News and Events

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

Friday, May 28, 2021

Timber Leaning Trike on Thingiverse

 


Hi

Today I loaded a basic set of files to thingiverse. Here is the link . The files make a timber leaning trike and refer back to some earlier blog posts like this one. and shown in a video here. Have fun!

Regards 


Steve Nurse


Wednesday, May 26, 2021

GSR300

 

Southern Cross Station, bike split ready for goods van.

Some of the wonderful goods on offer at the ....
Koroit Op shop. Sadly I couldn't buy anything as I was scared of carrying any extra weight over the Otway hills.


What it says on the tin. This building looked abandoned and neglected, but the rest of the town was pretty go ahead with new buildings under construction.

Display after my own heart outside Koroit.

Martin on the Port Fairy to Port Campbell leg...

which I completed quite well: Start time was 5am.

Bike parking outside Yatzies Laver's Hill
Not many better ways to wait it out than with a glass of wine next to a fire. Sarah, Leigh, Charlie, James, Otway Junction restaurant and pub

Using the camera's self timer at Yahtzies,

where we all gathered waiting to be picked up after the ride was called off due to bad weather. Thanks for the fire and warm food, a lifesaver Yatzies!

Loading bikes onto cars outside Yatzies

My trike broken up to load in a car.


Anglesea Wednesday morning
Wednesday midday: part of the long way home: waiting to board a train (which wasn't the right train anyway) at ....

Wyndham Vale station

After fixing my bike from the trial run GSR 300 on the weekend, I headed back to Port Fairy on Monday, once again by train.  I was a bit more relaxed about the trip this time, and visited the pretty town of Koroit and its nearby rail trail. As well I had dinner with Rosalie and Keith who live in Port Fairy. I was able to check in with the Audax riders and organisers in the afternoon. There was talk of some "weather coming through" so a 5am start time was agreed on.

I stayed at the youth hostel again, it was quite quiet this time and a good place to stay. Early in the morning we were off, and it was a windy ride to Port Campbell for lunch, and I managed to keep up with most of the riders. It was windy, and speeds were 20 - 30kph depending on the wind. Pumped up the tyres about halfway along, I think that helped things a bit. After Princetown the hills and rain started.

Initially the wind just blew us up some of the hills but later it lashed us with rain. I had shorts on but stayed warm enough under the fairing. The rain persisted and by 1:30, James had rung to say the ride was being called off. He had been on the ride route between Laver's Hill and Ferguson and found it particularly treacherous, and he and organizer Peter agreed that going on would just be inviting accidents and hypothermia.  

So I limped on into Laver's hill, and dried off and refueled in front of a fire at Yatzies cafe. Peter took a couple of others back to Anglesea with him by car, and they returned with their cars to get us out of the Otways. Meanwhile the pub and restaurant over the road had opened and we were able to warm up over there before loading up cars for the trip back to cabins awaiting us at Anglesea.

Stayed there nice and snug through a stormy night - thanks to Bruce and James for sharing their cabin. In the morning I rode from Anglesea to Waurn Ponds station for what should have been a routine trip back - but buses were replacing trains at the station due to some track faults - and the bus I got on went quite circuitously to Wyndham Vate station. There we had to get on and off a train before finally catching one back to Melbourne. I managed to leave my camera on a train, but I reported it to Southern Cross Lost Property and ended up being able to retrieve it in the afternoon. Woohoo!

It was a fun but challenging few days, and between repairing my bike after the test ride, and being rained on and finding out more about good cycling clothing in the actual ride I learnt a lot.

Thanks to Bruce, Peter, James and all the other Audax riders for their help and support.

Within a day or so of arriving in Melbourne, we were in coronavirus lockdown again, and I was glad to have gotten some exercise and travel under my belt before it started.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Camera with the label that helped return it to me. Thanks Vline!


Friday, May 21, 2021

GSR 300 preview

 

102 k training ride recorded on Garmin.

Bit of extra sewing on the front of the seat helps it stay in place.

The shelf was made slightly deeper and has a lip at the top now.  I can reach inside to access....

Food in containers with a simple hinged lid.

Hinge is made from gaffer tape.

Wired Speedo fitted. (Blue and black on top of frame)

High strength magnets embedded in tailbox lid. These keep it closed rather well.

 
New mount for front reflector was sourced from...

This spool of string - had to transfer the string to a bit of timber to liberate the spool.

 

Hi

For a few weeks now I have been training for an Audax ride I signed up for, the Great Southern Randonee super series Audax 300. Based on what I learnt from my Cobram ride, I have improved the bike and its handling and comfort. Some of the changes are shown above. I could have done some more conventional parts swapping changes and done myself a favour!  

