Cicely goes surfing

At Airey's Inlet

Getting ready for a cold surf

Surf Check on her Dad's bicycle.  Winter sunshine & a six foot swell.

Hi

My niece Cicely is on an extended backpacking visit from England.  She stayed at Airey's Inlet for the summer before heading north for Yamba a few months ago.  She's worked in restaurants all the time and manages to save money and have fun.   Recently she came back to Melbourne and Airey's Inlet and I managed to take a multimedia extravaganza of films and stills of her in action. 

 Here are the movies

In Yamba she's been filming her friends surfing and one of her friends distilled the result .

Cic surfing at Airey's Inlet

Steve (me) surfing at Airey's Inlet. (Some room for improvement in the vids.  No apologies but hope to post more later.

Regards

Steve.

Cousins of my Bicycle

Hi

My bikes came from a prototype I built that seemed to work well but its (direct front wheel drive, big front wheel, fixed bottom bracket recumbents) cousins were already out there or developed independantly.  Here are a few examples

Matt Weaver rides a Front Wheel drive Rotator in a World Human Powered Speed Championship race.  Link here and background events here .

This bike was built by Bill Bennett in the United States is front and rear wheel drive. But with the rear wheel chain removed, the whole thing becomes simpler and closer to my bike style.  I only recently discovered this bike on the interweb. Thingy.  Here is the link, it is hard to find more information on this bike.  It has twin derailleurs and both would have to change into the same gear at the same time for the two wheel drive to work. (More searching revealed this discussion and set of photos.  Resourceful Kiwis!

Lastly but definitely not leastly, this front wheel drive, chain drive, big at the front bike has been seen about a billion times on youtube.  Move over Justin Bieber.

 All for now!

Steve Nurse
  

Out and About on the weekend

Near our local recycling centre, the mysterious artwork now has a recycling message

These look like bike parking posts to me. 

More Roseneath Street artwork.

After demolishing some alloy cranks I fitted some steel ones and got together some bits to fit a second brake.

This weekend I've been riding my bike around, taking a few photos.  Today I did a ride of about 100k for my 200k ride in 2 weeks.  I got down to Carrum on Beach Road and realised one of the pedals was flopping around.  When I got to the next shop awning (it was raining) I stopped to try to fix it but didn't have the tools (to get in to the pedal bolts on the Schlumpf drive) and turned back to Kevin's Bike Shop in Mordialloc.  Still couldn't fix it and realised the right pedal was stuffed.  So in a reasonably stubborn move I rode back home to Clifton Hill.  But the bike was still going ok and I managed to pass and astonish a few roadies on the way.

This afternoon I did some work on the bike.  Some heavy but reliable steel cranks from the shed were modified to suit the Schlumpf, one of the threads on the Schlumpf was stuffed from previous attempts to fix and I managed to tap and fix it (whew).  I grovelled around for brake parts for a second front brake and found  most of them in the shed.  Oh yeah - and bike the toolkit now includes the Schlumpf tools!

All for now.  Still getting good comments about the bike and its fun to ride.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Definition of a Bicycle

The wooden bike in the loungeroom. The yellow wheel cover on the back was installed while my wife Christine and I watched a video.

Tools and parts used to remove the back wheel and make a back wheel disc.  Gaffer tape, scissors, knife, hammer, old motor shaft, fold out knife.  You don't want to ride with all this stuff all the time.  Hmmm, maybe a redesign of the back wheel mount is worth it!

Zoom in a bit, what Christine & I were watching "Bringing Up Baby" starring Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn

Zoom out a bit, the wooden bike has proven itself as "half a bicycle" by ferrying a slab of beer, several bottles of wine and fish and chips from the local pub and shops.

Last night I was inside the house, fettling my wooden recumbent bike. With some gaffer tape, I made a wheel disk which should make the bike go faster.  It looks better too.  For me, this is not a new technique and I've mentioned it in this blog before. 

My short term aim for this bike is to ride it in a 200k fairly flat day ride and I've booked in to the Audax Winter Surf Ride.  I cut my teeth for long distance cycling and recumbent bike building on this sort of ride, doing the "Round the Bay in a Day" about 10 times on recumbents before stepping up and out to take on Audax rides in the last few years.  Then, as now, I think that for a bike to be considered reasonable (at speed) it should be able to finish a flattish 200k ride in a day.  But recently my definition has broadened a bit and I think that for a bike to be considered reasonable (at load carrying) it should be able to carry a slab (24 packaged cans or bottles) of beer home from the pub.

So here is my bicycle definition which suits my narrow, self opinionated, often deluded world of bike building .  Everything else is just a toy! 

Bicycle: A two-wheeled, Human Powered vehicle capable of completing 200k in a single day and carrying a 15kg slab of beer home from the pub, about 2 flat k away.  

Welcome you Comments.

Regards

Steve Nurse