“Australian men (and women; let’s not be sexist) in general, and Victorians in particular, are some of the world’s worst drivers. Unskilled, uncharitable and just plain uninterested, they adopt a standard of driving that falls well short of the mark.“
Take it away cfsmtb:
cfsmtb.blogspot.com – driving us wild
Direct article links:
I handed in my notice last week and will be finishing up here on April the 5th. Damn! I was only 10 years away from Long Service Leave! 😉
I’m currently trying to get rid of 25 years of accumulated crap – I’m a total hoarder – can’t throw anything away!
I’m also “planning” some form of cycle tour in Europe somewhere.. The term ‘plan’ is not entirely accurate as it looks like I’m going to end up with a lot of ideas and not much of a clue about anything. I’ve never toured before so I figure I should make my first attempt in a bunch of foreign countries, while I have no job, limited cash, no foreign language skills, no idea at all, in fact, of what I’m doing. Sweet!
So far it looks like I will take the GT (fitted with gears.. I’m a wuss.. shutup!), with panniers for a couple of changes of clothes, small camera, money, maps, a little food. bikesoiler showed me his SPD shoes which look like normal hiking boots but have SPD cleats fitted to them – they would be cool in that I could get away with only taking one pair of shoes for everything. I’ve got to sort out clothing. I only have race gear – nothing remoately passable for normal casual wear and not much warm stuff for the European cold.
Speaking of cold, cyclingnews reports the following:
“As an example of Europe’s abnormal colder-than-cold cold-snap, on Monday, the daytime/night-time temperature range for Brussels was 0 degrees and -4 at night. Meanwhile, way down in balmy Mawson, one of the largest bases on the Antarctic mainland, they also had a daytime maximum of zero, but at night it was only -3.“
My vague ‘plan’ at this stage is to fly into London, leave some gear with friends, ride from London to Dover, ferry to France, ride north over the edge of France, north through Belgium and explore the Netherlands. If I’m still alive at this stage, ‘sybaritic’, one of the posters on Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree bike touring forum, suggested:
“You could ride from London, south to dover, cross the channel to northern france, ride east through belgium, netherlands, northern germany (inland as far as berlin if u want, or along the coast), northern poland (incl warsaw if u fancy), through the baltic states lithuania, latvia and estonia, on to russia (st petersburg), through south finland and helsinki, ferry to south sweden (stockholm etc), ferry to denmark (copenhagen etc) back to northern holland for the ferry to hull then south through eastern england back to london.“
I think I’ll play it by ear when I get there. Knowing my navigation skills, I’ll probably spend the first week, just trying to get out of London.. 🙂
I found this link on cfsmtb’s site and thought it was well cool.
“Secrets and surprises among 330 photos as a 90-year-old walks every street in 134 suburbs of Sydney, Australia.“
Link: Walk Sydney Streets
Go soothingly on the grease mud, as there lurks the skid demon.
Next weekend I’ll be a member of the Greenspeed team, racing for top honours at the 2005 Wonthaggi Human Powered Grand Prix. The event is a 24 hour HPV endurance race around Wonthaggi Secondary College. Our team consists of 8 riders powering a full carbon-fibre faired, recumbent, trike.
Today we had our first (and probably last!) test ride around Blackburn velodrome.
The machine looks mean, currently all-black in raw carbon weave, it will be painted gold before the race (my protests went unnoticed! :)). I think it ran on three 20″ wheels with slick tyres.
The cranks were very short, at least compared to a road bike, but the chainring was massive to make up for it – something up around 65T?
Unfortunately I didn’t even think to take photos of it! Doh! That’ll teach me to run late!
It was warm in the full fairing. It felt quite fast given its ~33kg weight – I was usually doing 45kph up to 50kph on the Blackburn ‘drome.
The steering was cool – it was very sensitive but as soon as you relaxed and got used to it it was pretty awesome.
The large chainring dragged the chain over a 9-speed rear cassette which was shifted with a barcon lever on the right steering-lever.
Braking was front discs operated by a brake lever, also on the right steering-lever. A backup brake will be fitted to the left lever.
Lights will also be fitted – I heard HID mentioned and Luxeon for backup and rear flashers.
I’m not sure if bottle mounts will be fitted but a Camelbak bladder will do nicely.
There’s definately some different muscle use going on – I noticed some muscle soreness in my quads, just above my knees, which I don’t tend to find on an upright bike. I think I’m just going to have to keep my cadence high and make sure I warm up properly before each session at the race.
Greenspeed’s Wonthaggi 24hr HPV Grand Prix machine
While waiting for some of the others to ride the black beast (I wonder if it has a name?) I tried to ride John’s (I think that’s ya name?) funky two-wheeler ‘bent. I don’t know what it was but it had a round tube over the rider’s right shoulder and very small handlebars up and in front. The pedals were out the front and it was quite low to the ground.
I was UNCO!!
It was like learning to ride all over again! Actually, it wasn’t that bad because I did manage to get it moving and stay upright.. mostly 🙂
I want to get hold of one for some more practise.. fun fun fun!
With a week and a half off the bike and plenty of cold symptoms still present I still wanted to race. On the way to Glenvale I think I coughed up half a kilo of snotty gunk, which was good, as I could actually breathe during the race. My HR was pretty elevated which wasn’t a good sign and today’s temp was going to be 34degC. (Ruby Rhod) “hot hot hot!” (/Ruby Rhod)
The race itself was messy. People taking stupid risks early on, when there’s no point in doing so. Some riders don’t even seem to be able to ride in a straight line! I was playing it safe and staying on the outside, probably copping more wind than I should, because 1) I’m a chicken and 2) I’m not going to win if someone takes me down am I?!
With 3-to-go I’m around 10th wheel and move up. 2-to-go and the bunch is slowing down and widening until someone jumps. I delay briefly and then go, getting myself into 4th wheel or thereabouts.
On the final lap the bunch slows and spreads wide again – no one wants to lead out. Someone will go soon it’s just a question of who..
A rider is out of the saddle.. bam.. I’m up there. Last corner is relatively clean, from up the front, and now it’s a long sprint to the line – a simple matter of sustainable power.
Power I’m just not able to muster today. I give it a go but I’m passed by a few riders and just don’t have the lung capacity or leg strength to do anything about them.
At the end I count five riders over the line in front of me – I’m actually pretty bloody happy with 6th given my preparation (none) and how I was feeling on the day (ill). My HR just after crossing the line was up around 201bpm!! So, it’s not like I wasn’t trying!
Now, I’m trying to suss out why I felt ratshit all Sunday after a 9am race. I thought I was doing okay with post-race rehydration: ~1L Staminade+Saline mix, 1.25L mineral water, couple of 600ml bottles of water and then when nothing was working a 600ml bottle of gatorade, ice packs on my head, icy pole and ice cream.
That’s a lot of fluid! Unfortunately, all of this managed to do nothing towards making me feel any better. I looked like a mess staggering around with bloodshot eyes (no bong in sight! :P) and I spent all day on the couch watching episodes of “LOST”.
People tell me it’s heatstroke or migraine, etc.. but I don’t know. I just seem to be punished no matter how much I drink. Perhaps my brain gets fried and just needs time to cool down? No wonder I can’t count laps! My brain is a giant roast lamb!
Blogging this for later use.. 🙂
Now with sexier map and more rain levels!
Look out for the black stuff!!
“A new program designed to encourage workers to ride a bike has turned away more than 900 people because of a lack of funding.”
Really.. a government cycling initiative massively underfunded? Who would’ve thought it possible?!
Good on South Australia for ‘trying’ something – is the Victorian government doing anything to encourage cycle commuting?
