Life Cycle

After the falls

2012-01-26T20:43:00.002+10:00

Things don't always go the way they should. I had originally planned to take some friends up to Lamington National Park for a day exploring one of the greatest one day hikes in Australia. Some absolutely drenching rain over the last few days put paid to that idea -- I've since been told that Beechmont Road is currently closed due to a landslide. This meant altered plans, which, in today's case, meant a trip through Tallebudgera and Currumbin Valleys, which are often spectacular after heavy downpours. Today wouldn't disappoint.

Initially it was off through Tally Valley, simply because it's the closest. Tallebudgera Creek was obviously swollen by the rain, but it was amazing to note just how much higher the creek had been (judging by the debris) just 24 hours earlier. I think the source of this stream is somewhere on Springbrook, where they had 20 inches of rain in two days, but the water definitely ran off quickly. It's also a chance to reflect on the contradiction, the rain that gives life to places like this can also be extremely destructive when the mood takes it. It can also create things that mightn't be here otherwise.

Next in line was Currumbin Valley, after the short climb over Ducats Road, and the insane descent of Trees Road. Here, things were slightly different. The cloud that had remained through the previous night was now burning off, although there were still a couple of random waterfalls remaining to offer a reminder of what had happened. I had planned to visit Cougals Cascades at the end of the road, to really see what the rain had done here, but a road closure at a flooded causeway put paid to that. This was hardly surprising, as Tallebudgera Valley had also been flooded near the top of the valley at a causeway, so I guess I just have to make do with what I was able to find here.

I have no idea what I'll be doing this weekend, as this flooding (which I understand has closed off at least three of my regular mountain climbs) has really left things up in the air. Even my football hooligan duties for Gold Coast United are under threat of postponement as I type this. I'm sure I'll find something worth doing, however.

The prodigal returns

2012-01-11T19:05:00.004+10:00

Well clearly it's been a while between posts. I spent a month in Tasmania as planned, and had a great time, but I haven't been able to post about it due to a computer suffering a functionality phobia. Consequently I have some posts to catch up on. The most recent thing I've been dealing with is the usual searing heat that I simply can't stand. As the picture above shows, the haze from the humidity was obvious from the top of Springbrook. It's days like this, when the humidity effectively means the sun doesn't shine properly all day, that are just generally unpleasant.

As it was, I decided to head for the summit of the mountain, knowing that at least the descent would be a lot cooler. It was, too. Officially a climb the size of Springbrook should wipe 6.5 degrees (c) off the temperature, in practice, the gap almost always seems to be much higher than that -- especially if you've managed to cover yourself in sweat on the climb.

With that in mind, I decided to spend some more time on the higher points, heading for Goomoolahra falls on the Eastern side of the escarpment. This place was famous for a drunken idiot walking off the edge of the cliff and falling 100 metres to his death a couple of years ago, and as useful as that event is, I still prefer to focus on the sight of the waterfall next to the cliff face. The views can be even better at a slightly lower point of the falls sequence, but I didn't have time on this particular day. I just had to enjoy what I had, such is life.

The Empire strikes back

2011-11-18T13:57:00.001+10:00

The Empire strikes back It always feels good to be back in business. 4 months ago I was waking up in hospital after being run down by a red light runner, nursing three broken bones and spending 13 hours unconscious. In just under 12 hours I'll be taking off for a four week tour in Tasmania. I've been there before, of course, but I still have some unfinished business to attend to down there. The good part is that I probably won't have to deal with the heat I copped on the 200k here on the 'Coast last week.

I do have a journal over at crazyguyonabike.com, but given my track record of updating while I'm away, I'm not sure it's worth mentioning here. At the same time, I have one of the best personal injury lawyers on the Gold Coast chasing some closure for me, after the police showed they were unable/unwilling to do their job.

Life is good again.

Survival

2011-11-17T13:17:00.004+10:00

Someone at Audax Australia made a decision to schedule a 200km ride in this region in mid-November. I wasn't about to argue as I needed an excuse to ride the kilometres, but when those northerly winds are blasting in and consistently increasing the temperature, it becomes clear from an early stage that this ride is going to be about survival. I hadn't done this particular circuit before, but apparently it was based on areas that the late Frank Papp used to love riding around the Tweed Valley. Although I hadn't done this particular route, most of it was familiar to me.

Incredibly, there were about 60 riders turned up for this particular event, although the majority of them did the 110km option. We set off over Hogans Road after the usual messing about with Bilambil. I hadn't passed through this particular area for several months, and it was good to be reacquainted with that particular rainforest again. It reminded me that I need to do another night ride here among the glow worms soon.

There were some minor navigational issues presented after climbing up Terranora (also for the first time in ages), but these were taken care of fairly quickly. Unfortunately, those detours were a necessary evil, due to the three-year "job creation" roadwork project near Sextons Hill. After this it was a fairly easy coast to the first checkpoint at Casurina Beach, then a nice rise over Clothiers Creek to Murwillumbah. The heat was starting to take it's toll now, but at this stage I still had plenty in reserve and was happy to soldier on.

It was after Murwillumbah that the heat combined with my (still) relative lack of condition became an issue. One of the hills immediately after Murwillumbah in the obscure Wardrop Valley forced me to slow down quite a bit, and I didn't really recover that vigour for most of the remainder of the ride. Still, this section, too, is quite scenic, so I didn't mind taking my time. I crossed the Burringbar Range and the unknown 15% bump on the road to Pottsville for the next checkpoint. I actually thought about bailing because of the heat here, as it was making it difficult to keep food down. In the end I decided to press on because I would have had to ride home against that northerly either way.

The next stage was back to Murwillumbah, this time via Stokers Siding and Uki. Strangely, I started to recover slightly on this stretch, probably just a function of lowering my expectations, and things started to feel OK again. That was until the last 5km into Murwillumbah, where the northerly wind forced me down to 18km/h. From my observations, nobody else seemed to be going any faster, so I just sucked it up, knowing that there was a big climb ahead to take out most of the remaining wind.

I thought the final climb over Tomewin would be one of the slowest I've ever done there. It actually turned out not to be the case. It was late in the afternoon by now, so there was some cooling shade over the road. I hung on grimly over the 11% section in the middle of the climb, and reached the summit with less difficulty than I had anticipated. At the top of the pass, the temperature was now dropping. Relief.

I descended the mountain, and rode through the last 10 or so through Currumbin Valley to finish the ride as I was running out of daylight. Better yet, I could now keep food down, something I made the most of when I finally returned home. Sometimes the reasons we do things are rather obscure, but in this case, I'm glad to have put this one to bed. The route for this ride was indeed very scenic, and I'll almost certainly return next time. I just hope that next time sees some rain or some cooler temperatures.

Eden's garden - without a warning!

2011-11-10T20:34:00.002+10:00

Who hid Mt Warning on Saturday? I could have sworn it was there last time I passed this way. Either way, as the Rajnishi wasn't on the road due to it's 1,000km service (which, just quietly, came a few hundred kilometres too late), it was time to drag Kevin 007 out of the stable for some dirt. I was joined my Martin for the early part of the ride, which basically involved the old trek through Bilambil and Urliup, before looping back to attack the climb over Tomewin. It was on this climb that I started to realise I might have been on a good day.

I headed off on my own in search of dirt, first along Garden of Eden road, which is more famous as the starting point of the climb to Mt Cougal. On the way back I scared the crap out of a roadie, by rejoining Tomewin road just as he completed the climb (I descended out of Garden of Eden road), and letting him think I had just completed the climb in super-fast time. However, I had more important things to think about.

It was now time for the ridgetop journey along Glengarrie "road". I always seem to be nervous at the start of this one, probably with the knowledge of what is to come. The track hugs the ridge for a while, with a steep rocky climb at the end, and it is here that I've had difficulty in the past. This day was also the first time I've attempted it since the infamous crash on July 28.

As it happened, the climb over the rocky section proved easier than I thought. Maybe I'm just stronger than I thought it was, or maybe it really was just easier. Either way, it felt like a bit of an anti-climax at the end. The descent wasn't too difficult either. There has been some work done on the road there, and it seemed to make a difference. They even look to have graded the Zig-Zag road, but frankly I couldn't be bothered checking it out.

The one mistake I made all day was passing over the food stop at the Bilambil bakery -- riding home against that hot northerly wind probably deserved more energy than I was prepared to expend on it. As it was, I navigated it at a relatively conservative pace. I did manage to pick up the Rajnishi later in the day, and a phone call from Martin that evening hatched another plan -- the climb to Best of All Lookout at Springbrook the following morning -- complete with it's 19% sections. This is what living is all about.

Some of you might have noticed a lack of posts recently. Simply put, I've been too busy to write any. I will catch it up over the weekend, with a big announcement on the way.

Hitler hates the GC 600

2011-11-03T20:00:00.003+10:00

I must be getting old, or turning into a fascist dictator. Hopefully it's both, but I can't find too much to disagree with here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWXz9cfjuYI&feature=youtube_gdata_player&noredirect=1

I still haven't figured out how to embed a youtube video on this blogger interface. Oh well, it's worth a look anyway.

Settlement

2011-10-25T21:09:00.003+10:00

Last weekend I had to confess myself slightly disappointed at the rather poor second half produced by Gold Coast United in Brisbane on Friday night. There was nothing for it other than to get on the bike and find a decent ride somewhere. I set off on Sunday morning for the old fashioned Springbrook/Numinbah/Tomewin circuit. The start was a little slower than I normally like, and I wasn't sure whether that was lethargy or just an early morning westerly wind. Either way, the climb toward Salmons Saddle at Springbrook soon shook that loose.

I was far more concerned with the potentially treacherous descent on the other side. I have ridden up Pine Creek Road a few times and measured 24% gradients there. This sort of thing tends to make one slightly nervous about descending the road -- especially in view of the fact that I hadn't done it since the infamous crash back in July. As it was, the disc brakes on the Salsa Vaya worked beautifully and gave me another of those "what the hell are you worrying about?" moments when I reached the bottom, turned south, and set out on the next part of the ride.

Why did every motor-cyclist on the Gold Coast want to share my ride today? It's enough to make you think disparaging thoughts about people who are too poor to afford a Harley (i.e. all of them) but still want to be "bad dudes". The ride through the southern part of Numinbah valley is indeed, beautiful, but these guys made it a lot noisier than it might have been the day before. A couple of them also saw fit to pass right in the middle of corners on the descent from Numinbah Gap -- again I can thank my disc brakes for making a potentially tricky situation into an easy one. Somewhere near Chillingham I got a little tired of the noise, and decided to head for a dirt road that I've eyed off for a while.

I knew Settlement Road would be quiet. As it was, I didn't see another human along the way. What I didn't realise what just how lovely the switchback dirt road that snaked it's way though Springbrook's southern foothills would be. The forest here was pretty dense for the most part, but it occasionally gave way to some really stunning views. After climbing for a few kilometres, the road deteriorated as it went past a fence line, and I decided to call off the chase here -- but only after admiring the view toward Mt Hobwee and Bald Mountain.

After this, there isn't a lot to tell. The Harley wannabes virtually disappeared after I passed Chillingham (apart from one lot at Crystal Creek). The only thing noticeable out here was the north-easterly wind that had replaced the south-westerly that started the day. Oh well, this bike tends to cope with headwinds better than any other I've had previously, and I still had Tomewin to throw at it. The climb over Tomewin was quite enjoyable, and almost rejuvenating. It left me with plenty of energy for finishing off the ride home, and another 130km racked up.

