Debris, Snakes

Todays windy commute was nasally punctuated by a few, 3, sharp pungent aromas. Road kill snakes. Spring is really rushing in headlong in the Tweed.

Shame that the traffic flits past unconcerned and unenlightented to the death and destruction being mete out just outside their exteral shells.

woops

Just read this Amazing insight ...

"Death happens outside the car. Safety resides within. What happens outside is an abstraction from the reality of this modern mobile living room on wheels. Outside has become the virtual reality of a video game. Somehow, if something goes wrong, the game will reset and they can pick up a new life; take on new ammunition and an extra dose of health"

To tree or not to tree

Just a quick post on th's mornings commute. Last night I was chatting to Mark about his rides on the weekend with his new shoes ‘n pedals . Had a few laughs over the few slow tumbles and the one lost it going downhill along a deep cow track. Kama was out to get me this morning. I took off tired from the get go and the sunnies were annoyingly dirty but left them on, which would add to my problems later.

The ride went uneventfully through the still air of the morning, mist  lingering in the small valleys along the route. Pleasant enough!

After 7 km’s I began the noisy section along the freeway bike lane. Passing the Eviron overpass bridge nothing was out of the ordinary, mind doing it’s wandering and being brought into focus as the next B-Double flew past.

Then the tree jumped out from the edge of the verge. No but nearly. Last week I saw the tree laying low and fully extending out across the north bound bike path and mentioned it to my daughter, so I should of been expecting it. But I had begun to tilt my head low to allow me to see through the clean section of the sunnies to avoid debris, big mistake travelling at 35 km/hr as it didn’t let me see far ahead.

At the very instant of seeing the tree and the knowing there was no way to stop before hitting it, I began to hear a truck coming up fast behind  me. This cut off the only escape route. I was thinking quick enough to not want to bounce under 24 wheels of a semi travelling at 110 km/hr.

So that left the only option ” hit the tree head on”, which I did, still clipped in. So I tested the somersault skills I have been honing on my gravel road riding. Although I have never tried one at this speed it wasn’t totally successful. Both the bike and myself ended up on sprawled out on the other side of the foliage.

More bark of me than the tree. Lucky it was still green and I hit it near the top zone, still far enough away from the truck and end to be both 600 mm high and more around. I scrambled to my feet and move the various parts all moved normally. Painful back, hip and elbow. Checked the elbow nice road grind there no blood. Next checked the bike front and rear wheels still round and true. Derailleur’s still functional. Only sign of damage the right shifter moved a bit and the new bar tape grazed, so it’s still rideable!

What to do next? Make a call? No! Ride the rest of the way? Give it a go! What about the f!@$&#$g tree? Move it off the bike lane? Yes! Moving the tree got the self aggression out and calmed me down to ride “normally “ the rest of the commute.

I didn’t get the time, during the rest of the ride, to dwell on my crash. About 2 kilometres up the road a Lindsay’s Bro’s B-Double did a scare the bike rider by deliberately drifting into the bike lane by about 600mm, close after my earlier experience.  Ah another ride in paradise!

Just after the Chinderah interchange the commuter rider from last week caught me and cruised past with a gid’ay. Didn’t struggle over Sextons Hill but was a little concerned with the Machinery Drive intersection. But it was an unwarranted concern.

A bit of an uncomfortable day at work but that was all and rode the return with relative ease, except I took the bike path up the rise of Sextons just in case I lost it! Another two minor incidents stood out. Getting squezzed into the gutter by a non indicating lane changing delivery van and another Lindsay’s Bro’s B-Double moved into the bike lane again. They must employ  a lot of disillusioned dropkick ute drivers.

Not so small...

Hot Mooball

Mark, Rob and myself decided to sweat it out... no that's not how it started.

