Coleraine Recce Trip

 

Start of the Hamilton - Coleraine bike path near Hamilton

Chris outside the Holding Pen Cafe

Potential as a hill climb circuit! This is Racecourse Road, Coleraine

Mcconochie St Coleraine, decorated houses,

very wide with some potential for bike racing. The information centre is in the background.

and home to the pedal car races in October - I think these are the gridlines from last year.

Pedal Car sign

Op shop signs. The "closed" bit applied to yesterday's heat - it was open today, Hooray!

Football oval and surrounding asphalt track. There is a rise of about 6m as the track passes through the grandstand area.

The scoreboard is quite big!

Asphalt path runs through the grandstands

A few of the club buildings

Cavendish Road

Along the Cavendish Road.

Hi

Last November, my girlfriend and I took a Cup Day long weekend trip to Coleraine, a town in Western Victoria where my Mum lived when growing up, and where I visited my aunt and grandmother when I was growing up.  Sometime after that trip I decided it might be a good idea to hold an OzHPV event in the town, and ran it past a few people on the OzHPV committee before considering it seriously. Part of the motivation for considering Coleraine was that the town already has its own pedal car race, so knows (a little bit) about human powered vehicles. 

This trip comes during a spell of very hot weather for Victoria. Where I live in Melbourne it was 43 yesterday, but in Coleraine it was 45,  and poor old Ouyen had a new state record high of 48! My girlfriend and I had done some work repairing fences for blazeaid about a week ago, and on the way up this morning I passed through the area of the Streatham fire . Because of Blazeaid, the sight of rolled up, burnt fencing wire was very familiar. Fires are devastating for farmers who have a hard enough time of it anyway.

In Coleraine, I rode around looking at a few potential sites for an OzHPV race plus some old and new sights, and of course visited the excellent op shop and book shop. 

The football ground looked pretty good for an event. It is only accessible by dead end roads, and there is a continuous asphalt track (potential race circuit ) surrounding the oval. The football /netball club has a different oval to the cricket club, so the football oval has a summer quiet season when its used only for training. 

 Later, I met Chris, an organiser of the Coleraine Pedal Car event. Of recent times, there have been few groups that make their own pedal cars, and most cars are purchased from Trisled, then rented to teams. Chris himself has kept several older pedal cars, and picks one each year for his family (wife, daughter, grandchildren, he is the mechanic) team. The races take place around the old railway station (now the information centre), and a traffic management crew is employed to keep motorists away. The races are held on a Saturday so that everyone gets Sunday off. Chris recommended I speak to Ashleigh about hiring the footy / netball club's oval and premises, and told me where to find him. He was there in his office, which was great. The Football / Netball club proudly announced that their team did the most laps at last year's pedal car race, and also raised the most funds for charity.

After checking into a hotel, I rested then rode out along the Cavendish Road. A good day, and thank goodness not as hot as the day before! 

Gritjurk Country Fire Authority shed, about 10 k from Coleraine

A selfie, I balanced the camera on my tool kit box to take this.

Some roos (kangaroos) and sheep. The roos are hard to spot till you see their distinctive bounding.

 

Lots of scenery like this.

Leaning trike and Coleraine from the Arboretum on the hill.

The next day I woke up and there was a smoky sky - and I had left my phone in the bar of the hotel which was locked! Rather than wait around for some staff to arrive, I rode out again, this time going a bit further along the Cavendish Road. When I got back to the Hotel, the staff were on site and I rounded up my phone. Then I packed up and left, driving on the (slightly) circuitous route through Cavendish (not Hamilton) to Dunkeld. This was a good option, the roads were quiet and picturesque and the Cavendish cafe and general store was doing a roaring trade and served good tea and sandwiches!

Regards Steve Nurse 

Update Feb 3

OzHPV have now applied to the Coleraine football netball club for the hire of their clubrroms and oval in late 2026. Await a reply to see if its all go!

Regards Steve Nurse 

MBB on the road

 

Hi 

About six months ago, I posted here about a new bike design, and at that stage had made a fairly wonky prototype. Now, after quite a bit of work I've got a nice working machine on the road, and have even painted it a colour that's not black!  

Here in Melbourne we had a few very hot days with bushfires last week, and I used that time to do the final disassembly, paint prepping, painting, frame mods and assembly, with the bike inside in the airconditioning for some of it. There were a few total fire ban days, and that included the days after the scorching hot days when I was rounding off the front part of the frame. The total fire bans include not using power tools such as grinders outside,  and I was quite pleased to be able to finish off the frame nicely using just a hacksaw and a file.

