One prick spoils it for the rest..

7 years I’ve been living in Croydon. Almost the entire time I’ve been grocery shopping by bike. I’d roll the bike into the stupormarket and lean it up inside because I hate locking bikes and I felt it was safer inside anyway. Besides, my only (cough) good lock was at work anyway. So after almost seven years of bringing a bike into this place you can imagine my shock when some new security guard tells me to take it outside. Of course I’m immediately arguing with him about it.

“I don’t want to leave it outside!”, “I don’t have a lock!”, “I’ve been doing this for years with no trouble” and he gives me the “I’m a cyclist too” line and proceeds to explain to me what a fucking U-lock is. I left in disgust and leaned the bike up outside returning to buy some strange food products (strange because they’re not in a packet, ready to be nuked – holy crap! hippy’s gone au naturale! ;)).

On the way out, the guard that usually works there – who I’ve been saying “g’day” to for frickin’ ages – tells me that some fuckhead rode into the centre, ignored requests to get off his bike, and proceeded to knock some poor woman down!

So now it’s crackdown time and I get rolled because of what some fucking moron has done. Stupid peds on the road is one thing, but don’t frickin’ ride into their territory and knock them down!!! I’m going to have to assume it was some ‘burb-fucked chroming bmx grommet but I could be wrong. Thanks to whoever it was – I love my life made more difficult.. cock smoking tool.

It’s lucky I’m listening to “Lou Reed – Satellite Of Love 2004 (Dab Hands Retouch Mix)” or I’d be really mad! ๐Ÿ˜›

My first recumbent ride..

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 'bent race trike

Greenspeed’s Wonthaggi 24hr HPV Grand Prix machine

Click here for a frontal shot

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 ๐Ÿ™‚

I want to get hold of one for some more practise.. fun fun fun!

John Kul's XEVON recumbent

John’s XEVON

Cyclist program over-run

“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?

The Advertiser: Cyclist program over-run

World's Oldest Track Cycling Race

The Austral Wheelrace, the World?s oldest track cycling event, will be staged for the 107th time on Saturday February 26 at Vodafone Arena. With previous editions of the Austral ending in crashes, cries of race fixing, and triumph, the 2005 edition will no doubt add to the folklore that surrounds the Austral.

A crack field has been secured to contest this event with World Cup champion and Athens Olympians Ben Kersten and two time Austral winner Darren Young secured to ride. Both Kersten and Young are programmed to ride off the mark of honour ? the Scratch mark.

Recently crowned Australian Champions Joel Leonard and Sean Finning will also be competing as part of the 120 strong field and with former winners of the calibre of Sid Patterson, Danny Clarke and Garry Neiwand, all competitors will be desperate to add their name to the honour roll.

The Austral Wheelrace will be run over 2000 metres or 8 laps of the 250m Vodafone Arena board velodrome. There will be six heats, with the top four riders in each heat qualifying for the final. The Jefferson Ford Austral Wheelrace is also one of the highest ranked National Track Series events, and as such, a large points swag will be on offer to the triumphant rider in this historic event.

(Press Release from: www.cyclistsinternational.com.au)

Bicycle World Tours

For no particular reason (cough), here’s some dudes doing world tours by bike. Very interesting reading. They almost all seem to be teachers!!!

www.gordontaylor.co.uk:

Fixed gear world tour

www.roundtheworldbybike.com

50,000 miles, 5 continents, 50 countries. Alone and on a bicycle.

www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com:

Pedalling 15,000 miles home to England from a remote town in North East Siberia

www.downtheroad.org:

How we traded our ordinary lives for a global bicycle touring adventure

Corax:

Corax – Adventures and Expeditions