steve the@symbol modularbikes.com.au.

Best Wishes

Steve Nurse

Every1s a Winner, Babe

2012-01-12T23:13:00.000+11:00

A while ago I bought John's phones for my wife and myself. These are very simple mobile phones, they don't do texting, they don't take photos, they don't run apps, they don't send you emails or let you twitter or facebook or surf the f*&^ing internet, they just make phone calls and do a reasonable job of it.

We are fairly new to mobile phones and mine is just coming into infrequent use now. So few people ring me that I usually know who's ringing me without looking at screens or anything!

Well anyway, my phone has been dwelling in the bottom of my backpack for a while and it gets hit by things and rubs against things and starts to look a bit down at heel ("everything I own gets battered in the end" I said to someone once) and eventually I get to thinking maybe a case would be good for this phone. This is just mostly idle speculation (like "I would like to surf Pipeline one day") until I started sorting through a few old music cassettes I own and tried fitting my John's phone into the cases. Lo and behold, the phone almost fits in some of them and with a bit of persistance I find one where it does fit with only a small amount of modification. The photos tell the story. This makes me so far behind I am in front, or so far ahead I am behind. I don't care. Am waiting for the day when the cassette rings when its sitting on the table proviking the response: "Steve, you're cassette's ringing" as in "Max Your Shoe's ringing"

See Photos below. PS, there is a commercial, cassette-like cover for the i-phone 4, see here.

Regards

Buy "The Cycle Zoo" through PayPal

2012-01-12T22:25:00.000+11:00

Hi,

In the last few days, I have added Paypal Buttons to my website, so it should be much simpler for you to purchase my book, "An Illustrated Guide to the Cycle Zoo".

Here is the link to the payment page: http://www.modularbikes.com.au/thecyclezoo.html , click on "Purchase The Cycle Zoo".

Here are the links to reviews and mentions of the book and boardgame

http://modularbikes.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html

http://modularbikes.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html

Happy Purchasing!

Regards

Steve Nurse

Ewan Nurse: Portal 2 v. National Bicycle Game

2012-01-10T21:42:00.000+11:00

Hi

On the same day last week, a few parcels arrived in the mail, one addressed to my son Ewan, the other to me. Both happened to be games, mine (the historic National Bicycle Board Game) had come from Albury through ebay, Ewan's ("Portal 2" Playstation video game) was ordered through an overseas website. Anyway, very different games but I managed to capture Ewan trialling the games on film. Or on silicon or whatever digital photos get stored on. So here are the photos. Ewan's comments on the games follow after the photos

.

The main problem with the board game is that unlike more complex games (such as Monopoly or Cluedo) that need some level or decision making and tactics, the National Cycle Board Game only requires the player to role the dice. A cat is just as good a player as an adult. Portal 2 on the other hand asks a lot more from the player. It needs problem solving, trial and error and some level of hand-eye motor skills in order the solve the puzzles and move through the world. And, despite the common criticism that video games are an anti-social venture, this can be played multi-player either online or with a second controller, requiring team skills and communication to solve the ever more difficult puzzles.

National Cycles was fun, but short lived, with most of the entertainment coming in the form of the banter between players. Portal 2 provided both this discussion between people in the room and was engaging in it's own right.

All for this Year!

2011-12-30T23:57:00.000+11:00

Hi,

Not long to go for the year now, and I'd like to thank all the people who've helped me over the last 12 months.

Quite a difficult year at work, in previous years I have sailed through work but this year have had trouble meeting deadlines and have more hard work in the year ahead. But many thanks to Brad, Matt, Rafal, Byron, Az, Josh, Raf, Supriya, Malcolm, Hasib and Ross for their help.

Away from work, well you may have read about it here but thanks to my wife Christine and son Ewan. Great to see John Kuljis, Graham Signiorini, Robert Waryszak, Kim Tolhurst, George Durbridge and Alan Ball regularly on bike rides, get well soon Robert!

Tim Marquardt and Pete Heal supported me as OzHpv president through the year.

Only managed a few Audax rides through the year but was always ably supported by the volunteers running the rides. Recumbents are always warmly welcomed. Will try for a few more next year but work needs to settle down a bit.

Ok, thats it, wishing you all the best for a safe and happy new year when I will keep blogging, mainly about bikes but also about whatever else comes in to my head.

I have installed a new Sturmey Archer hub into one of my recumbents, when I get some time I will write about that but for now here is a teaser photo. Au revoir.

OzHv meeting at Myrtleford

2011-12-10T20:30:00.002+11:00

Simon Watt and Andrew leave Lake Buffalo

David, William and Ken near Myrtleford

David Downing & his machine

Alan Ball folds his Evolve Trike

Alan Ball & John Halbrook

Pete Heal with "Eileen" the trike

Christine, Fahey and Val

Graham Signiorini & the Rotovelo. Pete Heal chats to Kim Tolhurst.

This trailer train did a few blockies around the caravan park

Kim Tolhurst & Peter Mathews heading to Lake Buffalo

Relaxing at Lake Buffalo

Ozhpv held a rally last weekend at Myrtleford. For cycling Myrtleford is a bit
like heaven on earth, and a good time was had by all. Cannot praise the caravan park enough, their website is http://alpineshire.vic.gov.au/myrtlefordcp/.

Regards Steve Nurse

Tweed Ride v. Futurebike 3000

2011-11-28T20:43:00.027+11:00

Just one detail from one of the many historical bikes on the ride.

Alan B. and Robert W. discuss bike design

I posed for this one, my bike in action, Robert W. Photo

Paul Farren mounts his steed

About 140 years of cycling history side by side
(Green trike is Alan Ball's creation the Evolve trike)

More Motley crew. Robert from the Vichpv ride is behind Alan, I'm on the right, Robert W. Photo

Mr. Very Impressive (at right, in dress) steals the scene &blows fashion out of the water.

On Sunday, my friend Robert Waryszak called a ride for recumbents and others that went along the banks of Gardiner's Creek and The Yarra River. There had been heavy rain the day before to the extent that the creek had burst its banks and there was still mud and water over the bike track in places. Arriving at the start point, several would be-riders started ringing Robert on his mobile asking if the ride was going ahead. Of course it was! We got only a few spits of rain, but we only had 4 riders on the Vichpv ride, myself, Robert W., Alan B. and another Robert who joined us along the way.

Anyway from "The Age Newspaper" I knew that a Tweed (dress conservatively and old school with bike to match) ride was being held at Federation Square from 11:30 the same day and our own small ride took a diversion to see what was going on. Lots of people there. Lots of fashion! See here for more fashion oriented pages. Not sure that Very or myself would've made it onto these pages. Oh well, we will just get on with our lives and live and breathe another day.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Painted! Named! Eastlink!

2011-11-13T20:27:00.000+11:00

Part of the painted Bike with "Monarch" sticker (Bike painted through Bikes De Ver)

At Richmond Station: Hmmm! Hmmm. Hmmm?


A flag was compulsory for recumbents on the Eastlink Ride, this is the flag I made.

One of the fast-finishing recumbent riders from Phantom HPV

In contrast with the last post's not very exciting pictures, I have been out and around today at the 37k ride on the Eastlink tollway. The whole tollway was closed, it is 3 lanes wide, so the ride is on as smooth as fast a surface as you could wish for.

There were 3 distances for the ride, 75, 37 & 15k, and I was on the 37k ride mainly because I had agreed to be part of the "Cruzbike Team". As it turned out I saw Kim Tolhurst and a few of the other Cruzbike riders as we got off the train near the ride but lost track of them soon after.

At the start of the ride I took a few photos before heading off into the crush of people at the start. After a little wait, we were away, the bike going very well throughout the ride. Only a few people were passing me but there weren't many "serious" riders on the 37k ride. My overall time was 1 hour 10 minutes for the distance, about 32kph average.

Ok, till next time!

Progress on Repairs

2011-11-03T22:37:00.000+11:00

Suspension before change

New Derailleur Post at Front

Seat after

As mentioned in the previous post , with much attention lavished on my new bike, my old bike had been sadly neglected. So in the last week or so I have been fixing things or "putting on new things that don't quite work yet". In the latter category we have the derailleur post, up till now my long wheelbase recumbents have existed with a single chainring on the front and I'm attempting to fit a double chainring and derailleur to the bike. Not quite there yet, as we have it now, the front wheel takes out a standard derailleur as it turns during steering. Hmmm, might be better to fix the broken things first, the seat had been a bit wonky and stripping away all the corflute revealed the seat had been held on by 1 nut and a watchstrap! After some fixing that is remedied, we now have 8 nuts and a watchstrap! As well there is a bit of timber reinforcing the front of the seat, I think it looks cool and I'll probably put the same thing on the new bike. All for now!


Seat Before

Fixing The Old Bike

2011-10-23T22:01:00.000+11:00

Fixing the Old bike in the Back Yard

During the entire time I was making my new bike I did b*gger all to maintain my old bike and it's stayed round the side of the house rather neglected. Yesterday I took my new bike down to a local bike shop to get painted and my old bike became my set of wheels once more. A 15k or so fairly local ride helped me sort out what needs doing on the bike :
* Fix Bottom bracket bearing
* Replace cranks
* Fix wonky seat.
* Try to fit a top derailleur
* Replace Chain
* Replace Corflute.
* Replace back tyre
* Remove tired looking reear wheel cover.
Anyway (very sad I know) today I had some fun replacing the bottom bracket bearings with one of those sealed unit things cannabalised from a slightly knackered / frame bent 1980's road bike.

Till next time, Regards, Steve Nurse

Round the Bay in a Day 2011

2011-10-17T21:17:00.000+11:00

At the end of the ride, Photo by Jeremy Lawrence

Last year I was booked in to do this ride but had mouth surgery a few days before so withdrew. Not to be stopped, I registered again this year. Quite hard work but the bike went well, and I managed to get around the 210k in about 10 hours, that is, about 5am at Alexandra gardens and back there at about 3pm. That included about 2 hours of ferry ride, lunch and other sundry stops. Highlights were chatting with a bloke for several kilometres through Geelong, and moving easily with a large group of riders toward Sorrento. Here is the short video I took.

Pre Round the Bay

2011-10-15T21:47:00.000+11:00

Paul Prentice and his Roulandt Recumbent

Knitted Bike Cover

Trisleds new load Carrying Trike.....


Which is front wheel drive.

Today is the Saturday before the annual Round the Bay in a day ride and I know of at least 1 other recumbent rider going on the ride, John Reynoldson who is riding anti-clockwise, I am riding clockwise. Needless to say we will see other recumbents along the way.

There is a bike fair around the start / finish of the ride which runs for 3 days and today I pootled in to have a look around and gather up all the free and cheap stuff available.

Here are my awards.
* Best and only free T-shirt is from bikeroar.com
* Best and only load trike: Trisled front wheel drive as per photos.
* Best decorated and least aerodynamic bike: knitted cover bike.

Also good to catch up with Paul Prentice, he lives quite near to me, he was cruising around near the bike show on a 1980's Roulandt and we stopped and had a chat. He is a keen environmentalist and bike collector and loves to chat about bikes.

All for now, will report on the ride within the next few days.

