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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Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Century withdrawals

It has come to my attention that it is now 10 days since I last rode an imperial century. Ordinarily this shouldn't bother anyone, but right now as I type this I have an urge to get on the bike and just churn out a lot of miles. It's odd that I should be so keen to do this, given that I've ridden four imperial centuries (i.e. rides of 100 miles or more) already this month. I have still been commuting and so on, of course, but for some reason that just doesn't suffice. As I've related in previous posts, my ride to work is more like a business transaction than anything else.

So how did I get to this stage? It was just yesterday that I was reading a post from another blogger riding their first century. How does one reach the stage where they are addicted to long rides? To be honest I don't know whether it's testosterone (shouldn't I be growing out of that by now?), or just wanting to extend myself. Maybe it's just wanting to prove something after the 600k ride didn't go as planned. http://life-cycle.blogspot.com/2006/07/mess.html Maybe it's a deeper desire to escape suburban life for a while. Either way, I want to go somewhere right now.

On the subject of suburban life, or at least one aspect of it, I continually find it astonishing just how little idea anyone on the Gold Coast has about dealing with traffic. I don't rant about this subject terribly often, largely because if I ranted about every Gold Coast idiot I ever saw, I'd have little time to talk about anything else. Yet I see it everyday, people overtaking too close, people ignoring obvious gaps in the traffic at give way situations, before trying to blast through long after the gap is gone. People abusing others for stopping at red lights, people who just generally have no friggen idea. This isn't necessarily an anti-motorist rant -- I've seen plenty of cyclists and pedestrians who are just as bad.

I've spent time riding in much bigger cities like Brisbane or Melbourne, one would think a smaller city like the Gold Coast (pop. around 500,000) would present no problems at all. Yet from my observations, the incompetent moron quotient here is much higher than in these other cities. I suspect it all comes back to experience. People living in larger cities probably cope with traffic better because they deal with it more often. People in medium-sized cities therefore lack the skill and anticipation that comes with such experience. That said, if I can learn my trade on the Gold Coast and apply it in Melbourne or Brisbane, I don't see any reason that others shouldn't be able to.

Hmmm, maybe escaping the idiots is the reason I want to leave.

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