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