Ride to Work Day

2011-10-14T21:40:00.000+11:00


Scene at Edinborough Gardens on Ride to Work Day

Helmet from Fed Square (before)

Ross Harrup Rode in from East Burwood....

On his shaft drive bicycle


Helmet After

Hi

Wednesday last week was "Ride to Work Day" in Victoria, and for the first time I took part in a small way. I took the day off work and sauntered off at the late hour of 8:30 and caught the tail end of the Yarra ride to work day In the Edinburgh gardens. There were some cyclists and quite a few police (and no crime to speak of) gathered. Managed to get a cup of tea and then I rode off into the sunrise.

My next appointment was at 10 o'clock and I had some time to kill so rode via Federation square and bought one of the inexpensive ($5.00) bike helmets on sale there. Victoria has compulsory bike helmet laws and a bike hire scheme - cheap helmets are a way to encourage bike hirers to wear helmets. It doesn't always work and dudes ride round helmetless on the hire bikes with gay abandon. But it makes for cheap helmets. See http://www.melbournebikeshare.com.au/Helmet-locations

The helmets come in small and large sizes and has an adjustment knob at the back which tightens a band around the top of the head. It can be adjusted quite quickly but the headband tends to make the helmet a bit sweaty - there's not enough ventilation there.

Next stop was the RMIT bike market where I set up a small stall selling bike books and boardgames and representing ozhpv. I saw bike acquaintences Ross Harrup, Ken Smith and Kim Tolhurst during the day. Ken is a vichpv ride regular, Ross has been building and riding unusual bikes since forever and Kim is the Australian agent for Cruzbike. A pleasant day was had.

During the day I did some surgery on the bike helmet, attaching lights and reflective material and having a go at the ventilation issue.

The big bike ride "Round the Bay in a Day" is Coming up Sunday, we will see how I go and I'll report back after Sunday and recovery.

October Vichpv Ride

2011-10-02T20:34:00.003+11:00

John Kuljis sports a handlebar moustache
courtesy of his Fraser rowbike.....

which he rode to the Vichpv / Ozhpv
come'n'try ride October 2011.

The label on the rowbike opens up a
whole new line of insults,
"Hey, Mr Trampoline man etc."

After mucking around with bike on Saturday, I went for a ride on Sunday. It's easy to ride along bayside beach road and end up at the start of the vichpv / ozhpv come'n'try ride in St Kilda. Bike is going well. Here is a short video I made. I can overtake quite a few standard road racing bikes on this stretch of road, especially on the downhills. All for now except to say Happy 21st Birthday, Cameron Shallard!

Making a new bike part 14

2011-10-01T17:30:00.000+10:00


The back wheel disc - finally

Hi
We are close to the moment of truth now when I will be riding this bike on a long ride, the Melbourne "Round the Bay in a Day", and I am fiddling around with bits and pieces on the bike. Firstly and most importantly, I bought a complete new front wheel from Bikes de Ver just down the road in Fairfield. The original wheel was a bit buckled which meant the V-brakes had to be set quite wide and the brake levers were bottoming out. Not a good situation. Anyway, I spent an hour or so at the bike shop and in between other customers coming in, my front wheel cluster was removed and swapped onto a new wheel, a new Schwalbe Marathon tyre was fitted and the new wheel was put on the bike. The gentlemen in the bike shop are very experienced bike riders and mechanics and were checking out my bike, telling me how they would have done things different, what brazing flux I should have used, and which bits of metal should have been cro-moly instead of mild steel but generally admiring the beast. I left the old wheel with them for straightening and we had a bit of a chat. They have a guy who paints bikes so when there is a break of a few weeks when I'm not using the bike, I'll take it up there for painting.

Rotating the handlebar extension to adjust the grip.

Still life of nasturshiums with recumbent bicycle.

On getting the bike home I muck around with the handlebars a bit, swapping the side that the extensions are on. All for now. Blogging as the mighty Cats (Geelong football club) demolish the Magpies in the grand final football. Not really a football believer but half the conversations people have in Melbourne this week are about football, you are left out in the cold if you know nothing about it. Really all for now. Bye
Steve Nurse

Spotted in Dandenong

2011-09-17T20:09:00.002+10:00

Unidentified Flying Object in Dandenong Part 1

Unidentified Flying Object In Dandenong Part 2

My work takes me between 2 workplaces in the outer Melbourne Suburbs of Rowville and Dandenong, and sometimes I borrow a company car for the drive between the sites. On Wednesday I happened to have my camera with me and managed to take 1 bad and 1 reasonable photo of this Aero - Dude on a bike. Must admit I didn't know whether to blog about this one, the first photo is so terrible with the cyclist obscured by a slightly boring company car.

Now I have worked out that people take photos for a couple of reasons: 1. Pictures record events or objects or people at a particular point in time for posterity and 2. Pictures are taken to look beautiful and to demonstrate the skill of the photographer, or sell a product, and they're manipulated to a greater or lesser extent to look even more beautiful. When photographers take photos that both record events and look beautiful they are blessed. But in my case, I don't have a reputation as a photographer and nothing to protect so I will just publish a crap photo of an interesting subject if I want to.

If you are looking for much better cycling photos, have a look at the photos on this page of ecovelo and all the photos you get to from all the links, like this one. I will try to take good photos. But if I don't I will just publish and be dammed. Because I can.

So back to my photos after all this diversion. The gentleman in the photo could have chosen the duck-down-and-decrease-frontal-area or ride-a-recumbent methods of reducing wind resistance but has gone his own way with an aerodynamic body extension. And good on him - we need more varieties of bikes and riders!

Building a new bike part 13

2011-09-11T21:52:00.001+10:00


Previous Set of Handlebars

Hi

As discussed in the previous blog entry, work on the bike is not quite done. Although everything now works fine, I am tweeking and modifying and improving some things. Handlebars are on the list and I'm motivated to do them this weekend.

So why change the handlebars? Well there are 4 things I thought of:
* Make the bars lighter
* Make the bars more aerodymamic by running brake and control cables down the tubes.
* Have the bars split to simplify carrying the bike inside a car or on a car roof.
* Remove the need for cable ties on the handlebars. See here for the way the bike was before.

The next few photos show the result. The materials I needed were 1" x 1.2mm wall cro moly tube, 7/8" thin wall steel tent pole, 7/8" steel tube and lock mechanism from kid's scooter handlebars. The way these handlebars are set up, the split in the bars is essential if the bars are to be removed from the bike at all as the zinc plated tentpoles would normally make the bars captive. The build process could be automated by having the cro-moly tube laser cut. Here are the photos, any questions please ask!

Regards

Steve Nurse

Videotastic!

2011-09-07T21:56:00.001+10:00


A recent, inexpensive but slightly dodgy vhs purchase from the Savers op shop.

Before I launch into the Videotastic! blog post I just want to say that the bike I've written about in the last few posts is on the road and doing well. We are down to the fine adjustment and I plan to build a new set of handlebars and paint the bike, so blog posts are not quite over yet.

Now, just because a technology is old and unfashionable doesn't mean it won't work. Most VHS videos you buy from op shops and garage sales cost from 50c to $2.00 and there is often a wide choice of videos available. Normally you've paid so little for them that its fine to just give them back to the op shop when you're done with them. Most videos of Australian movies I will keep.

So now we come to my latest purchase. The diabetes foundation's Op Shop chain is called "Savers" and they sell videos very cheaply. A recent find was videos of the 2003 ABC TV series "Love in the Air" which chronicles the history of Australian pop music featuring the likes of Kylie Minogue, John Paul Young, Molly Meldrum and Crowded House with an occasional glimpses of Hunters & Collectors, Deborah Conway and other slightly more hard-assed rock'n'rollers. Sherbert does Howzat! Norman Gunston does Howzat! Much to like. Noticable by their absence were AC/DC, Paul Kelly and INXS.

So anyway I get the videos home and open the cases. Two of the three videos were still in their plastic wrapper but one was the wrong video altogether as per the photos. Shock and horror! Caveat Emptor! This reminds me of the old Meatloaf song "Paid $1.47 for three videos but one of them was the wrong bloody video and I was pissed off. A lot". Wait, maybe that wasn't the Meatloaf song I was thinking about. Maybe that wasn't even a song. Wait, I've got it now. "Two out of three ain't bad"

Next post will probably be about bikes and not did-not-quite-live-up-to-expectations-but-was-nevertheless-quite-pleased purchases of videos. Thank God I hear you say.

Best wishes

Steve Nurse

Building a new bike part 12

2011-08-16T21:32:00.000+10:00

Shoe Polish used to Waterproof Seat

Hi

On the weekend, I spent a bit more time finishing the bike off. To date it's only been used for dinky little rides under 20k or so and not for commuting. The seat was raw plywood without padding and there wasn't a lid on the tailbox and the cables from the handlebars got in the way of the view.

So I started off the work by taking apart the seat. The seat base is the only timber part exposed to rain as the rest is under the corflute plastic sheeting. There wasn't anything conventional to coat the seat base with so I settled on a waterproofing shoe polish which proved to go on quite well. Unpainted and exposed to water, the plywood seat would swell and crack. On my other bike I used fibreglass and epoxy resin to waterproof and strengthen the seatbase, but this bike has slightly thicker (1cm) timber on the base.

Lower Part of the seat Waterproofed

Not much more to add except that the seat padding is Ventisit or ACS10 and comes from EMP Industries. I've tried to be tidy with all the work on the bike while simultaneously creating as big a mess in the back yard as possible. Painting is next.

Mess

But fairly tidy bike

Building a new bike part 11

2011-08-07T21:51:00.000+10:00

Bike after Change

Hi
Yesterday I spent some time on some bike surgery. The rear triangle of the bike wasn't as I wanted it as it included a bulky fork crown which ended up inside the tailbox. This wasn't very good because sealing the tailbox from sprayed up water and removing the tailbox become difficult when the crown is so high. So the surgery involved chopping off the seatstays, attaching a new crown and rejoining the new bracing part to the old top point of the rear triangle.

Today I went on the monthly B-Spon ride from St Kilda to Williamstown, a chance to test the new bike surgery and meet a few friends. During Saturday I had bought an inexpensive tripod and was keen to use it. I read the camera manual and found out how to do "with me in it" delay photos.

4 front wheel drives in a row, John's Xevon, mine, Warwick's Cruzbike, Robert's

L-plates using the Auto Timer. I am at the left.

Graham S's Rotovelo: John K holds forth.

Ken Smith on the Trike and Graham S in front of the iconic "cow in a tree"

Steve's Seed Starter Part 2

2011-08-07T21:02:00.000+10:00

Seedlings grown without (left) & with the seed starter

Hi

This is a brief report on the seed starter I made a couple of weeks ago. You will need to got here to see the start of the story. As I trial, I planted Salad Rocket and Pak Choi seeds in 4 pots of 2 different types.
One of each of the styles of pots had a "Steve's seed starter" placed on top. The trial took place during Melbourne's winter with some rain and temperatures from about 13 to 20 degrees C. So the results can be seen in the photos. "Seed starter" seeds which have had a protective, warming, humidifying cover over them seem to be doing a bit better than their "kept naked" counterparts.

My wife Christine was not aware of my experiment and planted a Purple Sage bush in one of the pots. So the second photo is giving mixed messages! All for now, I will report on further developements.

