Spring has Sprung …….

The last few days have been quite springlike. This has put a spring into the pedals and a smile on the face.

The combined wood workshop / cycle workshop shed has warmed up too and to celebrate I fired up the scroll saw. Above is one of three segmented wood pictures I made to commemorate the ride of the 3 Gs. This is mine. Colin and Ken both have their own, slightly different versions.

For the past couple of weeks I have been riding local rides – no trike transportation stages to far away destinations.

Most rides see me passing the local churchyard which is, as you can see, a mass of wildflowers at the moment.

The Hawthorn has gone crazy. There is so much white flower on the bushes that it looks like snow.

Also, the grass verges are growing and I have met the roadside slasher man twice in recent days. He is very considerate and halts the slasher as I pass by. A good thing too as in the grass there are bottles, cans and other roadside debris, possibly including snakes, none of which I would like to come towards me. At high speed. Off the slasher blade.

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Thoughts are moving towards possible multi-day camping trips. We still have our booking on the Spirit to head to Melbourne at the end of February. Victoria has endured several weeks of lockdown and Melbournians have succeeded in pulling the new corona virus infection count down to ZERO for the past 3 days. Well done everybody. The Tasmanian government has opened our borders but not to Victorians as yet. It will be interesting to see how things are going after relaxed border control, Christmas and the summer holidays. Will we feel safe enough to tackle the Victorian Rail Trails in March 2021?

Until then though we should get out and about in Tassie. Sue and I are heading south for a short break in the Hobart area later this week so will there be a S24O camp/ride after that to kick the season off? It shouldn’t be hard to persuade Colin, he has been wanting to go for the past month!

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I have had second thoughts about removing the double chainring. A quick recap – it didn’t handle roadside bumps well, the chain falling off the large ring and onto either the smaller ring or the bike frame. So I took it off.

After the uphill ride into the Tiers I really felt I needed a lower gear or two – and that’s what the small chainring gave me. So I put it back on, shortened the chain guide tube and shortened the actual chain; all in a bid to stop the chain bouncing around so much over bumps that it moved to the left, off the main ring. The derailleur in place to handle chain tension was a bit too relaxed and removing a couple of links from the chain put it under more tension. That done and with the tube shortened, it looked OK.

I have now ridden 2 rides since the surgery and the chain has stayed put. When the chain runs onto the large ring, the chain angle isn’t that good. Coming off the idler wheel at an angle, it moves right to get on the chainring. The chain is staying put on the large ring following the changes, so I will go with it for a while. With camping trips coming up, I reckon I will be using that small front ring quite a bit.

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It looks like I should easily exceed 4,000 kilometres for this year. Which isn’t too bad as I had a slow start. With 2 months to go I am thinking I should aim at 4,500 ks for 2020. That will give me a bit of a challenge.

Let’s get to it. …………………………