30 September 2008

Canberra Vintage and Classic Bicycle Ride

| Loose Brown
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[First filed: September 29, 2008 @ 10:27]

Yesterday morning marked the first ever Canberra Vintage and Classic Bicycle Ride, held by the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.

Mrs Brown and myself decided to pop down to the starting line to see if I could find anyone else with an interest in the wacky English Raleigh Chopper.

We found that the ride was the brainchild of Trevor Shone – a vintage bicycle enthusiast who organised the ride to help ‘protect our cycling history’ by bringing collectable bike owners together to talk, swap and ride pre-1985 bicycles.

(Slideshow and more below)

I became so involved in my trip down memory lane that the next time I looked around there were at least 150 – 160 people gathered, each with their own lovingly restored or proudly battered and rusty beast.

There were plenty of standouts such as Alex Oshea’s Green 1949 Malvern Star and Anton Wurzer’s ‘Lennie Racer’ tandem – modified of course to carry a small child as a stoker. There were a range of English 3 speeds, early 80s BMX bikes, even two orange speedwell GTS’s, complete with hydraulic brakes.

Trevor hopes that the event will grow to become an annual gathering to raise money for charity including a swap meet, the social ride and other activities. By the size and enthusiasm of the crowd, he is well on his way to achieving his dream.

Unfortunately for me there were no Raleigh Choppers. Mrs Brown was happy – our garage is packed as it is.

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and this is on again this year?

JB, I know nothing about the ‘bent in the pic, but would note that the basic two-wheeled recumbent design has been around since the 1930’s. There were very few commercial manufacturers till the (maybe) late 70’s when one or a couple of American (I think) companies started building them. Anyone remember that 1983 movie (thanks, IMDB!) Mindstorm? Christopher Walken had a recumbent lowracer in it (an Avatar 2000, circa 1976 for the nerds :-))

I don’t know much about bicycles, but your articles are always very interesting to read. It looks like a really good day.

I dig those old BMXs. Great event.

Old Peugeot!! Sweeeet. I want one.

The best number of bicycles to own is B+1 where B = the current number of bikes you have.

Oh Glory!! I was hoping to bust out my old Peugeot but a bung ankle restricted my bikeridership yesterday.
Well done to the organisers, cant wait to go to the next one.

I was wondering why I was seeing trailers full of really old bikes passing me on the weekend.

I thought it was throw your old bike out day free at the tip or somthing!
That would have been good to see if I knew it was on.

I’m sure I saw a recumbent poking its nose out in one of those shots.

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