Chook finds a Seagull and other stories

One of the Artworks on Sale (Kicking Yips - After Pollock) by Jim Pavlidis

Auction Action

Ann Nelson and Christine Nurse at the art auction: "It reminds me of Cezanne......

in his Cubist period ..... before he took to the grog.".   "Yes"

My bike for sale: "Fully Working Recumbent Bicycle and Book", "Mixed Media"

Hi

Its been a slightly dissapointing week in my bike world.
*  I put one of my older bikes up for auction for the Green's political party but it did not meet the reserve so I came back home with it.  See above for photos from this event.
*  My wooden bike cracked at the front so it is "out" for next weeks 200k ride.  My current build supports the back wheel bolt with metal angle brackets.  Unfortunately, the brackets I used at the other end don't do as good a job on supporting the fork tube.  When you put on the brakes (both on the front) there is a lot of stress on the frame as the front wheel slows and "wants to" move under the frame.  The few screws I had in place to resist this force weren't up to the task.  This page shows an approach to constrution which might work better.

On the other side, my wooden bike attract interest just about wherever I go with it.  A recent trip to a local tip shop in Reservoir was a case in point.  These trips are useful exercise and let me buy unwanted junk like videos and books at good prices.

So on the way to the shop, I stopped at a traffic light and there were some guys and a girl involved in roadworks, standing round and generally waiting for another guy in a cherry picker crane to finish fixing wires high above the road. Dialogue and action goes something like.
(On observing me & my vehicle) Earthbound worker says: "Eh, there's a bloke on a wooden bike there."
And repeats (louder, to his cherry-picker occupying coworker): "Eh, there's a bloke on a wooden bike there."
Me (on observing this conversation): Looks up at bloke in cherry picker.  Waves.
Bloke in Cherry picker: Waves back.
Traffic lights change, I move off.

And at the tip shop, I was quietly minding my own business and standing on a kaputt and over-engineered four wheeled scooter type thing and making brmming noises and contemplating the other wheeled vehicle carcasses around me when a chap wandered up and asked me if that was my bike out the front, and I said Yeah?

Well the gentleman introduced himself as "Chook" and said he'd worked with bikes for a long time.  I mentioned the bloke I knew who works in bikes and has the most experience of anyone I know who works with bikes locally, Peter from Bikes De Ver.
"Taught him everything he knows", said chook.  "Sold him an old bike the other day, it was a Seagull, one of the first ones we built in Fairfield".
And indeed, I had seen that bike in Bikes de Ver and it was a really nice track bike with a flip-flop hub.
So Chook and I yammered on for a while and by this time I had paid my $1.50 for 4 videos and we were looking at my bike and getting confused about the word disc (type of brake involving a circular ring attached to the hub or bike wheel with spokes covered or replaced by a smooth surface to aid aerodynamics) as applied to bicycle parts. In the end I found out Chook works for Ray's bike shop and could help me with bike parts and we agreed to stay in touch.  Disc brake wheels and 48 spoke 20" alloy wheels are mine for the asking and at a knock-down price.

All for now, more to report soon

Regards

Steve Nurse