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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Monday, January 17, 2011

Rumours of my demise...

Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated (assuming anybody gave enough of a crap to start any). As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been unwell recently with a nasty illness that I picked up from somewhere. I've been reluctant to mention it because there are other people not far from here that need a lot more help and deserve a lot more sympathy than I do (see my previous post again). In any case, two events have brought my health back.

The first was doing a shift in The Beach as I watched the mighty Gold Coast United thrash North Qld 4-0, two of the goals coming from Super Bruce. I had been only 50/50 about going at all because I wasn't feeling well, and six minutes into the game it looked like all the singing was going to be too much and I'd be forced into The Left Side. Fortunately, that didn't happen, the singing just got louder as GCU handed out a thrashing. By the end of the night I was feeling good. I even managed to win an esky (God knows how I'll get that home).

Then tonight I headed out for my first night ride in far too long. I'd been feeling a little tired before the ride, but I went anyway. The first 10km or so I rode as if I'd been shot out of a gun. I had planned to slow down once I hit the hills behind Mudgeeraba, but somehow that didn't happen either. Once I reached Little Nerang Dam I was totally covered in sweat, even more than usual. I had planned for this by taking extra water, so I was able to really enjoy the ride home, too. Especially the view of the gorge in the moonlight. I'll be doing a lot more night rides from this point on, this is guaranteed.

I also had an idea for a new "reality TV" show -- The World's Stupidest Canetoads. You could pretty much pick any canetoad that's dumb enough to try to stare down an E3 headlight and an approaching cyclist without even moving -- especially if that cyclist is aware of what canetoads do to the local wildlife and not very happy about it. I found plenty of potential stars for my new show, but somehow they all ended up dead. Oh well, I'm sure there are plenty of others out there.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Queensland Floods

It's about time I made a post on this subject. For those who don't know, my home state of Queensland has been absolutely hammered by a record flood over the last couple of weeks. Somehow this flood has miraculously avoided my home city of the Gold Coast, and life goes on relatively normally here, despite the fact that everywhere around us is currently under water. I personally have had a nasty cold to contend with, but that's of no consequence really.

In the west, some towns such as Dalby and Chinchilla have been submerged several times over in the last few weeks, and the town of Dirranbandi has apparently been cut off from the outside world for three consecutive weeks. Closer to home, the mountain top town of Toowoomba was hammered by a major flash flood that was literally washing cars away -- that was about three days ago. That evening, the village of Grantham at the foot of the mountains was almost totally washed away. I've ridden through Grantham a few times in the past, it was quite a lovely little village, and some of the stories there have been absolutely horrific.

Yesterday it was Ipswich, to the west of Brisbane (home to around 160,000 people). One of my co-workers has family there, they have been safe from what I hear, but there are apparently another 78 people unaccounted for right now. As I type this, large parts of the city of Brisbane, home to around 2 million people are underwater. My mother lives there. Last I heard she was OK, and it appears the worst of it has now passed -- assuming it doesn't rain again in the next few days. Personally, I have never seen anything like this before, and it puts a heck of a lot of things into perspective.

There have been some good news stories to come out of this. High profile sports people such as Lance Armstrong and Tim Cahill (and quite a few others) have offered some assistance in terms of raising funds for the victims. Plenty of other people (including former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd) have pitched in and got their hands dirty on location. Those who wish to donate to the appeal can do so at http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html . I know that the Gold Coast United Supporters Club (otherwise known as "The Beach") are in the process of organising something as well. I'll post more details when they're available.