Pattern recognition

My partner read the previous blog entry and said that she was wondering why I was skating along trying to pick up a snake. I've noticed that Australians seem to be able to spot snakes a lot quicker than us Brits - there's been a few times where I've been out riding in the bush and the other guys have commented on snakes that I've ridden past and not seen. I think that if you grow up aware of snakes in your environment then you're more be able to see them - you spot a shape and your brain has been trained to recognise the pattern.

I'm sure the right mind could probably view this as an earth shattering revelation. Mine is still seeing sticks.

5,6, pick up - sticks?

Every Wednesday night the originally named Wednesday Night Skate (or WNS) cruises around Brisbane. Anywhere between 15 and 50 skaters out for a bit of a roll - sometimes only 10k and sometimes almost 30k.

Last night I was skating along from the car to the start point in the middle of the city and noticed a stick on the bikeway ahead of me. I wasn't sure if we'd be skating back that way so thought I'd pick up the stick and chuck it out of the way. As I rolled towards it in a crouch with my hand out I suddenly realised it was a snake, dark scaled and around 3' long. Fortunately I'm confident enough on skates to be able to turn and stop very quickly.

Looking it up later in my book of Australian fauna (which should be subtitled 'I wouldn't be poking that if I was you') I think it was either a Small-eyed Snake (venomous) or an Eastern Black (highly venomous and very dangerous). Something else to add to the disadvantages of skates - 'can cause stumbles over dangerous reptiles'...

Citizenship

In all the excitement of skating & riding I've forgotton to mention my citizenship test. This is part of the requirements for becoming an Australian citizen and consists of a multiple choice quiz covering Australian history, culture, rights & responsibilities and legal stuff. It's not particularly hard if you have any background knowledge and you grew up in a parlimentary democracy, but it's still a bit nerve wracking. I took mine on Friday & passed, so now it's just a question of waiting until I can attend a citizenship ceremony...

The Great Brisbane Bike Ride

Brisbane has a new tunnel, running under the whole of the Central Business District (or CBD) in an attempt to rectify some classically appalling 60's infrastructure and speed up the traffic flow. This year the Great Brisbane Bike Ride (GBBR) included riding through the tunnel as part of it's 30km, 45km and 80km rides and that helped lure out over 6,500 cyclists to take part. We'd signed up for the 45km ride - the longest ever ride for Liz, although oddly she has skated much further than that in a day.

The ride started bright and early on Sunday morning - well, not so much for us as somebody managed to mess up setting the alarm. I rolled over bleary-eyed and as the clock slowly came into focus I realised that it was 6 oclock and the ride was starting in just over half an hour. Liz coped with the subsequent panic admirably and, after a quick return to the flat to pick up a forgotton helmet and gloves, we managed to make it to the starting area at the designated time. Predictably it then took another 20 minutes to get started, so by the time we were rolling Liz was talking to me again.

It didn't take us long to get to the start of the tunnelThe first part of the tunnel was great - a breezy & gradual downhill section that had me longing for a freewheel. We saw a couple of friends down there (one directing traffic and one carrying his bike out after breaking spokes) and then we started the climb out. It wasn't steep but it was hot and humid, and it seemed that everyone who had coasted past me on the way down was now clicking through their gears and bleeding off my valuable momentum. 'Tis ever the way on large group rides when you're on a single speed or fixed gear bike, and after a while getting balked by guys in full Tour De France lycra on $5000 carbon fibre bikes when you're on something that you built from bits donated by mates becomes more of an amusement than an irritation.

