Speed Demons / Evolve Trikes

On our recent be-spon ride through Ivanhoe to Warrandyte along bike paths, Graham Signiorini & I......

Shot ahead of the bunch and waited for several minutes........

for everyone else to catch up, despite me being on my highly improbable trike.

Lunch stop near Beasley's nursery, Alan Ball front right with sunglasses, Robert Waryszak on right in red.

Hi

I have been continuing to ride my Vi Vuong inspired ilean Delta trike and I like it a lot.  Last week I went for a ride with the Vichpv group and for the most part kept up with the fast Mr. Graham Signiorini.  The day before yesterday I installed a speedo on it and yesterday rode to work on it for the first time.  Speeds were pretty good,  my more refined and similar recumbent bike has a long term average of 20.7 kph and on my trip to work and back on the trike I managed 19.7 kph.  Longer term I want to do a 200k ride on the bike and a speedo's the only way to work out if the trike is up to the task.

On the ride last week I saw Alan Ball from Evolve trikes. Although nothing was announced last week, it can now be revealed that Alan, Dianne and Eric have licensed their folding trike technology in the United States and production trikes will be on their way soon.  Congratulations !

Big Spike from the Russians!

Hi

This blog has a backroom where I (omnipotent writer / editor / administrator / slave) can see all the statistics associated with page visits this blog.  A recent spike in traffic had me looking for the source.

It was the Russians, and for wholly innocent reasons.  Here is the forum link , already processed into English courtesy google translate.

And there is some quite good advice about working  with timber and fibreglass, things I have found out for myself the hard way, breaking stuff !

"But! Plywood has been quite different characteristics

That's right!
The tree is typically 80/8 MPa at a density of 0.5. (Along / across the grain)
We usually plywood 20/20 MPa at a density of 0.7 (this is for the construction of plywood). And 1 MPa for the layers on the cleavage.
Aviation (sea MARINE) is already up to 50/50 MPa for the Finnish and 30/30 MPa for the Chinese.
For comparison, fiberglass has a density of 1.6 at 250/180 MPa at a density of 1.8 320/220 MPa at a density of 2.0 380/250 MPa.
In the calculations usually take for fiberglass tensile strength of 120 MPa, 230 MPa for the ST3, for a tree up to 10 MPa."


All for now!

Regards

Stephen Nurse

Shopping and Family

Christine hears that I had already donated away the books my Dad gave me.

With Mum and Dad (Self-Timer Photo)

Home with a 10kg Vintage Elna Sewing Machine and some books in the back of my trike.

At home, Christine checks out one of the books I bought, Elna sewing machine in the foreground.

Hi

Yesterday was a fine warm day and I headed out to visit Mum and Dad on my new trike.  On the way over to Kew (only 2 suburbs away) I bought a speedo from Bikes de Ver and visited an op-shop and bought some videos.

Mum and Dad were fine and showed me a few pictures of my neice Josephine, my brother Richard and sister - in - law Serena.  Richard and Serena were obviously very proud parents at Josephine's graduation.  I realised there weren't enough pictures of people on this blog and hope to remedy that.  

So I helped mum and dad out with a few jobs, had a cup of tea and a catch up and then headed home.  Dad had given me some books (and I never read the books he gives me) so was looking for another op-shop to donate the books to on the way home.

And Lo, I was in luck, there was a fete at a convent on the way home, and I had had luck buying books and plates and stuff (ok, crap) there in the past.  So first stop was the bric-a-brac stall and I bought an Elna sewing machine there ($20), left it with the gentlemen on the stall complete with custom made "Sold Steve" sticker on it and wandered on to the book stall.  At the book stall I bought a few books and one was a biography of a dude my wife Christine knew when she was growing up (Pierre Gorman), there was a vintage and battered Alan Marshall book (1946)  and a Hillaire Belloc paperback.  Also hugely expensive, $2.00 the lot for the books!

Collected the sewing machine on the way back, loaded it in the back of my trike and then wandered back in to the fete to pass my Dad's books on to the convent book stall. And then home on the trike, no dramas, and Christine very happy with the purchases.

So that was my Saturday morning.  Still not sure what we will do with the sewing machine.  But it was a bargain!

