Short Trip to Bendigo

Flowers like these were all over nature strips on the way to Spring Gully

Uber-hip cafe on Hargreaves St Bendigo. Here is a link to stories about its previous lives.

More from the cafe

Op Shop Bounty from Bendigo.  The record is actually worth something, that is, a bit more than I paid for it but not enough to retire on.  It is a New-Zealand-only issue of the record from 1969, a Johnny come lately rerelease of the 1963 version. But of course.........

it comes from 1969, with record titles such as Tune-In, Aquarius, Hashish, Hair, and Be-In (Hare Krishna) spruiked on the back cover.

Hi

I have just got back from Bendigo where I spent about 24 hours promoting the OzHpv Challenge .  Its just over a month till the Challenge is on.  After arriving by train, I rode up to Spring Gully where the challenge is based and checked in to the Burns View accommodation I had booked.  This turned out to be a house given over to accommodation, you let yourself in via a code sent to you by SMS which all worked for me this time. Woohoo!  A bit later I rode the few hundred meters to the One Tree Hill Hotel and met Kevin Crockett there.  Kevin is with the Bendigo Amateur Radio Group who will help Ozhpv with some marshaling, and he showed me some ipad pictures of his radio-equipped-velomobile-in-developement.

After that I rode the Challenge road race course before heading back to Burns View for dinner.  In the evening I visited a Future Movers Forum event which involved some compulsory mingling.  There were a few people there I knew from the council like Rob Kretchmer and Chris Rowlands but spoke to many more through the activities based around meeting others and discussing transport solutions.

The next day I joined the Moroni's Shop ride which consisted of high end road bikes and included bike shop owner Peter Moroni.   Unfortunately I was unceremoniously dropped due to not knowing the route about 5k out of town and meandered my way back to the city centre, increasing my geographical knowledge of Bendigo.  I'd already had a pot of tea by the time the Moroni's group had got back after their 50k ride.  Chatted with a few cyclists at the cafe next to Moroni's and these included Michael Taylor.  Michael is a handcyclist and cycling royalty in Bendigo: last year he won the handcycling division of the New York Marathon.  I was humbled by him, he frequently rides with the Moroni's bunch, averages 30kph and does not get dropped!

After the shop ride I went back up to Spring Gully, packed up my stuff and returned to town, dropping OzHpv challenge flyers at the Spring Gully store and a few bike shops on the way.  Then I visited an op shop and went to the cool cafe in Hargreaves Street.  A local unicyclist,  Peter bailed me up and asked me about my trike and we got chatting and I handed him a Challenge entry form. He excused himself, had to go to a "business meeting" which consisted of having lunch with a couple of ladies at the cool cafe. Yeah, maybe there was a spreadsheet or two tossed around but I could think of worse places to work!

The freewheeling fun workshop is right next to the Hargreaves Street Caf and it was closed when I looked in the first time, but open a few minutes later after another op shop visit.  I spoke to Kieran Moroni, (cousin of Peter) , had a chat about the OzHpv challenge and the good works his bike shed does.  This includes having an outreach trailer which takes cycle repair facilities and training staff to people and communities around Bendigo that need them.  After that it was back to the station for the trip home.

Oh, and the record and the tea cup and the video and the other crap I bought all made it home in 1 piece.

Regards

Steve Nurse