News and Events

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

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Mamachari of the Month









Hi

Today I volunteered at Wecycle and worked with Mick, Mike and James to fix some bikes, sell some others and give some away.  For the second week in a row I got to work on an old clunker, a Hallmark Gadabout.  I have owned a few Hallmark Jetset bikes and took one apart to make a leaning trike kit for cruzbike.

So what other daggy names for bikes did Hallmark come up with? Well I don't really know but here is a set of suggestions.

Hallmark Jetset
Hallmark Gadabout
Hallmark Parasol
Hallmark Trend-Machine
Hallmark Shopabout
Hallmark Bon-Vivante

That's enough for now.  Despite its unfortunate name, its still quite a nice bike.

Regards

Steve Nurse

PS, Found that the Little Bikes Blog has a liking of Vintage Hallmarks.   The Gadabout has 24 x 1 3/8 tyres and I think its a bit rarer than the Jetset.


Saturday, January 12, 2019

New Byk



Hi

As discussed in previous posts starting here, last year I successfully converted parts of a Byk Bike into a recumbent and have since ridden a flat Audax 200k ride on the resulting trike, going once around Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay in one day.  With this working so well, I had been keeping my eyes peeled for more Byks at reasonable prices, and a few days ago I found one, bid for it on ebay, won the auction, and yesterday picked it up from North Melbourne.

Having conquered Port Phillip Bay, surely I could conquer a trip to North Melbourne to pick up a bike!   Yes car would have been a option but I would have to put up with that pesky traffic.

Anyway, a few pics from the pickup are shown above.  I had shuffled the bike around a bit by the time I headed back to Clifton Hill, but basically this was the load carrying setup.  Took bike tracks home as well, the load was a bit outrageous and precarious to be taking on the road.

Regards

Steve nurse

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Buckley's Ride 2019


A small plastic box....

bolted on at the front for storage.
Front light mount off and.....

lights recharging.

Coreflute marked out for .....

new water bottle mount.

Start of Buckley's ride.

On the ferry, Peter Donnan centre.

Lunch on the ferry.

Checking in at Albert Park, a swan and some German tourists fairly oblivious.

Ahh! Home and with a cup of tea.





Buckley's Ride 2019

Hi

This ride is usually my first Audax ride for the year and I prepareded for it fairly carefully, mostly by fixing up bike accessories: I replaced a destroyed drink bottle mount, charged batteries on lights, pumped up tyres, finessed the wheel discs at the back and reattached a storage box at the front.  No real mechanical tuning was needed, everything was fine.  Actual training was limited to the OzHpv rally rides,5 or 6 40k round trip commutes to work, some 10k rides from Spout Creek to Airey's Inlet, and one 40ker, Aireys Inlet to Lorne and return.

So anyway, the night before the ride I was in bed early and had everything I was going to take or wear laid out on the couchor in the bike already.  A half hour trundle to Albert Park, and very soon we are off under instructions from ride director Sarah.

On the edge of the city, one bunch of 10 including me got through a traffic light, leaving 20 or so behind.  I stuck with the front bunch till Williamstown, when they got away from me, never to be seen again.

Fortunately it didn't take long for a strong rider from the behind bunch to come throughand overtake me, and I stayed with him till just after Weribbee when he turned off into a service station for supplies.  Not long after that, the "behind bunch" started coming through, and I pulled in with them or small groups of them all the way to Lara where I stopped for refuelling myself.  Through Geelong I was with Heather, Henry and another rider, but had run out of puff a bit by soon after Geelong, and they rode off into the distance.  Another group passed me, and then I started noticing the time and "distance to Queenscliffe" signs, and worked out that I could make it to Queenscliffe for the 12 O'clock Ferry, but only if I rode a bit harder!  Which I did, arriving about 12:04, just as the ferry was about to leave.  Whew!

The ferry ride passed quickly, eating lunch, using the bathroom, taking a few pics and chatting to a middle aged lady who was on the ferry to visit Sorrento for a lunch party.

By the time I'd been to the bathroom and topped up my water in Sorrento, most of the other 12-o'clock-ferry -Audaxers had pushed on, and I was able to pass one or 2 before Dromana where I rested for a while before the hilly Dromana to Frankston section.  It was a bit slow and steady through the hills but I got through it ok, and rested again in Frankston.  After that I did quite well on the flat and familiar bits, Frankston to St. Kilda and got in to Albert Park with some energy left at 6pm. 

I was home by 7pm and had earlier ordered a cup of tea from my wife Christine on one of my report-in phone calls. The cup I'd bought in Dromana was in 2 cardboard cups which were very good insulators and the tea stayed too hot for me in the time I had to drink it. I reported this to Christine and she said "God it must have been #%^house" as I am known for my very low standard of tea making and tea acceptance!

After that it was a shower, pyjamas and bed. 

 Overall, I think I did well for the amount of training I did.  I'll stalk the Audax calendar a bit to see what my next ride will be.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

New Bike Seat Part 4

Side panel and some tools.

Ewan took this one.

...... and this one,

and I took this one.


Now it has a wooden lid, woohoo!

Friends Tony and Jen Hazeldine during part of a very quiet New Year's Eve.  Despite looking very relaxed, Tony isn't even drinking, partaking of a cup of tea instead.  





Hi

The last few days I have been at Airey's Inlet, catching up on my son Ewan and his friends, and a few other friends, doing a bit of swimming, sleeping and surfing, but also completing a bike seat and blogging, thinking about the year just passed and looking forward to the new one.

The bike seat is coming along well, but it needs a bit of work.  Its in its final form but the holes and slots which keep it together would let in water, so I have bogged them up with Plastibond.  Then comes sanding and a few coats of varnish.  Today my son Ewan was wandering around talking to his wife Phoebe's Grandma Paddy on the phone (about just about everything) for about an hour and a half, and I managed to coralle his services as a photographer.