Plans

It's funny the way things happen. Within 24 hours I went from being despondent about a mention of the word "cancer" to being upbeat about planning a short bike tour for late April with Dave Mac. It's always interesting to meet other cycle tourists, so many seem to have their own ways of doing things -- probably more so than any other form of cycling, at least in terms of self-supported touring.

One thing we were both in agreement on is just how few people seem to understand the nature of cycle touring, particularly from the road-racing fraternity where anything that isn't a "training ride" is somehow seen as inherently "bad" because of the whole theory of "junk miles". The theory is, of course, absolute rubbish. If you take a person who only rides "junk miles", then compare their fitness level with someone who doesn't ride at all, I think I know who will come out on top in that one.

The planned tour itself will basically involve two days starting from Caboolture, with a ride through the Glasshouse Mountains, then along the Sunshine Coast, followed by Lake Boreen and a scenic back road through to Gympie. It passes through areas we're both keen to visit, I haven't actually ridden the coastal strip on the Sunshine Coast as yet (surprising as that might seem). Nor have I been to Lake Boreen, and while I did the back road to Gympie back in 2001 (finishing at Cooroy), it's an area that I've wanted to get back to for sometime.

• I've long said that tabloid newspapers (which include virtually all of the supposedly "mainstream" newspapers in this country) exist purely for entertainment purposes, and nothing printed therein should be viewed in any other way. I noticed while shopping earlier today that one of them was running a headline of "Howard Bones Minister". Now, that can have a couple of different meanings, and I'm not entirely sure the people who printed the story weren't aware of that. I'm just wondering whether anybody in Parliament will have any fun with it.