Geelong Ozhpv Race Day

Left to Right are Alex, Christine in tent, (unknown) Cicely, Ryan, Ken, Graham, Simon,  Neil, Mike K, Steve (me)

Paul, Simon,  Mike, Neil.  Simon has been given the honorary job of marshall and team selector....

....and is revelling in the position.

Lineup for the 1 lap race: Kim, Paul, Mike K.,Neil, Graham, Damian, Steve

Mike K., Paul, William, Damian, Graham, Neil, Steve

Mike K., Mike B., Damian, Steve

Mike K with a winner's medal.  Everybody who entered got a medal.

Hi

Last Sunday, I helped run an ozHpv race day at the Geelong Criterium track. We had 8 competitors and a really wide range of vehicles turn up, 2 Velomobiles, several Cruzbikes, a FWD raptobike, my Monsterbike, a homemade trike by Mike Bear, a Rans Xstream, a challenge Hurricane.  So amongst that lot were every combination of long and short wheelbase / rear and front wheel drive bikes.  We were missing a Delta trike, maybe next time!

Ben Goodall from Trisled pedalled across from Dromana on his Rotovelo, Ken Houghton from Trisled came along to watch and let his son hoon around on a trike and Kim Tolhurst and Cruzbike provided the "Headquarters" tent.  All these photos by Kim, I was organising races and competing.....

The final race was exciting, 2 teams of 2 in a relay race.  We had 3 front wheel drive bikes and one (throwback!) rear wheel drive bike.  Bikes and riders were all fairly evenly matched in this race.  Its all on again in a week or so, see here

Round the Bay the Ratbag Way

New Helmet with Mirror &Visor

At the Ferry in Sorrento

The hustle, the bustle, the crowds of cyclists!

We human beings are a funny lot!  We love doing things together, and at the same time, and to the extent that things become crowded and unworkable.  In summer, we flock to coastal resorts and the normally quiet towns get traffic jams.  Lots of people go away for long weekends but not for short ones.  And today was a case in point as well.

The "Round the Bay in a Day" ride is tomorrow and there will be thousands of bikes on the road for it.  But not today.  The ride is not today it is tomorrow.  So today  there were only a few cyclists on the road and I did the same ride people pay to do through Bike Vic. , round the bay in a day, 210k.

Set off time was about 5:15, and there were a few small packs of road cyclists I could ride behind and so made quite good pace - about 30kph on the flat for much of the trip to Sorrento.  Mostly they consider me harmless.  I can beat the most tricked out, aero tucked time trial cyclist down a hill but its best to show some restraint - any decent uphill and I am much slower!

Bought a few essentials at a service station (sunscreen, chocolate milk drinks) and was at the ferry about 9:30.   The ticket-seller-lady was quite interested in my bike and helmet visor.   It was nice and roomy on the ferry but soon I was in Queenscliff and back on the job.

I had only a few more stops the whole way to Melbourne and these were * to pee by the roadside * to buy a Mars Bar and some soft drink.  So food and drink for the whole trip was apple juice, biscuits, 3 bananas, 2 litres of chocolate milk, a litre of soft drink and a mars bar, mostly consumed on the bike.

The wind was behind me all the way down the Geelong Road and I only passed 3 cyclists on the 70k distance.  They were all riding together and I whooshed past them quite quickly.
   
 It was one of my last warmups for the 1000k Great Southern Randonnee, and I did the 210k Round the Bay ride in about 10.5 hours.  The ferry ride took maybe an hour so maybe 22k average.   This was last years post.

The next day (Sunday, the actual ride day) I pootled (Pootle or tootle: noun: short ride on a bicycle. Slightly longer than a blocky) in to the bike festival event at the start / finish of the Round the Bay in a Day.  There was a Smith Family / Charity Partner stall there and I donated $20.00, so I did my bit in a round about way.

On another topic, the top photo is my new helmet with mirror installed.  Compare with this post.  It worked well today.

The wonderful Klapprad Cup site has new pictures and videos of this year's event.  Last year this
 German - crap  - folding - bike - race lampooned The English and this year they are mocking Christianity!  The site and videos may offend some pious people. I am wondering who they will lampoon next year but Pro Cyclists would be a possibility!    

All for Now!