OK

So we decided to go through the Mooball forest today, the usual root for me and as Rob was coming over Clothiers Hill Mark and he met at the bottom of the quarry hill to ride over to Reserve creek etc to Cudgera Creek. The start of the 1000 plus meters of ascending today over ~50kms through to Cooridilla Road(?). On the Wabba Road section another victim was claimed, Rob managed to get snake eye flats front and rear, changed the rear and tried to use a slow leaker on the front. This gaves us another 3 or 4 breaks until he finally used my spare, the freebie one from Minyon Falls ride. And in the shaded forest every thing was cool, literally. As usual I managed to find a way to do a sumasault, no damage.  Mark wasn't able to escape totally unscathed he developed a slow leak on our way through the cane fields between Reserve Creek Rd and Clothiers. He managed to scrape home with just a few stops for air.

By the time we were out of the forest and well down Smarts Rd the temperature had climbed to 38  °C and stayed that way all the way to over Clothiers hill past Duranbah Rd and onto Mark's. Mark and I both finished  3 litres of water as we got to his place and were still dehydrated. Rob only took 2 bottles and was well wasted, lucky he finished before the return over the hill. By this time my knees were a worry and I elected to get the lift offered by mark in his work van.

So a good ride but hell hot! We only manage 12.5k/hr avg speed.

Sextons Hill - "The Scary Bit"

Just thought I would post an image of the only part of My Commute which always scares me! You have been cruising along at about 30-35kms/hr with the 60kms/hour traffic to hit the climb to the top of Sextons Hill where the traffic merges to 80kms/hour and you have been riding along the 800-900mm verge against an Steel Armco Railing with lots of past evidence of bad driving only to hit this little beauty about 1/2 way up and no way of looking leisurely behind to see if trucks, 4WD's or buses are about to take the left turn into Banora etc only to be confronted by NO Road surface space to make it past the Very Badly positioned Traffic Island. Sometimes I just ride over it and others I will turn into the intersection and wait for the traffic to clear before doing a U-turn to get back onto the Pacific Highway.

[caption id="attachment_276" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="The Scary Bit on the ascent of Sextons Hill South Tweed Heads NSW"][/caption]

Thanks to Google Maps Street View....

Why did the chook cross the road?

Well we may never know. Last night I noticed a chook on Cudgera Creek Rd On tonights ride I saw it still in the middle of the road but quite flat! so it will never make it to the othe side now. Hope is eternal.

Magpie Heven

Well todays sighting of local road kill resulted in a mixture of emotions... The sight of a male magpie dead on the side of the road outside the Hastings Point Sewerage Treatment Works. This is where all the attacks occurred during rides last spring. That dead male might be that aggressive bird! But, it could also be the fledgling that was being protected.

We will just need to wait and see! It's only a few more months to wait! That is until the dive bombing begins again!

All this on a cruise up to Kingscliff Post Office and Optometrist... about 37ks round trip!

Big Brown

Today I transported the old Malvern Star Hybrid to the New Cabba bike repair shop. To get it road-worthy (approx$150 for new cables, degrease and lube, brake pads and a new rear derailleur with a re-truing(?) of the rear wheel) when I get it back I will get main use bike overhauled, but the parts will take a few days to get delivered. A rear cluster and chain.

After pushing the Malvern Star alongside as I rode my bike, (getting off when I got to the Magpie attack point then walking and surprise surprise it didn't attack!phew! when i was walking with bikes on either-side and hands full). I rode with the wind up to kingscliff and around to Chinderah Metal Recyclers to see if they had some 150mm steel rings I could use on a project I am working on, of course they didn't but did have some pipe I could use but their cutoff saw was faulty so.....

I then decided to agonise with the wind and traffic down the freeway to home. After the continuous slog I was finally in the home stretch on Round Mountain Road on what I describe as the "Turf Farm Hill" up from the Dooley's. As I approached it's crest a Pied Currawong dove down to the road surface about 4 meters ahead. As it came to about 150mm from the ground a 2 meter Brown Snake doubled back on itself striking out at the bird attacking it's tail.

Thanks to the Currawong, who flew off with no bite or other ill effects, I had seen the snake with enough time to slow down and avoid us crossing paths.....  another day...