Not quite co clear cut!

Building a New Bike, Part 10

2011-07-31T21:59:00.000+10:00


Graham Signiorini and his Rans X-stream

Hi

Saturday was spent putting a corflute tailbox on the bike. During the day I built the base which is one relatively thick and strong piece of 5mm corflute sheet and the nightshift (about 9 - 11.30) was spent building up the side walls. No lid on the corflute tailbox at this stage. There was a ride the next day so I was more or less ready for that.

John Kuljis and Graham Signiorini

So the next day at a bit past 9 O'clock I am on my bike and heading over to the start of the VicHpv ride which starts at East Malvern station. The bike goes well but it needs a mirror - and some of the unpadded seat bolts are ripping the arse out of my bike shorts! I get to the station on time and there are a few familiar faces, Robert Waryszak, Graham Signiorini, John Kuljis and Allan Ball. Graham has a Rans Xstream which has a layout a lot like mine and we put the bikes side by side to compare them.

After a bit of a chat the ride group headed off. I had no intention of going on the full ride and neither did John Kuljis but we managed to lose the rest of the ride group quite promptly and enjoyed a short ride together along the Gardiner's creek trail. On the way home I stopped at an Aldi store and was able to fit a slab of beer into the bike. Not sure if my current bike can do this but I'm very pleased with this result on the new bike. When I got home, one of our neighbours was helping her daughter to weed our garden. Apparently their chooks love to eat weeds and they were in our place to collect some! All for now.

The beer pickup on the way home.

Our Wonderful Neighbours (beer in back of bike)

Steve's seed Starter (Minimalist Greenhouse)

2011-07-28T21:31:00.000+10:00

Cadel with rear wheel disk in a time trial

UCI rules do not apply! My home-made wheel disk.

Steve’s Seed Starter (Minimalist Greenhouse)

Hi.

Well this blog post rambles on a bit and the topic may seem to have nothing at all to do with the initial photos or text but bear with me. As Lesley Gore famously sang, it's my "blog and I'll write what I want to". Or maybe it was something to do with parties and crying. Ok, just bear with me.

Last Sunday I took my recumbent bike for a ride down to Mordialloc. The bike was going quite well and I was able to drag several expensive road bikes off at the lights and stay ahead of them for several kilometres. (You can’t touch the national shopping race champion!). I met Robert Waryszak near Mordialloc station and he and a small group were heading off on a VicHpv ride. Amongst them was Andrew who had a home made trike and a few others I’ve seen now and then on rides.

The route took us around the back blocks of Mordialloc, Aspendale and Carrum along the not-very-exciting-sounding secondary drain trail. At Carrum I said goodbye to the others on the ride and started heading back home. Had a puncture along Station Street and decided to catch the train home. Some of the ride down had been spent thinking about my new bike ¾ finished at home. One part of the bike I wanted to work on was a wheel disk for the back wheel, which is a 20” size and is quick release. A wheel disk is the shape of a shallow cone and covers the spokes of a bike wheel to reduce drag. At significant speeds, air gets “tangled” in the spokes and a disk wheel eliminates this complex air path and lets the wheel and therefore the bike, go smoother and faster through the air.

A couple of techniques and ideas for the disc came to mind:

The disc often covers the tyre valve and you usually have to accommodate access to the valve in the disc design. But my wheel is quick release – why not take off the wheel and one side of the disc when you want to pump up the tyre – it doesn’t happen that often.
This would then open the way for a simple piece of plastic to be used as the disc – something like a flat sheet could be changed to a shallow cone shape, and fibreglass could be used to stiffen and hold the cone in its correct shape.

So, got the train home and I wasn’t completely knackered as I would have been had I ridden all the way. Had enough energy left to do some gardening for my wife, Christine when I got home and this included raising some pots off the ground to make them more accessible. Later in the afternoon I drove to Kmart and Bunnings, I bought some seedlings at Kmart and some plastic sheet for the bike building at Bunnings. The plastic sheet from Bunnings is clear, 0.8mm thick flexible sheet and the aim was to make some wheel discs out of it. The seedlings are planted in the late afternoon.

Now I’m not sure when I thought of it but at some stage I realised that something like a wheel disc could be used as a mini greenhouse, and the plastic material in the back of my car could be used to make some samples. I slept on it and in the workday morning expounded to Christine on the subject, tearing up a tissue box and making a small demonstration model in the process.

Anyway, at the end of the workday and after dinner when Christine has settled down to watch a video of “Cabaret” on the TV I am cutting up bits of plastic for prototypes of “Steve’s Seed Starter”, the minimalist Greenhouse. A bit of drilling and hole sawing and more cutting and the samples are done! Christine is left with instructions to give one away to our good friend Ermi, the next day.

So that is it, from idea to sample in a day or two. It might be a crap idea and someone might have thought of it before but at least its mine. I will report on progress later – maybe some more samples will be made, and I intend to try growing some seeds under Steve’s superb sustainable seed starter and report on results, be they crap or otherwise. All for now, except the photos.

Seed Starters in Action

Next stop is the Chelsea Flower Show

This is it, a plastic sheet cut to humidify and warm seedings, Steve's Seed Starter. The conical shape and hole in the centre lets rainwater in to the pot.

Clipping the holes together forces the sheet into a shallow conical shape.

Building a New Bike, Part 9

2011-07-25T21:37:00.001+10:00

Hi

Some progress over the weekend. I hooked up the second of the bike's brakes and replaced the aluminium stem (which was several types of wobbly all at once) with a brazed-in steel version. Much better and neater than before.

The inner trouser guard was rubbing badly on the chain pins in low gear and these left marks on the trouser guard. With a bit of grinding I put a chamfer and radius into the guard. Works much better now.

I started work on the back of the seat, I've been formulating plans for the rest of the bike for a while and the milling work I've done will help make the corflute on the back more aerodynamic. A couple of blocks of wood on the back will let me hook up a load carrying platform. More on this later.

The machine is becoming useable now and after a rainy morning (on the day after Cadel Evans was within a whisker of winning the Tour de France) I headed off in to the city to see a Design exhibition at the Exhibition buildings. There were a few bikes and bike related objects on display so I took a few photos: unlike last time I'd ventured out with a digital camera I remembered the sd card / film. So here is one of my bike's long lost cousins at the "Treadlie Home Made Bike Show". There are a few more photos from this bike show here. My friend Jeremy Lawrence was at the bike show and I rode a round - about way home with him, city, to Clifton Hill via Richmond. Bike goes well but there is a noticable pedal-steer in the low gear range. Till next time....

Steve Nurse.

Building a new Bike Part 8

2011-07-16T20:54:00.000+10:00

Hi

Today was spent brazing on the derailleur hanger, making up the stem and steerer for the bike and testing, then finding a gear changer and a brake lever, then more testing. So now I have a bike with 14 gears. The Schlumpf works! I found a website for the Suntour V-luxe Derailleur! The gears only make horrible clunky noises in the biggest gears! The brake cables only scrape the cranks when I go round corners! In short, I have used up my quota of exclamation marks for the day, and I think I can fix the problems with the bike. All for now.

Steve Nurse

Building a New bike Part 7

2011-07-15T18:31:00.000+10:00

June 15 2011
Quite a bit of progress today, I've finished off the seat and it's securely attached to the bike, set up a derailleur (suntour v-lux chosen as much for its style as for its weight or anything else), modified a tool and used it to tighten the Schlumpf gear and set up the back wheel. Should be ready to do a blocky or two tomorrow. There is "only" the steerer and a few controls to go to get it on the road although there is a lot more to be done to get it into its final shape. In the 3rd photo you can see the (surfing) legrope ankle strap I use to attach the seat to the main tube.

All for now.

Building a new bike, part 6

2011-07-07T22:29:00.000+10:00

Finally I've started on the seat. I used the plans to make a full scale (2 x A3 pages) drawing of the main seat frame tubes. This took a couple of goes, the first plot wasn't to scale so I had to rescale the border and replot. Tonight I bent up the tubes, heating them with an oxy-acetylene set to red hot and confining the walls before bending. As well, the tubes were drilled in a few spots, these holes are pilot holes for the "ladder rungs" that will be the main structure of the frame. Still some brazing, drilling and carpentry on the seat to go!

Building a new bike part 5

2011-07-05T21:43:00.000+10:00

Hi

For the last few nights I have done some work getting ready to make the seat frame. This
will mostly be made from 12.7mm chromolly tube and will have 2 main support areas: it sits either
side of the main tube and is clamped in a seat clamp on 2 cantilever posts at the back.

A 2d cad sketch was used to work out the spacing of the seat frame rails. I find some bits of 40mm SHS and will be able to use that as seat jigging.

The spacing of the seat frame rails is set by the way the tubes will sit either side of the main tube and I will adjust the spacing at the seat post clamp using washers. So I make a few washers using a holesaw to cut bits out of a plastic tool caddy I'm no longer using. I think it was a sample from an engineering exhibition or something. These washers might come in useful in the suspension assembly as well.

One of the photos shows the finished, custom seat clamp with the frame tubes they will carry in place. I have brazed an 8mm tee nut into one of the plates, eventually this assembly will be able to be tightened by hand and it requires a captive nut on one side. Can't get much more captive than this! Quite pleased with progress, will be able to start on the seat itself now.

Building a new bike, Part 4

2011-07-03T21:11:00.001+10:00

A wet and wintry day in Melbourne and a day spent mostly around home except for a small excursion or two on the bike. My son Ewan was home and he helped me a bit with the bike building, he was temporarily employed as a human vice grip, holding some parts in place with pliers while I welded.

So today's progress has been good and I "only" have the seat and steering and corflute box left to do.

* Brazed V - brake bosses on behind the front fork.
* Bought a 14-28t cluster for the front and ordered a tyre for the back.
* Very happy with the way the mini v-brakes fit on. Cabling will be very minimalist and I still have quite good (15mm or so) clearances from the brakes to the front wheel. Front wheel can be standard 700c with no special hub for disc brake: as light and as aero as you wanna go!
* Also happy with the suspension and top seat clamp arrangement, on my current bike, its a mess with lots of extra and unnecessary parts.

All for now, on the road within 2 weeks, all going well.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Building a new Bike Part 3

2011-07-02T22:57:00.000+10:00

Hi It's Saturday today and I've made quite a lot of progress on the bike. The mini-v brakes arrived during the week and that let me set up the steerer tube and bottom bracket shell one night last week. Last time I wrote, I'd just started on the rear triangle: after several hours today, that is all complete. The work involves cutting tubes of chromoly steel and brazing them together. As well the holes in the precut laser parts needed a bit of enlarging to fit tubes at odd angles. I made about 20 "suspension blocks" from old bicycle tubes and these seem to do a good job as a suspension block.

Before starting on the suspension blocks, I made a wad punch for putting the hole in the centre of the blocks. This is a piece of chromolly tube with the wall made very thin and sharp all the way round. To make the blocks, you find an old bike tube, then cut square lengths, wad punch a hole through and finally cut a small triangle off each of the corners. I'll try to get a better photo of the suspension later. For the monent I'm very pleased, way lighter and simpler than the arrangement on my current bike.

All for Now!

