OzHpv Challenge 2019 Day 2 Sunday. Slow!

Dome and his Baron bike next to the Stevemachine, Belmont Scout Hall

Early morning coffee at Peter G's, thanks Peter!

Just one of Peter's many bikes and trikes, a nicely restored single speed in the lounge room. He said it is super wobbly.

Phillipe, a master at the bicycle slow race,

Ewan , not quite so good,

but all were beaten by The Zen Master of the Slow Race, William R. , as shown in this video.

Dom, Shopping Race

Dom, Shopping race

Geoff, shopping race

Phillipe borrowed Tim;s rig for the Sunday events

Ewan, shopping victory ride

William, Go to Whoa

Tim, Go to Whoa

William, Bob trailer with lugs on back meaning another one can be fitted behind.

Philipe Slalom

Philipe Slalom

William Slalom

Ewan Slalom

Prep for go to whoa

Ex-Masters Champion Graham S.

Masters Champion Trophy handover

And the winners are! Courtesy Tim via facebook.

(Continued from here) After a quiet night and good sleep and pack up at the scout hall we headed off to Peter G's house who lives "just on the way to the track" in Belmont for coffee, Dom and I on bikes and Geoff in the car. Tim called in briefly but he was watching the clock and needed to open up the track. Peter was not very impressed by the state of roads in Geelong and I could relate to that given our experience rolling in to Geelong on Friday.

At the track, my son Ewan was already there warming up for the obstacle / off road, go to whoa, shopping, slow and twin slalom races to follow. There were six of us competing, and previous Masters Champion Graham Signiorini turned up to help officiate and hand over his trophy.

The events all went well and were keenly competed however, I must admit that I found some of the slow races excruciatingly well, er, slow. Perhaps they might have passed quicker if I had a deck chair and Sudoku to while away the time while watching (in particular) William and Geoff exchanging the race slowership in subsequent battles. The action packed shopping races took less time for each run.

After the events, Tim started tallying results and I went to the bakery and supermarket across the road and bought everybody a lunch of pies, coffee scrolls, chocolate milk, custard tarts and orange juice. This was my "event sponsorship", Simon W. had chipped in with an entry he didn't use,  Dom had organised the scout hall and provided breakfast for 2 days, Tim had organised the event, and William donated his timing services, so it was just me doing my bit.

After the presentations, Ewan and I got on the quite busy train back to Melbourne, getting off at Footscray, and riding the few k's on lightly trafficked bike paths back to his place.  From there I continued on home.  I got the same question about my bike at both South Geelong and Footscray stations, "What's it for?" and the answer stayed the same, "Just Transport".

OzHpv Challenge 2019, Day 1 Saturday. Speed!

Start of day at base camp

Rob L. road race

Rob's front wheel drive raptor

Briefing before start.

Dome Deli

Criterium start

Dome, Rob, Simon

G-trikes crew

William and Tim run the computers

Sarah needs to race next year!

Velo lineup

Tim C, road race

Sam Duttli dominated racing on day 1.  In the road race he couldn't see due to the rain for 1/2 a lap so stopped and removed the windshield, and still won!

Tim M, and Simon W.

Dome and Rob's bikes

William, Road race

Geoff, road race

Rob L. road race

Jamie Friday had won several Challenges like this one in Wodonga in this bike.

Back at Belmont Scout Hall base camp, a game of cards before turning in.

Hi,

This posts continues on from Fridays post about bike touring here.

After a good nights sleep at the Belmont Scout hall we headed down to the track a few minutes away. And its a very quick downhill and only 4 streets away.

Here are Saturday's challenge pics, a few of them taken during the road race. My placing was quite secure, ahead of William and Jamie and behind everyone else, so was able to take a few pics without losing Challenge points.

Here is the video I took on the day, Tim C v. Ben P. in the drag race final. Will post more later.

This series of posts is continued here with day 2 of the Challenge.

Regards  Steve Nurse

Touring Friday

Jamie on the tailbox repair

Not your typical bike repair, repaired taiilbox used scrap timber and whatever screws could be found.

Jamie, cafe in Bellbrae near Bells Beach, we were discussing the stopping of old growth forest logging and fork offset and trail on bicycles.

Geoff at Belmont Scout Hall

Domes setup

At the Belmont RSL.  After the lottery hopefuls had all cleared out we got a table. Here the top-secret discussion and sketch is centred around "using less energy in Speedbikes"

Hi

I will write a bit more here later but this post carries on from Thursdays post here, and continues on with the OzHpv challenge day 1 here.

After the long day of riding on Thursday , we took it easy on Friday morning, finishing drying things and repairing my tailbox with scraps of wood, screws, glue, drills and saws from the garage of our accommodation. The end result was pretty good and should last a while.  About 1:30 we headed off for Geelong with occasional showers substituting for the steady rain of the day before. Mostly we could take shelter, and our only real stop on the way back was for a pleasant snack and coffee at the Bowside Cafe at the top of the rolling hills in to Torquay.

