Send My Conscience Home in a Taxi

I'm on 'oliday. My father has been kind enough to buy a beach house, so we're bench testing it for him. We're in a tiny hamlet called Sandy Point, which is down near Wilson's Promontory.

We hauled a serious car load of stuff down here. The place is sparse at the moment, so we brought along what's turned out to be enough crockery and cutlery to serve dinner to a small army. Mind you my family is pretty large. We also hauled down a vacuum cleaner, a washing basket, an array of kitchen appliances, a ladder and... A whole pile of other crap! Going back my car is going to be a lot lighter...

The place has one large living area, which currently has about ten chairs scattered around it, and not much else! We need to source a couch at least.

The house is relatively new, my dad is only the second owner. And in some ways it's nicer than our place at home! For starters it has acres of cupboard space. Which, speaking as someone who has just spent three days clearing crap out of our house and trying to cram the remainder into space too small for it, I really envy. (Don't get me started on some of the other stuff we have at our place. Deb my partner, has a saddle stored in our living room!)

We brought our bikes down here, strapped into a rather unstable bike rack on the back of the car. The damn thing twisted around on the three-hour drive down. Which meant my front bike wheel ended up near the exhaust pipe, and the overheated inner tube burst! I'm lucky the front tire also wasn't cooked - it looks like the metal part of the wheel heated up the most. It also slightly melted the rim tape (which sits between the metal rim and the inner tube), which I'll need to replace. I might have to think about a new tire when I get back to Melbourne... and a new bike rack....

My poor Ninja Bike is not well. Thus reminding me that bikes need almost constant maintenance... Unlike my car, which is sufficiently new and well looked after that I have literally never lifted the bonnet and wouldn't even know how to refill the windscreen washer water.

Ah yes, my bike. I took it to the Bike Doctor about a week ago because I broke (another) spoke on the back wheel, and it needed a service anyway. I got it back and it rode funny, which I eventually traced to the rear tyre having a couple of largish lumps in it. Well, not lumps as such, more that the tire was not round. It also looked like the wheel wasn't "true", that some of the spokes weren't tensioned correctly.

We dragged the offending wheel back to the store today, and showed it to them. They pretty quickly demonstrated that the wheel rim itself has flat spots on it, and is, in other words, buggered and needs replacing.

The bike it only eighteen months old, but apparently this is pretty common with bikes that get ridden a lot - commuters like me in other words. It probably doesn't help that my bike is relatively heavy, that I am *cough* relatively heavy, and that I tend to carry a lot of stuff in my panniers... And then ride as fast as possible, sometimes on not particularly flat surfaces.

Plus, I have ridden roughly 1700 kilometres since Australia day, that being when I installed my bike computer.

So, I guess it's time to learnt how to repair a bike... Which is a greasy business to say the least!

It's getting close to a year since I got my bike.

It was really interesting the reactions I'd get when I told folks I'd got a bike. Many of my friends couldn't care less, but that (largish) group of my people who are Hardcore Cyclist greeted it as a major lifestyle decision! They welcomed me! These are the kinds of people who will, I kid you not, organise a house move entirely by bike. Fridges on bike trailers etc. Nutbars in other words :-) Keen participants in critical mass.

My friend Geoff had been pestering me to get a bike literally for years. He was miffed when after dating Deb (notoriously keen cyclist, owner of enviable green bike with a vintage Peugeot frame) for only about four months, I went and bought one.

There was more to it than that. I'd been close to getting a bike on several occasions. And almost every time I was about to get one, my sister would injure herself in some way on a bike. Put her head through a car window on Brunswick street or something.

Small piece of history: my sister, as a volunteer at Friends of the Earth back in the early nineties helped organise the first Critical Mass in Melbourne. Although she never actually ridden on one.

I would often go on CM on a borrowed bicycle. And... I only realised this recently, but I don't really enjoy it. I get nervous riding slowly, especially in a large mass of other cyclist. I also try and ride in a way that doesn't antagonise car drivers - which is the exact opposite of Critical Mass.

So my experiences of cycling were not particularly good. Although I have realised my sister is clumsy and accident prone, so probably not a good yard stick by which to measure cycling :-)

So in about May of last year, I kinda ran out of excuses. I didn't need to drive to work like I did when I was working in Fisherman's Bend. So when I got the job I have now, I said to Deb and Geoff when I get my first paycheck, I will go buy bike. So I did!