Builing a new bike Part 2

2011-06-26T21:08:00.000+10:00

So here we go with a few photos of the progress I've made on the bike.

* The parts for the suspension pivot were made, these are some pieces of M8 tapped brass rod housed in some 12.7 od * 1.6mm wall erw tube.
* After a bit of scrounging I find a seatpost from an old folding bike that I can use as the back part of the frame but its not quite long enough. I cut up another seatpost to extend the part, then assemble the whole lot in the frame. Then its all brazed together.
* A couple of sticks of 12.7 od *1mm wall chromolly tube are cut to length and flattened at the end, then drilled. A couple of furniture leg anchors are brazed in and we hava a pretty good start on the rear triangle.

All for now. Mini - v - brakes arriving soon, with them I'll be able to sort out the front end of the bike.

Building a new Bike Part 1

2011-06-22T20:08:00.000+10:00

Hi After a break of a year or two, I have started building a new bike. (If you've got my book, "an Illustrated guide to the cycle zoo", then the build process is for one of the bikes shown in the on-line "long wheelbase plans"). And , truth be known, it won't be all that different from the last one (big at the front) I built but I am including a Schlumpf Mountain drive in the bike this time. When I last ordered laser cut parts for one of these bikes, I ordered 3 sets, so it's just a matter of pulling some of these parts from the shed.

A friend rang up and said he had some old bike bits he was chucking out and I could grab them if I wanted. There were 700c wheels, a frame, some pedals, lots of cantilever brake bits and they're a good set of parts. At about the same time, I contacted Greenspeed about buying in a Schlumpf mountain drive. This is a gearbox that has the form of a standard crankset but includes a standard 1:1 drive and a 2.5x reduction gear. After about two weeks, several emails and a few phonecalls and a considerable lightening of the cheque book the parts arrived. So that's most of the bits needed to start.

First step in making the bike was to remove the steerer tube from the donor frame. Although this frame was quite nice, show no mercy is the motto and after removing the fork, I ripped into it with a pipe cutter, hacksaw and angle grinder. Next is bending the front fork, the forks must be widened to fit a back wheel.

At this stage, I put the front wheel, fork, and steerer tube into the main frame. This is to check how the clearances for the crankset will be. I decide that the v-brakes I try out are a bit big (aim is to have the frame fairly low on the steerer) and decide that mini v's would be the go. A couple of local bike shops don't have any, so I order 2 sets through bicyclestore.com.au . Hopefully they will arrive soon!

Yesterday, I put a small chamfer on boltholes of one of the schlumpf trouser guards (I will have one ring each side of the 42t chainring) so the bolt head will stay central in the hole. This evening I put the chainring and trouser guards onto the Schlumpf and lastly for this post, work out the gear inches for the bike. Lets say I get an 11-32 teeth cluster.

Top is 105", lowest is 14.5", range is 730%. I have been getting round with a 7 speed for qite a while now, the schlumpf should make things much easier.

All for now.

Steve Nurse

3d Printing: A Shed for the 21st Century, part 1

2011-06-02T21:32:00.000+10:00

3d printers have been around for a while but up till recently have been used mainly for rapid prototyping . This is a commercial, industrial process used to make one off or small sets of parts for which tooling will later exist. The tooling itself is expensive but the rapid prototypes have been relatively inexpensive and made by specialist rapid prototyping houses like Formero . Rapid prototypes are a way of completely evaluating a part and averting the disaster of a badly or wrongly made tool. So that was it for quite a while, at least for most of my career as an engineer. But now the genie is slowly coming out of the bottle.

Whereas previously rapid prototypes were relatively inexpensive, we are now coming in to an age where 3d printers (the things that make the prototypes or parts) are relatively inexpensive. Costs have come down from upwards of $20,000 a few years ago to below $1000 today. An industry that did not exist a few years ago (home 3d printing) is starting to thrive today. If the costs of 3d printers come down at the same rate as the cost of (say) laser printers then we will all have one in our house in 10 years. I attended a seminar on 3d printers today and as one industry player put it: "kids will print out some game tokens on a 3d printer, play games with them all day, and then eat them." The good thing about inexpensive 3d printers is that the mobs that sell them are not the big guys, and some of the ones in production now were built and started in garages. See http://www.additive3d.com/3dpr_cht.htm. A very new and good looking product is the Ultimaker.

About 20 years ago, "desktop publishing" was something quite special and carried with it the notion that we could print 1 or 100 of a printed page at home - and previously this had been the domain of large offices and professional printers. Now many of us just have computers and printers and we do stuff with them. And eventually 3d printing will come to be the same, just a commonplace.

So why the title for this blog post? 3d printers fit inside a modern house or bedroom or flat which may not have a real shed or even space for one. They are capable of making almost any small object that can be designed in 3d cad: personalized gifts a specialty! The skills needed to use them are computer skills which kids these days are more likely to develop than traditional shed skills like welding, brazing, lathe work etc. And so we have making stuff, in a small space, and people will know how to do it. A shed for the 21st Century.

More to come in this series. A commentary on the PAMF 3d printing / additive manufacturing conference is next.

Recumbent Bike v. 7:09 to Glen Waverley

2011-06-02T20:16:00.000+10:00

Well from the title you would probably guess that this post is about some sort of race of bike v. train but in fact the title is about a reliability trial. This page will be a blog within a blog about catching a Melbourne train to get to work one or two days a week. Not very exciting I hear you say. But this particlular train has such an apalling record for punctuality that I consider it to be "almost a work of fiction".

The 7:09 from Richmond to Glen Waverly is the "new as of May 8 timetable" equivalent of the 7:13 to Glen Waverly. The 7:13 was a limited express train stopping only at 5 of the 15 or so stations on the route and seemingly perfect for me to get to work. And yeah, it was pretty good. The 7:13 was occasionally cancelled but the next train usually arrived 2 minutes later and although it was not an express, it usually arrived on time.

So here we go, the blog within a blog thing. Writing about the recent past here but I hope to update this every day that I go to work by bike (15k plus 35k on the way home) and train (20k) from now on. To be fair to the train, I will compare its reliability to that of my home-built recumbent bike. And also to be fair, I must admit to getting lost on the way home a few weeks ago due to a damaged bridge on a bike path: I score myself a lowly 3/10 for this ride!

May 25 2011:
Train: 7:09 from Glen Waverly arrives but due to a switching mistake wound up on the wrong train line and ended up at Hawthorn station on the wrong line. Passengers were advised to change trains and return to Burnley. There was a train right opposite and we were advised to take that, but it didn't wait for us! Several long waits later and I arrive at Glen Waverly too late to get to work on time and about an hour after the 7:09 would have arrived.
Train: 4/10 Bike: No Problems. 9/10

June 1 2011:
Train: 7:09 to Glen Waverly is cancelled and the next train is delayed 8 minutes or so. About 30 minutes late at Glen Waverly. I started talking to a guy who usually catches the same train - about how unreliable the service is.
Train: 6/10 Bike: No Problems. 9/10

June 3 2011:
There was a tailwind behind me on the way to the train station, so as the old adage goes - "I came by bike, but I flew" and got to the train station in time for the 7:03 train. And it looked like the 7:09 to Glen Waverly was going to run on time. I used the time on the train to pump up the back tyre, tighten the front light, reposition the speedo and move the handlebars and start reading Von Ryan's Express.
Train: 9/10, Bike a bit lop sided: 8/10

June 10 2011
Well I arrived at Richmond station about 4 past 7 and was in plenty of time for the 7:09 to Glen Waverley - had it arrived. But it didn't. The next train arrived pretty much on time and I was about 20 minutes late at GlenWaverley. I caught the train home as well as I had to work a bit late and didn't want to ride in the dark the whole way home.
Train: 6.5/10, Bike went fine: 9/10

June 16 2011
It was a cold morning, and I set off under a blood red, eclipsing moon. Oh, I forgot, this is a blog not the start of the great Australian novel. Anyway, it was cold and I was reliably informed there was an eclipse of the moon somewhere, but I didn't see it, hidden behind a building or something.

I had a good run to the station but couldn't validate my 10 x 2 hour zone 1 and 2 card in the machine and just kept going anyway. The 3 past 7 train arrived on time, and I was spared the trauma of waiting for the 7:09. But just as I thought everything was going along all plain vanilla, some ticket inspectors got on. A few people bailed it from the train when they saw the inspectors and there was quite an argument between a homeless guy and the inspectors.

I sat, nonchalantly waving my ticket in the air, hoping the inspectors would not bother to look at it. This ploy did not work, they looked at my ticket, believed me and I didn't have to pay a fine. Arrived on time at Glen Waverley, but maybe it's time for me to invest in a relatively indestructable Myki card thing.
Train: 10/10, Bike is a bit wonky 8/10.

June 24, 2011
On the way to the station and just near the top of the hill in Nicholson St. , I almost run into a couple of tradesman wandering through a roundabout with a wheelbarrow. Manage to stop in time. "dude!" I yell "dude". "Sorry Bro" says one of the guys.

Soon after that I remember I have some coins in my wallet and can use the small "R2D2" coin only ticket machine at the back of the station and don't need to go round the front of the station and buy a ticket from an attendant or the "Darth Vader" coin and note machine. So I save myself a minute or two and can catch the 3 past 7 to Glen Waverley. I'm reading Huntingtower by John Buchan and, under the influence of the SBS TV show "go back to where you came from" I had seen the night before, start singing Tom Petty's "You Don't Have to Live Like a Refugee" on the bike on the way to work. (When you are imitating Tom Petty, you have to sing like your nose is blocked off.)
Train: 9/10, Bike: 9/10, Go Back to Where You Came From: 10/10

June 28, 2011
Without going in to too much detail, I got onto a Lilydale train when expecting a Glen Waverley train and ended up at Laburnum. After that I caught a train back to Richmond when keeping on going and changing trains at Ringwood for Bayswater would have got me fairly near to work. So I will share some of the bad points.
Train: 5/10 Bike: No Problems 9/10 My Thinking a bit rusty, 5/10

July 6, 2011
Not too much to report. Left home in time to catch the fairly reliable 7:03. Bought a Myki card.
Train & Bike: No Problems, 9/10

July 13, 2011
Ride all the way to work and avoid the train altogether. I get wet and some of my work bits of paper get wet. No great disater but something I could live without.
Bike: No big problems, 8/10

July 20, 2011
Ride to the station and use my Myki card for the first time. It works, and lo and behold, the 7:09 train to Glen Waverly arrives on time. And I decide that at this time, the blog about this particular train has run its course. I will use this blog space to write about something else inane or profound, depending on what comes along. I'll revive the subjects of trains and punctuality should something significant happen on my commute. Like I'm abducted by aliens.
Train 10/10, bike still a bit wobbly, 9/10
Signing Off for now.

Steve Nurse

Why I bought a recumbent bike part 2.

2011-04-21T20:44:00.000+10:00

Well, we are actually venturing into other topic areas here, but having named the first part of my story "why I bought a recumbent bike part 1", I seem somewhat obliged to continue with a title in that series, although really this post is more about "what I did with my Performer recumbent bike once I bought it". "Stop rabbitting on about nothing, I hear you say, start telling us something, we don't care what the #*&^%( title of the #(57@^%$ blog post is." Well I hear you. Yes. Stop rabbitting on. Yes. Now.