(2 days later and our friend Christine Durbridge came and picked up the sewing machine. )

Christine D. happy as the new owner of the Elna Grasshopper.

Bike Market at Richmond

A few historical bikes at the market.  The bike in the centre is an "elliptical chainless bicycle" 1896.  A bike of this type is featured in Paul Farren's book.

Detail of the elliptical chainless.

Some of Matt Benn's excess bikes were on sale, a fairly eclectic lot....

including this ladies bike, a bargain at $100.

Part of Adrian Cox's stall.

More market bikes, The green and red Malvern Star Coronation Special had sold for about $1500.

Matt Benn and my trike

Atomic Zombie unicycle on sale

Hi

About a week ago I visited a bike market at Abbotsford cycles, which is (slightly confusingly) located under Richmond station.  This market is a semi-regular event and a chance to catch up with a few bike type people (ok, blokes) that I know from years of bike riding and activities around Melbourne and buy bike books ("Early Bicycles" and Paul Farren signed "Bicycling through Time" for me) and various bits of bike junk, (2 pairs of old pedals, potentially more Vi-trike wheels.  So hello to me old mates Ross Harrup, Chook (selling off about 1% of his shed contents), John Harland, Adrian Cox, Michael Kater and Matt Benn.

Regards

Steve Nurse

OzHpv Challenge 2013

There were some (hurtful!) comments about my trike in the the road race, saying that I (Hmmf of indignation) resembled Dick Dastardly of Wacky Races fame.  Nothing like me at all!  Where is my moustache and sidekick dog, huh? No, if my bike were a comic book car, it would of course be.......

(Ta da!) Fab1, the 6-wheel pink Rolls Royce of Thunderbirds fame.  By an overwhelming majority it has been voted "Best vehicle in the universe with gratuitous extra wheels"** although I'm sure my trike would have come close second had people known of its existance.

Jamie Friday, Heather Withers and Damian Harkin, officiating and using my trike as a desk at the end of the 2k time trial.

Jamie Friday tries my trike.

At the start of some race or other, my trike in the foreground, right to left Mark, Heather, Malcolm, Kate, Damian, Graham, Jamie, Rolf, George

Mark and Heather in the Shopping Race.  Colin Scrutineering

Shopping Race

Heather, Shopping Race

Kate, Shopping Race

2nd place vehicle, Malcolm Butler's 15-or-so years old Flying Furniture cycle made by Ian Humphries.  Malcolm's featured strongly at the challenge for many years.

Winning vehicle, Jamie Friday's "Preston" home made bike.  With this bike and various different front fairings, Jamie has won the Challenge a few times.

In between races it is all stress and strain.  Breakfast on Sunday morning, Mick, the go-kart track caretaker reads the paper and chats with Jamie, Damian and Graham

Some sort of cycling utopia

Rolf revs up for the 2k time trial, Colin officiating

Mark, Colin, George

And the Winners are! (drum roll) Kate, Heather and Jamie

The ozhpv challenge was held recently in Wodonga.  The challenge is a fairly unique set of races held over a weekend.  The aim is to determine the most practical Human Powered Vehicle by running a wide variety of races over a weekend.  Most cycle races don't admit that anything but a standard diamond frame cycle exist and don't test for things like manoeverability, accelleration or ability to carry luggage.

Wodonga is located within reasonable driving distance from Melbourne and  Canberra which are where where many Ozhpv members live.  A bit further afield are Sydney and Adelaide.  So people can reach the event for a weekend.

Anyway, back to the start!  When repairing my trike I didn't have a chance to test ride it before packing it into the car along with the ozhpv gazebo, timing gear and all my food and clothes.  Up till midnight as it was and off at 7:00am the next morning.

Arrived in Wodonga with plenty of time but couldn't clip my pedal into one of the cleats.  It turned out that I had the right pedal on the left had side and the right left had side and the trike stayed this way throughout the  weekend.   As well the screws keeping my bottom bracket attached to the frame weren't up to the job, with the chain pulling down on the bracket every time I pedalled, the bottom bracket got wobbly and the screws threatened to fall out. On top of all this, I'm not sure that the pedals weren't too short at 114mm.