This is what Ninja Bike looked like when I got it (from the catalogue):

A Felt Racing QX70 Hybrid (I don't think they make them any more).

Felt's have actually proved to be quite rare. I've seen maybe five since I got mine, and I've never seen one of my model. They seem to specialise in racing bikes, I've seen extremely exotic racing Felts, made from carbon fibre, retailing for over $7,000!

Interesting thing about bikes - there are hundreds of companies making them, and no two end up alike. They're much more diverse than cars.

And this is what he looks like now (note background details like my cat's bowl :-):
(Click on the pictures for much, much bigger view.)

Here we can see in detail the bar ends, bike computer, front reflector, mud guard, drink bottle and holder, and two spoke cards I have added:


And here we have the kick stand (added last week), rear mud guard, second drink bottle holder, rack and big fuck-off bike lock:


It also has two front lights, two rear lights and two panniers.

I started regularly riding to work back in mid-January. My office building has at least three showers and a large carpark where one can park a bike. So since roughly Australia day, I've ridden about 940 kilometres!

One thing I never realised about bikes - they need constant maintenance. Luckily Deb's housemate is a made-keen bike fixer, a bit like I am with computers! For example, riding in the rain once can make one's chain rusty. I suspect they are made light and only as strong as possible - lets face it, if they were more robust they would weight more.

Damn. I rode 34 kilometres today. 25 of those after work. My legs is tried...

Things what I did (or learned) today:

This morning, I bought a bed. Well, a mattress in fact. Trouble is the damn thing doesn't get delivered for over a week.

Got two awesome pillows too.

Anyone what a 3.5 year old futon???

Then I visited my beautiful girlfriend. Her housemate is a bike GENIUS. She greased my chain (that sounds rude!), moved my rack back a bit so I'm less likely to kick my panniers. And more importantly, she attached the Bar ends I picked up from a bike shop on Saturday. This was actually a non-trivial operation, since it meant moving my gear change/brake control things inwards a little, cutting holes in my handlebar grips and sliding them in a bit as well, to expose the actual handle bar. And then securing the bar ends! But boy, they make a big difference, I like them a lot. My bike is coming together...

Had dinner with my dad and my little brother. My little brother - who is strictly speaking my half brother - has been researching his mother (who is, unfortunately, long dead, having succumbed to cancer back in about 1988). He's been tracing her ancestors. Her grandmother on that side was called Norma and was the biggest ocker Aussie woman you can imagine! Anyway, it turns out her parents - my brother's great-grandparents - were from the UK (or Europe, he's not sure) and his great-grandfather delighted in the name Moses Joseph! Which means he was most likely a Jewish gentleman, which means technically my little brother is Jewish! Which might actually explain his complexion and hair colour, which are several shades darker than mine. Which wouldn't be hard, I look like I was chipped from marble... And no, vedmajulia he is not available :-)

Speaking of which, my little sister is engaged to a chap of Russian-Jewish extraction from New York. And might be converting to said religion. All in all it's been a very Semitic day :-)

I do like my bike computer. Although it is causing me to ride faster than I might otherwise, just to get an impressive top speed recorded. This morning I hit 45.1km/h belting down a hill under full power. If I was near a school zone, I could have been booked for speeding :-)

Anyway, I saw someone far more hardcore today. I was passed by a guy riding a racer - who had his right lower leg in a cast! Or at least one of those cast-things, don't know what they're called, that you can walk on. Damn. You'd have to be a pretty keen rider!

Man, I had a mildly annoying evening.

Well, actually, it started well. I joined some folks on a bike ride from East Melbourne to Port Melbourne, to the pier where the Spirit o' Tasmania docks in fact. A cyclist called Greg was off on a month-long bicycle tour of Tasmania and, for some reason, my friend Geoff decided he needed an escort.

His bike was fitted with an impressive array of panniers, I have to say, including some rather spiffy front panniers... Not that bicycle touring is something I'm likely to take up any time soon!

The ride from East Melbourne to Princess Pier was actually pretty uneventful. The boat was still unloading when we got there - turned out it was very late. There was a whole set of interesting touring bikes parked around the area.

Here's what looked like a folding bike with some seriously customised bags:


And this very interesting (and very long) touring tandem with trailer!


