Promotion Trip Day 4

 

 

 

Today (Friday) has been my first full day of this trip based in Coleraine, and I started it by assembling the 2 bikes still stashed in the car (a Peugeot Mixte and my leaning trike) in the back yard of the Hotel. After breakfast & by prior arrangement, I delivered the Mixte to the Lions club for display in their window. The fixing and load carrying of this bike has been documented here and here, and as I didn't have much use for the bike I decided to donate it to OzHPV as a challenge prize. I'd seen the Lions Club windows before, and they seemed happy to promote local events. Among other things they run a free library book delivery service! Marlene and Jill happily accepted the bike in the middle of unwrapping calendars and accepting furniture donations.

 

After visiting the op shop and pop up bookshop (the original bookshop is still in disrepair following a car crash described here) and getting challenge flyers put up, I started off for Casterton along lower Hilgay Road. I wasn't confident about my route, and turned back to Coleraine before I reached Hilgay Lane.  Once in Coleraine I started off again, this time heading along the highway to the start of Sandford Road. Despite drizzle, this was quite pleasant riding and for the first half there were nicely sealed made roads and very little traffic. I saw Hilgay Lane (dirt road) to the left and though I might try it on the way back. The Sandford road route is straightforward and passes the Muntham Recreation Pavillion - there's not much else to Muntham that I could see - and then there are a few hills, some of which I walked up. 

 

Arriving in Casterton I had a huge lunch of a pie, cream muffin, hot chocolate and chocolate milk. I put up a flyer in the bakery, and was able to browse through the library and an op shop and get some money from the post office. Suitably rested and fed, I headed back - there was a bit more rain and more of a headwind but for the most part I was dry,warm and happy. A few bulls followed me along their fence for a while and a small stray dog also kept me company. I decided to reconnoiter Hilgay  lane as this ride was a research ride for the Challenge.

 

The dirt was ok, but a farmer on a quad bike who I had started chatting to warned me of a ford (creek crossing directly over the road) ahead. I had started out across the side of the ford, picking my way across rocks and was just about to get into parts where my feet might get wet, when the farmer offered me and the bike a lift across on the quad bike. We managed this ok with the bike spread across the back and me sitting on the back holding on. I took a few photos which ended up blurry because of a wrong camera setting. I need sticky tape over the "mode dial"!

 

The rest of the ride was uneventful, but I was buoyed by the assistance I'd received, and still wearing my Hilgay Lane mud, walked the length of the Coleraine shops dropping flyers at the IGA, West Pub, take away food shop and petrol service station. Job done for the day, I cleaned up at the hotel, had dinner and did computer stuff before heading for bed. 

 

OzHPV promotion trip to Coleraine

 

 Hi

Early this week, I loaded up my small car with a large number of bicycles and a Gazebo, and headed west on a 5 day trip to publicise the OzHPV challenge in Coleraine. I'd already done some homework for this having visited Coleraine 4 times this year. A visit to the town late last year started the ball rolling!

 

On my previous visits I hadn't been any further west than Coleraine, but this time, after a 2 night stay in Aireys Inlet and dropping a kid's bike to my son's family, I have been all the way to Coonawarra in South Australia. First stop out of Aireys Inlet was Hamilton, where I met journalist Ciaran from the Hamilton Spectator for an interview and photo shoot about the Challenge. I was only just on time, and Ciaran got to witness me reconstituting the bike from its jumbled up state in the car. We walked to the Botanic gardens, and he filmed me riding and doing a quick promotion for the event. Back at the office we had a taped interview. Hopefully this will all lead to a few Hamilton mob coming to the challenge.

 

 

After lunch in Hamilton I drove to Casterton and dropped in on the newspaper there to discuss OzHPV Challenge advertising. I hadn't been there for at least 20 years! Then it was on to Coonawarra where my cousin lives on a farm. It was great to see Michael and Rosemary - once again it must have been at least 20 years. I was able to help out a bit too, mainly by log-splitting and log-stacking using a petrol driven log splitting machine based on a hydraulic ram. It was raining most of the day and the next day too.

