If ever you’re around Mornington/Frankston, make sure you include Tuerong rd and Derril rd (Moorooduc) within your itinerary. It’s a lot of fun. The same goes for Fairbairn Ave and Bradford Rd near Mt Martha reserve.
Oh! and don’t forget Arthur’s Seat.
Stay safe! Ron.
This will be a post for all the bike nerds out there, so if word like ‘threaded headset’ or ‘italian bottom bracket’ confuse or bore you, feel free to watch this instead
Firstly, a little back story. A few months back my house was broken into and, amongst other things, my main bike was stolen. Note: If anyone sees a blue Cecil Walker with Tange chrome fork and Pro-Lites, hit up VVMCC!
So, now i had a bike to replace. After many hours of searching i finally settled on a sweet Chesini Arena from the early 90’s. Columbus SL/SP tubing, full 7400 Dura Ace, and shiny paint. It was right up my alley.
The only things changed were the saddle to a San Marco Rolls and a half decent set of STI levers as I already have a down tube shifted bike. If any of you have ever tried to climb a hill with DT shifters you will know why I changed.
One annoying thing was the cone nut on the rear brake went missing on the maiden voyage. Please feel free to message vvmcc if you have one
Another poorly shot photo from the non-drive side.
The SP/SL mix works well for me as the SP seat-tube seems to make it a bit stiffer than other bikes in the VVMCC stable, but that is a post for another day. Tune in next month for another profile on one of our bikes. I can promise it will contain bike nerd fappery and another hilarious clip for those not so vintage steel-ey inclined. /p>;;;
Pinchy.
This ride came out of nowhere and wasn’t very well planned. Scott had work on, but Pinch, Gareth and myself were good to go. Our initial plan was to to leave Craigieburn at 07:00 am, ride up Mount Macedon, cup of tea & biscuits at Woodend and back to Craigieburn by 3:00 pm. Leaving us time to wine & dine our mistresses and head over to a birthday party in the city later on in the night.
We did not leave the carpark until 10:00 am. I literally rode 2 metres, hit a gutter and gave myself a pinch flat. Motherfucker! The way we were going, it seemed unlikely we were ever going to leave the carpark at all.
You don’t often hear of people harp on about riding around the Hume region and we now know why. The place is a massive shit hole. It’s when we get to the Shire of Macedon Ranges that things get picturesque and the rides with people you don’t really like become more tolerable.
Just before we hit Mt. Macedon, I got another flat (a slow leak on my front tyre this time). I was able to ride on it, but it meant I had to pump it up every fifteen kilometres. Being such a lazy prick and thinking that it was a good idea (and more manly) to ride up Mt. Macedon with a flat tyre, we decided to press on and not change it until we got to Woodend. Bad Idea.
By the first incline, Gareth had already left us. Pinch and I were left to battle it out for the bridesmaid position.
The air was fresher than Will Smith, the views were amazing, native animals were out frolicking and all I could think about was my front flat tyre. Macedon nearly made me weep like a corporate baby boomer from one of those shit Rapha videos, but Pinch and I persisted so we could see Gareth gloating at the top of the hill.
A few minutes rest up the top, a ten kilometre downhill ride down to Woodend, a short lunch, a change of tyre and a quick slog back to Craigieburn averaging between 35-40 km/hr and we were back home just before the sun set. Thanks Mt. Mazza for an awesome day!
Oh, and we still got to dinner!
And.. we managed to get to the party as well. Happy birthday mad cans Nikailah!!!!
VVMCC 