Then, fortunately or unfortunately, I muddled up the week of the ride, and headed down to the start at Port Fairy a week early. I only realised the date was wrong when my booking for the youth hostel wasn't in, and my written receipt was for a week later. Even then I had to ring my wife Christine to check my diary. Anyway, since I was all prepared to ride an Audax 300, I decided to ride most of the course as a trial run. Some pictures follow.


Southern Cross Station 7:30 am Monday. On the train I spoke to Ben, a cycle tourist who had travelled from Portland to Newcastle



View from Tower Hill back to Warrnambool

Interesting relief map of Victoria in Port Fairy YHA youth hostel.

Bike prepped in hostel room

Warrnambool on the way back.

Near Allansford

At the Port Campbell free stuff caravan.

Roadworks near Princetown

Superkitsch! At Laver's Hill
   
Apollo Bay
In need of repair!  Troubles starting about 10k west of Apollo Bay


Tail between my legs: bailing from the bike and taking the bus back to Melbourne


A few days later and back at Aireys, overhauling the trike with my wife Christine for company.


The trip back started fine at 6 am, and I rode the 103k from Port Fairy to Port Campbell in about 5 1/2 hours. The only trouble I had was with pedals clipping in to cleats, and I had stopped a few times to try to fix that. Good lunch of pies in Port Campbell. 

 The stretch from Port Campbell to Princetown was also good, but it got hilly before Lavers Hill and I had to walk it a few times and was glad to get to Laver's Hill at 3:10, well before the cafe shut. Another pie and a hot chocolate at Laver's Hill.

All good from Laver's Hill to Apollo Bay (6:45pm) where I had an excellent and much needed pizza  at Georges. Things went bad from there, I had neglected to check my front tyre and the tube burst through a worn-out tyre section. That was fine, I fitted my spare tube and used a $5.00 note between tube and tyre to stop further blowouts. 

But the spare tube had a slow leak!  Despite lots of attempts at repair, I couldn't fix the puncture and was pumping up the front tyre every 2k or so all the way to Eastern View, about 5k from Airey's Inlet , my overnight destination. At Eastern View, the already leaking spare tyre burst again, and there was nothing for it but to walk the rest of the way back, finally arriving at ridiculous o'clock, (3:45am). My bike was stranded at that stage without, needing a tyre and tubes to make it rideable.

Things didn't get better from there straight away. The next morning I managed to lock myself out of the house without my phone. With the help of the local real estate agent and locksmith I had help on the way (many thanks!) but in the end my cousin came home about 4 hours earlier than expected, and I was able to cancel the locksmith without charge.

I'd find out my wife Christine had scheduled a trip back to Aireys Inlet a few days later so it was fine to leave the bike at Aireys for a few days and it would be possible to fix it in time for the actual GSR 300. So I got the bus and train back to Melbourne and was able to repair it a few days later.



Fixing 50 bikes, Bikes 14, 15, 16

 

Here's the bike after cleanup, its almost ready to go. Front rack is from a Peugeot NS22, and since this photo was taken I've added a load carrying crate. Will add a photo of this later.

Bike 16 had been left outside the shed and was looking very sad and dirty. I decided to take it home and fix it. By the time it had left the shed it had been cleaned, and the front 27" tyre had been swapped over for a new one. Surprisingly, the very manky rear tyre holds air. A bit more work required and I will report more later.


Hub cleaners on the Oz Cycle

Crate on the front of the bike. I rode it up to the Wecycle shed on July 3 and was able to drop in on the start of the Darebin Bug Sea Cruise Ride where friends George, John, Faye and David were gathered. Quite a sociable way to begin a Saturday. When I was at Wecycle, I traded this one in for another rideable but needs-fixing-up bike, a Giant Sedona.

This plate helps secure the crate. Note multilingual instructions (scratched in arrow)

All the wooden bits that hold the crate on.

Cleaned up Oz Cycle with front rack from Peugeot NS22


Bike 14 is a particularly nice Peugeot NS22 which had been donated to the shed a few months ago. Eventually some new tyres came in for it, and I put my hand up to fix it.  There was some stylish rim tape left over, and I put a finishing touch on the bike by ...

using it as hub cleaners front and back.

NS22 report card

Ready to go.

Very nice small bike donated by Jeremy. It is a German brand, has 3 brakes, a hub gear and working hub dynamo. Jeremy dropped it at our place by bike trailer.  The next day I pushed it up to Wecycle while riding my recumbent. It needed a new chain and a bit of a clean and that was about it. Bike 15.