Steve Nurse

A new world record / What broke the bike? / Pet Bike

A healthy bike frame with bracing, made approximately to plans

Next Step for this bike is the seat.  The wooden bits and paint for the seat are laid out on the ground.

More of the new bike

Straws that broke the camel's back: a ramshackle group of videos.

And the camel's back.  Build your bikes to plan if you don't want this to happen

Tonight's work on the bike: Plastibond in the open frame ends.

There are a few ways to break a world record, and these are
a) be incredibly talented and willing to train and break a mainstream record and become famous or even more famous (ie your name is Usain Bolt) or
b) invent a new category of record, have a go at a "high achievement" in this field (longest underwater chess game, fastest over-90-average-age swim team then claim a record.  For most of us, "b)" is the only option, and it occurred to me the other day (when carrying about 30 VHS tapes back to the op shop on my recumbent bicycle) that I had some potential for  a "b)" record.  Unfortunately events overtook me and all thoughts of any sort of record were banished when I forgot to count the videos after my bike frame broke.

So why did the frame break?

Well there is the poetic but not true answer: 30 videos are really heavy and one of the following videos "Les Patterson has a stand-up", "The Big Lebowski", "Allegro Non Troppo", "American Flyers" or "Don's Party" was the straw that broke the camels back and caused the frame to bust.

Or something closer to the truth: After multiple cumulative insults, such as being plonked upon by an 85 kg bloke, going over bumps, being made from old bits of crap lying round the shed instead of the nice steel specified in the plans, the bike protested violently and was deciduous of one of its more vital pieces, a seatpost brace.  And losing such bits aint good, eventually you start to notice that things have fallen off and other things are bending when they shouldn't while you're riding.  But I made it home and still managed to drag off a fixie rider on the way.

So in the end, the frame breaking got me moving on making another bike (or Grandfather's axe / item whose various parts have been replaced over time such that nothing original remains) from the bits of the last one and a new frame from the shed.  There are a few photos of this 3/4 finished machine above.  Its quite liberating to have a near new bike and to be finishing another one.  With the new one I can muck around and try all sorts of new things like different crank lengths or fairings or replacing the rear triangle with really aerodynamic reinforced timber.   In the mould of the "Pet  Sounds" by the Beach Boys, I have a bike I can muck around with, a Pet Bike.

New Bike, New Name, New Flag

New and old Flags and Bike Names

Hi

This post is a reprise of an older ones, like this one which has a picture of a bike flag in it and relates to the naming of a bike.  So now I have a new bike whose story starts here.  And while idling away the hours riding it, a name for it started bubbling up through my subconscious.

Last few Names for Bicycles and (TaDaaaaa!) New name.

X15: Named after the Orange Coloured Paint it was painted with. Find it here.

Monarch: Based on the name of a random set of stickers I bought from Abbotsford cycles which started a very young tradition of naming my bikes with words beginning with "Mo", as in "Modular".

Moutarde: Begins with "Mo" and means mustard in French.  Mustard is both something that can be "hot /fast" as (in chilli) and shopped for. It is also a colour, quite close to the colour of the painted wood on my bike.  And any name in French can also be acquainted with "pretentious moron" in Australia.  So I'm going out on a limb here with this name, doing a balancing act, but anyway, long live the Moutarde!

Almost the only purpose for the flag is to promote this website so more people can find about the bike, my book etc. so its possible "modularbikes.com.au" should be a bit more prominent on the flag.

All for now! 

Steve "amateur advertiser" Nurse

Finishing off the bike & training

At Heyfield, 174k in to the "Gippsland Gambol 300k" 

Moon setting during "recovery ride" the next morning near Sale

Installing a Schlumpf drive.  This is the tool for putting a chamfer in the bottom bracket

A newly installed "about as techo as I get" Speedo

And about 8 3/4 hours later with an extra 200k on the clock.

Hi

Over the last few weeks I have been finishing off my recumbent bike by painting the steel bits, fitting a speedo, fitting a drink bottle holder, adding an extra bit to the boot lid, repainting some of the wooden seat assembly, removing the padding under my bum and installing a schlumpf mountain drive.   The bike looks good and goes well which is necessary!
In order to have a ghost of a a chance of finishing the GSR 1000 ride which is 1000 k over 3 days and 3 hours I have been training harder than I ever have.  For these distances, 200 k is just a warm up and 300k a training ride.  More on this later, but here are a few happy snaps!