A ride before the NSW Labor Day Weekend

Well I managed to get 1 1/2 hours sleep last night. As parents we had to get up at 3:00am to pt Kaydee on her bus to begin her trip to Japan with her school. That is another story, but we got back at 5:00am so I thought here is an opportunity to see what an early morning ride was like, I usually do not see the sun rise after I wake up but often see it rise on the way home from a job before I do go to bed!  

Okay so I thought as I am new to the traffic I would go the Kingscliff Bike Path to Chinderah and then would travel the freeway and Tweed Valley Way to Cudgera Creek Road up to Duranbah the opposite way the the traffic (I thought wrong).  It was all okay upto the Tweed Valley Way then the idiots arrived, two lanes available to south bound traffic but they couldn't be bothered using the inside lane so there was a lot of hairy moments with trucks and cars zipping past at 100kph just inches away. I gave a sigh of relief when I started on the hills. Passed a fellow morning rider going the other way as I neared Tropical Fruit World,  we passed again at the Condong Sugar Mill after descending Clothiers Creek Road through Nunderi on the way the Reserve Creek Road.

As I approached the crest of Reserve Creek Road there were 2 recently squashed Red Belly Black snakes (I estimate about 900mm long) about 500 meters apart. The only other signs of non-human life were the usual farm animals and birds. Also I eat the bran muffin I had been carrying, as I had not had breakfast yet and was starting to "feel a might peckish".

I decided that instead of heading straight home I would incorporate the Kanes Road circuit. So this rounded off a 80km ride (if you take all the bike path twists and turns into account)

The things that made up for the scary "Worker" traffic was the cool morning temperatures and light winds.

A Hot September Mur'bah Loop

Rode Round Mountain, Reserve Creek and the Tweed Valley Way to Murwillumbah. Had a quick chat with a couple of touring foreign tourists (no English maybe?) riding into Mur'bah to book a Yoga and meditation seminar for this Sunday.

The ride over Reserve Creek didn't take too much out of me even with the heat and thin Queensland bushfire smoke hanging in the air. With the wind from the West I thought that a push over Burringbah Range and a slow ride along the coast from Wooyung with a cross wind would round off the ride. But the reflected road heat and the sun beating on my back  all the wy up the range ( I found very little shade on the way up the range) was a bit too much for me. I managed to get over the crest but felt the last 500 metres with my left foot noticeably painful I decided to push on to the Mooball Victory Hotel for a schooner of soda water and a 15 minute rest stop.

The only road kill was 2 green tree snakes (about 600mm) on the Round Mountain gravel road section and a very large bandicoot near South Mur'bah.

The length of the ride was only 64km but the sun, heat and smoke took their toll. Along the Wooyung to Pottsville Stretch of road. It was head down and grind non-stop for 10km along the flat road against the now freshening seabreeze, dropping to 16km/hr at one point until I stood in the saddle to relieve the dedicates and managed to increase the momentum and wake me up a little.

I continued on, struggling. I basically just headed home using up what little energy I had managed to save in reserve in the attacks from the Sun, Smoke and Wind. 

The BOM said

MURWILLUMBAH   1500 WNW/022 31

 It took 4hours including stops and the average HR was 149bpm, also including Mur'bah stop and rest at Mooball. 



One good?? thing to come out was that I hit a top speed of 69kmph down the Fernvale Hill(?) and a minimum of 6kmph on one of the last pinches of  the Burringbah Range climb.

Road Kill

Today's ride required swerving around 3 lots of road kill. Sadly 2 fairly large carpet pythons had been squashed and killed by vehicles along different parts of Round Mountain Road near the Sewerage Treatment Plant. And to me, a not too sad, death of a ferrell rabbit/hare (it was hard to tell except that the fur's colour was light brown and the ears were long)

Distance: ~20km along the usual loop with a chat on the way home at the top of Hastings Point Headland with a couple of local house builders who were checking the surf after work. A strong Southerly with a small South ground swell. These waves will probably be flattened as the wind swings to the NE over the next couple-a-days.