Another great ride was had. I also now have something to look forward to on the horizon, but I'll reveal that in another post.

The comeback is complete

2011-10-18T20:24:00.003+10:00

It seems everyone knows about this except my blog readers, as I have once again been slack in updating. However, 10 days ago, and basically 10 weeks after breaking three bones, being knocked unconscious and all the other crap that went on, I have now officially completed the comeback by successfully riding 190km in a day. I talked my friend Martin into coming with me for a jaunt along the Coolamon Scenic Drive in the hills behind Mullumbimby. Of course, that meant that most of the kilometres would be accumulated in getting there and back, but we can live with that.

We started off by heading south, down along the Tweed Coast with the intention, for me anyway, of a complete change of scenery. Those long weeks I spend cooped up in Suburbia were driving me crazy. I'll never forget the feeling I got immediately south of Pottsville and thinking "Damn, it's good to be here again". The feeling continued and must have had something positive, because it was the first time I've ever broken three hours from my place to Mullumbimby. We were flying!

Making friends is easier in some places than others. While putting on sunscreen at Mullumbimby, a dog from near by decided to go and find a stick to bring back to me. I'd never seen this dog before, but as long as (s)he wasn't chasing my wheels, I wasn't complaining about throwing a stick a few times. We soon set off into the hills, climbing the Coolamon Ridge on the accidentaly discovered Possum Shoot Road, then taking in the sweeping views of the surrounding area, and the surrounding rain.

The rain closed in soon enough, although we missed the thunderstorm to the north, there was rain waiting for us after we passed through Mullumbimby on the return, bound for Burringbar. The rain was actually quite pleasant, and made some of the climbs around Billinudgel and Mooball feel probably easier than they were. The food stop at Burringbar was a little rushed, however, and I didn't take the time to stretch.

I believe the stretch between Burringbar and Murwillumbah on the old highway is one of the most underrated stretches of road in the area, with varying views and a lot of forest to please one's senses, although for some reason I have rarely pulled out the camera here. Nonetheless, we rode on, and negotiated Murwillumbah, with it's usual stop-start traffic (just why it's this way I don't know, it's rarely heavy traffic).

The climb of Tomewin was the final test of the day. I knew that reaching the summit here would give me the "century" I so desperately wanted, and I also knew that there wasn't going to be much difficulty in the final 30km after this. My legs had other ideas, so I cut a deal by simply riding up the climb very slowly. Martin showed the value of regular riding during the previous weeks by taking off on the climb and slaughtering it, I was a little slower. As it was, we got over the top and descended to the coast and suburbia.

I did get a bit of a shock to find that we actually finished the 190km at around 2pm. That was a good hour quicker than I had expected. When I get fit again, anything is possible.

35

2011-10-04T20:15:00.002+10:00

Thanks to all who sent me birthday wishes for Saturday, most of them came via facebook which means I really should try actually logging in there one of these days. To be honest, I hadn't expected to be sitting at this particular computer typing this. Had things gone as I had planned them, I would have been in the South of France, but a red light runner put paid to that. Then, of course, I had some bones that needed to heal so I could get back on my feet, so here I am.

It's quite interesting the way a crash like that can change your perspective on the world. There are some things I appreciate more than ever, and there are other things about which I have become even more cynical than before (even though I didn't previously think that was possible). I did manage to buy myself an early birthday present (pictured above), so that is some compensation for the lost time.

Either way, I'm glad to be here, hopefully with many more adventures to come.

Back to Beechmont

2011-09-29T20:01:00.002+10:00

Those who have been following the comments saga in a previous post would be aware that I am now the proud owner of a Salsa Vaya. I picked it up on Saturday and the "test ride" was effectively the 15km jaunt home from Nerang. As many of you would be aware, this will never be sufficient for someone like me, and so I decided to head off on Sunday for a climb to Binna Burra, with a detour on the western spur of the Beechmont range to give me 120km for the day to think about. It was also going to be an interesting test for me, specifically a test of just how much fitness I've regained since my recovery.

A lovely morning greeted me, and the bike was certainly a lovely ride. The main improvement I've noticed is how much better equipped this machine seems to be in headwinds than anything I've owned before. With the constant barrage of Northerlies that seems to define this time of year, that was going to be tested almost right away. Of more interest was the climb of the Beechmont Range, the 7km stretch leading to Lower Beechmont. The lighter weight of the new bike certainly made the climbing easier, but I haven't yet fully recovered my stamina. Nevertheless, even when I tired, I was still able to gain height at quite an acceptable pace.

The final assault of Mt Roberts on the lead up to Binna Burra was always going to tell me a lot, with it's 13% gradients. As it happened, I seemed to get over it more comfortably than I had been expecting. To do it with a full touring load might have been a different test, but I have some ideas there as well. As it was, I was quite happy with the way things went. The descent wasn't nearly as scary as I had been expecting either, I guess there's something in those disc brakes after all. Now it was time for the Beechmont detour.

This is one stretch of road that I really enjoy -- despite the fact that it's basically an "out and back" ride, I never tire of the views over the valleys to the west. This area here, too, has it's climbing challenges, with the road dipping to under 500 metres in height, before climbing up to 600, before dropping back to 500, then you have to turn around and do it all again. Once more, the bike coped very well, and surprisingly, so did I -- even if a local magpie wasn't very impressed.

After this I descended the stretch from Lower Beechmont (a little quicker than I have for some time), and took the hilly route home through Gilston. Even though the temperature was very hot as I got closer to sea level, I did enjoy this stretch. Even the roadwork that has become a long-term welfare project didn't trouble me that much. The impressive thing is that even though I was tiring, I still seemed to be able to sustain a reasonable pace on this bike, something I haven't always been able to do in the past. I was soon home, with time to reflect on what was a very successful test ride, and a rather rewarding morning over all. Assuming I don't encounter any more red light runners, I can see myself keeping this bike for a long time.

Another comeback

2011-09-15T19:56:00.002+10:00

I had managed a couple of short rides on the bike last week, but Saturday was supposed to be the "official" comeback. It was originally scheduled as the old 50km return ride to Austinville, but I added some extra distance by detouring to Little Nerang Dam along the way. As I mentioned in a previous post, bumping into a couple of familiar faces along the way made things a little more comfortable, but for me the best feeling was when I turned off into Austinville road, and headed down that narrow valley.

I can't remember exactly the last time I rode down here, but it was probably one of those glow-worm rides in the dead of night. One thing that is certain is that I was certainly a lot fitter and stronger at that point. Revisiting a location with positive memories gave me strength, but more importantly gave me the inspiration to want to return to that level again. It was just a little reminder of who, and what, I am. Of course, the scenery wasn't bad either.

The detour to Little Nerang Dam wasn't in the schedule, but I decided to do it anyway. It probably added another 10-12 km to the distance, but who's counting. There's a reason I haven't put a computer on that bike. As it was, I figured a few extra kilometres before breakfast would do me good (and I turned out to be right, but that's another post), so off I went. There I continued misfiring with the camera as I had been earlier in the day, but that didn't matter. What matters is that I am now "officially" back. The daily riding through the week since has said so, and now there are mountains on the agenda for this weekend. I can't wait.

Addendum

2011-09-11T20:49:00.002+10:00

I have been remiss in talking about certain things, such as getting back on the bike in traffic, and the hunt for a new bike. I've also been remiss in posting pictures from Saturday morning's 60km ride on "Kevin 007" (the MTB purchased with funds provided by a former Australian Prime Minister that is only slighly less obstinate than the man himself). Those will follow in the next couple of days. An interesting thing did happen on Saturday: a roadie passed me while I was still re-adjusting to Kevin 007, and said "how are the ribs going?". Turns out he was one of the doctors who treated me in hospital. Then when I got into the valley that was my destination for the ride, I ended up having a long chat with one of the locals I've made friends with out there, so I felt a bit more comfortable after that.

To be brutally honest, the "nerves in traffic" thing was a bit of an anti-climax for me in the sense that I still have no memory of the crash itself. To be honest I won't be terribly bothered if I never remember what happened, beyond what I've been told. The lesson is to keep an eye out, even when I have the green light, because that alone won't protect you from collisions. I have been a bit extra cautious at intersections though, and I was a little rusty at first on Wednesday night, but I got hammered by a head wind pretty much right away, so I had something else to think about. I rode through the intersection where I crashed early the next morning, and survived that, so for all intents and purposes, I'm almost back to normal, if a little more cautious at intersections.

One amazing thing that happened in the crash (or perhaps not so amazing when you consider that it's already outlasted two bikes) was that the Schmidt hub dymano and E3 headlight both survived the crash, and apparently still work perfectly. But then, they did survive the typhoon I rode through in Japan, and probably numerous other things that I've deal with, and keeping them may influence my choice of a new bike. I had been tossing up between grabbing a Surly Long Haul Trucker or a Salsa Vaya, since they both look like sweet bikes, but the Vaya has disc brakes which, while very good, probably won't be compatable with the hub that I still want to use in the future. But then, I just got some money back from my travel agent to go with what I have saved, so perhaps I can up my budget to around $3,000AUD and consider some other options.

What has amazed me is that I went to a Brisbane bike shop just over a week ago to see what they had (because the apparently "specialise" in touring bikes), and discussed some options. They promised to email me back after spending over an hour measuring me to see what size would suit me, but I've heard nothing. And this after I told them I had a budget of around $2,000 to $2,500. And to think, people wonder why the retail sector of the Australian economy is struggling just now.

Finally, some of you might be interested to know that this is not the first time I have cheated death on my bike. In April 2009 I was minutes away from being crushed in a landslide at Springbrook, west of the Gold Coast. I rode up the mountain just minutes before this happened on the road. That said, it did turn out to be a pretty memorable day in it's own right.

Back in action!

2011-09-08T20:31:00.002+10:00

I am now officially back in action, after six weeks on the sidelines. Last night I took a quick (i.e. 6km return) ride to get a hair cut, then went out for a quick 25km early this morning. There was no pain, and everything seemed to go reasonably well, except for the fact that I'm shockingly unfit right now. I did see a very nice sunrise over the South Pacific at Currumbin this morning, but I have no photos of that, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Now life can move forward. I still have some ambitious plans for what's left of this year, and armed with the greater appreciation I now have of just about everything as a result of surviving that particular scare, anything is possible.

12 months ago today

2011-09-02T08:00:00.002+10:00

As I still can't ride right at the moment, I've decided to devote another post to crapping on about a past ride. This one was between Nikko and the mountain village of Tone, in the Japan Alps, on my tour last year. I had actually planned to visit the temples in the Nikko World Heritage area the day before, but I ended up spending too much time talking with an Iranian cycle tourist on the way into Nikko and ran out of time. It mightn't have been a bad thing, as it meant I arrived in the morning and avoided the crowds.

After spending quite a bit of time wandering around the temples and shrines in the area, I set off on the ride, and the climbing started immediately. As with most of the climbs I did in Japan, the gradient was quite pleasant, as was the mountain scenery as I climbed higher. The objective at the summit of this climb was Kegon Falls, which represents the start of Nikko National Park, a massive area of waterfalls, forests and lakes. Being close to Tokyo, the crowds had arrived by the time I got there, but with a large area for them to spread out, I never really felt overcrowded in the area. Of course, it helps that people in Japan have a capacity to be respectful toward everyone else that nobody else in the world has managed.

