Shopping

Short Trip to Cabba to pick up a new saddle bag, tube and dry-lube all courtesy to yesterdays ride and an afternoon of maintenance...

A Bit of Everything

Thought about a ride today, even though I was feeling buggered and pulled a slow 45km which took 3 hours. Rode off toward Cabba, might as well get Cabarita Cycles to check the tyre pressure... My god it was humid with a brisk North Easterly blowing... Well even though it was expected to change to the South later in the afternoon I might as well ride North and look at climbing Duranbah and Farrants Hills. When I got to the top of Duranbah, I changed my mind and thought why not try to get through Forest Hill Road to Clothiers Creek.... it was not to be.

I rode round Duranbah Road to where I worked in 1987, memories.... and then back to Forest Hill Road.   After trying the center route and finding it ends in the swamp at the North West Corner of Cudgen Lake I climbed the return circle, coming off numerous times. At the top I noticed a fairly well marked track to the east, maybe this would make it around the Northern edge of the Lake... After rolling to the small creek at the bottom of this track I noticed a new fence line climbing straight back up the side of the spur on the otherside.... Nearly vertical! Ah well around here there are lots of old fire trails and I wrongly assumed there would be one along the ridge somewhere.... Dragging slipping and sliding my way up the very steep slope with the peddly over fallen logs and loose rocks slipping backwards occasionally. Finally after about 30 mins I made the 300 meters to the top and looked out through the trees toward another valley with another ridge beyond that.

[caption id="attachment_316" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="That Steep Bit"][/caption]

The push up the hill had left me disorientated and the sky was closing in so I was not sensing where I was I decided to follow the ridge upwards. I came to a fence line of a property follwed it and it happened to be on Duranbah Road thus I had completed a Circle... the hard way... By now I was fairly exhausted, not to speak of wet from the rain that had started to fall and decided to take the Cudgen Quarry track down to the coast road via Kings Forest...

Here I missed a turn and when I lazily did a U-Turn over the edge of the track to rectify this I managed to pick up a large thorn in the rear tyre and the rain was getting heavier. I pushed the bike to an area of clay fill near a cattle grid with a gate? in amongst all the sand tracks covered with pine cones. All thumbs I swapped the tube for a new one taking out the thorn and refitted the wheel.... By now the rain had decided to really come down and with it the wind was picking up from the South....

I cruised slowly back along the track towards the coast road, where all the cars had their lights blazing in the rain. Thinking of the waiting beer in the fridge at home didn't get me riding any faster!

Slothing

Was just a flowing cruise around the loop today on the Cypress, warm yes but pleasant, wind was slight most of the day with sunny blue sky. The low lying paddocks and drains were still filled with quickly stagnating water after the storms of the last few weeks. The mozzies are going to pretty amazing over the next couple of weeks.... something to look forward to when i get my next puncture! 

The amount of glass shardes from broken bottles has shown a big increase over this weekend, in one 150 meter stretch I counted 5 freshly smashed ones from last night alone. So the ride consisted of a lot of swerving and saying S*#$% as I failed to avoid a new patch, with a holding of breath listening for the tell tail shhhhhhhhh..... but today i was lucky.

Ride2Work day? What Work?

Let's see... to participate in the National Ride-2-Work day I decided to commute although I had nowhere to commute to! I was going to test ride my new (second-hand) Shogun cro-mo commuter I have got hold of and put together with some new parts from both Cecil Walker Cycles (Shimano105 2x10 groupset $629) and Cell Bikes ($50 no-name wheelset) with an added bonus of being able to see what time I could anticipate getting to South Tweed from home on this commuter rather than the old Giant Elwood (2007 model).

Well I was enjoying the ride, even the fairly easy Southern climb of Sextons Hill, when the next thing I know I've run over one of the bloody new Cat-Eye reflectors at about 80km/hr on the Northern descent and got myself a snake-bite flat on the rear..... so onto fixing that... bugger no tyre levers but I was carrying the spare and repair kit.... searched the side of the road in the debris looking for bits of plastic and metal for a 100 meters and managed finding some make do levers.... but the now rushed repair was not good enough and was later going to have to involve me in replacing the tube on the uphill climb returning back over Sextons Hill... called into South Tweed Bicycles to get the pressure checked but it wouldn't hold it. that was it! the end of testing the time to do a standard commute.... Changing a tube on both legs with no tyre levers, which I found I need to get the bead off but not back on the 19mm rim! unlike on the Giant Hybrid 25mm rim which I can do with just my hands, on and off.

anyway heres the Shogun with the new 105 groupset....

[caption id="attachment_278" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="The Shogun Samurai Commuter"][/caption]

Mid April Musing

Just a rambling post...

Been in Sydney for a couple of days this week and on both days walked from Broadway to North Wynyard via George Street and Pitt Street. On the way I took note of all the bicycles I saw and there riders. The traffic was dense and the number of riders was in the 50's. But there was a noticeable disregard for road rules about 1 in 5 wore no helmet others rode on footpaths and on the wrong side of the road snuck through red lights rode through pedestrians etc It was a bit of an eye opener... There didn't seem to be any bike lanes or routes available.

And yet during peak hour there was a lot of riders blending into the traffic with safety and consideration... But the ones that were doing the wrong thing will be the ones remembered and talked about by car/truck drivers thus the stereotyping of bicycle commuters as arrogant law breakers... the few spoiling the whole reputation.... All I can say is I am glad I don't have to ride in the exhaust filled chaos that is the center of Sydney roads.

The rest of my time seemed to conspire against me getting a ride in every day this last two weeks but still managed to get in a fair few kilometers. But I will need to put in some extra effort this week in prep for next weekends little adventure....

Anticipating the tunnel treadly trip I sourced a site with a couple of images its Burringbar Range Tunnel to see the ride conditions.... not a problem as it would only be a couple of kilometers of pushing...

Below is a couple of images from that site.






Some of the track seems to be a bit overgrown!

Some of those contacted have shown varied degree of enthusiasm but I will go on my own if all find better things to do that day.....

Spoke too soon

Well I awoke this morning with the notion of giving the bike a good clean after all the the mud, grass, sand and water of yesterday's ride through New Brighton. I was greeted by two flats. So officially I have had a front flat now. And it was only yesterday that I spoke up that I have not had one in 15+ months. So I decided to replace the rear tyre with an older one with little tread, but, no glass slices in the wall as well as patching both tubes. Now I will see if i can go at least one ride with out using the repair kit or pump.