Links

Audax Australia
This is the umbrella organisation running long distance cycling events in Australia Their website includes a calendar of events.

Bikejournal
A place where cyclist can keep track of their mileage and any number of other statistics, as well as an attached forum.

Bikeforums
A set of discussion forums covering almost every conceivable cycling related topic.

Cycling Adventurer
The Cycling Adventurer has tossed in the structured life of an urbanite to explore the world by bicycle. A well-written site detailing how he came to cycling, and what he learned along the way.

Crazy Guy on a Bike

Bicycle touring journals from all over the world, including a couple of my own.

Johns Cycles

This is my LBS on the Gold Coast. While they cater more to the racing market, their service, advice and workmanship is the best on the coast.

St Kilda Cycles

Importers of all manner of things hard to find in Australia, including the legendary Schmidt hub dynamo & E6 lights.

Blogs

Bicycle-eye
Wonderings and wanderings out and about in Portland, Oregon, US

The Journey
The journey begins in Perth, Western Australia.

Lance Notstrong
The "other" Lance!

Ms Mittens
The Wired Cat on-line

Iron Gambit
.

Aussie Writer and Cycletourist
A blog chronicling the writing and cycling of a seaside baby boomer.

Up in Alaska
Jill's subarctic journal about ice, bears and distant dreams of the midnight sun.

The Kin Chronicles
Taking mediocrity to a new level of ordinary.

Allez
Riding and running with a vengeance.

London Cycling Diary
Pedalling across the capital since August 2005.

CouchPilot-2-BikePilot (Zin's cycling blog)
Living an adventurous life with Type-2-Diabetes.

The adventures of Crazy Biker Chick
... Including cycling, adventuring, cooking, knitting and ranting.

Redneck Espanol
The two wheeled Spanish redneck.

Treadly and me
"Work is something I do between riding my bicycle".

Crowlie
Womanist philosophy and theology. Cycling, climbing, art, single-motherhood and fire-twirling.

Adrian Fitch's random rambling.
A bit about cycling, a bit about genealogy, a bit about radio but mostly a lot about nothing at all.

Geo's big adventure
The life and times of Geo.

It's about the bike
Musings on the cycling life.

Spinopsys
Various cycling tidbits.

Industry Outsider
A blog about bikes and stuff.

Tweed Coast Treadly
An old man's bicycle riding diary.

A cyclist's life in Tenerife
(Canary Islands).

Bike to work to live to bike
It's never too late to get back on the bike

Stupid Hurts
Just the random scribblings of a guy with a bicycle

I'm not drunk enough for this
Really, I'm not.

BikeHacks
What can I say? Just read it.

Mozam's cycling adventures
A random collection of the things I like to do most, and mostly that is to ride my bikes, bicycles that is... My musings from competitive riding, long distance endurance to puttering around the neighborhood..

More cycling blogs

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Friday, August 13, 2004

Editorial: Is this really healthy?

Something I've been wondering for a while, but was heightened earlier this week as the media jumped all over the Jana Pittman thing -- is Australia's obsession with sport (or perhaps more correctly, watching sport) really healthy? Thinking back a few days, Jana Pittman was all we heard about. She was front page news, I'm told one Sydney newspaper even ran a column supposedly written by "Jana's Knee" (please!). In all seriousness, did this justify front-page billing?

The word "tragedy" is one of the most over-used in the Australian media, and although I try to avoid non-satirical news sources these days, it's a fairly safe bet to say the word got a good outing. Now I'm sure Jana Pittman is a very dedicated and talented athlete, and was indeed unfortunate to suffer an injury just before the Olympics. However, let's be honest here, is someone missing out on the Olympics really a tragedy? I mean, did anyone die as a result? I certainly can't think of anyone. However, there were plenty of other events in the world with far greater consequences that didn't get anywhere near the same billing.

However, simply blaming the media for not having their priorities right on this one doesn't really do justice to the situation, because we all know who the media are targeting for newspaper sales. One would get the impression here that the Australian population are more concerned with an athlete's knee, than with life and death matters that affect people who are perhaps not in the public spotlight. Has anyone in this country even published the names of the latest batch of Iraqi civilians killed in the conflict over there?

However, let's look beyond last weekends news stories for further symptoms. We've heard time and again about university funding cuts in the last few years, but has anyone even tried to tamper with the funding of the AIS? I suspect not. It would seem in this country that an aspiring swimmer would get more government support than an aspiring doctor. Now let's answer this one honestly -- which of that pair would make the greater contribution to society? Sure, the swimmer might provide some entertainment, but is breaking a 100-metre freestyle record going to save anyone's life? Where is the real "tragedy" here?

Now while it's easy to say "blame the government" in the above situation, let us pause for a minute and ask -- who's voting for them? Would cutting funding to the AIS win any votes? One suspects it would be more damaging to a party's election chances than cutting university funding. Once again, stopping some nameless kid with a few brain cells from making a contribution seems to be a far greater disservice to the public than stopping some High-School swimming champion from spending some time being pampered in Canberra at tax payers' expense.

Everytime I see the word "tragedy" used to describe something like this, I wonder just how people managed to lose their perspective.

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