Wendouree 2016

Dome and Rob Leviston Outside Ballarat

Outside the tram museum, some of the volunteers took time off to chat and see the rolling bike Museum.  They were bemused and really hadn't heard of recumbents before.

A pedal - powered slot car set in a trailer - why not!

Rob Leviston

Stopped at one of the small towns we went through, I think this was Lal Lal

Next to statue of Julia Gillard in Ballarat Botanical Gardens

Just what it says on the tin!  The Ballarat Fish Acclimatisation Society Inc. has a small plot between the tram museum and the Botanical Gardens. Yes, they have a web site. Thingy.

Pax Hilton.  Stayed at the scout camp for $25.00 a night.

Dome heads off on the 100k ride

Graham at the start

Unicycles and wonderful Dag-O-Rama Tandem

Unicycle mob

Team Steve's Slowpokes.  Actually we were quite fast with few riders passing us on the lake relay ride.

Our machines at the end, my timber tilting trike and Graham's Optima.

Hi, on the weekend, I visted Ballarat and rode with a few friends on the timber tilting trike.  Dome (pronounced Domay) from Sydney was riding with Rob Leviston on the Saturday starting at 8am so it was an early start for me to drive up there for Melbourne.  There is good riding around Ballarat and Rob led us through the very small towns of Dunnstown, Yendon and Lal Lal before returning to Ballarat after about 50k.  Rob is a local and headed off home and Dome and I went to Lake Wendouree and killed a few hours visiting the Botanical Gardens and tramway museum.  We were booked to ride in different events of the Fiona Elsie Cancer Research Institute Bike day the next day and picked up our rider packs, then went off to our accommodation, the Pax Hill Scout Camp (now officially called Pax Hilton by me) where we had stayed a few months previously.

In the morning I saw Dome off on his 100k ride and soon joined up with Graham for our team ride round the lake.  It was a good fun ride and Graham and I were faster than almost everyone (ok, mostly families, kids and unicycles) on the lake ride and averaged about 25kph for the full two hours. The unicycle riders had great fun, their mob had a tandem and they were dancing on it, weaving in and out of the unicycle arch made by a couple of the riders.

The organisers had put on virtually unlimited sunshine and free beer after the ride and after a few glasses I said my goodbyes and thanks to Dome and Graham and headed back up Pax Hill then on home.

More Bikecentric

Parking Trike in Loungeroom for convenience, don't tell Christine.

Lunar New Year Decorations in Melbourne City, the designer of these "PI" things had obviously seen the

 Spinal Tap movie WAY too many times and at some stage in his or her life ingested HUGE quantities of LSD.  Wonder what they would think of my trike?

Ecoshift Bike Stall, bamboo bikes from the Phillipines.

This gentleman was from Sydney and he bailed me up to have a chat about the trike.

Hi

Here are a few photos from the weekend.  I was out and about and visited friends Jeremy and Alison on Saturday and had a wander round the sustainable living festival both Saturday and Sunday, armed with a camera on the Sunday!

Feb 18: On the theme of bikecentric, I have added the 3 photos below of my bike at work, which for me, is, at the moment, writing about and occasionly designing things for recumbent trikes under a Master's degree program.  One of my office co-habitants is Yun, who is doing a PhD involving lights which flash different colours for a while when you move them.  So kick a box or punch a hanging bobble-cluster of these things and they light up.  Yes I know.  Awesome!  But sometimes the thrill wears thin and I do some work.

Regards

Steve Nurse.

Yun Light #1

Yun Light #2

Normal Light #1

New Steerer Part 2

Hi

More or less in correct blog style, I am reporting ongoing progress with the steerer I'm making.  I've fitted the printed steerer I made to a half-finished trike, which meant I didn't have to remove a steerer from a functioning vehicle to try the new part.  A bit of wood was used to simulate the handlebars.  And the assessment?  Well, the range of steerer angles it allows is all wrong and I'll need to redesign it but this is no big deal.  Will report more later: note the printed end stopper which is also a (woohoo) cycle (woohoo) light (woohoo) mount.

Regards

Steve Nurse

New Steerer Part 1

Original steerer with cables running inside.

Trialling something new: Steerer made with 4 seat post clamps

3d prints as trial for aluminium versions

Hi

As a blogger I don't often follow the web-log thing and document things from start to finish, although sometimes I do.  Anyway, I am coming in halfway through a parts development process here, but still calling it part one. 

So a lot of other parts of my trikes are quite simple but the steerer is still made of quite a few parts and I have quite a few requirements for it: adjust up and down, adjust in and out, and have the cables running inside the tubes to stay out of the way of my feet and out of the way of the wind.  This is the sort of thing I ride along on the bikepath next to the river thinking about.

Eventually, I worked out that I could make a simple steerer just using 4 seat post clamp centre bits, and I proceeded to make up a steerer as a trial.  It didn't work for that long but did make me realise that the rest of the trike works surprisingly well.  I could have brazed some of the bits together but I don't think that would have helped long term.

So I set about designing a new steerer and came up with something that might work when made in aluminium and had it printed out at work to see how it would go.  It fits on a 28.6mm / 1 1/8" steerer which is a mountain bike, modern thing.  Anyway, it looks ok, I've already made a steerer adapter to try it and will mock it within a few days.  Will report!

Regards

Steve Nurse