Anyway - no need for anger. All you need to do is pedal towards the light. and you shall be taken up to the heavensYea, though I ride past the Valley of the shadow of HipsterI shall fear Luigi

Soon we were directed off of the Inner City Bypass and back onto regular roads. The ride continued through the University at St Lucia and then over Indooroopilly Bridgeand back along the river

It wasn't contant riding though - there were a couple of rest stops on the way to refill water bottles, catch up with friends and fuel up on bananas and water melon. I noticed at one of them that our bikes were obviously still a bit upset with each other over the confusion of the early start

But Liz's was serving her well - she had made it up the infamous 'Duttonberg' too quickly for me to grab a photo, but here she is digging into her suitcase of courage and powering her way over the top of Gladstone Rd

After that it was downhill all the way (well, apart from the flat bits) and before we knew it we were at the end

It took us over half an hour to get a much needed cup of coffee, but fortunately some trials riders were on hand to keep us entertained

All in all a pretty good start to the day.

Get your skates on

We're going down to Melbourne in a couple of weeks for 'skate Melbourne', a trip organised by the local Brisbane inline skate group. About 20 skaters will descend on Melbourne for a week and there will be a skate organised for most days, distance varying from 10km to the 'great skate' of 55km. I'm assisting in the running of some of these tours so I thought I'd better dig my trusty old FSKs out and start to get 'skate fit'.

The Wednesday Night Skate was unfortunately cut short this week due to rain, but the skies cleared overnight so I was able to skate to work and back on Thursday (12km each way with a bit of a hill in the middle), and then today I skated down to town (7km) and caught up with one of the skate lessons that takes place on a Saturday morning. It was good to spend some time mucking about on them and my legs are starting to work like they used again - in other words, I'm starting to bend my knees like I used to.
Skates are a great way to get around and ideal when I'm working away from home as they're a lot easier to pack - here's me in Dayton, Ohio a couple of years ago (it was about 5 degrees that day!)
and here I am in L.A., after skating the whole length of the beach strip from Santa Monica through Venice Beach, Marina Del Ray, Manhattan Beach and down to Redondo Bay and back - about 80km in all on dodgy hired skates.


However they're not the best commuting tool as they're useless in the wet and easily get caught up on cracks in the pavement, sticks and seed pods which leads to the traditional 'gumby stumble'. Sometimes it's safer to get off the pavement and take to the side of the road but you're never quite sure if car drivers will notice you and give way. And you can feel a bit vulnerable at speed - anything over 30km/h requires a fair bit of focus. I've hit 50km/h + on them occasionally and that's just downright scary.
Of course because it's not a fasionable sport you regularly get rubbish shouted at you by the local 'humourists' passing by. Generally there are two strands of abuse - those that doubt your sexuality (normally emanating from 4x4s or utes filled entirely with young men desperate to impress each other) and those that deride you for being out of fasion (normally coming from people squeezed into too-tight jeans, the latest $500 'sneakers' (sic), and gel-laden hair). However since I both skate & ride fixed gear bikes I figure I span the entire bell-curve of coolness...

Manhood

Bought my first powertool today - a dremal lookalike that I needed to make some adjustments to some pedals. I was initially trying to fettle them with a kitchen knife but the inevitable 'what could possibly go wrong' happened and I stabbed myself in the hand, so I decided it was time to man up and venture into the tools section of Bunnings. It was glorious.

The pedals are for El Bastardo - BMX pedals that should make it more comfortable to ride with normal shoes, and with funky locally made toe clips that I'm not 100% convinced about. Does feel more comfortable than the old track pedals & powerstraps though.

Better still they glow in the dark, which presumably means I don't need lights any more.

Just another knight in Olde Brisbane town

We have some new neighbours on Monday evening - picture taken from the back balcony
The local medieval society use the old bowls club next door for practice. Monday night is fight night so the evening rings with the thunk of clubs and the chinging of swords on shields.

Hipster scum

More rain kept me off the trails and in the garage swapping bike bits around like a 6 year girl playing with barbies. I decided that I needed to respond to Gordy's raising of the hipster ante
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) the rear wheel is buckled enough that it won't turn in the frame so that needs to be sorted out before I can ride it, but it still looks 'the business'. The bike will return to it's old pink-rimmed configuration fairly soon as the Spinergy front wheel (complete with carbon fibre spokes) doesn't match the intention of a scruffy looking but nicely riding bike.