There's real expansion between Torquay and Geelong, and that included an entire shopping and industrial area with an Aldi just before Bunnings on the Surfcoast highway. There were several major sets of roadwork that forced us in to a single lane with the cars, and the cars stayed politely behind us. Jamie punctured his back tyre on the second of these single lanes and was forced to ride on the rim for a bit till he could get out of the traffic lane.

He thought the tube and tyre were completely wrecked and I went on ahead, looking for Hendrick's bike shop under Jamies smartphone directions.  Couldn't find it and was about to ring Jamie when he rang me, he'd fixed the tyre, and would meet me at the Russell Mockbridge Pavillion ,   which was to be recumbent race HQ for the next two days.  There was no one there, unsurprising in the continuing shXXX not very nice weather, so it was a trudge and ride up the Belmont Hill where (Halleluyah) we met Dome and Geoff and our accommodation for the night, the Belmont Scout Hall.

There was an arrangement to meet a few other riff raff at the Geelong RSL, and we were neatly ferried there by car when the time came.The club was packed as all the local members had packed in for the Jackpot Draw which is for members only, and you have to be there!  We stood around waiting and drinking beer waiting for all the prizes to be drawn - and then it was like puing a plug on a sink with everyone disappearing! 

We got our table, ordered our (mostly) chicken parmagarma meals and started yarning.

Tim is keen to enter bikes at Battle Mountain, so discussion centred mainly on that. After dinner it was back to the Scout Hall for a fairly early night. This series of posts is continued on here.

Touring Thursday

Ready for the 6:08 train to Ballarat, Southern Cross Station

Breakfast and interview with Gayle at Ballarat station

Jamie and Gayle

Gayle, Ballarat

Lunch Stop at a wet Beeac

Jamies bike at Beeac

My trike, pre- and post repairs with a t-shirt corset, Beeac.

Ryans / Mackays Road Beeac. Wet

Ryans / Mackays Road

Ryans / Mackays Road

Draft version

For a few weeks before the 2019 ozhpv challenge in Geelong, I had been planning a short tour to get there and invited ozhpv via facebook and Jamie Friday along. The route was the reverse of several trips I'd done to get to Ballarat in the past, so I knew most of the roads. Jamie came along and we competed against each other in the first day of the challenge. So here is my visual trip diary, over four entries, one for each day.

So today I got up super early to arrive a half hour early for the 6:08 Ballarat train, plenty of time to disassemble my bike and get on. The trains arriving in Melbourne at this time were already busy with tradies and others arriving for work.  Soon after settling the bike into the luggage spot, my friend Jamie Friday arrived, he had worked till late getting his recumbent rolling again after a few years spent in the shed with the chain "almost frozen solid" from neglect.

I'd arranged to interview Wecycle founder Gayle Ileivski for a new edition of my book, and after a phonecall, text and some ordering of breakfast, we were all together, tape (ok, phone app) rolling.  The interview went ok then we headed out on the Midland highway south.

Unfortunately we were involved in a stack outside of Ballarat, Gayle had dropped some glasses on the road, and as I slowed down to pick them up, Jamie, also distracted slammed into the tailbox causing not-terminal damage. After a bit of clip-rearranging, we kept going, Gayle dropped us off at the Colac turnoff, we waved goodbye and kept going south.

We had considerable crosswinds and when Jamie decided to remove his front wheel discs to improve control, he managed to cut his tyre with the knife being used to sever the cable ties. Luckily his repair kit consisted mainly of a large roll of gaffer tape, and with 5 layers of it on the tyre and a large patch managed to fix the tyre and tube. Further on I had a puncture and managed to fix it while Jamie had a small sleep.

By our lunch stop at Beeac there was continuous rain, and although I had a fairing keeping rain off my legs, my front tyre was a bit of a sprinkler so overall I still got very wet.  At Beeac I added a t-shirt to the tailbox which held it together all the way to our destination at Aireys Inlet.

Soon after Beeac, a left turn let us travel west with the wind on Ryan's Road towards Birregurra, but soon another Southerly leg (sideways rain) and the Princes Highway (traffic, rain, roadworks) made it less pleasant again. Birregurra was a welcome food stop, and from there we pushed on through Deans Marsh and the quite formidable 10 k climb to Benwerrin. After that it was downhill towards Lorne. Freezing and wet, and with brakes on all the way.  I was shivering at the bottom, and we were both concerned I would get hypothermia, but fortunately the rain stopped, and I had some spare bread on board and ate a few slices of that, and slowly energy levels and optimism returned, and from Cathedral rock on, the ride along the Great Ocean Road was enjoyable and spectacular, with a fine, clean, mid sized swell rolling in from Bass Strait.

There were no restaurants still serving when we got to Aireys but that was all for the better really, we spent the time lighting a fire, getting clothes to dry,  warming up and raiding the cupboards for food before heading for bed. The next day was a much shorter trip!