Author: L-dub

It’s been a while between updates here at BnC HQ, and for that we’re sorry. We (and we actually mean we, as there’s a few of us) have been riding, talking shit, and getting into the summery weather that’s been teasing us for the past month or so, which has meant a slowing down of new content on here. OK, well, it’s been quiet here for the past month or so. We’ve had a couple of group rides, and they look like being a regular thing.

So, if you’re not busy Monday the 15th, cruise down to Hobart’s Salamanca Lawns at 5:30 and say hi. We’ll go for a quick cruise and maybe throw down a couple of brews. All welcome, bring a skid lid and lights. It looks like we’ll be doing this a bit as the weather warms up, so get in early and come and have a spin with us. Casual as you like, as long as you can keep a reasonable pace.

The bike is Nate Saltus’ Schwinn. Appropriated from fixedgeargallery. Have a good weekend!

Waiting for parts to arrive in the mail is like the excitement I felt waiting for xmas morning to roll around for so many years when I was a kid. There’s the feeling of anticipation – you don’t know exactly when your ill-gotten gains will find their way to you until you roll up panting to the letterbox and find that red and white parcel collection notice. And, like xmas morning, you don’t know exactly what surprises you might get. Granted, paying for something and waiting it to arrive from the US or elsewhere in the world isn’t quite the same as knowing you were going to get something, but not knowing exactly what, but hey, when can we really say we experience the same childish excitement these days?

Me, I’m waiting on the last piece of my build to arrive. There’ll be a very excited run to the post office when I get that golden ticket in the letterbox, and some feverish spanner work going down when my cranks arrive.

For now, my blue, red and white steed will do the job while the canary yellow fixed-to-be sits waiting for the heart transplant it needs to live.

Just in case any of us thought that half-arsed trackstands and wheelies were awesome, here’s something to make us think again.

With thanks to Velorution

A trip to pick up some track bars from an ex-track cyclist in the north of the state on the weekend ended up with a conversation about the heyday of track cycling during the late 60s and early 70s at Launceston’s York Park. Every Friday night there would be up to 250 cyclists cramming in to watch and race, or so the story goes.

The more hardcore racers would compete in the six-day race, which made for white-knuckled racing on the less-than-perfect velodrome at York Park. In the first year of the ‘six’, in 1961, over 50,000 spectators came to the raceway over the six days to watch the action.

Photo: Joe Ciavolo (left) rounding the final turn at Launceston’s York Park.

“It was so flat, very difficult to get round on the corners and it was a small track. It just wasn’t banked enough. There were sparks all the time from where you would clip your pedals on the banks. The pedal clipping on the inside was spectacular for the spectators because nearly everyone could do it, not intentionally.

“The other [problem] was the back wheel skipping coming out of the finishing bend. Unless you knew exactly how to ride it the back wheel would always skip.”
– Joe Ciavolo

Racing ended at York Park in 1972. I wonder where the bikes that were involved in the epic races of three decades past are now?

It’s a grand tradition indeed.

Quote and image from The Licorice Gallery.