The frame is actually an 'Abeni', welded in Sydney by John Abeni in probably the mid 80's and it rides very smoothly. It was owned by at least two friends before ending up with me. In fact almost everything on the bike was owned by a friend (and normally two or three) before I inherited it and most of the new bits were bought with something else in mind. The result was christened 'El Bastardo' and she does me well.

Crackin'!

It's been a long week of rain showers along with busy times at work and me fighting off a bug so not much has been going on. But today dawned both sunny and windy - a beautiful day that reminds me why I choose to live in Queensland.

I met up with some friends for a bit of a cruisy ride to celebrate. First of all we visited a 'green fest' in the citys botanical gardens


Scared off by rampant earnestness, spoken word poetry and the thought of vegan pies we sought solace at the Breakfast Creek hotel



and then further solace at the Ship Inn

Gordy was hipster of the day on his beautiful new Soma Van Ness. All white with chromed lugs, but with a beating red heart inside

All in all a cracking day. And with any luck the rain will hold off and I can take the Scandal out on dirt tomorrow :)

Stayed dry!

Surprisingly the rain held off both for the ride down to the barbecue and the ride home. In fact it was so nice on the way back that I succumbed to temptation and stopped for a pint at the Ship in South Bank.

A very nice way to finish a relaxing weekend.

Still wet...

The rain has continued. Three years ago the local dams were at an average of 16% full, and now they're at an average of over 80% full. This is great for sustainable living in Queensland but terrible for riding bikes!

I've also been pretty busy at work so for the last week I've just been getting home, collapsing on the couch in front of the TV and going to bed a few beers later. My body starting to get twitchy and it needs to do something and that in turn is starting to affect my mind. This is getting reminiscent of wet times in the UK and I know that the only solution is to man up and go ride. I have a barbecue at a mates house today so I'll take the fixie down - in many ways an ideal bike for damp conditions because there's virtually no maintenance and the 'constant drive' on the back wheel helps stop it drifting out in the wet. No mudguards of course, so it's a damp bum for me today.

Because of the rain we went to the cinema yesterday to see 'The Men Who Stare At Goats', based on the Jom Ronson book of the same name. It was a great film despite a slightly weak ending, and like the book makes you want to find out more to see how much of it is actually true. I've read plentiful evidence that the US sponsored 'remote viewing' and it's a known fact that they did a lot of research into military use of mind-bending drugs, but did they really sponsor a 'New Earth army'?

All clear

As I've recently turned 40 I decided it was time for a medical check-up. This included blood tests for cholesterol and (after a discussion of my lifestyle) liver function. Had a few nervous days of waiting but got my results back yesterday and all is fine.

Of course I will still maintain my healthy & athlectic lifestyle

and I have a new toy to assist

It now has a decently short stem and riser bars. All I need now is some dry trails!

Wet wet wet

Brisbane is a subtropical city which means that we get most of our rain in the summer. The last few years have been pretty dry but this year has been very wet - a couple of weeks ago we had over 90mm fall in just under an hour! The rain has been pretty persistent over the last few days and it's all been a bit miserable really, but all that water combined with balmy temperatures (no cooler than 20 degrees even at night) makes the area beautifully green & lush.

Australians have a funny relationship with rain. In such a dry country rain is a welcome event and the weather forecasters will say things like 'the good news is that the rain will continue for the next 3 days' or 'if we're lucky we'll get some more downpours before the weekend'. Despite that after no more than 2 or 3 days of rain the locals start to get twitchy. They wouldn't last a week in a Manchester winter.
Mountain biking is also badly affected by the wet. The local guidelines say 'don't ride if you're leaving a tyremark' as there's so little leaf litter in the bush that the soil takes years to regenerate. This means that you shouldn't ride in conditions that we'd view as relatively dry in the U.K. So if you want to ride responsibly and sustainably you also avoid getting muddy, which is a win-win in my book. I know - I wouldn't last a week in a Manchester winter.