News reports

• Cycle protest shuts Swanston Street

• Stop your engines and ride to work

• Plea for cycle safety from victim’s husband

• Residents encouraged to ride to work

• National Ride to Work Day gathers momentum

• The drive towards more cycling

• On yer bike to solve heaps of problems

• A better cycle to jump on

• Fog, not smog, greets Ride to Work Day

• Joblink staff exchange four wheels for two

• On your bike: National Ride to Work Day at UOW a success

• Making everyday Ride to Work Day

Blog posts

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One guy, three girls…

• BTA Ebulletin

• Rodney Olsen

• Through Balanda Eyes

• Yellow Brick Road

• UNSW Bike Club

• Tweed Coast Treadly

• Sydney Body Art Ride

• ABC Queensland

[Additions to this list welcome—bung 'em in the comments]

Bike + baby = fast transport

“Cycling with a baby on board is the fastest way for parents to get around the city, a Herald Sun experiment has found” via Melbourne Cyclist

“Sir Rod doesn’t want to face up to any inconvenient truths.”

Enhancements in car engine efficiency have had no real effect on fuel consumption, according to Dr Paul Mees, which kind of undermines Eddington’s arguments that reduction in greenhouse gases will come from technological advances in engine design.

Diversification

Flight Centre has gone into the bike importation business. Their previous diversification acquisitions have recorded healthy growth, so I guess they know what they’re doing—tuning in to the fact that the bike boom still has room to grow, perhaps?

[via Sydney Cyclist and e.CAN 161]

Bike tales

Where are all the bicycle novels?

As the most energy-efficient means of transport available to us, bringing a newly renewed promise of freedom with its low-cost, zero-emissions economy, the bicycle is surely ripe for some literary reinvigoration too. But where to look?

[via BV Forums]

Skills training

CycloSportif Victoria is running a CycleSkill Program, starting on 1 June:

The aim of the four week SkillCycle Program is to teach cyclists a range of cycling skills ranging from basic safety through to correct riding techniques. The course is hands-on with a riding coach, designed to teach good cycling habits, enhancing knowledge, skills and ability.

Meanwhile, across the ditch Land Transport NZ has developed A guide for the set-up and delivery of cyclist training in New Zealand. [via e.CAN 161]

Car registration pays for [a bit of] the roads

I love it when Surly Dave gets mad—it makes him that much more eloquent.

Ride of Silence

The Melbourne Ride of Silence is starting at Fed Square on 24 May. Ride of Silence events are being held in several locations across Australia.

bikeblog.au

Its not the Destanation its the Journey

Marx Garage

[Image: Bici a Lucca by Perrimoon at Flickr]

I might as well start with the start: I was in the 7am start for the 140km ride to Mt Beauty and Mt Buffalo. I’d planned to be early because I wanted to take some photos of the 6:40am starters as they hurtled along the road out of Bright. I pulled up to my carefully chosen photo spot then turned on the bike computer to check the time and see how long I’d have to wait for the riders to come past. What?!? 6:59? Sh*t, that couldn’t be right!

But it was right and I only just made it to the start in time to throw my throw-and-go card and go. After getting badly fried last week, I was being more careful this time so I was still slapping on sunscreen as we rolled out of town. Not the relaxed start I was hoping for…

I’ve no idea how the pace was going out at the front because I’d settled in to a comfortable trundle at my accustomed position well towards the rear of the pack. Things were going really well, the morning wasn’t even warm yet and I was enjoying the banter with the other riders around me.

Then, not long into the climb up Tawonga Gap, I got a puncture. Fortunately it was a slow leak that allowed me to push on for a short distance so that I could find somewhere sensible to pull up and make repairs. As I stood there looking forlorn my bunch rode on then the entire field of the 130km ride to Falls Creek rolled past, with much cheerful ribbing at my expense (particularly from a few that witnessed my similar misfortune last week on the Cheryl’s Choice brevet).

