Adrian Tritschler's stuff
My website, an agglomerative mess, probably half-eaten by a grue
© 1984 - 2024 Adrian Tritschler
pixelfed
Day 886 ⛅ tandem bay rde
Adrian Tritschler's stuff
My website, an agglomerative mess, probably half-eaten by a grue
© 1984 - 2024 Adrian Tritschler
pixelfed
Day 648 ⛅ braeside park
pixelfed
Day 647 🌧 tandemage
FROTY, Tandem to Mt Defiance
21.57km / 1:23:26 / 249m / 25.1°C
MBTC tandem weekend — day 3 — Healesville to Lilydale, Blackburn to home
…
Tony, you couldn’t make it to the weekend, you organised it, we loved it, we were thinking of you. RIP.
MBTC tandem weekend — day 2 — Healesville
Today we had announced that we were going to go to the zoo, Cam immediately seized on this and for reasons known only to the two and a half year old brain announced that we were going to the zoo to see horses and bees. No amount of questioning or suggestion could shake this confidant prediction.
It was with a sense of relief that as we were walking up the road to Healesville Sanctuary that a couple walked past the other way leading their ponies, confirming in Cam’s mind that indeed we were going to see horses!
MBTC tandem weekend — day 1 — Lilydale to Healesville
Cat Herding, out of bed at 7:00 to be breakfasted, organised, packed with tandem and trailer and out the door for the 09:13 train. Sounds simply in theory and I guess it was in practice, even if we did end up walking across to the station with the trailer only half packed and the rest of the gear just stowed on the seat where Cam would sit.
Oakleigh to Richmond, Cam delighting in the names of all the stations as they came over the PA system, then off the train and across to the next platform to wait for the Lilydale train on platform 10.
Empty seats
Thought for the day: If you ride a tandem bicycle with only one person on it you will be subject to endless strange looks and wise-cracking comments from passers-by about the empty seat. Meanwhile, you’ll be surrounded by cars all with four or more seats, mostly empty and containing just one driver….
2007 Audax Alpine Classic
stats. Today 132.0km Average speed 20.5km/hr Riding time 7hr 15' The Trek T50 at Tawonga gap, 110km to go From a start at 07:20 we had until 16:05 to clock in and be within Audax’s allowed time limit — our cards were punched at 16:01, according to Evan this meant we had overtrained by three minutes!
Last hill training before the Alpine Classic
statistic Today 82.1km Average speed 20.5km/hr Riding time 4hr 00' odometer 22645km The last weekend before Australia day, and our last chance to go for a ride and try to get a few more hills into the legs before the Audax Alpine Classic next Saturday! Woeful preparation, at least we’re only in for the 130km option.
Under grey threatening clouds and through grey threatening suburbs full of grey threatening 4WDs we made our way out to Ferntree Gully then up Dorset road to The Basin, I’m only used to riding home that way so I missed one turn and we had a lot more of a major road than we really wanted.
Amy's Ride
statistic Today 124.2km Average speed 22.7km/hr Riding time 5hr 27' An early start, out of bed at 05:45 for breakfast and to drive down to Geelong, every second car on the freeway seemed to be carrying bikes. With no idea how crowded it would be at the ride, we parked in the first car-park we came to and rode the three or four kilometres to the Botanic gardens — an unnecessary precaution as it turned out, but a good way to check the tandem and warm up a little.
C'wealth games road mayhem
It was lots of fun with no traffic on the roads. Jo and I took the tandem out for a ride in the afternoon and rode up Beach road from Elwood to Port Melbourne. We didn’t see any of the marathon, just millions and millions of bollards, railings and miles of flapping plastic tape. Such a huge road when there’s no other traffic on it though!
Funniest part of it all was at one set of traffic lights.
Sunny Sunday
The bow of 'Ericsson' in the Volvo 70 race Laziness and beer-poisoning meant no bike riding yesterday. Enthusiasm took hold this morning, together with the knowledge that the around-the-world yachts have been in Melbourne for a few weeks now and will probably leave before I manage to get off my bum and see them!
