A first real trip for Katie

April 2009 BBTA Easter Tour Murwillumbah

An ideal starter for Katie - a two day tour around Murwillumbah in the Tweed Valley. This whole area is the remnant of a giant volcano about 200 km across. The ring of steep hills around the edge being part of the side of the volcano and the Tweed Valley passes through the eroded, central crater. Mt Warning in the middle is the hard, volcanic plug from the middle of the volcano.

We took the train down to Nerang, rode from Nerang down past the Natural Bridge across the NSW border and down that lovely descent through the Numinbah valley to Murwillumbah.

The Natural Bridge:

Photo courtesy of Gold Coast Info

Viv and Mei drove down and we got ourselves a B&B in Uki, about 15km south of Murwillumbah.

View from the breakfast table at the B&B:


The second day we met the group back in at Mur'bah and rode back up the scarp via the Tomewin road to the Queensland border - that's about a 350m vertical gain from the flood plain to the border.

We certainly enjoyed the ride back down and rejoined Viv and Mei. Since Katie proved to be a super stoker, we had to take a stop at "Stoker's Siding" for the
photo opportunity.


We ended up covering a solid 80-90 km on each day and had a great time.

What it's all about ...

(January 2009)
Heading back home after one of the BBTA's regular Saturday morning Wynnum rides.

Scored me a Pocket Rocket

(Feb 2009)
... on E-Bay. I'm always nervous with ebay purchases, but looking at this: it's candy apple red - the same as our Tandem Traveler XL; there's a Rolls seat; there's a 62T chainring - one of the few sizes I don't have; so, at the bidding price I was pretty well covered even if it proved to be a set of spare parts only.



Had to wait a few weeks before I had a trip to Sydney to pick it up, but that suited both the buyer and I. So I made the trip down to Sydney with an empty Carlton suitcase. The seller was kind of intrigued by me packing it in the case - he'd bought it a while previously and had never seen it packed! The bike had clearly been unused for some time - the chain was rusted solid, but the rest of it was in good shape.

I enjoyed that cathartic task of completely stripping down, cleaning greasing and rebuilding. I was very impressed with the ride - much stiffer in the stem than either the Tandem Traveler XL or the Tikit, really enjoyable to climb with, it feels really responsive.

It looks quite smart now: I'd had some translucent red brake cable outers that I bought years ago from Kraynick's in Pittsburgh, black tape and trim. Will post some pictures soon.

Keeping it simple

28 December 2008
This cycling life is - riding down to the park with the kids.




Katie has no shortage of focus when it comes to learning something new...

Black Friday Built

(4 Jan 2009) I've completed the build of my new Tikit - with derailleur for the moment. It's much the same as before, just all in black. I did take the opportunity to put on a SRAM trigger shifter since I never really liked the gripshift changer.

I also got Bike Friday to pack in some Primo Comets - as a change out from the Schwalbe Marathons, they really fly. Took the bike out for a Sunday morning spin with the BBTA. We wound it up over the last 5 km to see who had it. Most of the others were gone pretty quickly, but it took a bit of effort (and the 60x12) over the crest of the last hill for me to drop the last young gun and press on to the coffee stop.

Black Friday

24 December 2008. Just in time for a Christmas holiday build, my replacement Tikit frame arrived in my doorstep in Australia - less than four weeks after reporting the problem to Bike Friday in Eugene.
A brace of Tikits...





You can see a few changes between the 2007 frame and the 2008 one: the beak shaped piece that forms part of the unlocking mechanism is now shaped like a dinosaur's head and is beefier than before. The older frame has a small set screw that limited the swing when folding. This could be backed off to allow an extended swing to help get the bike into a case. That's gone from the new frame.




Those adjustable dropouts look very sweet. Each dropout is fixed to the frame by two chainring bolts. The dropout pivots around the upper chainring bolt and secured in place by the lower chainring bolt, the set screw gives you very fine adjustment of the dropout position. Under load, the dropout is prevented from being pulled forward by the set screw, not by the friction of the chainring bolt.

Quite apart from offering flexibility to tinkerers like me, they would offer some production efficiency to Bike Friday. The rear triangles can be made standard and customer preference handled by bolting on the requisite dropouts: single speed, hub gear or derailleur. Different hub widths can be accommodated by fitting different spacers between the dropouts and the frame.

...and I do like that gloss black. Now, what better way to spend the holiday than tinkering with a bike?

A problem and a great response

28 November 2008. The Tikit had been feeling a bit "soft" and I hadn't been able to rectify that by tightening various parts of it. Unfolding the bike when I got off the bus this afternoon it was clearly sick and I could finally see why. On the drive side of the black bottom bracket shell you can see where a weld has broken. It's clearer on the second photo taken after separating the two parts of the frame.


There were also signs of the crack in one of the stays supporting the main seat mast. This has now been reported by others and Bike Friday have issued a retro-fitted brace for all Tikits of that generation.


An emailed set of photos and a quick phone call to Bike Friday got the right immediate response - that it shouldn't have happened and that they would fix it up for me. They would follow up with details in a few days. A few days later I called and they advised that because of the distance between Eugene and Brisbane (Australia), they would simply send a new frame - what colour did I want? Full marks to Bike Friday's customer service.

Now I've always liked fixed wheel, but I wanted to hedge my bets with the bike. I've said before that the Tikit is the closest bike to one bike for all purposes. Rob English mentioned that, not only had he developed an adjustable dropout for the Tikit, but also had just prototype a variant with a derailleur hanger. Ever happy to be a test pilot, it sounded just what I wanted.

(...and I chose black)

Gold Coast Ride in the Premier's Peloton

"Would you like to ride with the Premier?" was the question asked by my CEO's personal assistant. Bicycle Queensland's Brisbane to the Gold Coast Challenge is the largest mass-participation ride in Queensland (I think it got 8000 starters in 2009). The Queensland Premier had run with the idea of a "Premier's Peloton" - sort of like a corporate fundraiser only on your bike getting fit rather than at a dinner getting fat. So with my CEO nominated and then finding himself with an overseas flight booked that afternoon, I got myself down as the one to ride.


Of course it was a chance to push the envelope of what the Tikit could do.

Our smart Queensland maroon "Premiers Peloton" jerseys and the corporate hospitality were great: with a dedicated tent at each stop and plenty of food, drink and a masseur at the finish it was the five star way to do the ride. It was certainly the first time I've had a domestique (the thoroughly dependable Dave Winter). I particularly enjoyed the hammer session after I flatted - a quick change of tube and then Dave and I were on as a two-up time trial on country roads through the cane fields to get back to our group. There were more than a few comments from people surprised to be passed by the pairing of a classic Joe Cosgrove Frezoni and the tiny wheeled Tikit.

I think there was a degree of scepticism over the small wheels, but that was gone by the end of the ride - that's the Premier Anna Bligh and I at the finish.

...Oh and I rode about half way back home to rack up 150 km for the day.