martinjy.com — Martin Young’s blog

The Hammer is out of retirement

The Hammer is out of retirement, originally uploaded to Flickr by martinjy on 27th February, 2008.

I’m working on St Kilda Rd 2 1/2 days a week at the moment (and will be for another 3 months) and have been experimenting with public transport from Southern Cross station to the St Kilda Rd office. The results? Best travel time so far has been 35 minutes. That was when I left the office at 4.55pm, got straight onto a tram, got off the tram at Swanston/Collins and straight on a 109 to Southern Cross. Worst case was 55 minutes. Average is 45 minutes.

Yep, 45 minutes to travel 3.9km.

The V-Line from Southern Cross to South Geelong, which happens to be about 75km, takes just under 60 minutes on average. Makes those trams look like a joke, doesn’t it?

So today I decided to bust out the Hammer. The recent decision to allow bikes back onto peak hour trains means I can chuck it in the car, drive to South Geelong, put it in the bike rack on the train, hop off at Southern Cross, click in and ride to the St Kilda Rd office, probably via Clarendon St, the top bit of Albert Park and a bit of St Kilda Rd. I’m expecting it to take less than 20 minutes, and that’s just cruising.

I had a problem though - the Hammer hasn’t been outside the garage since we moved here in July 06. It was covered in cobwebs and dust, the tyres were flat and the Deore gear shifters weren’t working at all.

A quick Google for “shimano shifter fix” threw up a bunch of sites that suggested WD40, and the blokes in City Cycles on Bourke St confirmed that the Deore shifters were built to last and shouldn’t need to be taken to bits for a fix. They also suggested WD40. Guess what … it worked perfectly. The Hammer’s back on the road and ready to put Melbourne’s public transport (the trams, specifically) to shame.

And, as an aside, doesn’t it look a picture? OK, so it’s not as techy as the latest dual suspension all mountain bikes but it looks (and is) light and fast.