Squeak Like the Wind

A few photos from the ride home today

Pannier Playfulness

I went in to Sydney yesterday for a pannier workshop with the Green Living Centre (was the Watershed) in Newtown.

Hugely useful and wonderful! I cannot believe they put this on for free.

Now, I just did a great big review of the whole damn thing, and accidentally hit "back" just as I was about to publish it, so if you're after lots more information, feel free to email me.

These are a tiny version of the green bag panniers - cheap and cheerful and very useful! You can also get some really sweet greenbags with cute pictures on them, so this would work out well if you want a splash of colour for very little cost. They're lined with corflute (unsure how to actually spell it) so that they stay nice and stiffened and don't get pulled into spokes or deraillers.

Despite their simplicity, the bucket panniers were my favourites! They used buckets from various places, they got them all for free, and apparently Boost throw away a huge number of square white buckets with lids that are perfect for this (and with the lids become rain proof!

You can see in this picture that the elastic stabiliser is a piece of recycled inner tube. Fantastic idea!

You wouldn't want to use these on a bike with an expensive or fancy rack, as you can see it's already scratched it up a bit. I don't mind - but I'm thinking it might be worth lining them with some rubber stuff to stop them rattling as well as scratching.

Wonderful stuff, and I think they'll work very well for tall awkward things when I have to carry them. Would be rather nice if I was the fresh food market type and had to carry celery and fresh flowers home. As it is, I think it'll suit a baguette or two just fine. :)

The Apocalypse Tube

Today I broke out the tyre irons and gave Rosie her second Apocalypse Tube.

The Apocolypse Tube is the name I give for the awesomeness of these things combined:

The tyre sealant is this magical goo that you squirt into your tube, and when your tube gets a little puncture (as in 1/4 inch or less) it dries on air contact, and seals up the puncture. Amazing. Add this to a thorn resistant tube, and suddenly you have a tyre that's going to resist just about anything short of an apocalyptic event. Oh yeah.

Also, I got to buy and try a groovy new tool - this is a valve core remover (with the valve core still stuck into it). I love cool bike repair tools! It makes me feel all hard core 'n' shit.

So, with dirty hands and fresh tubes in Rosie's tyres, we wheeled out the back for a thorough wash down and lubing of the chain.

The other thing today was that I finally admitted defeat. After spending over $150 on two sets of dress guards, not being able to install them, countless emails between the seller and I over how to install them, and supply of different clips, sending back the old ones that didn't work, blah, blah, blah, I tried to install the new clips today and failed miserably.

The product itself is fine. The guards are beautifully designed and made, and the whole product is perfect. But Rosie's fenders sit too close to her tyres to get the clips in without scraping the tyre, and the derailler grabs the guard on that side when ever I go over a bump in the road, and has repeated ripped the guard off and gotten it hopelessly tangled in the derailler area, which is distressing and frustrating. (I did however have a terribly attractive man stop to help me sort it out once , which was quite fun, so it hasn't been all bad. LOL.)

So I've stashed the clips and guards away, for another day. I'm thinking of switching from Rosie to a Dutch bike for transport purposes, and I think the skirt guards will be perfect for that: wider fenders, no derailler. One day. :)

Bikes are allowed to be here too!

I've come out on Rosie this morning for brekky with one friend and coffee with another, and finally had both the time and the inclination to stop and take a picture of this wonderful thing: I'm not sure what it's called. But I know what it is! It's a message, loud and clear, that bikes are allowed to be on the road.

Over the christmas period and in to January, I participated in a study funded by the ACT government aiming at making cycling safer in Canberra. I had a camera attached to my helmet, and I recorded about 20 hours of me riding to and from work on the roads. At the end I participated in an interview as well.

Something that happens with car drivers and bikes on the road, and was certainly highlighted with the not so recent shenanigans with Shane Warne and his chance encounter with a cyclist, is that there is an attitude that since cyclists don't pay vehicle rego fees for their bikes, they have no right to be on the road.

