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, November 17, 2006

This isn't supposed to happen

We seem to have had a return of "winter" in these parts lately. I knew it was going to be cool when I grabbed the bike and headed out for a quick 45km before work this morning. In fact, it was 11 degrees C when I left my apartment. Granted, it was 4.45am or something, but in Queensland that generally doesn't matter. At this time of year, I'm usually glad if it's anything below 30. I set off for the ride regardless, and completely forgot about the temperature as I realised that a gear cable was going to break any minute now.

It got colder. At Little Nerang Dam this morning, it had dropped to just 6 degrees C (around 41.6 F on the scale that Americans use). Six??? Even "winter" rarely gets that cold, and consequently I hadn't bothered with a jacket of any kind. Strangely, it actually felt quite refreshing and not at all unpleasant. It was almost as if I'd been in a prison with all the heat and humidity that were around earlier in the week under the northerly winds. Now that they were gone, I felt alive again, and ready to conquer the world. I've felt that way all day, really. Maybe it's the energy suddenly generated at being jolted out of a comfort zone. Or maybe my expectations of riding in that temperature were just skewed by the driving rain and 90km/h winds that greeted me in Invercargill in those temperatures earlier in the year. Either way, I wish I could do it more often.

Incidentally, I'm going to replace the gear cable before it breaks this time. So far this year I've already had to deal with similar failures at Mt Jerusalem and Springbrook, and I don't want to have to deal with it again. While it is possible to complete a ride with a snapped gear cable (in fact, I've never failed to do so), it's not always as much fun. Incidentally, yesterday marks two years to the day since my most famous gear-cable failure -- at Wilson's Promontory at the other end of the country. I rode out of that one, too.

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