I spent quite a bit of time strolling around the various attractions of this area, but eventually the time came to set off on the final climb of the day, over the pass I have long forgotten the name of. At that stage it was the highest pass I had done to date, although that mark would soon be overtaken by the 2,702 metre Mt Norikura a few days later. Yet given the size of some of the surrounding mountains, the pass didn't really feel that high. In fact, the summit was marked by a tunnel through the mountain itself.

The day ended with a descent into the valley, and after a conversation with one of the locals, a campsite near a beautiful, if mosquito-infested stream. At the end of the day the village's audio system decided to play some traditional Japanese music over the loud-speaker, a little interlude to end what had been a memorable day. You can read a more in-depth ride report at http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=1r4vFZo&page_id=176390&v=5V with more pictures. Better yet, go to http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/japan-10 and read the whole thing.

Big Burleigh

2011-08-31T21:02:00.002+10:00

As of tomorrow, it's five weeks since "The crash", and no, I still can't ride. I have, however, set September 10 as the date for a tentative return. In the meantime, I have been doing quite a bit of walking to try to keep fit (as I simply haven't been able to do anything else). Last Sunday was such a nice day that I decided to set out on an epic walk. I have no idea how many kilometres it was, but I'm guessing it was around 10-12 or so. Basically I headed across to Miami Beach, and then walked south, with the plan of crossing North Burleigh (or Little Burleigh), then walking the loop around Burleigh National Park, and coming home.

The plan also included a detour to Mike's Bikes to see if they had anything that might fit the bill for a replacement bike (they sort of did, but that's another story). Little Burleigh was quite interesting in it's own way, although the development around it was a little too close. There were a few interesting little flowers blooming in the spring sunshine. I crossed the hill and spent some time wandering around the markets, but more than anything else I was just enjoying the feeling of being outside again, after being stuck inside for weeks on end. Today I was appreciating a lot of the little things, like the bird calls in the trees and the scent of the ocean spray. Maybe a near-death experience changes one's perspective after all.

Further along I entered the pocket-handkerchief sized Burleigh National Park. Well, Ok, that description is a slight exaggeration but you get the idea. Still, there seemed to be a bit of wildlife around today, probably enjoying the conditions as much as I was. The amazing thing about this park (especially the rainforest section on the top track) is that it feels a lot further from suburbia than it actually is. Just how it manages that I have no idea, but today I was grateful for it.

Eventually it was time to go and start the walk home. I had intended to take the old track up the back end of Magic Mountain at Miami, but that's apparently been closed off for years. The practical upshot of this is that I ended up walking past the site of "the crash", which was a surprisingly nerve-wracking experience, even though I have no memory of it. One day I'll have to ride through it and I'm not looking forward to that particular task. I also concluded that my desire to buy a touring bike this time around will almost certainly take me to Brisbane, as there doesn't seem to be much fitting that description here on the Coast. For all that, I still managed a great day. Hopefully normal service can be resumed in the near future.

One year ago today...

2011-08-23T19:45:00.003+10:00

Rather than log on and crap on about my injuries or the bastard who ran me down (see two posts ago), I have decided to use this time to write about some happier memories. 12 months ago I was touring through Japan, an absolutely beautiful country that everyone should visit at least once -- I'm already looking forward to a return visit at some point in the future. To be more specific, on August 23, 2010, I was riding through Central Hokkaido, and about to pass through one of the most colourful landscapes in the world.

Hokkaido had already demonstrated some spectacular scenery on the early part of the tour, as demonstrated by this unexpected waterfall near my impromptu campsite from the previous evening. Today I was going to pass through the towns of Furano and Biei, where I would probably find a place to break the journey before continuing on tomorrow to Daisetsuzan National Park. After shopping in Furano and lunch at a rather odd little cafe in the middle of nowhere, I found some amazing, brightly coloured lavender fields.

What was perhaps more amazing about these is that just a few months earlier the whole area would have been totally blanketed by snow. The time that must go into maintaining these is incredible -- given that they blanket entire hillsides, and yet seem to be arranged in a relatively orderly fashion. I did see some incredible gardens in surprising locations in Japan -- a median strip on a highway near Takayama was quite incredible, but I think these were probably the prettiest of them.

Later in the day it started raining quite heavily, and I ended up sheltering in a backpacker hostel in the hills behind Biei. This would turn out to be a smart idea, considering that the rain that night would cause a landslide that ultimately stopped me from reaching Daisetsuzan National Park. Instead I spent an evening chatting to travellers from other countries and sampling some of the local delicacies. This is the sort of thing I will get back to doing.

Anybody who wants to read the full story of the Japan tour should go to http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/japan-10 and it's definitely worth a read.

* For those who do want an injury update, the broken ribs seem to have healed because they don't seem to be giving me any more pain. The broken collarbone is on it's way, as I seem to have got back quite a bit of the movement in my right shoulder. There is still some stiffness and it lacks strength, so I won't be riding for a while yet. My brain seems to have survived the 12 hour concussion -- much to the chagrin of my co-workers who had to endure some really bad jokes that originated there today.

Mt Cougal epic fail

2011-08-18T20:47:00.002+10:00

I was intending to write a post about this, but somehow I got preoccupied over the last couple of weeks with a small matter of three broken bones and a 12 hour concussion. A few weeks ago (five days before the crash actually) a friend and I decided to attempt a climb of Mt Cougal. Getting to the start was easy enough, a simple ride up Tomewin to the end of Garden of Eden Road (plenty of pictures from this section in the archives), but the rough walking track to the summit of Mt Cougal would be a different matter.

It started with a steep climb through some dense forest with nothing to grab hold of except a barbed-wire fence -- then we were walking through giant cane grass. Eventually, however, the views opened up toward Mt Warning and the Tweed Valley, and Mt Cougal. This was a particularly pleasant and easy stretch. Here the fence proved a beacon, leading us along the ridge. Stray too far from it and the long grass could obscure a long, fast descent.

The track returned to the forest for another steep climb, but this one was a little wider than the earlier one, and thus quite a bit easier to navigate. The cool, dry conditions meant there were no leeches to feed. Personally, I quite enjoy these sections, where the rainforest canopy above makes the whole area feel like a giant cathedral. We also had fun trying to guess the location of the side track that apparently leads to Boyds Butte -- another peak on the range, but one considerbly less dramatic than the cougals.

We eventually made our way to the top of this section, and the end of the fence. All that was left was the final rocky scramble to the summit of Mt Cougal. The only problem was the information we had gathered on this section didn't really tell us very much. There is, by all accounts, a section of the final rock scramble that is quite passable, but somehow we missed it. We spent probably two hours wandering around the base of the rock, but we simply didn't find what we were looking for. With the short days, we eventually decided to call it a day here and walk home, with the intention of being off the track before dark.

The walk back was pleasant, and a lot quicker than the walk out, given that most of it was downhill. Frustration at missing the peak soon gave way to simply enjoying the surrounds. The only minor moment of embarrassment came when we bumped into a Canadian guy who had done the walk, and told us that there was an easy way up the final rock scramble, but we had somehow missed it! We did vow to one day return and finish the hike, although personally I think the views we did see at the end of the fence were just as good as we would have got at the Cougal summit.

Unfortunately, my crash and the resulting injuries have put paid to the plans in the foreseeable future, but the dry season here runs until October. There may be a chance to crest this summit once more in the future.

Run down

2011-08-11T19:56:00.002+10:00

It's now two weeks since, so it's been long enough. Next month I had been planning to take off in September for ride through France and Spain, taking in the Atlantic Coast, the Pyrenees and Barcelona. I won't be doing this now, as just over a week ago a red-light runner ran me down (or so I was told, I don't actually have any memory of the incidnet). I spent 12 hours unconscious and five days in hospital, eventually emerging with two broken ribs and a broken collarbone.

Normally I'm the sort of guy to try to race the clock and get fit in time to do the tour anyway, but this time I'm thinking it's better not to try to push myself this time. Hopefully I can get myself back on the bike eventually and think about a couple of weeks in somewhere like New Zealand or Tasmania in November/December, but even that's a long way off right now. I am slowly recovering and seem to be regaining some movement each day, but damn this sucks!

I suppose I could use the time constructively and try to catch up on some posts I need to catch up on here. Whether that actually happens or not is another matter. Maybe I'll blog about my recovery, or maybe I'll write nothing at all. If there is one impression I've had so far it's just how much I appreciated the life I had until two weeks ago. The relative lack of mobility and, at times, independence, means that once I recover, I will never take all this for granted again.

K.O.M

2011-07-20T21:39:00.002+10:00

It's my blog and I'll gratuitously post pictures from bike rides if I want to. These were actually from a ride a few weeks ago, but I didn't get around to posting a ride report at the time. Now that I'm trying to get confidence and motivation back after a couple of nasty crashes, it seems like an opportune time to post them now. This particular ride involved a 175km trek through the Gold Coast Hinterland with two major climbs, O'Reillys and Beechmont.

O'Reillys is actually quite unusual for Queensland in that it actually experiences winter. On this particular day, I'm fairly certain the temperature on that particular mountain wouldn't have reached 10 degrees C during the entire day -- despite the bright sunshine. It's also one of my favourite all time climbs on three continents. The switchback road with the steady gradient switches sides of the mountain, offering different views around every corner and oozing character. The higher parts pass through dense world-heritage-listed rainforest.

The descent can be treacherous in wet weather, but on this day that was never going to be a problem. I did, however, manage to pick up a flat tyre in the Canungra valley below, which delayed me from reaching the other climb, the western approach to the Beechmont Range. The gentle scenery at the bottom of the valley gives no indication of what is to come on this climb, and it's long stretches of double-figure gradients. This climb isn't so bad in isolation, but in the latter sections of a long ride with O'Reillys already in your legs, it becomes difficult. Was I especially fatigued this day after a flat tyre? Hardly, but this climb always seems to take a lot out of me.

The rewards come at the top of the range, sweeping views first of the ranges to the west, then after passing through Beechmont village and switching to the other side of the range, the views over Numinbah Valley, Springbrook, Horseshoe falls (after solid rain) and the coast. I was back in the mountain air, and the cooler temperatures helped me recover quickly from the climb. I probably didn't need to stop at the store at Lower Beechmont village, which is followed by a 7km descent, but I had made a promise to myself.

The promise kept, I headed for the descent, and the ups and downs of Gilston before returning to the coast, knowing that I had to recuperate quickly to take some friends out to Dickfos falls the next day. I still had a good couple of hours to savour this ride, however, and after the crash five days later, I had even longer to savour it.

Revenge is a dish best served cold

2011-07-13T20:53:00.002+10:00

I'm almost sorry to report that this morning's temperature of three degrees (celsius) in Currumbin Valley is likely to be the coldest I'll ride in all year, but with the scent of spring in the air during the last couple of evenings, it's just a matter of time until I'm writing posts complaining about the blistering heat again. As it happened, this morning I decided to venture back to the scene of the crash I had a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, nothing was broken in the crash -- although I did hit a road sign with a very good punch shortly after getting back to my feet.

