Flower of the Month, February

Crepe Myrtle, Next door, photo taken Feb 19

3 Doors down

3 Doors down

Hi.

Yes, you may be slightly confused by the title of this post.  It's March, in fact almost all of the way through March, and here I am posting stuff from February.  But just think, what if I had posted it in April.  Even worser, and even more of my credibility would have been thrown out the window.

But enough of crapping on.  The crepe myrtle flowers in summer, and there are quite a few of them in our street, so getting a few photos was very easy.  Before photographing it, I didn't know its name, but now I do thanks to my wife Christine who identified it for me.

Regards

Steve Nurse

A trip to Aki's place

Aki's Flevobike remained unconquered

The smaller of the 2 penny farthings Aki brought out was a "Roy Cooper" from England

Small Unicycle and stilts

Very small bicycle.  Sitting on the seat caused an immediate wheelie.

On the "Roy Cooper" Penny

Heading off from the barbecue to Aki's place to get more bikes

Buddy Tandem

Aki on his big Penny

Aki And George

Fraser Rowbike, I got to try one for the first time.  It was lots of fun and not too hard to ride.

Workcycles Tandem, the front bit folds backwards

Aki's Recumbent trike

Hi

A few years ago, I sold a recumbent bike to Aki Kubota and I kept in touch with him and he visited the OzHpv challenge in 2014.  Hadn't heard from him in a while, but a few days ago, I received an SMS from him asking me and other cycle enthusiasts over to a barbecue at his place.  Today was the day, and I headed over to Camberwell via my Mum and Dad's place in Kew.

Aki lives in a unit just near a park, and when I arrived he was bringing bikes from his place to the barbecue area in the park.  And what a lot of bikes and variety of bikes!  He had bought most of them cheaply second hand (for example the trike was $100).  Aki works at a hostel for international students and he has held this barbecue for three years, bringing students and coworkers from his work together in a park to ride his bikes.  For all of them, these sorts of bikes were completely new to them, but they had a great time trying them out.

The Fraser rowbike was fun to ride.  Its quirky but once you get moving, not too hard.  I don't know about setting off round the world on one but its good for a pootle in the park and has a nice luggage rack.  This post links to a video I made of one several years ago.

One of Aki's bikes is a classic Flevobike.  I couldn't ride it, and Aki has never mastered it himself, although he is a past master at the Penny Farthing.  Maybe I will have another crack at the Flevo next year.

Regards

Steve Nurse

A Visit to the Monash HPV Team

Trying the bike for size

Piyath and the Monash HPV

Outside, checking out my trike and discussing HPVs in general, me in white shirt.

Monash HPV Team

Hi

For about 2 years now, I have been researching Human Powered Vehicles at Monash University, and, more or less in a parallel universe, the Monash HPV team (their Facebook page is here) have been patiently working away, trying to build and ride the fastest Human Powered Vehicle in the world.

Finally, last Tuesday I caught up with the team, and in typical fashion, I rode my trike there and arrived in good time to speak to Piyath and his team.

Streamliners are quite hard taskmasters.  There only purpose is to go fast and to do this, the rider is cocooned in an aerodynamic, possibly claustrophobic shell, and then the rider is meant to pedal their guts out.  Breaking records is one of the main goals of the streamliner team and its quite hard!  Team Monash is really just starting out and their next outing is at Easter under the auspices of OzHpv.  Good luck guys!

PS Team Aerovelo are the current HPV 200m record holders with a speed of 144kph, and amongst student teams, Team Delft are very highly considered.  Locally, Trisled do well, breaking some records and using their experience to help build roadgoing human powered vehicles and velomobiles.

Regards

Steve Nurse