The recumbent bike I bought is a disc brake high racer. The original spec for the bike is on the net at http://www.performer.com.tw/2010/user/product_2.php?wp=05&sno=00064. I believe the bike would be very good value bought new and has nice things like a hollow, lightweight crankset, neat cable runs, boots on the brake cables to stop water entry, twist grip shifters, light wheelset with aero spokes and high end disc brakes. Overall, it's quite light.

Unfortunately a few things needed fixing on the bike before I could consider it to be good to ride on the road. The fixing took place over several months but I'm writing this a few weeks after I'd finally fixed things so will compress it all a bit.

The Seat

As supplied by the bloke I bought the bike from, the seat on the bike was propped up quite high on a set of metal stilts. Nicely done but a bit heavy. I removed all the existing seat propping and put the seat back on. It seemed a bit low at the back, so I used a couple of sawn up pieces of nylon and long bolts to prop up the back. Alex Mcnee who sells Performer bikes from Canberra recommended something similar and told me he has some "custom" bits to help do the same job. His contact details are on the Performer website,
http://www.performer.com.tw/2010/user/partner.php?wp=03

The Steering

As supplied the steering was a foreshortened version of the original Performer steering which had a "Boomerang" type handlebar and the steerer leaning out over the belly. This makes the bike a bit harder to get on and off and harder to relax when you're sitting on it. So I jumped in and started to replace the handlebars to be a bit more like those on Barchettas or Pete Heal's Lizard cycles. The bars are powdercoated black alloy and came from Abbotsford Cycles, http://abbotsfordcycles.com.au/public/content/view/14/29/ . This process needed all the cables to be changed and some rerouted. I needed a tandem brake cable (again from Abbotsford Cycles) to reach the back brake and added a bell and mirror. For now the seat and steering combination are quite comfortable.

Visibility and Storage

For a long time I have ridden my home-made recumbent bikes and usually I have a white tailbox fitted at the back. The tailbox makes the bike more visible, especially from behind. As supplied the bike was all black and I had a feeling that car drivers would just not see it, especially at night. Just to make the bike "roadworthy", and before I'd intalled the tailbox, I slung an old safety vest over seat.

The need to carry stuff can hardly ever be divorced from bikeriding. I know that people get away with riding with just a cycling shirt with a pocket on the back and a bottle carrier on the frame. But this is all very la-de-dah and impractical and I like to be able to carry at least as much as I need for a commute to work, that is, a change of clothes and a small briefcase. The recumbent bike allows this to be done in a storage space that makes the bike go faster, not slower. The aerodynamics of this tailbox make the top part of the body less bluff and able to slip through the air easier. Lower down, the seat is already quite reclined and does a good job of aerodynamics anyway.

To construct the tailbox, I used plastic fluteboard / coreflute, which is available without too much fuss and in a variety of thicknesses from Bunnings. At the top of the box (actually built into the lid) and mounted on to the seat, I have made a small wooden frame. The tailbox is about 30 cm (or hip-width) wide which is wider than the seat itself. When there is a load in the tailbox, the fluteboard stretches. Without the wooden frame at the top, it would distort where it meets the seat and possibly sag onto the back wheel. And oh no, that would never do. Apart from fluteboard all you will need to make a tailbox are cable ties and a few household tools.

OzHPV Challenge 2011

2011-04-16T20:51:00.000+10:00

The OzHpv Challenge 2011 was held in the NSW / Victoria border town of Wodonga over the weekend of 9 and 10 of April. The Challenge races are unique in my experience: they are open to a wide range of abilities, ages and vehicles and the emphasis is on fun as much as winning. Tim Marquardt was the main organiser and this was the first event I have attended as President of OzHpv. And I stand by every word I've said about the races in the past: a great event and well worth attending for all cycle enthusiasts and cycling families, whether or not you are interested in human powered vehicles. The results that I know are Mens: Malcolm Butler 1, Jamie Friday 2 Women's: Laura Houghton 1, Faye Downing 2 Juniors: Bryce Marquardt 1 but we were all winners on the day. Personally I had a great Challenge. Some of my photos and videos came out very well, I won the shopping race and came second in the go to whoa on a bike I'd designed and made myself. My wife Christine had a good time and made a great contribution, sponsoring a race and organising certificates for race winners. Thanks to all the volunteers and sponsors, especially Kim from Cruzbike, Alex from Natural Speed Engine and Ken from Trisled who all helped out extensively. Ken was really in the spirit of things, riding a dragster in some of the races, supporting his daughter in others and timing and helping out wherever he could. Alex competed fiercely and the Performer bikes he sells were the predominant brand on the track. Kim brought up a large shelter which served as "officials' hq" for the event and happily demonstrated his Cruzbikes throughout the event. He also kindly loaned Jamie Friday a wheel which got him going in the events. A lot of the discussion of the Challenge has been on discussion groups like the "members only" OzHPV mailing list, http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/ozhpv/ : here are a few links to photos and videos about the Challenge. I'm in a few of the videos, the "orange shirt guy" at the end of Andrew's video and the beginning of Pete's video. Regards Steve Nurse From Peter Heal "My Challenge videos are here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ3ccNX8Mb8 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krOT9wBQ_8Q Some still pics http://s81.photobucket.com/albums/j211/PoiterH/Challenge%202011/ Thank you linesmen, thank you sponsors." My 3 videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHvjkqBQJLQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DojLYBqSjBo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_hzuqDkNwo Andrew Stewart's video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f08b2pwgUjc. " From Malcolm "the champion" Butler: "And here are my photos: http://malb.org/OzHpvChallenge2011 "

Why I bought a recumbent bike part 1.

2011-01-14T22:28:00.000+11:00

Well since about 1987 I have ridden recumbent bikes but every one I have owned has been my own creation. This is the story of how it came to be that I now own one built by Performer of Taiwan.

About 10 times I have done the Bike Victoria 210km "Around the Bay in a Day" ride which take place in October. Last year I was booked in to do the ride again but 2 days before I had mouth surgery and was forced to withdraw. This left me "one 200k ride short" for 2010 so I finally bit the bullet and joined the long distance cycling club"Audax". There was an Audax 200 ride "New Year's Resolution out of Werribee" due for January 1 2011 which I had my eye on. About 5 days out, the weather forecast was for 39 degrees on New year's day but a few days later they were predicting only 26 degrees, so the ride was on for me. I booked in by email with Stephen in Werribbee, found out the start address and was ready to go. New Year's Eve was the night before the ride, I spent more time getting the bike into the back of the car than popping champagne corks.

The drive to Werribee next morning was on very quiet roads and I arrived just in time to sign in for the ride, borrow a shifter to help put my bike together and high tail it down the road after the first riders, who had left at 8am sharp as advertised.

I had been given a brevet card, a list of all the turns and the km distance at which they occur and a map. For the first 40 or so k's up to Gisbourne I was in the blessed condition of not needing any of these, just following the rider in front was all that was required but as the day wore on and I got tireder, the map and directions (and the occasional roadsign when all else failed) became necessary. Now lists of directions and maps are fine and wonderful things but you sort of need a bike odometer or some other guidance system to make sense of them. And I didn't have one so got lost a few times. At one point I went about 6k out of my way and I also got a bit lost finding the red beard cafe in Trentham.

Unrelated to navigation, on the Western Highway I had a major wrestle with punctures before being able to continue. As well there were quite a few hills on the ride and (especially when I was tired) my limited range of gearing wasn't enough for me to get up them. Getting off and pushing was the only option and that's what I did. (It happens that in Melbourne, the self-same gearing works fine. My longest trip there is a work commute of 35 k which involves one steep but mercifully fairl short hill)

About 1/2 an hour after dark I got in to Werribbee again, rang my wife Christine, eventually found the start point, bundled the bike into the car and headed home.

Within a few days an alert on one of my recumbent email groups pointed me to a Performer Recumbent for sale for about $700 - too good to pass up and the seller was only a few k from my house. The bike has lower gears, better wheels and equipment and weighs less than my homemade bikes and which should make it geat for Audax rides.

Buying the bike was just a start point- it needed a bit of work - more on that later!

A Reunion

2010-12-19T21:27:00.000+11:00

My wife Christine with Ange and Hilary

L to R we have Mick, Mick, Jane, Geoff, Evelyn, Eff, Jic, Ali, Ange, Simon, Lou

Hi

Maybe in the last post I mentioned a few friends of mine were having a combined 50th birthday party. Well it's all done and dusted now. My friends Geoff, Jic and Simon are now officially 50 now despite "actually" turning 50 earlier in the year. And it was quite a gathering of the clan.

"We met / When we were at school / Never took no shit from no-one / we weren't fools"
(From Cheapskates, the Clash)

Well in about 1977, me, Jic, Mick, Geoff, Joel, George and Simon and Wal were all in year 12 at Melbourne Grammar together. Most of us were much more interested in various combinations of Rock'n'Roll Music, smoking, drinking, girls and surfing than what we were at school for. What were we meant to be at school for? Oh yeah, we were meant to be getting a good education, meeting the right people and becoming gentlemen. Anyway the bonds formed between us at school through music and surfing were strong enough to last many years, evidenced by the fact that 33 years later we are all at the same party together.

Some of the girls at the party I'd known since school as well (Debbie, Ange, Jayne, Jane, Effie, Evelyn, Hilary, Ali, Lou) and some who I'd lived in houses with I hadn't seen for 25 years, give or take a day or two. So there was quite a bit of recounting of marriages, children, boyfriends, divorces, water under the bridges, waters not yet under the bridges, and highly exaggerated stories of surfing and sailing and conquests, and remembering some of our gang who hadn't made it this far (George, Mandy and Sue) and other stuff.

"Back to the days of the 4 and 7 friends and the all night rock'n'roll. / Hey 'Chelle, we were wild then" (Michelle Shocked, Anchorage)

Anyway, many thanks to Geoff, Simon and Jic and their families for hosting the party. Early in the new year I will be catching up with Jic as his family heads to Bell's Beach for a junior surfing competition. Will post more about that later.

Well why not leave you with another almost quote.
"Well I'm goin' back to Newhaven on a journey through the past / and I won't be back till Sunday morning comes"
(Neil Young, Journey Through the past. I think the lyrics actually involve things like Canada and February but they don't fit in with my story)

Christine's comment: Terrific catching up with people after 20 or so years and there was lovely food and atmosphere. I learnt a few techniques on how to shimmy from a lovely young lady. (Ange, you know this means you)

PS I have unceremoniously dumped my photos of the night onto the web folder
http://www.modularbikes.com.au/modular/jicsimonjeff50/

PPS Many thanks to Kevin who put Christine & I up for the weekend.

Fed Square this Saturday

2010-12-07T22:11:00.000+11:00

Hi

This Saturday (December 11) I will be at Federation Square selling my bike books and cycling boardgame from 11 - 5. Last chance before Christmas to buy them, after Saturday I hang up my booksellers hat and start doing things appropriate for the season - finishing off the year at work and going surfing! A few of my friends are having a 50th birthday bash at Phillip Island and my family will be down there with bells on.

