Monostay Bike is on the Road

This bike is.....

just finished!

During the day I got all sophisticated and cultural,

visiting the 20th Century modern furniture exhibition,

which took place near Federation Square in Melbourne.  Went in there on a wooden bike of course!

Hi

Spending a fairly quiet weekend at home.  A few weeks ago I got all ambitious and made a tentative booking to go in the Audax "Midwinter Madness Warnambool to Melbourne Ride", with the idea of riding 2500 Audax k's in the year.  A meer 400k in the cold and rain, mostly in the dark as well.  But 2 weekends in a row of almost continuous bike activity (with some projects almost finished at home) was seeming like a bit much, so before I went to Corryong I bailed out of Midwinter Madness.

So today I did a few other things instead amidst occasional sunshine, some wild winds and rain (good luck to all the Warrnambool riders).

In the morning I rode to my Mum and Dad's after half finishing a new bike (adding chain and cranks, bottom bracket bearing and pedals.  In the afternoon, I 3/4 finished the new bike (adding seat and stopping the brakes bumping into the chain.  On the first ride the bike went quite well and I am pleased.  But I'd forgotten to tighten the headstem bolt and about 100m from the house I went splat on the ground, as you do with non-functional steering.  Ok, picked myself up and only minor cuts and stuff, and I fixed it on the spot.  Then a fairly pleasant interlude of 3k or so of riding when about 100m away from the house, BANG, a tyre blowout.  Oh well.  Pretty happy and the bike is finally on the road about 3 months after it was started.  There is plenty to of work left in painting and finishing it off and making a new tailbox.  The tailbox I used for the blocky was borrowed from the bike I took to Corryong.

Later in the afternoon I rode to the  Mid Century Modern Exhibition, took a few photos.  I was the flourescent yellow bike riding gear guy, almost everyone else wearing black.

The good riding on the monostay bike was fairly shortlived: on Sunday morning I rode off to visit friends on a VicHpv ride but only got as far as Burke road in Deepdene, where, crossing the road, the rear chainstay split in two, depositing the back wheel and a bit of wood (half a chainstay) on Burke road.  Had to walk home which took about 2 hours, using the remains of the bike as a weird steerable wheelbarrow.  In terms of bike disasters this was about a 3 out of 10 - no severe injuries and some minor inconvenience.  I have some plans for remaking / redesigning the monostay and will probably order some routed timber and laser cut steel within a few weeks.

The chainstays for the bike have been in development since I started building the wooden bikes again as detailed here, in Jan 2013, while other parts have stayed relatively static.  This is just another step in the process, I am gaining experience all the time.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggghhhhhhh!  Broken Chainstay.