I'm not going to put in my 2cents worth into this debate today. But I will say this: it's wonderful to see that little patch of green paint and white stencilling, and its message: watch for the bicycles, they're allowed to be here too.

beautiful things

Rather than blogging myself, I've been lurking about on other blogs. And there are so many beautiful things out there!

I love Rosie, she's a total sweety, and I'm finding that she's a great transport bike. But I've been thinking of other bikes, namely ones with things like dynamo lighting, internal hub gears, full chain guards. Sometimes it really is about functionality as well. And I'm realising that I can have a gorgeously lovely bike which is also functional.

Anyways, I've gotten these incredible pictures from other blogs:

http://rideblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/november-19-2011-ride-the-relative-thrill-of-discovery/

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.ecovelo.info/2011/11/28/gallery-steves-town-bike-project/

 

 

This one from the local Tour de Femme, was taken as one of the official pics. I have no idea who it is, despite asking all over facebook where I could.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, some new lovely shoes, looking gorgeously matching on the lovely Rosie. Maybe I won't rush out and buy a new red bike after all...

A bike ride, and a near death experience

Another day of sleeping in. I vaguely remember sleeping in as a teenager. I didn't actually sleep, mostly. I tended to get myself a good novel, curl up in bed, and stay there until some time in the early afternoon when hunger would drive me out into the real world, seeking breakfast and perhaps even some sunshine.

My niece stayed in bed until about 2pm. I was pretty impressed. We slept until about 9ish, and blamed that on daylight saving. Heh.

We didn't have many plans for the day, and I see no reason to chuck a happily hibernating teenager out of bed if we have nowhere to be, so when she finally emerged we fed her, and threw her on a bike.

Unfortunately for her, Canberra can be a bit... thingy... in the spring. Apparently it's not a nice place to be if you have hayfever. Or asthma. She had an asthma attack about half way round the lake, despite our very easy pace on the bikes. We'd been riding for about 25 minutes at that stage. So, pollen + slightly asthmatic lungs = near death experience. Not cool! Thank goodness for my happy purchase of a bike rack, I rode home in 11 minutes flat (I told you we'd been riding slowly! LOL) and grabbed the car, and did my best Squeaking Knight in Shining Armour impression. Hooray!

Another day with no purchases, though it was pretty easy considering we spent half the day just chilling at home. Nice.

Day 3: Success! :)

Gettin' Dirty!

I went mountain biking yesterday for the first time in ages. And the first ever jaunt on my own. Oooh, excitement and risk and stuff!

I live near one of the niftiest mountain biking spots in the universe, but I haven't really been able to get out there unless scabbing a ride from a friend, since I haven't had a bike rack on my car. And with the price of towbars being what they are, I wasn't keen on having one installed on my old bomby. So, with the purchase of a cute new(ish) car, I went with the "in for a penny, in for a pound" philosophy, closed my eyes to the price tag, and bought me a towbar and a decent bike rack.

Squee!

The excitement has been enormous! I went out to Stromlo yesterday and almost went home again without going for a ride, as there was a very large event in progress when I got there. Lucky for me, I'd accessed a different entrance to the park before, when I was going out there to do trail running. So I wandered off to this entrance, and instead of being utterly crawling with a thousand humans and their canine companions, it was relatively empty. Awesome.

Why is this important? Because I'm unco-ordinated, and keep falling off my seat, and hold people up, and get all worked up because I'm embarrassed and flustered and just generally not enjoying myself. Which, ya know, kinda flies in the face of the whole point of it. Riding = fun, right?

So off I went. There was the occasional collision with rocks and trees, which is generally how me and  mountain biking work. At one point after a few too many enthusiastic brushes with death-by-close-encounter-with-a-rock the two guys sitting on top of the hill junction were treated to a surprised "shit!" followed by a disgusted "fuck" as I staggered to a halt and toppled slowly sideways. Elegant I am not, nor polite. And not even family-friendly. Ah well. I righted myself, and pretended to fuss with my water bottle, and slunk quietly behind a bush while I waited for them to move on. Nothing to see here, boys, just a dusty, happy Squeak swearing to herself and rehydrating. Um, yeah.