The crash, of course, took place on a descent with a double-figure gradient, so today I decided to turn that into a climb with a double-figure gradient by riding it in reverse, and launching a blistering attack on the hill. My condition isn't what it should be -- the only decent ride I've had in three weeks was Springbrook on Saturday, but revenge is a powerful motivator. About half-way up that hill, I found some other reserves -- probably comprising nothing but anger, and slaughtered what was left of it. I actually didn't even realise I'd reached the summit until about 15 seconds into the descent.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Another crash

2011-07-01T20:04:00.002+10:00

It has been a week now, since I managed to have yet another crash -- the second in a little over a month. I don't need to go into specifics at this time (nor do I have any desire to), but it was another caused by simply trying to take a corner way too fast, this time at around 5am. I suppose I'll learn the lesson eventually. This time there are no serious injuries, although it has kept me off the bike for a week (a situation my doctor has asked me to rectify tomorrow).

I have used the idle time to plan some other adventures. I have a tour of France and Spain coming up in a couple of months (more on that later), and I'm planning some riding in the Toowoomba area when the temperatures rise a little, which won't be far away now. Most of all I've spent the week trying to find another outlet for my cabin fever, and realising just quickly I come to miss being on the bike. I really need to be more careful when I'm descending to avoid having to deal with this situation again.

Tosspot of the week

2011-06-23T20:50:00.002+10:00

Queensland's motorists aren't exactly known for their intelligence, so this probably shouldn't come as a surprise, but sometimes trying to figure out the "logic" behind certain actions can give one plenty of thinking to do in idle time. Such a situation arose on the ride home from work this evening. Traffic was banked up on the approach to a roundabout (or traffic cirle to those in the Northern Hemisphere) as usual at that time of day, but one idiot just couldn't grasp the concept.

This moron started by doing the usual thing, leaning on the horn to try to get the driver in front of him (who had nowhere to go in the gridlock anyway) to somehow move somewhere. Of course, "moving" doesn't happen very often in gridlock (at least not if you have four wheels), so the honks weren't having the desired effect. Of course, our moron wasn't satisfied with this, so his next move was to physically get out of his car and walk to the car in front of him, shouting "move your f*ckin' car!".

I actually didn't see what happened next, as by this stage I had picked my way through the gridlock and cycled on. But it does beg the question - what was this moron hoping to achieve? Did he really believe that shouting abuse at the driver in front of him was going to get the traffic to start moving? Even after his honks had clearly failed to do so? More to the point, what was he going to do if the traffic did start to move while he was standing in the roadway shouting abuse? Some people seem to be so stupid that they would get a black eye from being punched in the mouth.

Honestly, why doesn't our government send people like this to go and fight in Afghanistan or Iraq? With a bit of luck, they might catch a stray bullet from a freedom fighter, then maybe those wars might actually serve a purpose.

Colours of autumn

2011-06-13T19:33:00.003+10:00

This is for those who are under some delusion that it's "winter" in these parts. For my "recovery" ride from a shoulder injury, I decided to do a quick loop around Tumbulgum Rock, or whatever the official name is (I believe someone enlightened us all in the comments of a previous post), yet it was this grand old tree in a Murwillumbah park that provided the most breath-taking moment of the whole ride. Not that the rest of the ride was ugly, the clouds over the horizon just after sunrise were playing tricks with the light, and made the early route along the coast a little more scenic than it otherwise might have been.

It was after this that I was going to give the shoulder some extra activity, with the 16% gradients on Hogans road just before the entry to the rainforest that occasionally force me out of the saddle. The shoulder could cope, but only in short bursts. Still, the climb was negotiated fairly comfortably, allowing me to set off into the rainforest, before descending crazily into the Tweed Valley. The following climb was the gentle switchback road at Clothiers creek, which then led to the pretty ridgetop route at Farrants Hill. I've long enjoyed this particular stretch of road, not so much for it's views, but for the flowers that always seem to bloom up here.

The descent into the valley was followed by a hard slog into a westerly wind. It probably wasn't a huge wind, but as I was out of condition, it did require some effort. I may, however, have expended too much effort on the way past the rock, but by this stage I wasn't planning on worrying about that. I did pause under that beautiful tree at Murwillumbah for some more water, and probably should have used the opportunity for some stretching in hindsight, but we're all a genius after the event.

The final climb of Tomewin can be a testing occasion, but this time I was fortunate in that the last time I had done it was at the back end of a 260km ride with around 3,500 metres of climbing. Today was a considerably easier day, so I realised that it was very doable, even if I was a little short of conditioning. As it happened, the valley below, and the coastal strip that followed proved more difficult as an unseasonal northerly wind made an appearance. In the end, however, I was quite happy with the ride. My shoulder didn't suffer any lingering effects, and the scenery was pretty. I now plan on riding up at least one mountain every weekend for the foreseeable future. A nice little target until I regain 100% fitness.

Search on hold

2011-06-01T21:30:00.002+10:00

The prognosis on my shoulder is a grade 2 muscle-tear (whatever that is). The good news is that I can ride my bike, the bad news is that there won't be any dirt roads or gradients over 20% for a good couple of weeks. Fortunately, this morning's 50km in the rain had none of those things. Some of you may be aware of my obsession -- my need to find Horseshoe Falls, on the western side of Springbrook. There are two possible access routes, and some time ago, I decided to explore one of them. Since I won't be able to complete this search for a little while, now seems an opportune time to discuss my most recent progress.

This particular trip involved heading through the hills of Advancetown (an ironic name if ever I've heard one), alongside Advancetown lake. This is actually quite a pleasant ride, but one that I don't get to do very often these days. In the past it was my chosen route to get to Numinbah Valley, but today I was using it only as an access route for Chesters Road, which is one of the two possible access points I mentioned above. Chesters Road itself is an extremely scenic dirt road which isn't actually as steep as Google maps suggest it should be. Today there was a bonus, an unseasonal display of Banksias.

The road "ends" after a few kilometres, replaced by a dirt track that continues up the mountain. Here, I could see the falls in the distance, but I still needed to find a way to get to them. I continued up the mountain, the number of spider webs I rode through suggested not many venture in this direction. A few tracks branched off mine, and I did take the time to explore a couple of them, but none of them led the way to where I wanted to go. The views did open up at times on the higher areas. Eventually, the "main track" that I was following became impassable on the bike, so I continued on foot for a while. Time constraints, along with the time I had wasted on the side tracks meant that this wasn't a viable option today, but a pink ribbon tied around a tree suggests that this route has potential on another day.

All that was left now was the ride home, after descending the "track" and Chesters Road, I now had two options -- the return via the way I came, or the climb up the western side of Springbrook on the infamous Pine Creek Road, complete with 24% gradients. I opted for Pine Creek Road for the variety, and this ride, too, didn't seem as difficult as I thought it might with one climb in my legs already. At one stage on the climb I could see the falls (now that I knew where to look). Of course, riding home this way provided it's own scenic rewards.

I am close to fulfilling this particular obsession. I have now pinpointed the exact location of the falls, and may have unearthed a potential access route when time and my shoulder get around to co-operating. This is going to happen, one way or another.

Repentence

2011-05-26T13:35:00.004+10:00

It has been remiss of me not to write a post about what was easily the most awesome ride of 2011 so far. A couple of weeks ago, my ride partner Martin and I set off on an enormous day's riding, the initial expectations were for 240km through the Byron Hintrerland, a magical ride including mountains, rainforests and waterfalls. We set off in darkness, with a spectacular display in the Eastern sky, featuring the planets Venus, Mars and Jupiter already marking this as a memorable ride. The initial part of the ride led us down the coastal strip, before climbing Bilambil and heading for Urliup as the sun rose (where I spotted a kangaroo), but it was after passing Murwillumbah on 45km that the real ride would start.

The series of climbs on the old Pacific Highway between Murwillubah and Billinudgel give an indication of what this ride is all about. The highest (but certainly not the hardest) of these being the pleasant climb over the Burringbar Range. In time things change, and one of the changes on this route has been the gradual paving of dirt roads, which has meant that a short stretch of dirt on Billinudgel Road was the last dirt on today's ride, just 70km in. After this, the switchback climb of the Coolamon Scenic Drive into Mullumbimby gives a special appreciation of the unique forests of this area. At the time I pondered getting the camera out for these, or the pointsettias that were blooming by the side of the road. Instead I kept it sheathed, and in hindsight, this may have been a good decision, given the way I was misfiring with the camera today.

After Mullumbimby came two substantial climbs, first the Crystal Castle, followed by an irrational hill near Repentence Creek (from which this ride takes it's name). These both offer sweeping views over Byron Bay, with the occasional pseudo sun-flower making it's presence known in the area. There's a third climb after the Minyon Falls turnoff (a detour I plan on making next time), and rather stupidly I had left my jacket on from the cool pre-dawn start, and began to pay for this later on. It reached the stage where I was really struggling on the climb out of Corndale which represents approximately the half way point on the ride (and quite possibly the hardest of the many climbs of the day), and this may have contributed to a navigational error that caused us to ride some extra kilometres.

An unscheduled detour on the dirt Missingham Road would have given us a shorter route to the lunch stop in Dunoon, had I not led us several kilometres in the wrong direction after getting back onto Whian Whian Road. At least the riding here, through lush green rolling hills, was pleasant, as was the temperature. Eventually we found our way to Dunoon, only to discover that the coffee shop that was once there had closed. Luckily, the town's store still had enough to feed us, and we moved on toward the screaming descent into The Channon. Here, I noticed a sign advertising "Tea Room" (literally) up a non-descript side street -- would this make a better lunch stop next time?

Getting to Nimbin from the Channon requires a long, steady and extremely scenic climb through a rainforest. This may have been my favourite climb of the entire day, as the narrow road and the switchbacks make for an almost spiritual experience here. I recall this climb being dirt just a few years previously, and wondered how I handled it in those days. Shortly after Nimbin there was one final climb (which was another steady, scenic climb) before the only "flat run" of the day, a 50km stretch through the Tweed Valley toward Tomewin, and the final challenge.

The day's light had been fading for quite a while, but I opted to wait until the bottom of Tomewin to put my lights on and remove the jacket I had once again donned at Uki. It also gave us the opportunity to spot a couple of peacocks wandering by. I had been worried about this climb, which gains 350 metres in height, with an 11% section just after Les's Place. I had let Martin take off ahead when I attached my lights for the climb, which seemed to help me ride at my own pace. Consequently, I had plenty of energy in reserve for the steep section, and actually seemed to get stronger here.

Darkness has fully set in by the time I reached the summit, although a full moon was alleviating some of that. Yet there is still something special about descending a mountain road in the darkness. Martin said he spotted some koalas in some of the trees with his helmet light, but maybe my eyes aren't as good as they should be. The darkness seemed to provide some inspiration to overcome tired legs, and we seemed to make good time through Currumbin Valley and back up the coastal strip to finish off the ride (where I point blank refused to play silly games with one particular idiot motorist who couldn't decide whether or not to stop at a red light).

All in all it was an incredible ride, on a perfect day, with a final total of 260km. If Repentence feels this good, I might have to sin more often.

