A Bike from the Land Downunder - Part 2

Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans 

John Lennon

Back in 2005 I set out to get a fancy new geared bike and somehow became a Single Speeder on a fully rigid steel frame. This year though, as I have reached new levels of accomplishment on a rigid single speed, as I made plans to build a brand new single speed road bike, an old geared frame turned up on my doorstep and begged for a second chance at life.

This is the story of that bike and how I found room for a derailleur once more.

I'm an archaeologist. I make a living researching the past, but more than that, it is part of who I am. I have a passion for old things, tales of past times, finding a place for both in this modern world and showing others the value of such things. Some of my earliest memories are of summer evenings scavenging old treasure from the rubbish at our local 'tip' (Aussie slang for waste disposal station). I'm not sure, but I think my first three bikes probably had their origins at the Ainslie Tip.

The other aspect of being an archaeologist in Australia is that my work inevitably brings me in close contact with the 'First Australians', the indigenous Aboriginal people who my forefathers stole this beautiful country from. It is an aspect of my work that is a great privilege but also often very confronting. It means going face to face with what European nations have done in this country and how they have created a minority class with a fragmented identity and languages that are often largely forgotten.

Part of what I do is trying to conserve and manage Aboriginal heritage, but it is also about giving a voice to Indigenous Australia through their archaeology. I don't claim to do it very well, but I try my best.

More than anything, I try to win the trust of the Aboriginal people I work with, because if they don't trust me there is no way I can tell their story or help protect their values. So, it was a pretty darn humbling and special moment when Spud, a Koori from down Illawarra way, said he had an old bike he wanted to give me.

He said he wasn't sure how old it was or how good it was, but it had a history of being raced by his sister (at least I think it was his sister), so he was pretty sure it was a decent bike. He also said that the frame was too small for him, but it would probably fit me, and given how much I ride bikes, would I be interested?

Naturally I said yes, admittedly with a mixture of excitement and doubt. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, and since I was heading back to the office that day, it would be some months before I discovered what I had.

True to his word, Spud brought the bike out to the excavation, and when my colleagues couldn't fit it in the car on the weekend, they stored it in the port-a-loo for safe keeping, much to the bemusement of another colleague who then discovered a twenty year old bike inside when they went to the toilet the following Monday!

I organised for a friend who lived near the excavation to collect the bike and store it until I could collect it.

He was also pretty bemused by the bike, and suggested that I might want to lower my expectations about what I had just taken charge of. I laughed him off and said just wait until you see what we do with it.

Some months later I finally had a chance to drive down and collect the bike. It turned out to be a classic mid-range steel frame with some entry level components on it from circa 1991-92. The paint was chipped and surface rust starting to spread; the components were largely beyond saving, but the frame showed great promise and just needed love.

We took it home and tried to work out the brand of the frame. It was pretty similar to the lugged steel frames produced by Repco and Shogun in the late 80s and early 90s, but the serial number didn't match either of these. The brand didn't matter, I had a vision for the bike. The semi-vertical dropouts and the derailleur hanger were begging for a sympathetic rebuild with gears, and so I started planning a 1x8 retro racer.

Phil took command of hunting down the parts and we quickly agreed on a pure Campagnolo build. The only question was how to do the paint job.

The spark for this came from the red Circus Monkey hubs that Phil had tracked down as a cheap, modern light weight Campagnolo compatible option.

 Suddenly I had a vision of a bike that was red from the hubs up, black across the top tube and upper seat stays and forks, with a splash of yellow in the middle: the Aboriginal Flag!

The Aboriginal flag was designed by Harold Thomas, a Luritja man from Central Australia. It was created as a symbol of unity and national identity for Aboriginal people during the land rights movement of the early 1970s (http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/fastfacts/aboriginalflag.html).

Black: Represents the Aboriginal people of Australia

Red: Represents the red earth, the red ochre and a spiritual relation to the land

Yellow: Represents the Sun, the giver of life and protector

What better way to respect the history of this bike than to paint it in an unmistakeable way that reflects this magnificent flag?

We marked the frame up, put together some notes and images for the spray painter and Phil looked up the paint codes for the flag. He also added a second bottle cage mount and had the great idea of getting the bottle cages sprayed to match the yellow of the frame.

The result? A stunning and unique paint job that displays its heritage proudly.

It is running a 44 tooth chain ring with Record cranks and a 13-28 cassette. 

The derailleur is Chorus and the frame mounted indexed shifter is Record. 

The brake callipers and levers are Chorus and the levers, like most of the groupset, are second hand parts hunted down from around the world off eBay. 

The stem, headset and seat post are all black in order to tie the whole colour scheme together. 

The stem is an elegant quill that supports one of the more unusual items on the bike: Salsa Moto Ace Bell Lap flared drop bars (a tip of the hat to my original Fargo build) wrapped in Specialized black cork tape. 

The seat is a Serfas Furano, a now obsolete saddle that really suits my bum (I run the same saddle on my MTB).

The wheels are also a break from the retro scheme with Circus Monkeys laced into Mavic Open Pros with two cross DT Revolution spokes and a set of uber-reliable Continental Gatorskins for grip and puncture protection.

The pedals are classic old egg beaters (actually they might be the set I used on the old Stumpy when we did our first Solo 24 Hour together).

Oh yeah, and the bottle cages are Elite.

The total package weighs a respectable 9.4kg. It's only a shade heavier than the aluminium and carbon fibre Orbea I used to have, but the wheels are so much lighter! It accelerates beautifully and the longer wheelbase with the steel frame makes for a comfortable and confident ride.

So far we have only had our maiden voyage together. It was a breakfast run with a return through Ngunnawal (suburb named after the local Aboriginal tribe) to visit Steve, who had stored the bike for some months before he moved to Canberra for work. He was stunned by the transformation!

Riding home from Steve's, we passed an old fella sitting at a bus stop and I heard that uniquely Aboriginal accent call out "that's a nice looking bike you got there". If there were any lingering doubts about the message behind this bike, they evaporated in that instant. 

Now I just can't wait to show Spud and see what he thinks of the bike.

Respect!

Respect for culture, history and community!