Anki Toner has listed my cycling boardgame on his cycling boardgames website, see http://www.cyclingboardgames.net/g_cycletour.htm

He likes the chance card "Schoolkids yell get a real bike, move back 1" but what about the shopping tokens "Kamahl's Greatest Hits, $0" or "The Adventures of Barry Mckenzie Movie on VHS Cassette, 50c." C'mon Anki, lift your game.

Ok, might see you Saturday

Best Wishes

Steve Nurse

An Inner Trailer

2010-12-04T19:55:00.000+11:00

Hi

For a while now I've been mucking around with bike trailers and recently built one for carrying a large amount of shopping behind a folding bike. Unfortunately this trailer didn't fit on my recumbent and I wanted a trailer for my recumbent so you guessed it, the shopping trailer was due for the chop or rather "annihilation by jigsaw". And rather than building an ordinary trailer, how about one that trails from the front wheel of my bike? (My bike is well-qualified for this type of trailer, being long wheelbase, front wheel drive and having a really big space between the 2 wheels, more about it here:
http://www.modularbikes.com.au/bigatthefront.html)

So I began work. The trailer has a height limit - it will bang into the bike frame if its too high. Keeping this in mind, I mounted the trailer wheels on the back of the trailer box so the bottom of the trailer could be kept low allowing for reasonable depth. The box is made from unbraced plywood and is therefore a bit wonky and I will see about improvements at a later stage. The drawbar is a 28mm garden stake and it's attached diagonally on the base of the trailer.

Initially I thought I could just drill a hole in the drawbar and hang the trailer on a pin mounted on the front fork. I made the bracket on the bike, but when the trailer was hitched up it was too high and I couldn't pedal. Back to the drawing board.

Next step was to cut a small extra piece of garden stake and sandwich part of an old bike tyre between the drawbar and the new piece of wood. Apart from anything else, the extra bit of wood helps push the drawbar away from the wheel so the wheel doesn't bang into the drawbar during turns. The tyre was looped at the top and the loop was secured with a few screws, nuts and washers.

Then it was time for a few blockies to sort out any problems. The low ground clearance led to, you guessed it, scraping of the trailer base on the ground and I did a bit of work to fix that. My son Ewan took the main photo the next day when I was on my way to sell books at a book market. Trailer still way too low and lots of scraping, so en route I stopped and twisted the tyre which the front of the trailer hangs from to bring the drawbar up a bit. And this worked, I arrived, bike, self and cargo and trailer intact at the book market.

While at the bookmarket, I readjusted the loop at the front of the trailer and the whole thing worked very well on the way home.

Well what I have here is certainly exotic - an exotic trailer on an exotic bike. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of the design.

* Wheels on the trailer are at the back. When compare to a 2 wheel trailer with wheels in the centre, the trailer hitch bears weight and the drawbar must stand more bending force. The bike is front wheel drive so weight on the front wheel is a good thing - there was no wheel slippage when climbing hills.
* This bike plus trailer is much shorter than the standard trailer arrangement. As well, the trailer following behind is very low and would probably need a flag for it to be seen by drivers peering over car bonnets. With the trailer in the centre, a flag is not needed.
* Having the trailer in the middle restricts the height and length of the trailer. Extra volume can be achieved by having a wide trailer, but this starts to make getting on and off the bike difficult.
* Once in motion, the bike and trailer handled ok. But starting was a bit harder than normal, I had to sit on the bike and start pedalling from a standstill. Normally I can start walking or running, then leap onto the bike side saddle and get going that way.

* The current trailer hitch allows the trailer front to "pendulum" about the hitch on the front. There is little resistance to motion from the trailer wheels at the back, so the whole trailer can move back and forth relative to the bike during acceleration / braking creating a not unpleasant "trailer surge" phenomenon.

* Not for the shy and retiring!

A few new Links

2010-10-31T21:46:00.000+11:00

Hi

Over the last few months, Jim Wilson from bikerodnkustom
http://bikerodnkustom4.homestead.com/cover9_03.html has been interviewing me by
email. It was a bit of a stop-start process and we rambled over a range of
topics. So here it is, the interview is sticking out like bits of a dogs
anatomy amidst all the chopper bikes.
http://bikerodnkustom4.homestead.com/nurse_interview.html .

As well as this I have 2 entries in the Melbourne bikefest design competition
http://www.melbournebikefest.com.au/better-by-bike
which will be judged shortly. The Rotovelo from Trisled is one of the other
entries. Another designer (Mark Watson who designed the Tote trailer) has
already been in touch with me.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Game Over

2010-09-30T21:19:00.000+10:00

Hi

After about six weeks of after hours work I'm close to finishing the cycling boardgame I started talking about in this post: http://modularbikes.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html

The game has taken a radical departure from the original (series of races) idea. Hopefully that departure is all for the better. The game is not quite finished but is still very playable. The unfinished bit is that the player pieces are not fully coloured in. (I have almost finished doing 1 and even that took a long time!) But you can do the colouring in. To date I have played the game with my wife, my son and with my friend Tony and his 2 young kids. The game cards are based very loosely on items I have purchased or events that have happened while riding a bike. Hope you enjoy it. Hope you can understand the rules!

http://modularbikes.com.au/game/cycle_tour.pdf

Regards

Steve Nurse

4/10/10

Today I updated the game, all the players are fully colored in now and I did some minor changes to the "shopping cards".

A Big Swell!

2010-09-18T20:56:00.000+10:00

Hi

Although I've only written about bicycling - related stuff in this blog in the past, I have another
hobby - surfing - which I've been doing since I was about 15. As a Melbourne resident, going
surfing involves travelling at least 100k and often spending time away from my family: so I
don't do it that often. But occasionally I get motivated enough or sick of things enough to run away and go surfing for a day or two. Very fortunately I have access to a place to stay at Airey's
Inlet which is on the coast west of Melbourne. Even more more fortunately, some of the challenging surf breaks around Airey's are not overpopulated by surfers so as a not - very - competitive or aggressive older surfer, I can still go out surfing and enjoy myself.

Before the advent of the internet, knowing what sort of swell would occur on a given day in the future was a black art. You could make some educated guesses and work out what the wind direction would be from the weather maps but what sort of waves would arrive was unknown. Now, various websites predict the surf size around Australia and the world. The one I use most is www.swellnet.com.au backed up by the venerable bureau of meteorology, www.bom.gov.au.
Type "wave" into the bom website and you are a few clicks away from a map like the one shownsomewhere on this blog page. The red and purple bits of the map are areas of the ocean are areas of big waves and when they get somewhere near your bit of coastline there will be big waves. Simple huh? The fact that predictive maps (a few days in advance of now) are available means keen surfers can go to where the big waves will be, virtually anywhere in the world.

But just big waves ain't enough, to get good waves, other things like local winds need to be right.

So anyway, I'll cut the surf lesson short here. Early last week it looked like a ripper swell was developing so I put in for leave on Friday and headed off on Thursday night to see what surf I could find.

Well it was a big swell and on Friday I only surfed at the very sheltered Lorne Point. I didn't see anyone out at open ocean beaches although one guy had been out at Cathedral Rock. Today (Saturday) I went out at a local Airey's beach. 3 waves only, I was out by myself and respectful of the size of the surf. Hope you enjoy the photos.

Note on surfboard: It was a windsurfer in a previous life. It is a long (8"5" in the old currency), sleek, thick and well worn single fin. Very caveman. I love it. Shaped by Howard Hughes, see
http://www.surfcraft.com.au/ Now retired, Howard has been a friend for years and for ages I have ridden on his boards.

OzHpv Challenge: The Board Game

2010-08-13T21:07:00.000+10:00

Hi

Well I won't start on the topic, rather just write a bit of a catch-up and then launch into it.

First of all I've been a bit busy! My wife Christine is recovering from an operation and I've been to and from dentists and endodontists this week dealing with an abcess on the gum. That doesn't mean I haven't done things related to bikes, its just I haven't written about them yet.

For a while I've been helping my workmate Brad Jarvis build a trike (donating materials and advice). He's finished now and posted a bit about it on his web blog at http://emotorcycle.blogspot.com/ . Brad has helped me a lot, dragging this website from a small collection of stuff that I've written to something a bit more focussed and impressive. Thanks again Brad!

Well, back to the board game. I read a few Human Powered Vehicle websites quite regularly, among them
Velovision: http://www.velovision.co.uk/
Bentrideronline: http://www.bentrideronline.com/ and more recently
The Recumbent Journal: http://www.recumbentjournal.com/

Velovision posted a link to this wonderful site about Cycling Board Games.
http://www.cyclingboardgames.net/index.htm . It's not a type of game that's known about let alone used in Australia but this website lists hundreds of them, mainly European I think.

I stumbled across one Australian game on the site: http://www.cyclingboardgames.net/g_national.htm

There is a page about making your own board game, and more trivia than you would care to imagine.

Anyway, this got me to thinking: how about a boardgame based on the Ozhpv Challenge? This set of races has been held over about 10 years at Canberra, Broadford, Werribee and more recently Albury. The website for the Challenge is here http://ozhpv.org.au/events/challenge.html

Anyway I've started a small spreadsheet which sets up a premise for a game based on the challenge. It's here http://modularbikes.com.au/game/Boardgame.xls.

Basically the game would have 6 races and six different vehicles, all familiar to Challenge Entrants
Road Race
Off Road
Shopping Race
Slalom
Hill Climb
Time Trial

Road Bike
Mountain Bike
Lowracer Recumbent
Recumbent Trike
LWB Recumbent
Velomobile

Riders would progress a token across a board based on a roll of the dice. There might be 40 squares to progress through in a race.

There's a table in the spreadsheet with something like the most likely outcomes for the races given riders of equal ability, and the idea of the game is to simulate that likely outcome in each race using a set of "rigged dice" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dice#Cheat_dice) The "average" roll of dice will lead to the expected result. Each vehicle has its good and bad races and it all averages out even in the end.

Of course nothing like this happens in the real version of the Challenge. The actual result in recent years has been:

* Someone comes along with a mountain bike and wins the Off Road (Tim Marquardt in recent years)

* Jamie Friday wins everything else and is once again crowned OzHpv Champion!

Regards

Steve Nurse

Some Reviews of "The Cycle Zoo"

2010-06-14T09:00:00.000+10:00

Hi

This is a gathering of reviews of "The Cycle Zoo". Thanks to Sue Archer & Peter Eland (Velovision), Adrienne (Vichpv Site), Jeff Potter (Out Your Backdoor) , Chris and Steve (3CR)

Out Your Backdoor review
http://outyourbackdoor.com/article.php?id=1504

Pdfs of Velovision review and articles http://www.modularbikes.com.au/modular/reviews/velovision_articles.pdf

A brief mention in the middle of a general discussion on recumbents (search for modular)
http://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=18723

Vichpv ad
http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/vichpv/web/wanted/wanted.html

3CR radio interview
http://www.yarrabug.org/radio/?tag=steve-nurse-uci-world-track-cup

Regards

Steve Nurse

Some Folding Bikes

2010-06-12T21:30:00.000+10:00

After a brief absence, we have a couple of folding bikes in the yard again. Two bikes came up in one lot on ebay, I put in a bid and there you go, a couple of days later I am driving down the Eastlink freeway after work to pick up the bikes in Carrum Downs. I didn't really know what I was getting but they were cheap enough and these types of bikes are easy enough to fix.