Rear - View Visor

Mirror on the inside of a helmet visor

Front view of helmet with mirror

Back view of helmet

Side view.  The tilt of the mirror at the front has a big role in determining what you see.

Visor on a helmet on a newly repaired Dahon Boardwalk

Hi

This story started a while ago when I made an oversize visor for for my helmet.  The visor has since solved or improved the riding problems of rain in the eyes, sun glare and sunburn.

About 2 months ago I was riding from Airey's Inlet to Torquay and looking in my handlebar mounted mirrors. And it occured to me that a mirror on the inside of the visor could take the place of both left and right handlebar mirrors.  It took a while for me to do anything about this idea, it bubbled away till eventually I had a go at making something.  Old cd's and bike mirrors and corflute were cut up to mount on a visor but either the visual quality wasn't good or my cutting was bad and I gave up eventually.  Some research found the term "acrylic mirror" on this ( beer view mirror!) instructables page, and I started looking for a supplier and cutter of acrylic mirror.  And I found one in Australian Sheet Traders and ordered some rectangular acrylic mirror cut to size.

 The parts arrived on a Monday and  I wasn't very happy.  Mirror all blurry!  After emailing the supplier, one of their reps came round promptly and sorted things out.  It was just an extra protective film of plastic on the mirror surface.  So it was OK, and many thanks to David at AST, Christine and Ermi for sorting it out.

So now the mirror was built into a visor and it works!  A slight tilt of the head is all that's needed to see the road behind, there are no vulnerable "stalk mirrors" to manipulate and potentially get damaged, and there are no mirrors on the handlebars. In the setup I have at the moment, I can see my eyes in the centre of the mirror but it doesn't bother me.  I feel that building in adjustment to the tilt of the mirror relative to the helmet would improve things but I'm happy enough for now.

Next step is to find out if its been thought of before and the answer is a definite yes.  This link shows one similar patent and it looks to be fairly much the same idea.  One of the pictures is shown below.  So do I stop now?  No, I don't think so.  For the moment I will improve the mirror system for my own use and give away the mirror blanks to anyone who buys a cycling book from me, and maybe to ozhpv members as well.

A patent for a very similar idea exists.

There was a product that provides an integrated mirror in a bike helmet. The Reevu system uses mirrors to provide a rear-view using a sight-path above the riders head.  The manufacturer's web page (previous link) does not seem to be connected to the Reevu main page which concentrates on motorbike helmets. However a review here indicates that the writer has great enthusiasm for the product and hopes that the product will again be on sale "the year after next".( in 2009!)

Vizor-vu Visor for motorbike helmets.  "Sort of the same idea"

As well, the Vizor - Vu, shown at the bottom of the page here is something very similar.  It is designed for motorcycles and was most famously worn by Steve Mcqueen in the film "On any Sunday".

Others in Ozhpv have turned their thoughts to helmet visors as well  and this link provides a plan for a visor and the photos down the bottom of this page show Pete Heal and the visor in action.


Am very interested to hear your comments.  Are the explanations clear enough?

Regards

Steve Nurse

War of the Scales

Christine's Sculpture made from my op-shop purchased kitchen scales

Not to be outdone, this is my sculpture for the Melbourne Bienniale, whose theme this year is "Use of crappy things for weighing other things"

I am renowned for making "sculptures" from various stuff left on the kitchen table and my wife Christine has finally followed suit.  Was not about to be usurped and had to up the ante.

Regards

Stephen Nurse

Fixed Up Steerer bolt on Dahon Boardwalk

Bolt opened up

Seatpost and forks in place.

Original steering bolts

Quite a bit happening in the last week, I kept on repairing some bikes I got from ebay (including the Dahon shown above) and also enrolled in the 1000k Great Southern Randonee ride in October.  1000k in 75 hours! Quite obviously I have some serious training to do, but I've already started.  Something like 120k ridden on Sunday and already my "base load" training of a 70k round trip commute seems a bit easier because of it.  Latest recumbent going well, and I will report on upcoming rides.

Regards

Steve