I was soon back on the road and working my way up through the tail of the 130km ride field, which wasn’t too much trouble as we were still riding in shade at this point. A very brief stop at Tawonga Gap then down, down, down into the bright sunshine of the Kiewa Valley.

Kudos to the organisers for having the foresight to locate the Mt Beauty checkpoint right beside a café—where I took a much needed coffee, having been too late to partake before I left Bright. The dude making the corporate video was interviewing someone, and I heard him ask a rider “Are you on schedule so far?” A schedule…hmm, that might have been a good idea.

I certainly didn’t linger, but on the way out of Mt Beauty I was overtaken by swarms of fast moving riders who had clearly already made the trip to Falls Creek and back (the slick bastards). And that was to be the pattern of the rest of the day.

I can never really enjoy a descent that I’ve got to climb up again, and the return ascent of Tawonga Gap loomed large but I didn’t find it too much trouble despite the sun shining fully on this side of the hill. I just sat back and wound my way up. At the top I thought I should take in the view, so I had a quick squiz then headed on down. Although there were plenty of other riders out on the road (most of them zipping past me) I was in a peloton of one when I pulled back in to Bright.

I tried not to muck around too much at Bright but I will recall a couple of “famous last words” that I uttered there. I told someone that I felt like I’d just got out of bed, which while true (I felt great) should probably have indicated to me that I could have been working a bit harder and moving a bit faster. I also said to someone else “I’ve only got Buffalo to go”, in the offhand sort of way you’d say “Stick the kettle on, I’m just whipping down the street for a paper.” Pity the naïve in their ignorance.

So off we went, my ignorance and I, towards Porepunkah. On the way a persistent rattle from the rear wheel that I had been persistently ignoring developed into an insistent ker-thump ker-thump ker-thump. Not another flat? No. Oh no. It was a rather nasty bulge developing in the rear tyre—that’s a brand new tyre with less than 1000km on it. Grrr. I removed the wheel to inspect but there was really nothing that could be done to improve the situation, other than reduce the air pressure so that the bulge would be less prominent.

On the road again, only to discover that in replacing the rear wheel I’d somehow knocked the gears out of whack (I think I must have accidentally given the SIS adjustment barrel a bit of a spin). All the way up to the gates of the National Park and beyond I stopped to make repeated and futile attempts to get the gears back into line. Eventually I decided to pull over and reset them completely rather than just twiddle and hope. These things are always much easier done at home than in the field with sweat running into your eyes, but I eventually got things working adequately and continued, with all hope of making the time limit gone.

At least I was now able to enjoy the ride, largely free from gear hassles. You can only imagine how enjoyable it was to climb up and around one bend, only to see the road rise steeply until it disappeared around the next bend. And after a while I began to enjoy some bracing cramps in my quadriceps. And the afternoon temperature was starting to become pretty enjoyable too.

The Audax volunteers placed a water drop 10km from the Chalet (that is, 8km from the top of the major climb) where the wasted bodies of exhausted cyclists lay strewn along the side of the road. It was here that I sought treatment for the cramps. Now under normal circumstances I’d be a bit dubious about accepting mysterious white powder being dispensed from the back of a truck into my water bottle by a stranger, indeed it would be the height of reckless stupidity for an elite cyclist to do so. Fortunately I’m about as far from elite as you can get and these were not normal circumstances, so the white powder (which had the consistency and taste of plaster of Paris) did its work. Much restored, and with a second bottle of plaster slurry on board, I almost bounded up the remaining slope (“almost” as in “not at all”).

It may be understatement to say that I was pleased to arrive at the Mt Buffalo Chalet. The Audax volunteers had things right: big plastic cups of trifle (who’d have known that was exactly what I would want?) and thick wedges of watermelon were among the abundant goodies on offer. Another volunteer was standing-by offering to fill bottles and/or spray faces with water.

