Skip to main content

Naming My Trike

 

 Well,  this is a photo of a trike the same model and of similar vintage to the one I am off  to see this week. The restoration project was undertaken by "Smoothie" pn the bentrider forum. 

Coincidentally,  I  was browsing an ebook this morning by Bryan J. Ball the founder of Bent Rider Online.  One of the chapters discussed the issue of naming trikes.  Apparently,  at least in the US, many trike riders name trikes while naming diamond framed bicycles is fairly uncommon. 

Since I've been hunting for a used trike in good condition,  within my budget,  I've never not considered naming it "Greta". Of course it's after Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, whose effort and tenacity on the issue I greatly respect. My thinking behind the name has altered slightly after watching a recent three party doco about her in 2019 and into Covid times. One of the messages Greta insists that people take on board is to not follow her,  but to "get behind the science". Yes,  her critics were right,  those Fridays of school have really dented her intelligence. Not!

Anyway,  my trike.  The model is a GTR, I can't not call it Greta. So to appease the Greta,  I will call my trike Greta and think of this more as recognition for the movement of school children around the world pressing world leaders to take strong action against climate change  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More Spring Bee Lessons

 Well my bees beat me up these last two weeks. To be fair though  it was mostly my fault. So,  I started with radix hives; two at coastal Merewether and two on my property near Paterson.   Obviously the Merewether hives produced through winter and with a bit of an up-change in the weather they needed space for brood and honey.  This caught me out (Lesson 1: don't procrastinate or aim to do the least amount of work. In other words don't be lazy.)  I then had to rush around buying and assembling frames. Penders Bees reported that from their orders it's a bumper season. But I  really need to not be so unprepared again.   Adding Supers and extracting helped create space,  but I'll be extracting again very soon with my spanking new machine. Unfortunately in hive #4 the Queen spent the winter above the Excluder and it really knocked them about. Removing the Excluder (which was a third full of dead Drones) got them working ok again.  ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Transferring a Hive

In early February arrangements were made to meet Warren and see about taking my nuc hive home. I was really excited and nervous about whether I could actually keep some bees because my track record was pretty ordinary. I met Warren late in the afternoon because bees are best transported after dark because they're all "home" and are more quiet. He was tall, and older and seems busy talking and remembering to do stuff. Halfway through saying hello, he waved to a neighbour and took him of to show him a drainage problem, that had shown up during recent much needed rain. He opened his wagon to put stuff in and the forgotten smell of the smoker permeated my life again. The car was neat, but had seemingly everything a beek would need, ready to hand. Little did I know. In the half hour it took to say hello and get moving, Warren plied me with information about bees. I made mental noted on everything. I suspect he was also assessing whether I was up to the task. We drove to a si...
Post a Comment
Read more

Deposit on GTR

  This is the ad on Gumtree that I noticed yesterday.  An old original Greenspeed GTR which I understand was THE touring model out it's time and has earned a reputation as a hard working,  long lasting trike.  I read a fantastic tutorial online on how to restore this exact model and it's pretty straightforward and affordable.  But it looks like it won't need much attention.  I believe that because it is a rigid frame, ie: non folding, that it's had little use.  The current owner has ridden it once in 5 years,  I think he said.   That tutorial also showed how 2.5" little fats can be fitted.  A good option for the t future.   One guy, responding to the tutorial I think,  wrote that he rode his GTR over 75 000 kilometres.  He regularly "got air" at the local ramp and committed and did Redux tours on her, and only decommissioned her when she "fell off the roof of [his] car"! Ye gads! So I've made a deposit and hope t...
Post a Comment
Read more