  The view from the top is apparently pretty good. I haven't gone all the way up there yet, but got a nice photo from about half way up. Yesterday's jaunt was more about familiarising myself with the trail network and seeing how lost I could get myself while still being able to navigate back to the car. All in all, a pretty successful morning. And WOW, my legs are sore. Heh!

Lucky Ted is a tiny stuffed toy about 3-4cm long which I used to carry in my pocket when I rode a motorcycle, and is now happily perched on my mtb handlebars. Cute!

And then, just like that, it was spring

Zoomed around being sociable and spending a bit of pocket money at op shops today. Awesome fun! Brekkie, biking, beautiful friends, life is good. Spring in Canberra kicks arse.

I had three people stop me to ask me about my Yakkay helmet today, two of them were mothers who said almost word for word the same thing: "my daughter won't wear a helmet and I worry about her, but I think she might wear *that*". Woohoo! I point out to people that it doesn't have an Australian Standards sticker, so technically you can still get pulled over and "booked" for not having an approved helmet. I must say, however, it'd be a pretty mean cop to issue a ticket when you're obviously wearing a proper (beautifully made) helmet, when I see so many people riding in plain caps, or just plain without.

It is a shame about the AS thing. I was speaking to a guy in a bike shop who told me it costs something like $10,000 or something outrageous like that to get a helmet tested for the standards, so it figures that bike shops are reluctant to do it. I wonder if I could raise the money for it...? ;)

Sick = yuck

Yuck! I'm sick. I don't get sick that often, so when I do, I do it right.

I had a lot planned for this weekend - have people staying here (have warned them of my gross virus-ridden state and they've braved the risk anyways) and was going to have a ride at Mt Stromlo and go to the markets, among other things. What have I done instead? Hung out at home, drunk some staminade, eaten good food and rested.

I have a little voice in my head, going round and round, saying "come on body, do what you do, get better, get better, get better!"Attack the viruses, my antibody and cell thingies! Sic 'em! (I posted this as my facebook update and got this in response: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody) heh I love sciency friends.

So, two pretty photo for today, taken on the way home from work on Thursday. I was already sick on Thursday, but just put it down to fatigue. My body told me otherwise when I started feeling nauseous about half way home - and I'd decided to take the slightly longer scenic ride before that. Whoops! Great shots, they're a little blurry and if I'd been feeling better I'd have gone back and done a few passes to get a nice clear one, but this will do. Happy weekend, hope yours is going better than mine! :)

It was tough, but I grew a pair, and hopped on the bike...

A friend put as her facebook status today:

"Why do people say 'grow some balls'? Balls are weak and vulnerable, if you want to toughen up, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding. ~ unknown

Certainly made me guffaw loudly in appreciation. Sitting at my desk alone at work, with my office door open, laughing my head off... I guess the nice thing about having me as your psychologist is that *you* get to be the sane one. Yah.

Anyways, it took a big fat amount of willpower to leave the cute little pop-out keys folded up, to hop on Rosie and pedal the 50 minute ride to work this morning, when all I wanted to do was drive drive drive! I thought I might toddle off for a nice zoomy wander around town this evening, though I do need to sort out the insurance first. When I got my first car, I used to drive round for the fun of it all the time, and it's a sign that I'm getting perilously close to being a "real" grownup that I've stopped doing that - though maybe it's also just a sign that I've been driving a hunk of shite around for the past few years. LOL.

So here are a few cute on-the-bike shots that I took this morning to (1) make myself feel better and give me something to do, and (2) prove that I *did* ride to work. It's quite a nice ride on Wednesdays, about 13km, and only about 1/3 of it on roadside bike lanes, the rest dedicated bike trails. Only a few blocks, literally a couple of hundred metres, of actual on-road cycling. Nice.