plites

My little FF recumbent is now well into the forty thousands of kilometers. Like grandpa’s axe a lot of stuff has worn out and been replaced over time, but the basic configuration has remained the same.

Recently, faced with having to replace the big 67 tooth chainring (Oui, soixante sept!) at about $2 a tooth, I did some thinking.

The big ring is good but brings problems as it requires tricky front derailleur set up and depending on the range of other chainrings, clusters and the rear derailleur tricky chain management is necessary. A quick change to the big ring and big sprocket results in a very big stop, and possibly ugly repairs to der and hangers.

I’ve installed front 53-39-30 rings and a new Greenspeed

GS capreo 9-32 cluster 2 leading and trailing spokes x 32

It rides beautifully and I am loving the range of gears available on the large and granny rings. Before I could only access a couple on each ring.

The Wandong Winter Wander (WWW) has been one of my benchmark rides since I first rode it on the Bates in about 1996. The classic 200 route is my favourite. It’s a winter ride and a great opportunity to start cranking up for spring and longer things to come. My aim was that this would be the 200 for a super series which I have set myself as the “qualification” for the SM 1200. Ah, well!

This year (2009) I rode it with Simon. It was foggy. It was damp. There was a lot of fog. It wasn’t super cold. The sun came out for a while and then rather than fog there was drizzle. We weren’t out to set any records, finished nicely inside the time limit and had a thoroughly good day.

Cheeky buggers would say we probably spent too much time chatterboxing, but as everyone knows recumbent riders are such an advanced cycling form that they are able to overcome male traits and talk and ride simultaneously.

I have a number of WWW recollections.

Riding with Tim and Co. I recall that Tim needed to finish the 200 as a qualification (for PBP in 1999?). At Avenel he punctured. We all stopped and he changed his tube. We rode on. Tim punctured again. We all stopped. The clock didn’t. Tim dug around in his tyre and was convinced that there was noting in there so stuck his last spare tube in. We rode on. Tim punctured. We all swore. We stopped. Someone else had a spare tyre and tube which went on to Tim’s wheel. We rode on in a fast peleton and scraped into the Broadford checkpoint in the knick of time. And then barelled home to Wandon in the cold and the dark.

With Phil, Andy, and Barry we accompanied Trivess on his first 200. It was a cold wet WWW that one and well and truly dark by the time we finished. A character building first for a yound teenager who went on to do some much longer distances.

Another WWW was Simon’s first 200 on the Baron. We rode with Bernard on his FF. It was a good day. My only recollections are of sunshine, wonderful descents (unlike this year when you couldn’t coz of the fog!) and Simon’s water tube getting caught up in the rear cluster.

Many recumbent riders will be aware of that funny elastic decelleration caused when the tube, dangling inadvertently too low dances throught the chain, winds around the cluster a couple of times and drags you to a halt. It can be a bit ugly, but I’ve never seen it become disastrous. Control your drinking tubes.

I like the idea of rides which take you from A to B, rather than doing loops. They are much harder to put together and especially to support. Out and back routes, like the Great Southern Randonnee are a nice compromise. But the challenge of a one way trip appeals to me. Bombing out of big rides urks me. As the first Sydney ride was my first attempt at 1200 km in 90 hrs, I have always thought that if it came up again I would like to put that one to rest properly.

So, way back – April 1999 I think, Peter Moore proposed a 1200 km randonnee from Sydney to Melbourne. I was a tough route, fully unsupported, and I found it extremely difficult, eventually pulling out at Albury with Shermer’s neck. The route became the basis for the Raid Aurora and the associated Bogong and Waratah raids which are subsets of the Aurora.

Now a decade later Chris Rogers is running the SM1200. The route is still tough, possibly tougher that the first one. I gunna do it! I’ve been training. I’ve entered. I’m scared!

plites is the name I adopted for the first batch of LED headlights I built for randonneuring.  They are 3W Luxeons, controlled by a Flupic board, powered by a range of 4.5V battery packs.  This was one of the protoypes. Three years on it is still going strong!