So despite the trike being not quite right, it still went quite well, with my best result a second in the shopping race.  The full set of scores is here.

At night there was a small amount of entertainment, after the pizza and beer, Rolf Muller and I did a talk about our bikes and later there was a trivia quiz with questions supplied by my wife Christine. 

Congrats to the winners, Jamie Friday 1st, Malcolm Butler 2nd, Heather Withers Women's winner, Kate Junior winner.

Best wishes

Steve Nurse


** No it hasn't, I just made that bit up.

Richard Nurse: 1930's Raleigh Roadster

Richard's New Project

Hi

Here is a picture of my brother's new acquisition: he lives in Kent in the UK and bought this bike for 100 pounds or so.  He's gradually restoring it.  The bike has 28" wheels, a 3 speed gear with a shifter on the top tube, rod brakes and a leather saddle.  Anyway, a lovely old machine, good luck with the project Richard.

Regards

Steve Nurse

ozHpv Challenge 2013: prolog

Repairs on the bike: Glue, fibreglass, file, add steel and plywood plates to spread the load on the bike frame.  Reassemble.

Back of the bike drying after varnishing. Short (89mm unicycle) cranks are shown, they can improve handling on this sort of trike.  

Frame drying

Long cranks on the back of the bike. Note that the chainring is on the left hand side as this configuration makes the wheel rotation the same as the pedal rotation in a standard bike.

Short Cranks

A selection of cranks without chainrings.  The long ones come from Greenspeed / Haberstock Mobility , are expensive and intended for Schlumpf drives.  The shorter ones have just the same configuration, can be inexpensive, are intended for unicycles and come from the unicycle . com online shop.  There is a wide variety including types with a disc brake mount which could add features such as parking stability to the type of HPV I have been experimenting with.

Hi

With a few weeks to go until the 2013 ozhpv challenge, my newest creation, the Vicycle had an unfortunate frame breakage in Sydney Road.  I had slammed on the brakes and the timber frame said "Uh Uh, I ain't gunna take this crap no more", and promptly split in 2.  It was then necessary to pick both the pieces of my trike and my dignity off the Sydney Road bitumen, gather them up and walk home.  This was all on the day after the federal election, and I had been looking forward to whizzing past all the Capital City Trail cyclists on my way back.  But instead, they were all passing me as I wheeled the trike, all the bits jumbled into the back of it.  Yes, I was passing the occasional Latte sipping, with kids or dogs or both frollicking group of amblers but that was about it.

When I got back I needed to think what to do to restore the bike.  A whole new frame was just a bit of timber with a few holes in it, but I didn't have a seat to match ready.  So restoring it seemed like the go.  This involved glueing the frame together at the front, then wrapping it in fibreglass on a cold weeknight, waiting for it to dry and then drilling and filing into the fibreglass to put the bottom bracket and head tube back in place.  There was lots of plywood and a few steel plates in there as well.  To cut a long story short I fixed the bike but not perfectly as later posts will reveal.  As well I bought and fitted unicycle cranks to various parts of the bike, the photos are up above.

Steve Nurse

The sad news of the passing of our very dear friend Jen Brady reached us a few weeks ago.  Our sympathy and best wishes go out to her family and friends, especially Rob, Finn and Jackson.  Rest in Peace, we will miss you (Christine, Steve and Ewan Nurse)

 

Geelong HPV Races 2013

Left to right at Damian's house, Aki, Kim, Graham, Damian

Kim, Graham, Damian, George, Aki

With Damian

Graham S

With Graham S

George at the start of the slalom race

Damian on his Hurricane

Graham S

Victory is mine!  In the relay race at least.

Last Saturday, ozHpv held a race day in Geelong and although there were few in attendance, the event was held in good weather and a pleasant time was had by all.  I almost won a race (off road) on the highly improbable Vicycle.  Graham Signiorini won overall.  Most of these pictures were taken by Aki Kubota.  Aki had bought one of my bikes through ebay the week before and came down to watch us race on his mountain bike and he entered all the races.

After racing, we all retired to Damian's house for beer and coffee, a few yarns and a good laugh.