Anyway after unloading the bikes at home I got a chance to look at the bikes: I've got a 16 inch National folding bike with rusty wheels and a 3 speed hub and back pedal brake, and a 20 inch "Another Rob's bike from Blackburn" that was probably made in Eastern Europe.

Well I quite like old folding bikes! There is a great German website devoted to them, http://klapprad.de/ which has the philosophy (even if they don't say it!) "These bikes might be old, they might be simple, they might be crappy. But we love them!"

Klapprad is a German term for folding bikes which describes the sort of bikes I like. The German Wikepedia entry http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faltrad mentions the term as follows:

"The need for the term "folding bike" instead of Klapprad came from the need for sellers of high value bikes to distance themselves from the 1960’s and 1970’s Klapprad bikes which were often bad to ride and unmanageable. In contrast, modern folding bikes can ride like full size touring- and sport- bikes."

So, back to my bikes. I did some work on them in the kitchen on Friday night and took the photos, then on Saturday morning worked on the 20" Rob's. This bike has alloy wheels, front brake and coaster brake, worn whitewall tyres.

Try pumping tyres (woods valves) 1 ok, the other has problems.

2nd tyre remove valve, clean valve, replace rubber tube around valve, pump up tyre, ok now.

Remove chain, replace with new one from shed, oil wheel bearings.

Tilt handlebars forward.

Replace front brake cable, oil front brake.

Bike is still rusty. The paint that's left is very faded.

Take bike to front of house, ride to op shop.

Old, possibly homeless guy outside op-shop says that the bike is very old, possibly an antique.

"Yeah, like me", I say, riding off.

Then I started on the 16" National. The wheel nuts are really rusty and I have to work hard to get the wheels off. The bike has a nice, 2 pronged stand and the aluminium mudguards and chainguard and frame are generally in good nick. Despite near frozenness due to lack of oil and rust, the rear hub is a 3 speed planetary gearbox and back pedal brake. Jamie Friday used one of these on his load trike, so its worth using on another bike if not on this one.

1 tyre holds air, the valve and tube is stuffed on the other one.

Removed wheels with difficulty.

Dug out a set of 16" wheels and a tube. These wheels are in reasonable condition, rear wheel has back pedal brake.

Move tyres and tubes to "new" wheels.

That's all sofar, I'll try to get it on the road tomorrow.

Sunday morning was spent getting the orange bike on the road.

Front forks bolt slots too narrow for new wheel. Used electric drill to make extra width.

Seat too low even with the seat post at the top, reverse clamp under seat to raise it slightly, might need to make a new seatpost.

Swap cog on new wheel, I put on a smaller one from the shed which raises the gear inches a bit, also swapping the side the dishing the cog was on made the chain allignment a bit better.

Ok, time for a blocky! Had to fight off my wife Christine and our 98 year old neighbour Edith, they were just itching to have a go on it as you can see from the photo.

The seat is still a bit low but it goes ok. The gear inches are a little bit low and I am pedalling quite fast to get a reasonable speed on a flat road. There is a nice, small organised ride tomorrow, I plan to take this orange bike and see how I go.

14/6/10

Late last night I brazed a couple of seatposts together to make one long seatpost and fitted it to the orange bike.

This morning I headed off on the bike and met Alan & Diane Ball and George Durbridge for the start of the "Bonus VicHpv ride". The little bike performed well all day but the very long seatpost puts my weight right to the back of the bike and there is a tendency for the bike to do wheelies when you don't really want it to. That can be countered: you just need to lean forward when going over small rises or up hills.

The ride itself was billed as follows:

"We will be touring most art on the "Docklands Art Journey" leaflet but in a better riding order, omitting some, and seeing some interesting extras. For some info, click on the Docklands Art Journey link on:http://www.vicurban.com/cs/Satellite?c=VPage&cid=1182927627029&pagename=Docklands%2FLayout Lunch at Docklands. After lunch we start back along the Yarra diverting briefly to view the controversial Yellow Peril now in a more appropriate setting."

The day went very well with Alan wearing his tour leader hat and reading from a printout of a website to describe the varoius artworks we visited. Doing this tour is well worth the effort if you get a chance. Seeing the "Vault" statue next to the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art was a highlight: a controversial statue and Melbourne icon next to a truly ugly building! Thanks Alan!

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_(sculpture) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Centre_for_Contemporary_Art

All for now and for this post

Regards

Steve Nurse

Some Photos from a Sunday Ride

2010-05-23T20:38:00.000+10:00

One of Robert W's regular Sunday rides was held today and I went along to the start of it and rode several kilometres with friends who ride recumbents. It was a very nice day, ranging from fresh and crisp in the morning to mild in the early afternoon. Mainly pictures taken from a moving bike today.

A Rickshaw Trike: Part 3

2010-05-22T22:08:00.000+10:00

Today was Saturday and I had a chance to work on the Cyclo cycle-rickshaw. The aim was to get the trike going with a retro-direct 2 -speed drive. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retro-Direct) I'd already mounted an extra clutch on the rear sprocket and the cycle already had a place to mount the pulley and I had a ball bearing mounted pulley in the shed. So it didn't take all that long to put it together.

Christine was ready for a ride in the trike by the time I'd fitted up the chain and pulley, so the first ride wasn't a blockey but a "real ride" up to a cafe / nursery and bike shop. The gears worked quite well and it was relatively easy to get used to pedalling backwards to go forwards. The trike has an inbuilt park-brake: just park it pointed up a hill and it won't go anywhere as it can't roll backwards.

I made a short, fairly crap video of the mechanism. The sound effects include the guy next door putting out the rubbish bins and I am decapitated for much of the video. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO8HTsOLHCE . That's Showbiz or at least my version of it!

Before I put this drive on our rickshaw I searched the internet for "retro-direct rickshaw" and came up with this site which links to a video of a delta trike rickshaw in Bangladesh with retro-direct drive . I had a brief internet conversation with the site's author. http://char1es.net/2010/04/30/retro-direct-vangari/

Well I'll go on improving this trike. The bracket holding the pulley needs to be a bit more secure and be constrained from moving sideways but major improvements will only come when I increase the number of teeth on the chainwheel and clutches (reducing the forces in the chain) and get the driving ratios a bit better. For this I need to remove the several screw on clutches from bike wheels which is "difficult", so I'll see how it goes.

Regards

Steve Nurse

A Rickshaw Trike: Part 2

2010-05-16T19:57:00.000+10:00

You might like to read part 1 of this story before reading this post

http://modularbikes.blogspot.com/2010/04/rickshaw-trike-part-1.html

Tony finished the trike and delivered it down to us on the back of a very large trailer. He is a pathological bike collector and had several old bikes he had gathered in Melbourne to bring back home to Castlemaine. He was interested in my Moulton 2-speed and we rode around the block a few times (me on the rickshaw, Tony on the Moulton) a few times before going in for dinner.

Several more modifications were done before Christine was happy with the trike.

* We put an extra cushion under the original rickshaw cushion and this helped greatly. Before we "got it right" we'd had a wooden bolster which got the seat to the right height but was too harsh on Christine.

* The footrest was cut down: originally it had slats between the 2 prongs but these were removed which allows Chris to come right up next to the chair before sitting down.

* Armrests were added.

(Thanks to David Downing who donated the sculptred armrests, they do the job very well. Dave was dropping off the armrests which the op shop gave him when a friend of mine, Don who is blind came around to the front fence. Don was having trouble with the exercise bike I had fixed for him. Without having met Don before, Dave went around to help Don with the bike. A few days later Dave had delivered a 2nd hand exercise bike to our house for Don)

Christine and I have now been on several successful excursions on the trike. Our "easy range" is about 2 or 3k on flat ground but we are usually able to find a few pubs, Garage Sales and Cafes within that distance.

There is still much work to be done on the trike. At the very least we can add decorations, artwork and some storage areas. Maybe I will make myself a fake rickshaw licence!

I think that "reverse pedalling" gears would work well on the trike and I've done some work on this already. (Of course derailleur gearing would be possible as well. But boring) A few years ago I saw Ross Harrup's bike http://members.westnet.com.au/rjharrop/recumbents/retro-direct/Retro-Direct2.htm which has this gearing. More reports later.

Around Oz

2010-05-02T20:52:00.000+10:00

Well another couple of bike books arrived in our house last week and one of them (bought through ebay from a seller in Tasmania) is "Two Wheels to Adventure" by Shirley Duncan. Although it was published in 1957, the book describes a 3-year long bike journey that took place immediately after World War 2. The book is interesting and simply written and makes me ache for the simplicity of life on the open road. Shirley travelled with her friend, Wendy and they acquired a dog en route. They were not averse to the occasional lift in a truck and also walked up hills and travelled by boat, plane, train, jallopy (old car) and camel during their trip. They worked as housemaids, fruit packers, sandwich makers, mannequins and stayed in CWA, school and church halls and in tents. Their trip left a few ripples and a bit of searching on the internet will find further information about the trip. It's amazing how rich the internet material Various sites related to the trip include:

Wendy's book about the trip is called "With Bags and Swags"

http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/34864549?selectedversion=NBD45080406

It can be obtained through http://dingomedia.co.uk/

A 2008 reunion of Wendy and Shirley

http://www.theage.com.au/national/around-the-country-with-bags-and-swags-and-bicycles-too-20081121-6e5q.html?page=-1

A contemporary Article from the Canberra times

http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2686281

The legendary u-tube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_m18rm2a5w&feature=related

A 1980 Article

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=19800206&id=nbssAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SRMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5651,1051998

Anyway, it happens that as I write, Mister Peter Heal from Canberra is taking off on an entirely different trip round Australia. He is riding alone and unsupported and hopes to break the record (about 50 days) for the fastest unsupported Round Australia trip. There are vast differences between Wendy and Shirley's ride and Pete's. There have been tremendous advances in bikes, roads and communications in 60 years. Some of Pete's equipment would be unimaginable to the average cyclist of 1946.

But both rides share a great spirit of freedom and endeavour and I urge anyone who can to go bike touring for as long as you can. Any way you like, it's all good.

You can follow Pete's progress at the yahoo group http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/PoitAroundOz/

There are links from that site to the technical wizardry and statisticians dream of trackleaders.com. I'm not sure if Pete will stop long enough (4 hours) to acquire the little tent symbols but we shall find out.

Bon Voyage Pete! And thanks for the memories Wendy and Shirley!

Regards

Steve Nurse

Stop Press (30/5/10): Have just received Wendy Suart's book about the trip and will write more on this later. SN

Pete Heal is rapidly approaching Perth and from there its only 10 days or so home! Go Pete.

Live from Meeniyan Motel Part 2

2010-04-25T20:57:00.000+10:00

Hi

Today was the second day of the Anzac Day Long Weekend and Anzac Day (April 25) itself. Anzac day is a war memorial day, and Anzac itself stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Today's ride was due to go from Meeniyan to Foster along the Great Southern Rail Trail. The distance is about 30k each way but the more mountainous road route is only 20k! The train route the rail trail is based on was chosen for its flatness, don't mind the distance!

