shinyhappyrainbows

So, how hard is it to convert a standard, common-or-garden touring bicycle to electric assist? You would be surprised! There was heartache, emotional and literal, there was swearing. My neighbours probably hate me. Let me say, right up front, I know bikes, I have the right tools and I know electronics. I found this project fucking hard! First up, my electronics background is audio production in radio and in live music. I worked for an Australian national radio network for 27 years, doing in-studio and outside broadcast audio. Before that, I studied electronic engineering to just shy of an Associate Diploma but work and putting bread on the table got in the way of my exams. When I say I know electronics, I don't just know how mix sick beats, I know how to run a studio, how to do a live mix, how to set up the sound system. Put me in a venue with sound system I've never used before, I'll have it making noise in time for doors open. I'll have the mix dialled like Giles Mar...

So, as you may have read over here , I've electrified my main bike. It was a process, oh my, it was a process, and this was a "simple" front wheel drive conversion. I'll be writing a review of the product, some tips for DIY e-kit installers and some warnings. Should be published by Friday. One of the lesser problems is loss of frame space for storage gear, like bottle cage, framebag and my DIY recycled plastic bottle and 3D printed bracket toolbox. The frame had to be almost completely evacuated to fit the 350Wh battery and, while the bottle cage is still on the downtube, the battery makes the bottle unreachable on the road. It's no major problem, but I'm back to a backpack for those bits and bobs, so I've ordered some new bags. A Zefal T "console bag" and some new RockBros rolltop rear panniers. I'll be reviewing these in the next few weeks, too. If you've followed my now defunct Clunkerbike blog, you'd know that, since my ticker ...

A personal Reflection, can't be arsed crossposting, so read the full article here on my reflective blog . Electric bicycles don't need illegal power, if you're young and healthy, you don't need an e-bike but, if you have poor health, with or without riding, e-bikes are like a wheelchair for your mojo. Enjoy.

From the department of "For Want of a Better Title" Nebraska: Bruce Springsteen, source = wikimedia Last week, 'scuze my moment of SQUEEEEEEE , Mary Spender distributed an article of mine in her 21st Century Musician newsletter. Yes, she has a newsletter, you can subscribe here . Sorry, just a bit more squeeeeee... Mary is a musician after my own heart but, where the tools I had at her age were cassettes and CDs, she has Youtube, streamers and an album for download. She also grew up in the UK, rather than my little cultural backwater of Tasmania, so her reach gives me heart for the future of music. She sees music like I do. (Or do I see it like her? I'm only a retired pub rocker. I see it like she does, yes, that's it.) She sees the inequity and exploitation and rather than giving up on music or accepting the ripoffs and broken bones AC/DC sang about in the 70s, she is advocating. And she is enlisting her fellow independents to advocate with her. That's par...

Spotify and I are now at war. Artist accounts have no delete buttons. My distributor, RouteNote have removed my "Secrets of The Hand" songs from distribution to all paid streaming services, yet Spotify are still displaying them for play. I have issued a Takedown Claim, they have rejected it. So what's a po' boi left ta do? I've "vandalised" my Spotify profile as per the image, above. I'm grinning like a twit right now. I didn't get the nickname, "Crunchy" for nothing... Do us a favour, drop a comment below if the link shows the image taken down.

I have this idea to "toob" cycling and walking in Melbourne, Australia. That's it up there, the title of this blog entry. The idea came about last year while I was training for my "weekend adventures", the latter an idea that has been, well, troubled because of my health causing me to struggle to get anything like the necessary fitness. Meanwhile, I've persisted in trying to get back to cycling longer distances, but 30km (20 miles) feels like a brick wall. I used to be able to tour 100km (60 miles), camp, then do another 100km, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat... It feels like it was ripped from me, but I persist with training, finding lower traffic routes for the peace and quiet, and looking for ways to use this training time for another tube channel. I've been doing a lot of urban "rat runs" on the bike but don't like the connotations of post holocaust Nazis in that term. Today, it came to me while contemplating Doctors Without Border...