Out on the tandem and down to Blackrock, a big sweeping roundabout to turn around at, then back up the bay to head in to Docklands.
Tandem time
A warm spring day, a good night’s sleep and today its time to go for a ride — but which bike do we use? Jo wanted to get out on her new roadie, I joked about the spider webs on the tandem, yes, no, maybe… The tandem it was.
Beach road was amazing. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of cyclists in groups all up and down the bay. The good weather and the approach of the Around the Bay in a Day ride has driven them all out for their training.
Pssst, wanna buy some DVDs?
There’s an interesting market held every Sunday in a car-park at the Oakleigh shops; this morning Jo and I wandered over after breakfast for a poke about. Second-hand books, masses of old electrical junk, pot plants and clothes… and a couple of dodgy young Asian guys selling pirate DVDs. I joked about the $20000 fine for selling them with another guy near me, he laughed and pushed past to get his hands on the latest releases… Five minutes later at the other end of he markets there were two police officers interviewing another DVD seller, and packing up their boxes of disks.
Out and About on the tandem
There’s nothing quite like an audience to make you nervous for a first attempt at anything — both of Jo’s parents came outside to watch us take off down the very steep driveway! We departed without ignominy, and took off down the hill with frightening acceleration. I’m still not entirely used to guiding 140kg of bicycle and riders!
Out to North Lorne and back for a warm up, another very wide u-turn to turn around, then right across the traffic to commence the ten kilometre climb up to Benwerrin on the Dean’s Marsh road.
Audax Alpine Classic day
OK, so we chose the 85km option — the soft option, the easy option…
Starting at 07:40 from the car-park down by the Ovens river in Bright, the first challenge was taking off up the steep road in a great bunch of other cyclists. Chatting with the older couple on the KHS tandem beside us showed that despite far more experience on the bike they weren’t all that happy with a crowded uphill start either.
Tandem Take Two
Out for an evening tandem ride tonight, time is catching up on us to get ready for the Alpine Classic on Sunday! Even though we’ve entered to do the 85km baby version, I really think a little more practice was called for!
The gawks and stares and comments are hilarious, anyone would think that we’ve got two heads or something…. Some of the motorists look as though they’ll either drool into their own laps or swerve into a tree.
Tandem Training
Uh oh, the Alpine Classic is in a week, we thought it would be fun to do the easy version on the tandem, (85km and up Mount Buffalo) and we haven’t been on the bike since about Easter last year! There’s only one thing for it then, get the bike out of the shed and go for a ride. Merely extracting the big beastie is a task enough, a bit like one of those puzzles where each piece seems to depend on moving another piece first.
It fits — just
Almost exactly a year after first thinking of it, finally got around to trying to fit the tandem into the car (a Holden Astra). Well what do you know! Both wheels off, rear seat off, bit of wire to tie the rear dérailleur up out of the way, handlebars almost poking the driver in the back of the neck; and it fits! No more excuses not to take it places and ride it….
The new beastie arrives
A minor crisis in the bicycle storage facility — the new toy arrives at its new home… Half of it is my birthday present from Jo, half her birthday present from me. A brand-new second-hand Trek T-50 tandem. Three or four weeks since we first saw it, about a fortnight since we decided to buy it, but only this weekend have we finally had time to get down to Peter’s shop in Brighton and pick it up — after a little nagging, mostly because they want the shop space back!
Thoughts of tandems
The Spiegeltent is back in its box, back home to Belgium for some R&R. That’ll teach me to not quite get around to visiting it. Maybe next year…
Hmmm, maybe its time to get serious and compare the KHS Alite and Cannondale MT800 tandems:
KHS Alite Cannondale MT800 Frame 7005 Cannondale Mountain Tandem Size 20"x16" MS/LS/LM/XS/XM Weight 17.5kg 17.9kg Price $3300 $4400 Fork O/s CrMo Unicrown Fatty R 1 1/18 Headset Tioga DX/2 Ahead Cane Creek C-1 Rims Sun Rhyno Lite, 40hole Sun Rhyno Lite, 40hole Front Hub Alloy QR Shimano Tandem Rear Hub XT 145mm Shimano Tandem Tyres KHS 26x1.
