Simply Violets Audax Ride

Short Break on the Dookie / Violet Town Road

Welcome to Violet Town

A multi rider bike under construction outside the Violet Town Men's Shed

Violet Town

More of the bike bus!

Shepparton to Violet town road

Last stretch into Shep

And the post mortem, organiser Gordon is in red.

Hi

Not much to say here.  Managed to take some halfway decent photos during a 100k Audax ride around Shepparton.  Very nice weather and good flat roads, good company.

Regards

Steve Nurse

In Principle Support for iLean trike

The ilean trike standing up, the stand is at the top of the middle wheel

and made from these bits......

which work by resting the wheel on the stand when the right wheel is forward.......

but allowing the wheels to run free when the right wheel is back.......

all written while Christine's sister Vicki popped over for a cup of tea.

Hi

At work, I lean my bike against a post when I park it as it hasn't got a stand.  Sometimes, to make the bike a bit more stable I use a cable tie to hold a brake on which means the bike can't roll.  And after a while I thought, well, if I cut a recess in the side of the plywood seat and have the recess against the pole when I park it, it would do the same thing as putting the "cable tie park brake" on, and would take less time.  But I haven't done this yet.

However I thought a bit more about parking and the iLean trike I made.  (the trike won't stand up by itself because it tilts automatically just like a bike, see the video) It has 2 wheels at the back and for riding it, there is no difference whether the left wheel is forward or backward when you ride it.  So if you ride it (say) left wheel forward, then left wheel back position can be reserved for parking the bike, by having the right wheel banging against something on the trike.  A bit hard to explain but maybe the photos tell the story better.

Anyway, I made the stand from a bit of wood in the shed and some cable ties.  Lo and behold, it works!

But his post is called "in principle support" for a reason.  The stand is not all that secure and its tied onto the plastic corflute tailbox which is a bit wobbly, am sure I can do better with a less spontaneous design.

Anyway, that's it for now.  Hope to have a new bike done in 2 weeks or so.

Regards

Steve Nurse

iLean back on the road.

Christine in the rickshaw and friends at the local state school's Mother's Day run

Back on the bike after the forks were repaired

Final part of fixing the forks with a spacer made from part of an old cluster used as a spacer.

Christine is oblivious!  I have been dagging around with bikes like this ever since we met and that is a few years ago now.

My son Ewan bravely tries out the bike after fixing the fork the first time.  The steering wasn't straight, the pedal banged on the fork, the gear change cable scraped on the wheel and the chain clunked on the cluster.

Hi

It has been the weekend of Mother's Day and I've spent the time well, picking up some bike bits from the post office, buying some flowers, seeing my mum, dad, my son and his girlfriend and going to a fun-run gathering, with quite a bit of bike fixing in between.

The ilean trike is just about fixed now after the front fork broke.  The new fork came from a $20.00 ebay bike which I stripped down.  (As mentioned earlier, early ladies mountain bikes aren't that popular and go out cheap or even free.)   By the time we were ready to go to Saturday lunch I was ready to try it out, and it happened that Ewan and Phoebe came back afterwards.  So Ewan had a go on the up-till-then-not-very-well-fixed-bike.

Late this afternoon I stared on the monoblade rear fork: will report more later.

And of course I cannot let this blog go without reporting on the great social, political and cultural events of the day.  The things which matter.  A bloke with a beard, dressed like a diva, and coming from Austria won the Eurovision song contest.  At least it takes the football off the front pages for a day or two.