Down

2011-05-22T21:36:00.003+10:00

I have just sat through an enforced weekend off after a nasty crash on Thursday night, and I have to say, cabin fever is seriously depressing. The crash itself resulted in me descending a "hill" at Robina way too fast, then having to slam on the brakes when someone in front of me decided to turn into a run-down suburban shopping centre on the slope that is almost never used. There may have still been a way out of the crash, but in that split-second I had well and truly hit the panic button, and I seem to have somehow flipped the bike over a kerb, and landed on a narrow strip of grass.

The grass probably softened the fall a little, but it still hurt. While nothing is broken, I've still had an entire weekend to reflect on my stupidity that caused the problem to occur. I'm still amazed that I can be so careless on familiar roads that I could probably ride blindfolded, and yet navigate much more difficult roads on overseas bike tours or my weekend rides. Being stuck inside with that frustration is not something I have any intention of repeating in the future. The fact that I had a wholly unproductive weekend probably says it all.

Another lesson to learn.

Unsung hero

2011-04-18T21:05:00.003+10:00

Fresh from some serious hill climbing on Saturday, there was nothing to do but go looking for more on Sunday. A quick way to get some of that action around here is to line up the old Springbrook/Numinbah/Tomewin circuit. It was, of course, always going to be an interesting exercise coming a day after the Beechmont explorer, but things went surprisingly well, and my legs had surprisingly few complaints after the first 30km.

What was different about this, however, was the light rain falling on most of the passes, that made the views difficult to see and virtually impossible to photograph. Of course, rain is nothing new to me, and so it didn't present any difficulty. Instead, it presented an opportunity to appreciate some of the sights in the valleys that I might normally overlook. Things like the fresh streams flowing down from the mist shrouded mountains, and the seemingly eternal greenery surrounding them. Maybe I should try to find a day like this for such a ride in the springtime, when there might be a few flowers around, but for today I was happy to just appreciate what I had.

The greenery of Beechmont

2011-04-16T20:39:00.003+10:00

It had been a while since I took a ride up to Beechmont just for the sake of it. Usually I'm passing through the area en route to or from somewhere else. Of course, today I also made a point of extending the ride to Binna Burra, largely for the opportunity to slaughter the final stretch of that climb known as Mt Roberts, but today, it was the lush greenery of Beechmont, along with the surrounding mountain views that stole my heart. I have said before that each mountain has a unique character of it's own, this can be influenced by a number of different factors, such as the type of vegetation, the climate, the history and the land use. Beechmont also has it's own unique character. It may not have the waterfalls of Springbrook, the remoteness of O'Reillys or the sheer altitude of any number of passes I climbed in Japan, but it definitely does have a "feel" of it's own, and one that becomes apparent whichever way it is approached. It will probably never be a place where I'll spent a lot of time, but it offers a unique welcome of it's own each time I return.

The ultimate Mudgeeraba ride

2011-03-24T21:14:00.002+10:00

This was from quite a while ago, but still worth a mention. At the time I was recovering from the nasty illness I had that wiped out most of January's riding. On this particular day I recall that I still wasn't feeling quite right, but decided that there was no conceivable consequence of doing this ride that was any worse than the known consequence of not doing it. I started out by heading down into the deepest, darkest rainforest on Austinville, before swinging around and riding through the gorge to Little Nerang Dam. I've often combined these rides, but today there was going to be a difference.

It was only after returning to the "main" road, that I embarked on the steep climb of Mt Nimmel. It's worth recalling that on this day I was using the heavy MTB because my main bike was off the road waiting for some part to fix some mechanical problem to be ordered. The extra weight of the heavy bike suddenly becomes an issue on the 20% grades of Mt Nimmel. However, the great thing about gradients of that steepness is that they never really last very long. It wasn't long before I reached the summit, with more time to drink in some spectacular views.

Of course, by now I had another plan. Not satisfied with simply returning home, I wanted to embark on another climb, known only as "The Panorama" and spoken of only in hushed terms. I had discovered some information suggesting that the Eastern approach was a 300 metre climb over 5 kilometres. How hard could that be? I was about to find out just how hard it could be, or more specifically, that the bulk of the 300 metre gain happens in the space of 1.5km in the middle, and I had just ridden up Mt Nimmel. Suddenly, I realised this could be a very difficult climb on a hot day when one is out of condition.

Still, having started the climb and having already put some of the height in the bank, I wasn't about to quit now. I pressed on, reaching a point where the gradient eased -- and a good job, too. By now my legs were so shot that even the easier gradient felt hard. Eventually I reached the summit, with some relief, although the views to the west of the range were virtually non-existent, but the coast was easy to spot. I could have descended the alternative side, back to Gilston Road, but frankly, the gradient there was too scary, even for disc brakes. I returned to where I'd climbed, and was shocked at how quickly I descended - despite being on the brakes all the way.

Previously, Mudgeeraba has been thought of nothing more than a 'departure point' for a climb of Springbrook. However, I have since discovered many other charms in this area, and the little spoken of Mt Kimmel offers even more possibilities. In time I will discover all of them, but for now, this was the ultimate Mudgeeraba ride.

The question

2011-03-22T22:05:00.002+10:00

What do you get if you combine glow worms, crabs, frogs, canetoads, bats, a possum, a moon-rise and some mist forming over some of the flat stretches in the moonlight, then subtract about 2kg of weight in sweat because it was very, very hot?

You get tonight's very beautiful 60km in Tallebudgera Valley. There are few things more beautiful than watching glow worm light reflecting off the shimmering water of Tallebudgera Creek, and there are few things more surprising than the sudden "cold" snap that hit the air to the west of the old Ingleside State School, which mercifully took about 5 degrees C of the temperature. I can think of few better ways to spend a Tuesday night.

Just a short note to those who are waiting for updates -- they're coming. There are several rides from the last couple of months that I want to write about, but I've been a little side-tracked lately.

The Garden of Eden

2011-02-14T21:22:00.002+10:00

On Saturday I proved once and for all that the Garden of Eden is actually a real place, and that it exists on the Tomewin Range, behind the Gold Coast. After the previous weekend's diabolical effort, I wanted to make amends on that mountain in dramatic fashion. Saturday decided to oblige by offering cooler temperatures and lower humidity, it was time to go.

Virtually every southern ride these days starts with the rainforest of Urliup. To hear the early morning bird calls here, taking in the cool rainforest air and gliding across the dirt is one of life's great pleasures. On this particular day, I decided to remove my sunglasses while passing through the rainforest section. This is nothing unusual of course, as the light here is kind, but putting them back on revealed that the summer sweat had corroded one of the joints, causing them to fall apart. It's probably a good thing I don't buy expensive sunglasses.

Now it was time for revenge on the climb. This time I wasn't prepared to let up at all, I refrained from attacking early, knowing that I could do more damage on the steep section immediately following "Les's Place". I did the damage alright, but without the need for launching an attack, it almost felt easy without the bombardment of heat and humidity that usually accompanies this time of year, perhaps they should leave it this way. At the summit I turned west across the ridgetop, taking in the spectacular views over Mt Warning, along the famous Garden of Eden road. This road passes through stunning rainforest as well, before the road peters out near the rough walk to Mt Cougal. Today, however, there was an apple tree at the end of Garden of Eden Road, with one of the reddest apples ever seen. Humanity will be relieved to know that I refrained from the temptation to eat it.

Instead, I headed back, following the Eastern spur of the range on Glengarrie road. This track gets rough in places, but the scenery certainly compensated. Today, the banksias were blooming all the way, adding some colour to the normally dark rainforest. I have seen banksias up here before, but never this many. The continuing thought was that this really is a special place, and one that I don't visit nearly often enough. I continued along the rocky track to the summit, pausing for a moment to take in the sweeping views up the coast to where I would ultimately finish the ride. Some days, however, I'm just glad to be here, and happy to be alive.

Rumours of my demise...

2011-01-17T21:10:00.002+10:00

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.

Queensland Floods

2011-01-13T13:26:00.002+10:00

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.

Change of plans I

2010-12-29T20:00:00.002+10:00

The plan on Christmas Eve was to clock up another 180km through Mebbin National Park, to the south of Uki. Things all started straight forward enough, as I headed south through Urliup and Murwillumbah, noting as I went that the streams around Urliup hadn't yet reached the heights that the rain suggested they might (this came two days later from what I've been told), and navigating a rather pleasant southerly wind that blew in my face and kept temperatures down to something pleasant. It was after food and sunscreen at Uki that things became more interesting.

The Tweed Shire Council have just spent an inordinate amount of money (and well over six months of time) 'upgrading' a stretch of road just south of Clarrie Hall Dam. I wouldn't normally note this, but it seems to have upset some of the locals. First a rather aggressive dog decided to chase me when probably 99% of them don't bother. I threw an imaginary "rock" at him, and he hesitated for long enough for me to make an escape. Shortly after this, I had another confrontation with the infamous Uki Bomber. Just why a magpie would have a go at someone at this time of year is beyond me, but for some reason it happened here. It was then that I decided I would do the old Tweed Valley Circuit, taking in the dirt roads out to the Pinnacle and through to Tyalgum, rather than deal with this crap all over again on the way home.

This ride turned out to be extremely pleasant in and of itself. Today I had good reason to make the most of it, after recently hearing of the council's plans to build a large dam in the area, which, I understand will see most of the route I now take flooded. The council it seems have already started removing some of the old hippie cottages that gave this area it's unique character, and it really seems to be a waste of time. Instead of trying to build more dams to cope with overpopulation (something that people strangely see as a virtue), they should be requiring water tanks to be build with new dwellings. It would most likely be a lot cheaper, and a lot more effective in the long term. Despite this rather annoying thought, I did manage to enjoy the ride, and commenced the descent to the area around Tyalgum, and The Pinnacle.

The detour out to the Pinnacle has replaced the side trip to Stokers Siding I used to do on this route for extra kilometres, and in my view, it's quite a bit more pleasant. On days like this, of course, any route that travels near the mountains will throw up all sorts of shapes that might not be seen on less cloudy days. The ride into and out of Tyalgum is quite hilly, with two note-worthy climbs to be navigated between Tyalgum and Chillingham. I was still feeling quite good at this stage, so I just ground them out at a steady rhythm, and headed back toward Murwillumbah, for the final stretch over Tomewin, and home.

The easterly wind picked up here, and I expected this to slow me down on the stretch toward Murwillumbah, but for some reason I got though this faster than I expected, maybe the numbers on the road signs overstate the distance here. The climb up Tomewin was made easier than I had planned because of the drenching, cooling and fresh rain that fell here. Although the height of this pass is a modest 355 metres, the clouds totally obscured any views of the surrounding coast and lowlands that might have been visible up here. Still, rainforest at the top here is particularly pleasant on days like this one.

All that was left now was the final stretch home along the coast after the descent. This was made easier by a tailwind that helped me get through suburbia a little quicker. All up, it was a very fulfilling 175km, and just what I needed as a diversion from the madness and insanity that generally represents this time of year. Bring on the next one.

Blame it on the rain

2010-12-23T20:20:00.002+10:00

Since everyone (except me) seems to be whining about the rain in these parts right now, I thought I might jump on the bandwagon for a while. The exhibit being last Saturday's ride to Springbrook. Shame on the rain for daring to add some character to the mountain views, shame shame shame!

Shame on the rain for allowing flowers like these to come out. Shame shame shame.

And finally, shame on the rain for allowing me to make new friends.

