Old Observatory - Melbourne

After a slight change of plans I rode into the Old Melbourne Observatory today. Perfect day for a ride, although a bit windy.

Didn't stop at the Observatory Cafe this time but yummy stuff is available .... !!

Tightening Bidon Mounts or Rivnuts

Today I finally got around to tightening the loose bidon mounts on the old Raceline road bike. I've been meaning to do it for ages since J explained to me how to go about it. It's pretty simple ....

Behold - The BSA Airborne Bicycle !!

We visited the Darwin Military Museum on the last day of our trip to Darwin and discovered this unique bicycle used by glider pilots in WWII.

The BSA Aiborne Bicycle is often called a "parabike" by collectors, but it seems that this is an erroneous term. This appears to be a post-war nickname applied to a commercial variant. The only war time manual references found so far clearly call it the "airborne bicycle".

The bike was designed to be folded in half and carried on board an aircraft. It could be landed by glider, thrown out of the aircraft with its own small parachute, or carried by a paratrooper as he jumped out of his aircraft.