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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Thursday, April 07, 2005

Only fools and cyclists

If there was any doubt I was back, it's been well and truly put to bed tonight. All week there has been a big wind blowing in from the south, and this evening it was accompanied by rain (albeit relatively light rain). There was nothing for it other than getting on the bike and making sure I was out there. Funny thing about riding in the rain, all of those little excuses you think of beforehand tend to disappear as soon as you're actually out there, it's almost as if all those things they taught us to fear from the rain as children seem totally pointless now, and the wind adds to it. It's just you against the world into a big headwind, and that feeling is incredibly liberating. For a while, all of life's other little problems are blown away, or washed away. For a while, it's good to get right back to nature on a very basic level.

It's also allowed me an opportunity to reflect on just what might have caused this illness in the first place. Indeed, it's not the first time I've had food poisoning (or something similar), and I've been looking for common links between 2005 and February 2003 to try to work it all out. The only possibility I've come up with is that some of those pristine streams I drink from occasionally aren't so pristine after all.

However, this opens up other questions -- firstly, how did whatever caused the problem stay in my system for five days before actually making me sick? On one of those days I managed to pull out a 240km ride in temperatures that hit 32 degrees C, so surely it should have been sweated out. It's not as if I drunk a lot from the Urliup stream on Good Friday (certainly not as much as other days in the past). Then of course, there's the issue of just why it should cause a problem this time, I've taken water from that stream on several occasions (just as I had done on the Springbrook one which was the suspect from 2003). On the other hand, perhaps I was just unlucky with something I bought at the supermarket. The frustrating part is that I'd like this question cleared up, but all I seem to be getting here are more questions.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Chris,

How about a small filter to bring with you? I know you can get a filter that fits in your water bottle cage. They are shaped like a traditional water bottle, but filter out the bugs. I get so scared of picking up something from mountain streams that I never drink from a stream without one. I have heard that if you pick up giardia (sp?) that it can linger for up to a year.

Anyway, glad to see you are back on the bike and feeling better!

Kat

9:42 pm  
Blogger Chris L said...

Hi Kat,

Somehow I missed your comment until now, please forgive me! Now that's an interesting suggestion about the filter, I really should look into that -- especially given the quantities of water that I'm capable of drinking in the hotter weather!

The comment about giardia is interesting, too. I honestly wasn't aware of that, but it could explain a few things -- in February 2003 as well as April 2005.

10:04 pm  

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