 

After lunch the next day, I said my goodbyes and Rosemary led me back in to Penola and I was able to buy extra shoes and socks at the Op Shop there - I'd soaked my only pairs doing the log-splitting. Penola is a nice town and I hadn't been there for a long time.

 

Arriving back in Coleraine and there were lots of Pedalcar decorations in town. The timing of this trip deliberately coincides with the Coleraine Pedalcar event, and hopefully all my spruiking will reach likeminded people. I checked in to my Hotel and had a pretty early night. It was quiet enough that I could discuss the upcoming Challenge event with Matt the barman and a few (other besides me) oldtimers and hand out a few flyers. After I went upstairs there was noone in the bar and Matt resumed painting the walls and putting up ceiling panels. 

That's all for now, I'll start another post on Coleraine soon. 

 

Victoria Bike Upgrade

Stopped work on this in 2019

Fork and front frame done, original paint on rear frame

The bent bolt in this pic had to be hacksawed so I could remove it to allow powder coating

 

Quite a lot of complicated sticky-outy bits needing paint removed using gunky, gooey paint stripper.

Hi

I'm pleased to announce that I'm cooperating on a bike project with Ben from Omnium Bikes. We are combining to make a raffle prize for the 2026 OzHPV Challenge (in Coleraine, Western Vic, October 31 to Nov 2, Cup day weekend)  where Omnium is sponsoring the Hill climb race.

The bike will be an updated (painted and better load carrying) version of the Mule train bike I described here back in 2019. I am doing the paint stripping (some of the grunt work on the rear frame is shown above) and load carrying updates, while Ben is arranging powder coating. Looking forward to the final results, this bike has never actually been finished off properly. It has a 2 speed kickback hub and back pedal brake, and separates into 2 parts so it's easy to transport.

Regards Steve Nurse

Update Sep 29

I put quite a bit of effort into derusting the rear rack including dumping 4 litres of vinegar into the kitchen sink, topping it up, and then soaking most of the rack in it. Also, Ben came round and picked up the frame parts for powdercoating & we rode together up to Northcote Plaza. Carrying the frame parts was a snack for his Omnium single speed.

Graecross Jackaroo MTB

 

2 mystery bosses here closest to the seat. What do they do? Mystery solved, they are for a portage strap as described in this Redit Thread and this bike description. Quite glad to have picked this frame up now, this sort of detail makes it more interesting. Thanks to Ben Kampschoer for the tip about the strap.

Hi

Last week I was at a tip shop and as well as dropping off stuff, just could not help myself and bought a bicycle for the grand sum of $10. It is a vintage mountain bike, and they are popular in the city of Melbourne these days - even one that's tidied up still costs less than a new bike, and they can be quite stylish with interesting parts.

This one worked fine straight from the shop - I needed to pump up the tyres but there was a slow leak in the back.  Anyway, I thought I'd post a few "before" pics to show its original state. I had no luck cleaning rust from the handlebars, and a handlebar swap is all I've done except buy new tyres and tubes at more than 10 times the cost of the whole bike!

There is a police identification number written enthusiastically into the stem, frame, seatpost and cranks, and this is an Aussie made bike: with a name like Jackaroo how could it not be?

A few others have found it worthwhile mentioning Graecrosses including https://mtbtimeline.com/wiki/grae/start which seems to list almost every early mountainbike brand. "A New Recyclist" talks about fixing up a Graecross racing bike here, https://rustybikebell.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/a-garden-gate-graecross-the-pro-ten/ . A passing reference is made in Suzi's blog here https://www.suzyj.net/2014/02/ . I'd never come across this Australian blog before which is long running and seems to have morphed from making bicycles to coding and computers.

Anyway, the parts on this one seem to be very nice and durable. The covers on the shifters are missing, but what the heck, they still work! Will report more as things are cleaned and fixed up.