Electric Vehicle Day

Robert Waryszak (centre of photo in yellow) with a few electric bike mates.

1907 Electric Car with 2014 Tesla.

Two Sides of....

a radial Flux electric bike motor.....

and the guts of the thing and a battery pack.

Electric Beer trike.  Beer was not bad!

Alan Ball in a cap with an (the?) Electric Humber Vogue.  This was a very neat, impressive car and the electric conversion even more impressive.  Here is the blog about the car.

Matt in (non electric) rotovelo.  I rode with him for a short while on the way to the exhibition.

For a short ditance, I rode along Sydney Road with Mark who was....

on a Penny Farthing!  After a while, we stopped at a cafe and had a brief chat.  The Penny Farthing is from 1996 and well used.  This makes it look original. 

Hi

This afternoon I was out and around visiting an Electric vehicle show.  There were quite a few electric bikes amongst the cars and motor scooters and a few people I knew.  The electric Tesla car I saw was very swish!

Velocino Part 3

Velocino is on the road!

Printed cut template on tube and some marking out tools.  The wooden v-block makes it easy to work on the round tube.

These scooter bits were the first things I pulled out of the shed to make the steering out of.  I was going to try something slightly more complex I was keen to ride it and this looked ok.

Front of the bike before welding

My brother Richard's 1953 Hercules before restoration....

And afterwards.

Hi

I have made my small Velocino bike ridable but only after some metal surgery.  Before I had the front fork on a very high rake which proved unstable.  Now its a "bit more normal" with a 20-30 degree rake.  Anyway, after the cutting and welding and sawing and reworking of the front part of the frame, I grabbed the first thing I could find (pogo stick and scooter bits) to mock up a steerer.  A night or two later I wanted to ride the bike and just bolted on something close to what I'd started with as the steering.  It works ok and is quite relaxing to ride.  Still a bit more work to do on it.  The 2-speed kick back gear is only working in one gear at the moment and I want to repair or replace it.  As well, it could do with a lick of paint (not sure my skills run to painting in Turqoise).

There is a "backroom" to this blog which show which web pages led browsers to my blog, which country they live in, how many viewers the blog has had etc.   I guess it could be important if you could work out how to allow ads and make money from the blog! This is one of the newer pages that leads to this blog, it is from a Russian Electric vehicle chat list.  It picks up on some of my and Vi Voung's trike videos. Amusing!

On the other side of the world, in England, my brother Richard collects and restores bikes from the 30's, 40's and 50's, and he recently sent some photos of a new aquisition.  I like the old 1970's light on the 50's bike, it probably shows when the bike was mothballed in a garage or shed somewhere.

Till next time,

Regards

Steve Nurse

Velocino part 2

"Fishmouth" hole cut in short part of front frame.

Finished but quite wobbly

Results of my "tubemitre" Excel spreadsheet in the drafting program Draftsight.  Spreadsheet is available at http://modularbikes.com.au/book/sets/tubemitresn.xls . This pattern was printed out, wrapped and stickytaped around the short front frame tube and used as a drilling and filing guide for the required cut.  

Hi

 My velocino is finished but its a bit wobbly, and after a few minutes of trying, not quite rideable. I'm considering how to rework it and will decrease the fork rake a lot.  The "hinge catchplate" is admirably stable when bolted to the back of the folding bike. 

A Velocino

1939 Cigarette Card Book which

includes a Velocino, the only small or folding bike in the set.

Velocinos are mentioned in "Bicycling, a History" by Frederick Alderson,

and more recently, in "Bicycle Design, an Illustrated History", by Hadland And Lessing.

2d concept sketch.

Laser Cut Plates.

Plates and tube in place.

Original bike.

Plates in place.

This is a box of bike goodies which had been thrown out and arrived at my house courtesy of Stu down the road and "The Cat Lady" who both frequent the local recycling drop off point.  Stu goes there so often that he knows some of the people there and brings back stories ("What the lady who lives quite close thinks of the Cat Lady", "What the Cat Lady thinks of the lady who lives quite close") as well as the usual recycled computer parts.  Some of the parts shown in the box are quite good and haven't been used, and might find there way into the Velocino. A generator set and a pair of folding handlebars are examples.

Hi

For quite a while I have had a set of cycling related cigarette cards from 1939.  The cards are routinely available loose, in a little book and (a bit less common) mounted in a display frame through ebay.  The cards include a recumbent (shown a few posts ago), a good number of women cyclists and a funny little bike called a Velocino, which flies the flag in the series for small and folding bikes.

A while ago I bought a pair of Victoria separating bikes.  They come apart where the hinge normally occurs on a folding bike.  It occurred to me that I could make a Velocino bike using the back half of one of the Victorias as a base.  Over a few weeks, I measured up the Victoria, first the front half hinge plate in detail, then a side view of the back half of the bike.  It looked like building some form of small bicycle from the Victoria would be possible, so I ordered some laser cut parts to make the front hinge plates and to braze on to a 38mm tube.  So - parts were picked up during the week, I've made a good start and aim to have the whole thing done within a month.  Wish me Luck!

Regards

Steve Nurse