With my time limit now all but expired, I could have lounged around for the rest of the afternoon but somehow I tore myself away to make the descent. Of course, I forgot to check the state of my rear tyre but, hey, you only die once (“die” as in “have a blow-out at speed, lose control and go careening over a cliff to splatter on the rocks hundreds of metres below, and die”). Fortunately that wasn’t on the agenda today.

I also forgot to check my departure time, so I don’t know how long the descent took but I was rolling at well over 40km/h pretty much all the way, and over 60km/h in the lower, straighter stretches. Even then some mad bastards were overtaking me.

Once back on the flat, I remembered that the Bright Brewery backs onto Howitt Park and I got the sniff of a reviving brew—so I reached into the reserves of energy and put my head down. I was finally passing people again—obviously not beer drinkers. On arrival at Bright it was something of an irony to find that I didn’t immediately feel like a beer. Again the Audax volunteers had anticipated perfectly: a couple of tubs of ice cold sludgy fruit purée stuff and a custard tart were not what I would have ordered beforehand but they were just what I needed. Then it was time to move onto a beer or two: “Blowhard” and “Fainters” seemed to be appropriate to the occasion…

Huge thanks and congratulations to all involved in organising this event—as far as I could tell the whole thing went like clockwork. Don’t mention it to MLSP, but I reckon I’ll want to have another crack at it next year. More “famous last words”?

In among the reviews of the car itself, this social commentary is found:

On the 90km drive to the Holden proving ground the Brits can’t believe the sense of space, that there seem to be far fewer new cars than in the UK, or how comparatively little traffic exists outside suburban Melbourne. Which makes our snail’s pace and dutiful obeyance of the speed limits all the more difficult to explain.

What’s to explain? A 100km/h speed limit is not a “snail’s pace” and “dutiful obeyance” is what road rules are for. Duh.

“Australians drive the way my father does: slowly,” exclaims Car‘s Ben Barry.

And this is a problem, how?

“I’m amazed you’re so compliant with it,” says Chris Russon of the Trinity Mirror Group.

I’m amazed he’s amazed that people might actually follow the road rules.

“I’m surprised by Australia’s draconian approach to speeding,” says Sam Hardy of Auto Express. “It goes against the country’s laidback attitude to everything else.

Well, pardon me if I’m not “laidback” about dying or being permanently disabled in a high-speed collision.

That said, it seems to work with the vast majority of people adhering to speed limits (if not lane discipline) and most of them driving well. Makes a nice change from the stress of London traffic.”

I fail to see why paying attention to the speed limit should be made to sound like a bad thing…

A man charged with causing the death of a cyclist on Hobart’s Eastern Shore last year told police the rider seemed to wobble as his vehicle approached her.

So I see the “Blame the Victim” defence is back in style this season. (Then again, did it ever go away?)

In his police interview played in court, 64-year-old Alderton said he’d just been driving normally at the time and that Ms Tamayo had seemed to wobble.

He said he hadn’t slowed down to pass her and when asked why he he didn’t give Ms Tamayo more room, Alderton said he thought he was alright and that he always just drives straight.

Yeah, he drove straight—and at some speed, by the sound of it:

Witnesses told the Hobart Magistrates Court they saw Ms Tamayo’s bicycle wedged behind the bumper of Alderton’s vehicle.

What the hell? How hard did he hit her?

Clearly he didn’t allow enough room and he was not “alright”. There is absolutely nothing “alright” about this.

I didn’t know Kate Tamayo but it’s obvious that she was not some nervous wobbler: she was an experienced cyclist and a long time advocate for cycling in Tasmania. She may have swerved to avoid a hazard on the road but it’s unlikely that she “wobbled” at random.

Regardless the driver was too damn close. Like any other vehicle, a bicycle is entitled to the whole lane. There is absolutely no excuse for trying to squeeze past a cyclist in the same lane. And it’s all the more lamentable that there are two lanes in each direction on the East Derwent Highway where this collision occurred.

Isn’t it possible that Kate Tamayo died because Edward Alderton was too bloody lazy to slow down, change lanes and overtake safely?