All the cables are tidy now, and I've put custom 3d printed plugs in 2 places at the front, complete with head tube badge symbol "M" for modular bikes.

As per the last test ride, I went to Piedemontes supermarket in North Fitzroy, however now this trip has become something of a pleasurable necessity, as our local neighbourhood (East Clifton Hill) small supermarket "Flower of Sorrento" has shut down permanently. 

Anyway, the trip went well, and I ventured up the stairs to the "Variety" section of the supermarket where I was delighted to find a small caf selling an egg and bacon muffin and a hot chocolate for $10.00. Normally you can't get a poke in the eye with a burnt stick for that amount in Melbourne cafs!

The bike carried my shopping easily. I was going to call it X15 Mk2 as discussed here , but now I think its new standard destination has named it: The "Piedemonte Special".

Convertible mbb to fbb part2

After a quick trip around the block - 

 

it all went ok but - 

the chain is hitting on the V-brake boss. A bit of sawing and angle grinding should fix this!

Bosses for V-brakes added.

Split in boom.

Adding 2 bracing tubes. There is a stick of aluminium shoved over the tyre as a heat shield.

After tacking support tubes into place.

Update 1/1/2026

I rode it around the block and it goes well! There is a small issue with the chain rubbing on a brake boss which a bit of sawing and angle grinding will fix but otherwise good!  In terms of a name and colour scheme for the front bit, I think it has to be X15 mkII. Some of the boom clamp mechanism is reminiscent of this much earlier bike ,  which was named after the orange paint colour used at my old work at CMG electric motors. As well, there's bits of orange paint still left on the steerer frame from the original donor bike which is begging to be restored, and the colour is a nod to my last moving bottom bracket bikes which were orange Cruzbike Quests.

Hi

Today I spent some time on this bike, and had done a bit of work previously, and now I am within striking distance of finishing the mbb part of this bike. The bottom bracket boom is now splittable and is braced from below. When I tacked up the bottom bracket bracing I was careful not to let the brazing interfere too much with the bottom bracket threads. 

With a bit of luck I will test ride tomorrow! Happy New Year!

Brake removed to show v-brake boss detail

More detail: 4 holes in steel strip altogether, 2 on the edge simlify bending, 1 holds the spring retainer pin and the large one is tapped M10 for a standard v-brake frame boss.

Convertible mbb to fbb

 

Current moving bottom bracket bike with proposed fixed bottom bracket piece clamped alongside.

Bottom bracket position will be traced onto the new frame piece.

Overall view

Not sure if its discernible here, but the bottom bracket looks slightly askew.

Current bike with a bottom bracket / pedal mount that moves when the steering moves - moving bottom bracket front wheel drive.

New proposed version where the chain twists during steering, and the bottom bracket is secured to the main frame, so stays fixed during steering - fixed bottom bracket front wheel drive.

 

 

Hi

After a while spent riding a new front wheel drive moving bottom bracket bike, I have decided to make it convertible between fixed bottom bracket and moving bottom bracket. There are a few reasons for this.  One is that the current bottom bracket seems to be attached crooked, and one style of fix for this could include making it removable. The second is that I can, and the third is that a comparison of moving and fixed bottom bracket bikes should be interesting.

 

To take these photos I stripped out the bike's pedals and pedal bearings. The next job is slightly off topic, there is currently only one brake and I plan to fit another - a set of v-brakes at the back of the fork. Will report more soon!

 

Ultima Yamaguchi Mixte

 

Hi

A few weeks ago, the bike shed where I volunteer was having a cleanout, and we removed many bikes from the shed. Some were to go to scrap, others to be fixed. Behind a lot of bikes was a mixte frame - I quite like these bikes and have documented fixing  them here and here. 

The frame had most of a headset but no fork, and the centre pull brake on the frame ended up not fitting on my rebuild with 700c wheels.  I grabbed the frame during the cleanout and have been fixing it off and on ever since. I managed to find one other Yamaguchi frame Mixte on the internet, here is the link. However the brand name Ultima seems to have disappeared without a trace. There is a Figtree Cycles sticker on the bike, and I found that Figtree is a suburb of Woollongong  - a large town on the New South Wales south coast.

To get a working fork, I needed to put in extra thread onto the silver fork I had - this was a first use for an oversize tap I bought a while ago and am happy with results. Another custom job was making a rack stay.

Looking on the internet, I found that Yamaguchi bikes are also branded "Record" in Australia.  I'm happy with the results here. The bike will probably be sold for Wecycle, and there's still a bit to do. This was fixing, not restoring - it's to be used and there's been no slavish devotion to using original parts. Hopefully soon it will be back on the road and in use soon. 

Regards

 

Steve Nurse