Oh yeah, and shame on Stadiums Queensland for trying to make Gold Coast United pay $140,000 a go to use a ground with inferior drainage to Pizzey Park for f*cks sake! Just a little personal rant about something that bugged me a few hours after the ride.

Return to Coolamon

2010-12-17T20:35:00.003+10:00

It had truly been some time since I had ridden the loop that takes in the Tweed Coast, the Coolamon Scenic Drive beyond Mullumbimby, and the return via Burringbar and Tomewin. A knee injury had put paid to that plan a couple of months ago, so I decided to return last Saturday. Of course, in the morning I was greeted with a blistering northerly wind, which would mean the traditional headwind coming home, but even this wasn't bothering me too much. Once I reached Chinderah to the south, the old feeling of freedom that accompanies any escape with suburbia filled me with inspiration. It was time to ride.

The Tweed Coast passed easily and quickly, almost in a blur at times. Although a couple of spectacular coastal views and flowers stood out. I sometimes wonder about the future of this region, with the prospect of rampant coastal development, but fortunately it hasn't happened yet. I then crossed the hills and found my way to Billinudgel, and the immediate change that seems to accompany the crossing of the invisible line to the south. The first climb on Coolamon was the winding, switchback road into Mullumbimby. With the northerly wind intensifying the heat and humidity, I took an alternative route south, climbing the range on Possum Shoot Road rather than the "conventional" way. Traffic here was heavier than it had any right to be, but the sweeping views from the top of the range made the effort worthwhile.

After negotiating the rolling hills atop the range, it was time for the screaming descent back to Mullumbimby, and the alternative route home, first starting with the dirt of Billinudgel Road. Here I had to make a decision. Billinudgel is, of course, home to the Humble Pie shop, but 10.45am is far too early for lunch, I pressed on to Mooball with the intention of getting something at the famous Moo Moo cafe. Unfortunately, the cafe has seen better days. Meat pies were about the only thing they could rustle up today, I took two and spent most of the remainder of the ride regretting the decision.

At first there didn't seem to be a problem, I climbed the Burringbar range, and was greeted with an inspirational, torrential downpour. The rain washed away the heat, and for the next 15km, I forgot that I was tiring at all. Unfortunately, the rain stopped around Murwillumbah, and I still had the climb of Tomewin to navigate. The climb offered some spectacular views of the clouds clearing the surrounding mountains, and this was just as well because I had plenty of time to take them in -- 42 minutes in fact, on a climb that I once did in just 22 minutes on the back end of 200km! Something clearly had gone terribly wrong after eating those pies.

Fortunately, the descent of the mountain, along with a couple of muesli bars allowed me to make a recovery of sorts. I even managed an attack or two against the wind on the final stretch of the ride home. In the end I wasn't sure of the total distance, as wireless computers are neither reliable nor durable. I estimate it was in the order of 180-190km, however. Another rewarding day, and hopefully a lot more to come.

Tumbulgum Rock

2010-12-04T19:54:00.002+10:00

Today's original plan had been to link Wooyung with Ocean Shores via a dirt track. Unfortunately, yesterday's rain is likely to have turned that area into a bog, so I opted for something a bit closer to home. Tumbulgum Rock has always fascinated me when viewed from Farrants hill, basically because I had absolutely no idea what it was doing there. I'm still none the wiser on that, but at least I've managed a closer look at it.

Today's ride started in typical fashion with the usual ride down the coast and through Urliup. Today I was wondering just when the forecast rain was going to start, but somehow it just never quite happened. Parts of Urliup Road were quite boggy, which basically vindicated my decision to bail on Ocean Shores. Today I was almost grateful that the Blue Flame was off the road, the sturdier (and wider) tyres on The Blonde Assassin handled the mud a little better. I looped around after steadfastly avoiding Murwillumbah on Cane Road, and climbed Farrants Hill on Clothiers Creek road, for no reason other than I wanted a few more kilometres and this was a pleasant way to get them.

Eviron road descents from the modest heights of the Condong Range to the floor of the valley, where a tailwind pushed me all the way to The Rock. The recent rain has meant that nobody has been able to grow any sugar cane to try to obscure the views, but the two old farm houses at the base of the rock on either side suggested that climbing it was going to be extremely unlikely. This probably doesn't matter a great deal, as it isn't really high enough to generate any spectacular views. I'm planning on making up for that by climbing Bald Rock near Tenterfield later in the month.

All that was left now was the final climb of Tomewin to get home. Well, that wasn't quite all, I think the headwind on the coast slowed me down more than the mountain did. I have a habit of being rained on when I climb Tomewin, but inexplicably, this didn't happen today. It was a strange sort of day on the mountain, as I didn't seem to be climbing particularly well, yet I seemed to reach the summit faster than I thought I might. For all that, this wasn't a bad ride for it's length (a relatively modest 115km), and it might be a useful way to fill gaps in my riding calendar in the future -- assuming time allows me any more gaps in the future.

Tosspot of the week

2010-11-04T20:13:00.002+10:00

I had someone else in mind for this week's award, but that was before yet another rugby league player was involved in a sex scandal:

Canberra Raiders star Joel Monaghan has confirmed that he is the player in question in a photograph that has been published on the internet featuring a sex act with a dog.

The photograph of Monaghan, a NSW and Australian representative, was taken during Canberra's Mad Monday festivities.

Monaghan issued a statement through his manager Jim Banaghan today expressing both remorse and disgust at an alcohol fuelled prank that led to images being circulated across social networks.

“Joel can’t blame anyone but himself for an act of stupidity that will haunt him for the rest of his life,” the statement said.

“Joel wants to make it clear that he was the one playing a prank on an absent team mate by simulating the act.

“There are no words of explanation that can be offered because none can be appropriate."

Well, the last sentence of the quote is almost right. There are plenty of insults that leap to mind to describe both the perpetrator and the act itself, but this is one of those occasions where insults are superfluous (superfluous - look it up). How can you insult someone who has already degraded themselves to such a level. Now I haven't see these pictures, but apparently they were doing the rounds on Twitter, and the person who posted them has evidently been the subject of vitriol from Canberra Raiders fans. Just why people think that shooting the messenger in this case is going to make the act any more appropriate I don't know, maybe they were after next week's award.

Sadly, this isn't the first sex scandal involving rugby league players (although at least the others involved adult human beings -- not that this justifies them in any way), and I doubt it will be the last. There will no doubt be a lot of calls for the NRL and the Raiders club to take action against the player. However, it is my hope that someone also remembers that the police have a role to play in dealing with these issues, too. After all, having sex with an animal is illegal as far as I know, so the police (along with the courts) really are the ones who need to take action.

Too often in these cases the media and the public expect football clubs with vested interests to take action, and frankly, that is about as likely to happen as the tooth fairy turning up on my doorstep and reimbursing me for those wisdom teeth I had out a couple of years ago. Besides, this guy really deserves to go to gaol (jail for you Americans) for a long time, and the Canberra Raiders don't have the power to make that happen, even if they wanted to.

The regulation ride

2010-11-01T20:42:00.002+10:00

A day before the "harden the f*ck up" ride, I decided to do another mountain climb, to Springbrook. This is, of course, one of my regular rides, one that I've done many, many times over. However, today there was something different. This year we actually had some rain in October, which almost never happens. The rain re-invigorated some things, and caused the appearance of some that aren't normally there. You can never be sure what you'll see on a trip to Springbrook, which is part of what makes it such a special place.

Harden the f*ck up!

2010-10-29T20:35:00.002+10:00

Only I would follow up a mountain climb on Saturday with two more on Sunday. My riding partner Martin and I decided to hammer a couple of climbs named Mt Tamborine and Beechmont. The fact that we did it on an Sunday meant an early start to beat the Mt Tamborine traffic that usually picks up around 9am on a Sunday morning. My legs were already complaining before we started the "warm up" 12% climb of Wongawallan, and they screamed even louder on Mt Tamborine. However, the thing about 14% gradients is that they generally don't last very long.

Further along we took the crazy descent down the "goat track" into Canungra. I actually don't mind this descent, as the switchbacks add some serious character to it. For my part, I simply took my time here, and enjoyed the views over Mt Misery and surrounds. It all reminded me that sometime I'll have to do another climb of the Darlington Range. As it was, today we had other fish to fry. We passed Sharp Park, which is significant as the destination of the overnighter that kicked off my cycle touring a little over 10 years ago, and commenced the ascent.

This can be a long and demanding ascent on a hot day. Fortunately it was unseasonally cool for late October, meaning it was merely "warm". Martin had fresher legs than I did, so he took off and I decided to coast at my own pace. This climb can also be desceptive as it climbs a spur of the Darlington Range, before switching to the higher Beechmont Range. I checked the time at the summit and was shocked to find that we were 10 minutes ahead of the schedule I had in my mind at the start of the ride. I'm still not sure how that happened.

The view switched from Canungra Valley to Numinbah Valley as we crossed the range and coasted along the top to the store at Lower Beechmont, and some vital food before the final stretch home. The 7km descent that followed passed relatively uneventfully, as did the final rolling hills through Gilston that serve no purpose save for adding a few hundred extra metres of climbing. Ultimately we finished about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Another great day in the mountains.

BBC's top ten cycling destinations

2010-10-22T20:44:00.003+10:00

The BBC in conjunction with Lonely Planet have just listed their top 10 cycling destinations:

1. Isle of Wight, England
2. West Coast, Tasmania, Australia
3. The Luberon and Mont Ventoux, Provence, France
4. San Juan Islands, Washington, US
5. County Clare, Ireland
6. La Farola, Cuba
7. National Highway 1, Vietnam
8. Otago Peninsula, New Zealand
9. Cape Breton Island, Canada
10. Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy

More detail is available in the full article. Having cycled two of the places on that list already (2 and 8 to be precise), I thought there were a few rather interesting omissions. It surprises me that the BBC would miss Scotland's west coast, particulary the highlands, with it's combination of mountains, islands, bays and thousand-plus year-old castles. If you're going to mention New Zealand, one can't forget the west coast of the South Island, or the Coromandel Peninsula on the North.

Having just returned from Japan, I can already nominate a few spectacular routes, such as the mountain route from Nikko to Takayama, passing through two of the Japan's most famous national parks, including some amazing old temples, surprisingly pristine forest and waterfalls and of course, those mountains. And pretty much anywhere on the island of Hokkaido (pictured above) will make for a great tour as well. Perhaps in the coming days and weeks, I might list a few routes that are on my top ten. In the meantime, this list might give me some ideas for my next tour.

Alive

2010-10-06T20:15:00.002+10:00

Well, I guess it's time for an update. First of all let me thank all those people who sent me birthday wishes for last Friday. I had almost forgotten about my facebook account, one of these days I might even log-in! For what it's worth, I celebrated by heading out to Robina to watch Gold Coast United beat Wellington 3-1, thanks to two goals from super Bruce Djite. And now the Commonwealth Games have started in India, which means that there's now a sporting event being watched by few enough people to make our crowds look respectable!*

I snuck back from Japan a couple of weeks ago, after having the most awesome tour I can ever remember. There will be some pictures and some stories from an incredible month coming up on these pages soon, just as soon as I get some time to update on a more regular basis. All I'll say at this point is that I've never before visited a country that had such an incredible combination of spectacular natural scenery, a rich history, a vibrant culture and the friendliest people in the world. Even now I'm still taking it in.