Anyway about 20 of us headed out and it was a fair old hike for 1 day. At 11 am we had a minute's silence for Anzac day and Ken said a few appropriate words. Thanks Ken!

On the way back, Eric Ball and I swapped vehicles and so I was riding one of Alan Ball's hand made folding trikes for a while. This trike is quite low compared to a standard bike and so most cyclists tower above you. The ride on the trike is interesting, it doesn't need much steering so you get to look at the scenery more. As well, the trike stability is great. There were some chicanes near road crossings on the trail and several cyclists had (embarrassing rather than harmful) falls attempting to negotiate them. But the trike handled fine and was fun to ride through the chicanes.

The ride had lovely views, good company, and we didn't get rained on too much, what more can you ask for?

Of all the riders we had 4 trikes, 1 standard tandem, 1 recumbent tandem and 1 recumbent bike.

Best Wishes, Steve Nurse

(Google Earth Image and Spelling Corrections courtesy of Ken S. , thanks Ken)

Live from the Meeniyan Motel Part 1

2010-04-24T18:12:00.000+10:00

Hi

Well my wife Christine and I are away for the Anzac Day Long weekend (April 26 is a holiday here) and spending some time in Gippsland on a ride organised by Robert Waryszak and broadcast on the Vichpv Yahoo group http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/vichpv/

The trip from Melbourne was good and on the way I was admiring some of the Leongatha to Meeniyan rail trail meandering below us. We arrived about 3pm and a short while after assembling my bike a bloke named Ken rolled up on a Greenspeed trike and we started to have a chat. He was going on Robert's ride on Sunday and he had come from Leongatha on the rail trail. So I joined him for for a ride on the way back. I got about halfway to Leongatha (Koonwarra) before heading back. My trip was uneventful except for buying a bottle of wine at a Koonwarra store. But Ken, well Ken had a cup of coffee at Koonwarra and he had a puncture as well. Anyway, there he is in the photo fixing his puncture. Nice things, one sided hubs, none of that horrible icky process of removing wheels before replacing the tube.

Till tomorrow

Regards

Steve Nurse

BIKE LIGHTS

2010-04-18T21:24:00.000+10:00

Bike lights never really act in isolation. You need a minimum of one front light and one rear light on a bike to be seen and immediately you have a bike lighting system instead of just bike lights.

Why shouldn't some of the lights on your bike share their batteries? You can wire up your bike lights to do this already:

* You can make a light into a power source by running wires from the end positive and negative terminals in the light to outside the light.

* This can be used to power another light, typically a rear light which may have been provided with only a tiny battery to begin with.

* Packages for containing and connecting multiple batteries are available from electronics stores and hub dynamos and solar charged batteries are also available. These all make excellent independant sources of power for bike lights.

It would be nice if all bike light manufacturers provided a simple socket to allow for input voltages for the light or output voltages from the light's battery pack. This would allow simple plug and play arrangements of bike lights. Don't know if this will ever happen.

Anyway the photos show one of my efforts in this area. The tiny 3V battery in this flashing rear light is replaced by a 3V battery pack. The lifetime of the new battery pack is many times that of the original.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Shopping for Kitchens

2010-04-11T20:59:00.001+10:00

Well my wife Christine needs a new kitchen and she is plotting with my sister-in-law Lynn and carpenter - friend Ray to plan it. And she's doing a good job.

So anyway, a Saturday rolls around and Christine had warned me that I'd need to come along to the shop where they make the kitchens. When the time comes, off we trot in the car. Not much traffic on the way there and the staff at the kitchen shop are very attentive, explaining all the bench options and sinks and gas cookers and stuff. Once you've sorted out everything they do a 3d cad drawing of your kitchen.

Other than just hanging around, I was able to put in my big question about side opening oven doors. Can you swap them over for right or left hand opening? The answer is yes!

On the way to the kitchen shop, Christine had spotted a place where they sell pillows and we need new pillows. According to Christine. But I don't care, the pillows we have now are fine and I don't think about pillows. But according to Brian Nankervis, (rock and obviously allround guru) "Happy Wife, Happy Life". So I shut up. After the kitchen shop we are buying pillows. Ok.

After we've selected the pillows the lady in the shop spies our kitchen shop brochure and says "Oh, you've been shopping for kitchens down the road, that must be fun"

Well, I'd been bottling it up for too long and in answer to a direct question, had to lay it on the line, "Well I think the ladies are enjoying themselves but the blokes are being dragged around not having much fun. The blokes are thinking let me out of here, I'd rather be mucking around in my shed or drinking beer or watching the football." After a bit more banter along these lines (one of the other guys in the shop is laughing) we head home and stop at a sensible place along the way.

We buy some plywood. So I can make boxes for a load carrying bike. That can carry beer. That's right, I'm a bloke.

A Rickshaw Trike: Part 1

2010-04-04T20:59:00.000+10:00

A new vehicle has entered our lives, a tricycle rickshaw. How we came to have it is a long story but we've got all day so settle down with a cup of tea.

My wife, Christine has scoliosis and has had some trouble walking since a hip operation last November. I am a rusted on bike rider and to help us both get around our suburb we have contemplated getting something of the "duet" ( http://londonrecumbents.co.uk/index.php?id=35) cycle type.

An email on the ozhpv mailing list from Pete Heal alerted me to the sale of a "duet" style trike in Canberra, it is shown in yellow above. Unfortunately while the price for the trike was ok, getting it down to Melbourne was going to cost as much as the trike itself. While still contemplating the yellow trike, a Rickshaw trike came up for sale on ebay, and the seller was Tony from the bicycle garden (http://thebicyclegarden.com.au/tbg/) near Castlemaine. The price seemed much more reasonable at about $360 so we put in a bid which turned out to be the only bid. Tony is a bike builder and after a bit of discussion we put Tony on the case of fixing up the trike.

In the first week he only worked on the transmission, swapping the original, very heavy, fixed back wheel for a lighter 27" wheel with disc brake.

Then, Christine and I visited Tony's Bicycle Garden to look at the trike. The footrests for the trike were way up high and no good for Christine, and the leaf springs weren't doing much good. We asked Tony to remove the springs and replace the seat, then went off for lunch in Castlemaine.

Well Tony couldn't find the right seat, so he fixed the one on the Rickshaw and sent us down some photos (top left)

Great Ocean Road Audax Ride on 15/3/2010

2010-03-15T19:53:00.000+11:00

This ride takes place along the scenic and popular-with-cyclists Great Ocean Road. The (Bicycle Victoria run) Great Vic Bike ride is extremely popular when it runs along the G.O.R. . In recent times there has been a 1-day, commercial ride on the Great Ocean Road, see

http://www.supersprint.com.au/events/2xu-great-ocean--otway-classic-ride-2010.aspx

The Audax Ride I went on is non-commercial and is limited in numbers due to the laws requiring traffic control measures for larger groups. Despite being non-commercial it was extremely well organised and my thanks go out to Peter Donnan and his crew for a job well done. They never failed to look relaxed and provided excellent food at the lunch and morning and afternoon tea stops.

As for the ride itself: well the gods turned on beautiful weather. The week previous (a holiday long weekend) had seen Melbourne hailed upon with "hail the size of lemons" damaging stations and stadiums. The rain slowly cleared and the State Emergency Service slowly mopped up the hail havoc and the insurance companies slowly got busy ironing out the damage from hailed-upon-cars.

So, nice weather. The ride is 150k, Anglesea to Apollo Bay and back. The route hugs the coast and watches the waves roll in for the whole of its distance which suits me as a rider who has no speedo, no GPS or other gizmos on his bike. My recumbent bike (looks a bit like this one http://www.modularbikes.com.au/challenge07/wport/winter/blurry2.JPG)

is heavy and slow uphill but very fast downhill . By Audax standards I'm not very fit, so compared to some other riders I'm the hare, going quite fast occasionally and then slowing right down while the tortoises catch up. And overtake. Mostly.

Anyway, despite riding at wildly inconsitant speeds, for me, doing the Great Ocean Road on a recumbent is heaps of fun. And a few other recumbent riders were along for the rides as well. There was a 200k option offered instead of the 150k and Peter W. , Simon W. Rob L., Rick H. all rode one of the distances on recumbent bikes. This makes quite a high proportion of recumbents on the ride and there was respect for us and everyone else on the ride. Thanks again Audax.

http://www.audax.org.au/public/

Painting The Bike

2010-03-08T16:25:00.000+11:00

A fair amount of the weekend of Feb 27 and 28 was spent painting my bike. I rode out to Bunnings in Hawthorn (4wheel drive / toorak tractor city!) and bought a can of Hammertex Grey Spray paint. This paint goes onto just about anything and does a reasonable job of looking good even if you are an amateur painter like me.

On the way home from Bunnings I stopped at a church fete in Richmond and somewhat ambitiously (in terms of transporting the things home)bought several shirts, some grapefruit marmelade, a few books and a signed, framed music poster print from the jazz group Galapagos Duck.

After unloading all that stuff I stripped down the bike. On the Saturday Night (um, we are talking about real excitement here) I painted the forks.
On the Sunday I stripped down the rest of the bike and used an old bike fork to hang it over the lane behind our place. A block of wood with a bolt stuck up through it was used to jig the seat frame and the forks.

Well I was happily painting away, Hammertex Grey when the can ran out, somewhat prematurely and possibly due to a lack of shaking on my part. I mean, the can needs shaking, otherwise not all of the goop that's in it comes out of it in the proscribed manner, ie as nice paint. So what to do? Not panic! I resorted to using some canary yellow paint which was hanging around in the shed. So now we have main frame: canary yellow, forks and bit of seat frame: Hammertax Grey, other bit of seat frame: Canry Yellow. Some photos of the finished results at a later date.

Till next time!

Regards

Steve Nurse

Racing on The New Bike

2010-03-02T20:28:00.000+11:00

On March the 20th my wife and I were up at Ballarat for the weekend and I participated on my new bike which includes a body sock. The cover is nicknamed "Carmen Miranda" because of its extremely loud, bright colours. John Reynoldson organised our team.

The night before the ride was very windy and I attempted a couple of laps in the bike with the fairing on. Not much fun, the wind kept blowing part of the corflute fairing into the path of my foot and I spent some time modifying it with the limited tools I had available. After a while I abandoned the body sock and went for a ride on the "nude bicycle". A couple of people who had seen me on the bike with the fairing said "there goes another one" when they saw the uncovered bike - the appearance changes quite radically.

Well I needn't have bothered fret'n about the wind. Sunday Feb 21 dawned cool and still with a blue sky. Hallelujah! The ride went very well for the 'bentriders crew. Most of us reported few standard cycles passing us on the 6k flat circuit.

Lloyd Hassell put together a video, the results are here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzNPJgiqU_E

Graham Signiorini is a great bike rider and a master wooden boat builder. He made the bent plywood seat for my bike. The photo show him on his Rans Xtreme for team Bentriders. Note the custom wooden tailbox.

Welcome

2010-02-18T21:48:00.000+11:00

Welcome to the Modularbikes blog. I will be posting stuff about bikes, reactions to my book, people who are building bikes from my plans and may even write some stuff about surfing. Stay tuned.

Regards

Steve Nurse