We somehow got up to the observation deck next to the boat by cramming four bikes into a tiny lift. Here's a tip - putting your bike up on it's back wheel takes up less space! The guy, Greg, who was off to Tassie, didn't actually make it to the railings for us to wave him off, so we took our bikes back down an escalator and rode off.

Anyway, we rode home through some weirdly quiet and very industrial areas of Port Melbourne. Geoff, my riding companion had to get to Kensington, so when were in the back of the docklands, I headed over the bridge at the end of La Trobe Street. This is where things started to go astray. I noticed the gear selector for my my rear derailer would let me change down but not up gears. I was effectively stuck in in one rear gear, darn it. I was also feeling crap, so I decided to hop on the train, since I was more or less next to Southern Cross station. After being told to get off my bike whilst riding in the station itself, I found an ATM, then realised that the machines wouldn't take the combination of notes I had to give me a ticket! Luckily there was an open ticket office - but by this time I'd missed the Epping train. So I hopped on a Hurstbridge train, me and ninja bike...

And of course, tonight is the night they'd replaced trains on the Hurstbridge line with buses! They dumped us out of the train at Victoria Park. Although in retrospect, the Epping trains might still have been running - I missed the various announcements. So I ended up having to ride a bike with effectively three gears through Clifton Hill, after getting over the freeway on a pedestrian bridge...

It actually wasn't to bad. Took it easy through some parks and back streets. In a park behind the Clifton Hill pool, I spotted possibly the most interesting thing I'd seen all day. Sitting on the back of a park bench was a substantial bird. I glimpsed it briefly, then actually turned back to have another look at it. It was an Owl! Possibly an eastern grass owl, although I didn't get much of a look at it before it flew away.

Anyway, I made it home in one piece.

I gots Deb an early Christmas present. Early mostly because I couldn't really find a place to hide it in my tiny flat or my car for that matter.

I have to say, it hit the jackpot, I've never seen anyone so excited about a present. I present as evidence the following:

That's a roughly five to seven year old Mongoose BMX bike, which has had a rough life. I picked it up from Lower Templestowe the other night after buying it on Ebay that afternoon! I gave it to Deb today, which is why she is riding it in my bedroom - note oblique shot of my bathroom to the right :-)

I figured we could just use the frame, make a bit of a project out of it, but Deb had other ideas! She pumped the almost flat tyres, and miraculously they stayed up. They looked like they were buggered. The front wheel is visibly bent, and missing spokes, and someone has spray-painted the rim and the tire green. It also entirely lacks brakes, although there is the remains of the rear brake sitting around the back wheel. Deb wants to get foot pegs for the front and rear wheels, then learn to do tricks on it. And in her own words "seriously injure myself!"

And now... I want one :-)

My tram down Swanston Street was re-routed this morning. I was a bit cranky, especially since I'd managed to make the early train. It ended up taking me an hour to get to work, on a good day it takes less than 40 minutes.

Anyway, I got into work and discovered the reason that trams weren't running down Swanston Street was because a female cyclist had been killed under a bus. I am dating a female cyclist who routinely rides up Swanston Street! So I called her desk phone, which she answered straight away, and was surprised and delighted to hear from me - as I was delighted to hear her voice.

I still don't know who the cyclist was, but I do know a whole lot of them, so I'm worried. Not least because I regularly ride up that road. Last week I had to contend with at least four horse-and-carriage sets, and worried a little what would happen if a big horse got angry with a little cyclist... When we were both stopped at some lights, one of the horses was striking sparks off the asphalt whilst vigorously stomping the ground.

So, last I heard, the woman in question was 33 and lived in Parkville. The Age had a rather distressing picture of a bike on its side and a sheet covering a body - half way under a bus.

After work, I caught the tail end of a bit of a bike rally on the spot. Most cyclists seem to know each other, so a bunch gathered at the spot. In fact Deb was there, a few moments before I arrived. It was interesting to see. By the time I arrived there were maybe fifty bikes left, and they'd split into two groups - the lycra types on one side, the hippy feral types (my crowd) on the other!

It's a hard street to ride sometimes. Between the buses and the trams, there's often a very narrow gap, which it's terrifying to ride through - two 40 ton vehicles on each side!

(Click on it for a bigger version.)

Or possibly how to look like a complete drip.