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!

Repairing a Steel Frame Bike

Original haul of parts was written up here.

Barrel bolts / cable tie / drink bottle boss gearcable hack.

Barrel bolts from brakes from shed. I shaped them a bit before installing.

Transmission with biopace chainring.

Top cable tie on downtube shifter bosses

Done.....

and done.

With faux (not locked) lock at Fairfield shops.

Haul of books from op shop.

Haul of plate from op shop.

Hi

This post was going to be called fixing a fixie but the bike I'm working on isn't a fixie now so I just couldn't do it. You know, integrity.  And stuff.

So the frame I picked up a few months and several posts ago is now assembled into quite a reasonable 7 speed bike weighing in at 10.8kg.   The first bits of the repopulating of the frame were easy, the front wheel and brake levers came from my original haul, I had a compatible rear wheel and tyre, and I found a seat, seatpost,  crank, pedals and handlebars in the shed.  But the gearchanger proved to be a problem.  The frame was set up for downtube shifters but I couldn't get them to work properly. Somehow the screw didn't tighten down on the lever right and so the lever would move giving spontaneous unwanted gear changes.  Downtube shifters are way out of the way of the normal position of the hands anyway.

Eventually I worked out something.  The frame has 2 sets of water bottle bosses and I borrowed the ones on the down tube to mount a couple of slightly hacked bike cable barrel bolts from the shed to make bolt on cable bosses. Then I rigged up a stem shifter and after a bit of fiddling, woohoo it all works!  I tried a few things to keep the gear cable off the frame near the crank, but good old cable ties did the trick. After a bit more thinking, the old downtube lever bosses have become an anchor point for another cable tie which prevents the gearcable from going too far astray. The pics probably tell the story better.

Anyway, today a cheque (what's that, I know) came in the post (what's that, I know) and I thought that a trip to deposit (yes, I know, what's that) the cheque would be a good way to test out the bike. The trip went well, and on this rainy day I managed to get only slightly wet. After depositing the cheque at the bank I went to a nearby op shop and bought some 50c books and a nice old plate. The books are all quite old with 3 of them predating decimal currency (1966) and even me (1960).

PS, just after posting I found there are some proper doo - dahs that do the down-tube to stem shifter conversion and don't look the slightest bit hackish. There you go!

Best wishes

Steve  (bike hack) Nurse

Bike Switcheroo

Bikes before tailbox swap

Prep work: Scooter fork modified with extra 32mm tube.

New steerer Assembly

Assembly parts, old handlebar clamp (right) needed modification, new clamp as per this link goes on without mods.

New and old style steerer mounts.

Plastic milk bottles as drink bottle holder and drink bottle.

Aluminium washer inside bottle holder

Checking new and old locks for grammage damage.

Glue inside tee nut means drink bottle holder should remain secure.

Holder as pocket.

Holder with drink bottle

Nude trike, no seat

Trike with lighter tailbox

Modded spare tube storage box.

New 3d printed stopper

Nightshift changing handlebar extensions and gearlever.

At Wecycle, it went well on this test ride.

Hi

For the last week or so I've been switching parts on one of my bikes, making sure its the best and lightest thing I can get for the OzHpv challenge which is coming up in a week. This has meant:

Swapping tailboxes
Swapping locks
Installing pocket in tailbox
Installing more secure steerer mount
Add velcro to tube storage box so lid stays on.
Fixing puncture
Replacing tyre
Replacing printed frame plug
Replacing Brake Cables
Replacing gearshift lever
Tuning brakes.

So quite a bit and I actually started a month or so, making a new steerer mount using a new adjustable 32mm handlebar stem.  The old stem used for the equivalent part was for a 25.4mm handlebar, and needed to be hacked and filed before use.  This one is better, more secure and can be used without mods.

The tailbox came from my electric trike and saves about 1.1 kg through use of lightweight corflute panels.  A lock I put together (is pathetic but) saves another 100g or so.

The gearchanger I had was quite short and stubby and took effort to change.  Swapping handlebar extensions means a longer changer lever will fit in.

The cable routing is a bit torturous and I had to oil the cables to let them run smoothly.

Very happy now and looking forward to riding it on a short tour next week and straight after that at the challenge.  To be a bit faster I could have put the fairing back on again but I will be taking the bike on the train and don't feel comfortable doing that with the fairing fitted.

Best Wishes

Steve Nurse

Canberra ATRF Conference 2019

Some of the classic artwork in the Hyatt Canberra

Front of Hyatt Canberra, tradies cars get pride of place

Hyatt Canberra

The only other bike parked at the conference.

Yes, guess where. Ok, its outside the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. Shortly after this was taken, I parked my bike behind the distant red blobby thing which is a sculpture. Security guards were apparently not happy but we had already sauntered off to a pub by the time they realised it was there.

With a couple of Monash academic types. I am a Monash ex-academic type.

Walking into another classic Canberra Hotel, the Kurrajong. Robbie (ok, Monash Uni) shouted me a beer. Thanks!

Jesse Suskin speaks for drone delivery operators Wing Australia . The future is here and it delivers coffee to you in Canberra at least!

Michel Masson, Chief Executive officer Infrastructure Victoria spoke on the Wednesday morning.

Stephen Greaves presents about cycling in Japan

Patrick Tsai on valueing walking Amenity

Historical bling on display at the Hyatt

Free merch from transport Canberra. They are very proud of their electric trams (red) and Robbie was very proud to have his bus (ok, the one he helped to design) immortalised as a cardboard cutout.

My trike / bike / thing / transport out the back of the Hyatt.

Hi

For a few weeks, I've been back from my trip to Canberra. Most of the trip was to take part in the Australasian Transport Research Forum.  When I was studying for a research masters a few years ago, I was encouraged to write papers for this conference series and I wrote articles for the Sydney and Melbourne conferences. I sort of got in the habit and even though I'd left uni felt I still had something to contribute, so wrote for the Darwin conference last year and for the Canberra conference this year.

The papers for the Canberra conference haven't been officially published yet but I put both my article and presentation up on Researchgate.

Anyway, the conference went well.  I stayed at the Canberra Youth Hostel which involved a few hurdles as far as transport was concerned. Firstly, the hostel was in the middle of the city and didn't have car parking attached.  I ended up plonking it in a multi-storey supermarket and that worked ok, I just had to plan ahead trips to the car to retrieve and replace various articles of stuff (sleeping bag, clothes etc.) as necessary.  Secondly my rather large bike would not fit in the rather small lift and I had to take it apart (not that hard) into 2 pieces to get it in the lift to take it into the basement bike parking area and laundry.

Anyway, with all that organised, I was off to the conference on Monday Sep 30....  more to follow.