News and Events

Keep up to date with the latest news and events of Modular Bikes.

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Beer Bike on the Road

The trike in bits, it was made as a research trike for my master's degree which is documented here . There are details on page 64 and 94.  The frame (bottom of pic) is plain, straight, undrilled aluminium section originally designed for a bus.
Brackets for the tray and the raw material.

Brackets in Place
Load tray.  Its held onto the bike by the brackets on the front, a triathlon handlebar extension bracket in the middle and....
a wooden prop at the back.
Trike with tray.
Trike with tray and esky
Out for its first test ride.  
Hi

As I mentioned last time I have been working on a trike which has been around the side of the house, not being used and covered with dust from a building project next door.  As well as the trike I had an old esky and it seemed reasonable to revive both and marry the two up. This really just meant designing the flat load carrying area to carry the esky.  Of course the esky can be removed and the trike can just carry anything else that will fit.  A dog?  A weeks shopping?

And the esky can be used to carry something else than beer and ice, like maybe icecream or food. Nah, only kidding about that last one.

Anyway, all jokes aside, the trike is lots of fun to ride and cruising around on a non motorised potentially beer carrying machine is a hoot.  Believe it a or not there are motorised versions out there.  To each their own!

Regards

Steve Nurse

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Beer Bike Prelude


Classy Beer Can Holder Mk I for our bunk bed conversion chair. The holes in the top of the posts (originally in a bunk bed, the posts held pins which let one bedpost be stacked on another one safely to make the 2 storey bed.) are co-opted to hold the can holder.
Gathering tools and materials....

for Classy Beer Can Holder Mk II.

Classy Beer Can Holder MKII
Classy Beer Can Holder MKII in place
Convened the expert marketing committee panel
But it may be too late, your can already buy these spiked can holders from https://odditymall.com/spiked-beach-drink-holder
or these twirly things which do the same job at http://www.partyswizzle.com/BeverageHolderStake-P.html
Old Esky rescued from a dumpster....
and NLT 3 leaning trike gathering dust around the side of out house. 
Hi

In the last few weeks I've had time for some extra projects and decided to compliment the chair I'd made for out the front with a beer can holder. There are some holes in the posts just right for this sort of thing so I knocked a couple of them up as prototypes (MK I, top photo).  I wasn't satisfied though and started gathering bits for the  MK II version.  This included finding a large sized holesaw, working out that I could cut up an old belt for the rim and sawing up an old bike seat bolt for the bolt.

When I'd finished the holders, I realised that there might be a market for this sort of thing (as stubby or glass holders at festivals or picnics, so I Convened the Expert Marketing Committee Panel which translates as took a sample with me when I went to dinner at my Mum and Dad's, and asked my son Ewan, his wife Phoebe and my niece Cicely about them. "Generally favourable reception!"

That done, I could return to some bike work.  I aim to sell bikes I am not actually using, so have dug out from around the side my aluminium frame trike and an Esky to mount on the back of it.  The Beer Bike is coming!  More in the next post.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

2017 Highlights

Hi

During last year (2017) I wasn't in full-time employment, and wasn't even a full-time student, so had time for a few bike-and-other projects.  And for a year like last year, it's useful for me to write down and share what those projects are if only to document that I've still been productive and haven't wasted my time.  Hear we go!

Buckley's Ride

This is the trip round port Phillip Bay near Melbourne.  Finished in 13 hours on one of my "Fred" bikes.  With a few improvements to the bike (like wheel covers) body (like training) and weather (a bit cooler) I managed the same ride 2 hours faster this year. Woohoo!

Up till September

I was still working on my Industrial Design Master's Degree thesis which was originally submitted in December 2016.  This involved exhibitions of my leaning trikes at Monash Caulfield  in January and April, rewriting the exegesis up to June, passing in September and finally graduation in December 2017.  Because the original submission date was in 2016, I didn't include any 2017 design innovations in my exegesis. The Exegesis tries to answer the research question "How can DIY leaning trikes contribute to Sustainable Transport?"

A Short Tour

In early Feb I rode from Geelong to Airey's Inlet and then on to Ballarat where I took part in a charity ride for the Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute.  Quite good fun, and a good break from my studies. I was quite pleased with my time for the 150k or so from Airey's Inlet to Ballarat.  Last year there were ripe Blackberries for picking on the route, and it's blackberry season again now, but I don't plan on riding this time unless I am invited onto a team for the fecri ride at the last minute.

A trip to Aki's Place

In mid March I visited my friend Aki's place.  Up till then I had no idea of the great variety if bikes, penny farthings, unicycles recumbents and tandems he had crammed into his small flat and garage.  For this picnic he brought out a selection for students staying at the hostel where he works to have a go of.  I had his flevobike for a few months now and have now handed it back to him.

Wooden Trike

In April I received some NC routed parts to make a wooden framed leaning trike.  My master's was already under assessment at the time, so this trike wasn't part of my study.  But I felt I had some unfinished business with this style of trike.  The wooden trike for the masters didn't have a tailbox made with the latest features.  As well, a timber design competition came up and I decided to enter that with a trike.  Later in the year the trike was in the Fringe Furniture Exhibition.  I managed to ride it to the exhibition with a Bickerton Folding bike in the back.  I'm very proud of the wooden trike.  Its creaky, completely unignorable and lots of fun to ride.  Once the trike was finished, I had 2 wooden trikes and donated the old one to Monash HPV Team.  Hopefully they are putting it to good use. In a way, this trike was returning home, the parts for the frame had been routed at the Monash Mechanical Engineering workshop.