An affordable tandem?
Hmmm, very tempting! A second hand MT3000 for just over the price of a new MT800! I wonder how much shipping from the US is?
FOR SALE 09/12/02: Cannondale MT3000, Team Race Yellow, 1999 with less than 60 miles on it, wife don’t like it, been in storage for 2 years, never seen water, looks better than show room condition, this was the best tandem that Cannondale made that year, it has all the top components, XTR’s, Magura Hydraulic Brakes, Triple Clamp Cannondale front Suspension, rear seat post suspension, size Large/Medium(19"/16"), awesome bike, a steal at $2500.
Tandem ride
Yay! We finally rode a tandem.
After literally years of “getting around to it one day”, Joey and I rode down to Pegasus Cycles and took one of the hire bikes for a spin down to Blackrock. A KHS Alite, we both found it very upright compared to our existing bikes, and both missed having bar-ends and a speedo! There were a few shrieks from Jo, mostly due to my unannounced turns, or the sudden appearance of overhanging trees, intruding bushes, or the absolute no-no of tandem rides, the un-announced bump.
Attempted tandem trials
The weather is conspiring against Joey and I. Every time we plan to go and ride a tandem, something happens. Today it was going to be after lunch, as a result, at lunch time it started to rain and continued all afternoon.
Oh well, some good came of it all. I spent the afternoon rummaging around in the second bedroom and actually performed some cleaning up. As part of this, I decided it was about time to put the case back on wyvern, which has been running flawlessly for the last two months.
Money-spending day
Today we bought:
Three new tyres for the mountain bikes — much needed.
Two 1.25” Tioga Cityslickers and a 1.5” IRC Metro. The 1.5" Cityslicker comes off the rear-wheel-from-hell on my bike and goes on the front of Joey’s bike. The IRC Metro goes on the rear of Joey’s bike, then the two Tiogas go onto my bike… simple! It would have been much simpler if we’d had the track pump that’s on the shopping list…
647-551_01
Ron and Julianne, taking Pegasus Pete's tandem for a test ride
Trek T50
One of the bicycles I’ve owned over the years.
A tandem at last – No collection of bicycles is complete without at least one tandem.
The tandem at Noojee hotel After several years of thought, and several months of searching, Jo and I finally bought ourselves a tandem. Second-hand, a trifle scratched and worn, but mechanically magnificent.
40 hole Shimano XT hubs Velocity Dyad rims Shimano Ultegra shifters Shimano Deore DX 9-speed rear derailleur Shimano 105 triple front derailleur 1750mm long, with the wheels removed, so very cumbersome to carry up and down the stairs or to put in the car!
About
ajft looking stylish and black
…The Owner
There’s not much more I can add to who I am.
…The Site
Vanity site? Technology experiment? Learning tool? Blog? Journal? Diary? Photo album? I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you…
I experiment. I play. I write and I take pictures. Some of the site is organised around topics, other parts are organized by date, then there’s always the cross-references between them.
Its all been here a fairly long time. Like the papers on my desk, or the books on the bedside table, the pile just grew… and it all grew without much plan or structure. I try not to break URLs, so historical oddities abound.
Long ago it started as a learning experiment with a few static HTML pages, then I added a bit of server-side includes and some very ugly PHP. A hand-built journal/blog on top of that PHP, then a few experiments in moving to various static publishing systems. I’ve never wanted a database-based blogging engine, so over the years I’ve tried PHP, nanoblogger, emacs-muse, silkpage and docbook before settling on Emacs Org mode for writing and jekyll for publishing. But the itch remained… I never really liked jekyll and the ruby underneath always seemed so much black magic. So now the latest incarnation is Org mode and hugo.
…The ISP
- Hosted by @cos