My time on the bike has been somewhat curtailed since by a knee injury that I sustained when I banged my knee on the frame while narrowly avoiding a crash. A road closure in Kingscliff forced me onto a bike path temporarily, and a typical piece of shoddy bike path construction did the rest. Suffice to say, I have had no reason to revise my poor opinion of bike paths. I did manage one decent ride to Springbrook, and I'll post about that just as soon as I have some time, too. Now my knee has recovered, so there will be riding to do soon. I can't wait.

* if you don't get the joke, do a Google news search for "Gold Coast United crowds".

Collingwood fans still at the MCG

2010-10-01T13:43:00.001+10:00

The MCG is still housing over 10,000 confused Collingwood fans who are unsure whether 68 is more or less than 68, and who has won Saturday’s Grand Final. The fans, who struggle to comprehend basic information at the best of times have been completely thrown, and are still yet to realise the game was drawn.

Stunned reporters said the entire Collingwood cheer squad is still sitting behind the goals asking each other is Collingwood’s 68 worth more or less than the saints’ 68. The crowd has begun using a white board to calculate the difference, if any, between the two scores recorded on Saturday. Unfortunately, within four minutes of their calculations, it broke down to a penis-drawing contest.

The remaining crowd has even broken off into different parties, some claiming Collingwood have won, others insisting St Kilda are the champions. There are even unconfirmed reports that a small radical party has emerged declaring Lindy Chaimberlain was guilty of murder and the holocaust is in fact a conspiracy theory. It is quite a contrast from the mild-mannered, intellectual St Kilda fans who shook their heads at the outcome and left the stadium to continue with their lives.

Collingwood cheer squad member Baz Jones said he was sure 68 was pretty close to 68, but thinks Collingwood may have just won the game.“I’m as sure of this as I’m sure that I’m not a criminal, apart from that incident last year but we won’t go into that,” Jones said. Jones, a surprisingly coherent Collingwood fan, also said the words hippopotamus and rhinoceros flawlessly before leaving to search for his missing moccasin.

Confused supporters can still be heard whispering to each other phrases including “Wait, I’ve got it…..oh no I don’t”, “So that means we won?” and “Look what I just nicked off that blind guy”. The crowd did nearly realise the game was over when one woman asked where the players were, only to be informed they were all searching for a calculator to help solve the crisis. The MCG has announced that the annual Victoria Police dinner at the ground tonight, which will ensure the 10,000-strong crowd disperses in a flash.

Japan

2010-08-13T22:01:00.002+10:00

For those who actually still read this blog after my recent lack of updates, I am about to jet off for a few weeks biking in Japan. This blog won't be updated during the time I'm away, but if you want to follow my progress, you can do so at http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/japan-10 . I am notoriously slow at updating journals from the road, but if you check it every few days, I should have something there.

Weekend at Broken Head

2010-08-05T20:18:00.002+10:00

For various reasons I decided I needed a complete change of scenery last weekend. I loaded up the touring gear on my bike and headed south for a weekend, with an intended destination of Broken Head, a few kilometres south of Byron Bay in NSW. In truth I had another ulterior motive in mind -- a tour of Japan that starts in just nine days. I needed to get some rides in with the full touring load, pronto.

I headed south along the Tweed Coast, after clearing the initial 35km of suburbia that one has to do if heading south by that particular route. Thank God for the inland route through Chinderah, otherwise it would be 45km to clear suburbia. Either way, I got through it, marvelling at just how quickly I managed to adapt to handling the bike fully loaded, and decided to pause at Cabarita Beach to climb all over Norrie's head. While the views from the summit here aren't quite as impressive as Cape Byron, it is, nonetheless, very pleasant.

Here there was a local lady conducting a free stretching class, and I was inclined to join, but ultimately decided to press on down the coast. The coastal banksias were blooming along the side of the road, a slightly paler colour than the ones I saw at Lamington National Park a couple of weeks ago. The old coast road that used to link Wooyung with Ocean Shores has been closed for a while, but I had heard talk of an alternative. Of course, today wouldn't be a great day to try it, carrying a full touring load, so I decided to try it anyway.

The initial part of the ride was alright, following a reasonable quality dirt track, where I was glad for my recently added "optional suspension" front forks. Shortly after this, my track turned toward the ocean, making me think that perhaps it would link up with the old coastal track and give me a seaside run to Ocean Shores. It didn't occur to me that firstly, the track would be flooded here after the rain earlier in the week, and secondly, it wouldn't link up with the coast at all, but instead change direction again, and head for a 14% incline, complete with tree roots, rock and ruts. Oh well, the steeper the incline, the shorter it must be by nature. I came out rejoining a good quality dirt road, which I quickly identified as Jones Road, which links up with the old Pacific Highway at Yelgun. It wasn't the route I was expecting, but was an interesting trip regardless, particularly the final section in between the giant gum trees.

The next stretch south to Byron Bay is relatively uninteresting, passing along coastal flats that aren't quite on the the coast. I got some lunch and other supplies in Byron Bay, and checked out a local camping store for which I had a $100 voucher, but nothing to spend it on, given the limited range the store had. I pondered climbing Cape Byron again, but decided against it as I did it last year, and opted instead for a ride along a track near Tallow's Beach to the south of the town. Ultimately, I wanted to get to Broken Head, where there is a stunningly beautiful (if slightly expensive) campground.

Once I'd set up at Broken Head, I decided to take a walk over... Broken Head, with it's views in both directions, including The Three Sisters, a rock formation which, according to Aboriginal Legend marks the point where three sisters drowned off the coast many thousands of years ago. I went to look for the rock paintings at the bottom of the headland that I had discovered last year, but they look to have been wiped away with a landslide since. Maybe it's just as well I found them when I did.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Another warm "winter's" morning greeted me on Sunday. It had been 27 degrees C the previous day, and if the 6am temperature was anything to go by, it wasn't going to be far short of that today. Having to backtrack can be unexciting sometimes, but fortunately today wasn't one of those times. I had a spectacular inland route lined up, one that passed through Mt Jerusalem National Park, with a couple of other climbs to make things interesting. I started off by heading back to Byron Bay to take Bangalow road out of town. It's only 12km between Byron and Bangalow, but the road is a spectacular one, climbing onto a plateau with sweeping views on every direction, and plenty of switchbacks through the rolling green hills.

After leaving Bangalow, there was another climb to be had, onto the Coolomon Scenic Drive, behind Mullumbimby, with more sweeping coastal views. There are also some enchanted forests in this part of the world, where the gnarled limbs on some of the trees indicate that things may have been very different up here at one time in the past. Today I also couldn't ignore the fact that the seemingly obligatory northerly wind was now picking up rapidly. I was glad to have chosen the hilly route home to break it up.

After descending into the Brunswick Valley and passing through Mullumbimby it was time for the next phase of the ride home, along the exotic stretch toward Main Arm, and the climb over the fake Mt Jerusalem. One of my favourite things about this stretch is that you can never be sure what will be flowering in this part of the world. Today it was a spectacular strand of cherry blossom trees lighting up the side of the road near Main Arm. Next time I pass through it will be something completely different.

Now it was time for the climb over Mt J, and it's a climb that is definitely easier from the southern side (I think the gradient on this side only reaches 13%). The dirt road and the rainforest trees always make it a very pretty climb, but today I had to wait for it, as a tiny piece of wire had found it's way into a tyre and given me a rather annoying flat. The trouble with tiny pieces of wire is that they are extremely problematic to remove, and this one was no exception. 45 minutes later, I was on my way again. The climb didn't pose any real problems after this, and nor, surprisingly, did the descent, with it's steep gradients, sharp corners and loose dirt surface. This was followed by a lunch at the Uki Cafe, and the freshest salads in NSW.

Now it was left to the final 55km to get home, with only really the climb of Tomewin to pose a problem. The rainforests on the way out of Uki gave me good protection from the wind to Murwillumbah, the town that would be the political, economic, social and cultural hub of the known universe if anybody actually cared about it, and I was left with a 6km grind along a flat, exposed stretch of road against the northerly wind, to the final climb of Tomewin.

I am so glad I made the decision two years ago to finish as many southern rides as possible with a climb over Tomewin. Not only does it give the legs a decent work out at the end of the ride, it also allows me to pass through beautiful rainforests, take in spectacular views, and most impressively, it cuts yesterday's 35km of suburbia back to about 15km at the finish. I handled the long climb with surprising ease, and the only real issue was the guy who decided to tailgate me on the steep descent at the finish where I clocked 66km/h.

For some bizarre reason, I still had a seemingly endless supply of energy at this point, so I decided to ride home a little faster, which was a great way to finish what had been an awesome weekend. This can be added to the growing list of "things I should do more often".

How can you not love "hell"?

2010-06-30T13:47:00.004+10:00

I decided on Sunday to take a group of friends up to Hell's Hole in Mt Jerusalem National Park. Oddly, I hadn't been there for nine months, despite promising myself I was going to make some wet season visits last summer. Still, there was a small amount of moisture around on Sunday morning in the form of drizzle. It didn't quite make up for it, but it certainly made for an interesting day. I started off by riding out in the dark, something that's become a rather enjoyable habit on the last two weekends, before beholding a beautiful sunrise high on Tomewin in the Macpherson ranges.

This was followed by a ride through the seemingly obligatory mist that collects in the narrow valley at the foot of Mt Warning whenever I ride to Hell's Hole. Just why this should be so I have no idea, but the drop in temperature was at least enough to justify the decision to bring the warm jacket, even if it didn't get a huge amount of use through the day. Still, the mist shrouded mountains, when visible, were a treat, especially on the long climb to the National Park where Mt Warning becomes visible in all it's glory.

The final climb on Middle Ridge road is mind buggeringly steep, steep enough to slow the cars of everyone else down to the same speed as my bike, but yet it didn't seem to be as steep as I remember it, and I negotiated it without too many problems. We set off on the usual downward walk to the creek, before picking our way through the creekside "track" and finally clambering over the rocks to the hole. Today the rock hopping was rather "interesting", with the moisture making things very slippery at times, but the waterfalls and rockpools make all the effort worthwhile.

Mt Jerusalem National Park also has some of the smallest leeches in the world. They can be a problem because you don't always realise you've been bitten. I subsequently discovered another three leech bites after the event that I didn't even feel when they happened. Oh well, that's part of life. I managed to replenish any lost nutrients at the Uki Cafe after the event, and after the seemingly obligatory flat tyre that happens every time I take my MTB out.

Still, it wasn't an insurmountable obstacle, and I was able to enjoy the ride home over Urliup and Bilambil as was once normal. I've been relatively quiet recently with a calf injury that wouldn't go away, and time spent watching the World Cup (Spain will beat The Netherlands 1-0 in the final BTW), but this was a day that was well and truly worth the effort.

Wanganui Gorge

2010-06-03T21:58:00.002+10:00

A couple of weeks ago I quietly got back on the bike after the hit and run assault from a little while ago. However, there hasn't been much that has inspired me to write a post until last weekend. On Sunday I finally decided to man up and do 207km down to Wanganui Gorge (behind Mullumbimby) and back. The plan was simple enough, but I still wasn't sure about my fitness. I figured I would find out today, and that whatever happened, the surroundings within the Gorge would make it a worthwhile exercise.