Cetus 3d Printer

At the end of April I purchased a 3d printer from Cetus and it has been in frequent use.  With the Cetus, I've been developing parts and systems that I hope will soon get me in to Phd studies . Here is an example of some of the work I've been doing. I am nothing short of ambitious for the parts made with this printer and hope to use them as part of a successful phd application. I put a clock design up on Thingiverse, here is the link.

Trips to Bendigo for the OzHPV Challenge.

Throughout 2017 I was organising the OzHPV challenge which was held in December, but in October I travelled up to Bendigo to drum up some support. The challenge went well with most races running as planned, everyone enjoyed themselves but really there needs to be more people turning up if it is to continue.

Family


My brother Richard and his partner Sarah came out from England twice and it was good to see them. My mum and Dad are still living at home but Mum is driving a bit less these days.  Our son Ewan and his wife Phoebe are doing very well.  Ewan finished his Phd in Biomedical engineering and now has a job at Seer Medical, as a medical data scientist no less.  My wife Christine had a shoulder operation and she is slowly recovering from that.  For the moment I'm staying at home helping her, and writing articles, applying for courses, making models and trikes in my spare time.

New Year's Resolution

No big ones for me!  Sofar, my only resolution is not to drink soda water to cut down on the amount of plastic and transporting of stuff that gets carted around from place to place, and I've stuck with it sofar.  At the moment I only drink bottled water in exceptional circumstances, and not drinking soda water is an extension of that avoidance.  As far as steps to save the environment go, this is bugger all and miniscule but it is at least something.

Plans for 2018

I plan to sell the bikes and trikes I don't need and have started this with one trike listed on ebay already. I plan to make at least one more as well, and that will be a fastish trike for Audax.  This will have a lighter seat and steerer than my current trikes and possibly include a front fairing.  I have had holes for a fairing in the custom front dropouts I made for my trikes for months now, and have never used them. The aerodynamics of the front part of my trikes look fairly crap to me and I hope to remedy that with a lightweight fairing.

The next Audax I plan to enter is Green Wedge Hills on Sunday March 4 which starts quite locally and comes in 100 and 200k flavours.  By the time this ride comes along I plan to redecorate my trike appropriately and have some sort of gps doover to guide me.  The trikes I ride these days both have "for sale on ebay" signs on them, so doing Audax rides on my trikes is cheap marketing besides being enjoyable and good exercise. By the end of the year I hope to post some DIY trike plans on the internet.

As for a day job, I hope to get accepted into a Uni for PHd study, and have been applying to various unis and departments for several months now.  If I get accepted it should keep me mostly out of trouble for 3 years or so. Hallelujah when I get accepted!






.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Fixing a Flevo Part 2

How it started, from this post
Finished Bike with 24" wheels replacing 700 c size, front derailleur cable and shifter removed and 11-34 drive cog. The remaining shifter was upgraded to a non-indexing model. The heavy rack at the back is gone and replaced with an occy strap which keeps the back wheel from falling down when you carry it. The bike is meant to work with only one of the chainrings, the middle chainring with about 38 teeth.

Test ridden or maybe test wobbled by Aki.....





..... and by me.




Aki and my wife Christine

Part of the payment plan.

New brake brackets can be seen here.  Aluminium plates on either side of the frame, front and back hold the brakes and make the brake mounts independent of holes drilled in the frame.  The front brake was moved from near the derailleur to this new position so it couldn't interfere with the chain.
Hi

My friend Aki came over on Sunday and he picked up his flevobike, passing on a small amount of cash and some delicious home cooked Prawn Crackers as payment.  There have been other posts including this bike including this one from a year ago and this one last August.

Of course we had to have a test wobble!  Most of the fixing of the bike (removing the rack, smaller wheels, moving bottom bracket etc.) helped make the bike suit Aki's smaller leg size and he can now ride the bike ok with only a few goes up and down our street.  He had owned the bike for 15 years without being able to ride it!

I rode the bike along our street but was not so crash hot on the turns.  It was fun.  The cranks were quite a long way back for me but that didn't seem to matter.

Anyway, this post is mainly pictorial, the photos came out quite well with some long shadows and nice reflections in view.

All for now, if you have any questions please ask!

Friday, February 9, 2018

T-Shirt Bike

Selfie next to a gardeners shed in a park near my home.
Raw material, a couple of old t-shirts.  Decided not to use the yellow "Howard Hughes" shirt but instead went with 2 black "PBSFM" shirts.  One had holes in it, the other I retrieved from the pile ready to go to the op shop.

Halfway through cutting, the tshirt is behind the panel it will eventually cover.  The tshirt logo needs to sit in the right spot and the cloth needs to cover the panel.

Probably the best clips to use, but I......
Ran out and used some pink ones of these for one side.
Left hand Side.

Obverse.
Hi

In a few posts, I have shown my leaning trike with cloth panels on it but my choice of cloth has been a bit arbitrary.  For a long time now I have thought about putting something that reflects my character on them and over the last few days I actually did something about it.  I have 3 PBSFM t-shirts and that is a few too many, and the oldest one was full of holes anyway.  So I had decided one was for the rag bag and another for the op shop pile.  But then I got off my hind quarters and made my long-thought about t-shirt bike.  It just needed the old t-shirts fairly roughly cut and held to existing corflute side panels with stationary clips. So I still have a few bike t-shirts of which a great many exist in the world and now also a t-shirt leaning trike of which completely bugger all exist in the world.

It might make the bike look better but it does nothing else for it but make it a bit heavier. But that's what being fashionable is like, you have to suffer for your art...

And by the way I can still wear my other, other, mostly black PBSFM t-shirt while riding this latest creation.  Woohoo!

See you out there

Steve Nurse