Martin joined me for the first 78km or so down to Mullumbimby along the Tweed Coast. This part of the ride was surprisingly uneventful. On what was the first cool morning of the year, I searched for some full-finger gloves before setting out, but as we spend the early part of the ride 'coasting', they really weren't necessary. The most exciting part of this stretch was finding a dirt track that follows the road on the ocean side for a few hundred metres through the salt bush about half way between Pottsville and Wooyung. I'm still not sure what that was supposed to prove. Mullumbimby itself was awash with boats for some canoeing event. I'm guessing they were going to paddle along the Brunswick River to Brunswick Heads, a few kilometres downstream. Maybe I should have asked someone what was going on.

The real part of the ride started at the top of the Wilsons Creek climb, where I entered another world. The stream that follows the road is actually the Wilsons River, not Wilsons Creek, but I guess not everyone was aware of that name change. This world is one of lush green rainforests, mountain views, a few hippie cottages and a laid back vibe. Every time I come here I resolve to visit more often, but the distance from home (along with the proliferation of other places to ride) keeps me away for longer than I would like. It was also nice that the council decided to fill in some of the potholes around here, but today I had other things on my mind.

I turned south and joined the dirt at the Huonville fork (yes, I've just named it), and entered a deep gorge, with mountains closing in on either side, and the occasional waterfall cascading down the sides of the gorge. The stream bubbling away below me is actually Coopers Creek, which continues south and can be rejoined from the bottom of Minyon Falls on the other side of the Nightcap Range. Today I was taking it slow through this stretch, partly a result of being out of condition, and partly in wonderment at the things I was seeing. There is a hidden campsite at the end of this road, which I may explore one day, and there was once a walking track through the forest, but that has since been closed.

I turned and headed for home, first climbing out of the gorge before descending back to Mullumbimby. Today I would face yet another northerly wind on the way home, once again in total defiance of the prevailing wind direction for this time of year. This is becoming an unwelcome habit. It was after leaving Mullumbimby that the difficulty started. I had planned to climb over Mt Jerusalem National Park on the ride home, but first I had to get there against the wind, and somehow conserve enough energy for the climb. I managed the first part of that equation, but struggled on the climb like never before (and hopefully never again).

The good news was that at the bottom of this climb I could easily reach the village of Uki, where I gorged on sweet things to replenish some energy stocks for the last 55km. I still had to climb over Tomewin on the way home, but now I had replenished my energy and had realised the need to pace myself over the last quarter of the ride. Consequently, Tomewin posed few problems -- except that the temperature had dropped to 13 degrees C at the summit. I was glad I had brought the jacket for the descent home, to end yet another memorable day. It's clear that my fitness still needs some work, but that is slowly returning.

Internet abuse report form

2010-05-25T22:00:00.001+10:00

Some of you might get a laugh out of this one.

Cabin fever

2010-05-13T21:10:00.002+10:00

This sucks. I have done nothing for the last two weeks, and I've just had to cancel some rather big plans I had for Saturday, since the calf muscle that I strained in my crash a couple of weeks ago hasn't healed enough. I still plan to do something, but it won't be what I wanted. Time off the bike usually serves only to remind me of just why I spend so much time on the bike to start with, and this really has been no exception. I've ranted enough in the past about how vapid popular culture is (vapid - look it up), so I'll spare you all the details, suffice to say that I'm missing the bike and the places it can take me.

I do, however, have a ride lined up on Sunday, albeit only about 70km, and I'm going to try for 100km or so on Saturday (not the 100km I had planned, but 100km nevertheless), so all is not lost, but I'm still not happy about it.

The climb formerly known as...

2010-05-13T20:38:00.002+10:00

Since I've now done nothing for two weeks (more on that later), it's probably time for some "filler" on this blog, being a report from a ride back on April 26. I set off with Martin for a 180km ride through Northern New South Wales, knowing full well that I already had 280km in my legs from the last two days. I'm nothing if not up for a challenge, and the wind threw that at us early in the morning, with a screaming southerly wind trying it's hardest to halt our progress. As we were both already a little sore and sorry from the previous two days, we opted not to attack it, but take our time down the coastal strip, until we found the protection of the rainforest of Urliup.

The wind seemed to ease off, and the ride settled down as these things tend to do. We climbed over a couple of hills on Round Mountain road, with some great views back over Murwillumbah, before heading for the dirt, switchback climb over Cudgera Creek. While this isn't exactly a massive climb, it is very beautiful, with the dirt road snaking back and forth through the Burringbar range, alternating between rainforest and sweeping views in various directions. Maybe I should head for the Andes in South America and see if I can find a climb like this that lasts all day. One day...

After this it was time for a screaming descent into Burringbar, where a couple of stretches revealed that I felt absolutely fine, and the stretch into the wind was almost over. Did I say "almost" over? Maybe I was taking the section between Billinudgel and Main Arm a little lightly. The combination of westerly wind (yes, it was swinging around ominously), gradual climb and the worst section of chip seal in Australia slowed our progress for the next 10km or so. My progress was almost halted completely on the final descent into Main Arm itself when I totally misjudged a corner -- fortunately nobody was around to see me or hit me.

Now it was time for the climb formerly known as Mt Jerusalem -- largely because it passes through Mt Jerusalem National Park. We actually discovered the real one two years ago -- then earlier this year I discovered that it's now impossible to get through to it anymore. We now have to make do with the fake. Still, the climb over the fake is as beautiful as climbs get, at least from the southern side, with the dirt road winding through the rainforest, and a gradient that only reaches 13% (compared to 19% on the other side). I took my time and enjoyed it, and the ride through the cool forest at the top. I really need to come back here in the coming months to reacquaint myself with some of the attractions in the National Park.

We negotiated the screaming descent on the dirt into Uki, for some reason this one always scares me, even though I've never managed to crash on it (yet), and prepared for the ride home. The wind was still from the south-west, and this was promising to be only my third southern ride in two years to finish with a tailwind. The stretch to Murwillumbah was pleasant and uneventful, except that it confirmed my suspicions about the wind. Now it was time for the final climb over Tomewin, for the third time on the weekend. I actually struggled early on the climb, before finding my rhythm and cruising over the steep (11%) section.

With Tomewin safely in the bag for another day, it was now time to mop up the remaining kilometres, including another descent on which I almost misjudged a corner, and ride home with the tailwind. When we got back into Suburbia I decided to launch a stupid, crazy attack which served no real purpose other than to get the boring bit of the ride finished a little sooner (that's probably a notable goal in itself), and at the finish we were left to reflect on what had been a memorable long weekend. I hope there are plenty more like that to come.

The Garden of Eden returns

2010-05-07T13:33:00.002+10:00

Not content with doing a century on the Anzac Day weekend (would you believe it was now two weeks ago), I backed up for another 100km on the MTB the next day. I joined Martin for a ride up Tomewin and across the dirt track that I had previously thought closed across the range and back to Bilambil. The early part of the ride involved negotiating the annual litter fest that passes for the Anzac Day Parade at Currumbin. One wonders just how people can claim to "respect" the sacrifices made by the soldiers of generations past when they dump their rubbish all over the country these brave men fought to protect.

After negotiating the ride to the summit of Tomewin, it was time for the real ride to start. The dirt track across the top here really passes through some amazing scenery, and as far as I'm concerned, the fact that parts of it are extremely rough is even better, it means I can slow down and enjoy the scenery. What surprised me today was how easily these rough parts were negotiated, given the rain that had fallen overnight, and the mud it had generated.

We crested the summit after the ride through the rainforest, and eventually took the long descent into Bilambil. This is actually quite deceptive as the initial descent is followed by a couple of climbs as the road winds around the hills, before the final 'landing' at Bilambil. Another beautiful day was racked up, the only disappointment was that the bakery at the bottom of the hill hasn't won an award since 2007. Lift your game, boys!

Venus

2010-05-05T21:42:00.002+10:00

It's amazing the things you can see when you look for them, and tonight I may have been the only one to see it. Venus had just risen and joined the stars in the night sky as I came around the corner to ride along the beach at Currumbin. At that moment, I had a special view of Venus sitting right above the calm South Pacific, which glistened with the reflection of the "star" light. Then a few seconds later, the road changed direction slightly, and it was gone. It was one of those fleeting moments that will live for much longer in my memory than it actually lasted.

This, of course, came 36 hours after I had a beautiful ride to work in a downpour that dumped over four inches of rain on the Gold Coast in one morning. I've now had two days back on the bike since recovering from Friday's unpleasantness, and I haven't really gone anywhere yet (the 90km or so has been entirely contained in the urban area), and yet, it seems the universe is going out of it's way for my forgiveness after Friday. I'll think about it. :)

Hit and run

2010-05-03T17:03:00.004+10:00

A little while ago I noted an article in the local media around here that claimed there had been 441 hit and run assaults on the Gold Coast in the space of 12 months. Of course, what the article didn't state was that this probably means there were another 882 that just went unreported. So I suppose it was inevitable that my turn to be on the received end would come sooner or later, and three days ago it actually happened. I was riding my bike to work along Waterways Drive in Main Beach, and someone in a truck decided to drive into me. Granted, this is not the first time I've been hit by a car, in fact, it's happened seven times before (six on the Gold Coast), but it was the first time I've not actually been able to keep the bike upright and keep riding.

Unfortunately, the speed at which this guy drove off and the fact that I was too busy watching the road during the couple of seconds in which I almost pulled of the miracle save meant that I didn't get a good look at the truck, and certainly didn't see the number plate. This isn't really a major issue, however, as the largely ceremonial duties of the Queensland police don't extend as far as actually investigating cyclists' complaints or (God forbid) prosecuting where appropriate. I was far more annoyed about the fact that I was going to have to spend a long weekend (which incidentally had near perfect cycling weather) stuck inside without much to do.

The irony of all this is that I had taken The Blue Flame to a shop for repairs as the steering had been playing up (it's actually the forks that are busted... again), and I figured I should do something about it before I crash. Instead, I was riding The Blonde Assassin and I crashed anyway. Still, at least there were no serious injuries, and there won't be any new scars as all I managed to do is open up a couple of old ones. I should be back on the bike tomorrow, and hopefully I can look at doing some long rides by next weekend. In fact, I managed to get up from the crash, ride the last few kilometres to work and do a full day there.

The saddest part about all this is that none of it surprises me.

2010-04-29T21:41:00.002+10:00

Well, what a weekend that was! Over 450km with plenty of magnificent scenery and some decent hill climbing. It took my legs a good three days to recover, and I have managed to wreck the front forks on The Blue Flame. It all started with 175km on the Saturday, after I had arranged to meet Bindi from Uki for a ride in that area. Along the way I decided to head south over Tomewin (largely because I would climb it in the opposite direction twice in the following two days), and descent into the Tweed Valley, where mist cloaked many of the surrounding mountains, and provided a very pleasant ride into Uki.

We had decided to have a look at the local farmers' market in Uki, before taking a ride through Mebbin National Park to the south, and a loop home past the waterfall on the Kyogle road. Most of the early part of the ride was spent swapping touring stories, and I'm sure there's still plenty of information to mine on our next ride together. As it was, the Tweed Valley turned on a beautiful day, so we took our time, savouring the rainforest and the mountain views in what really is a very special part of the world.

One of the things about this area is the number of little things in the area that are often missed by passers by. One of the advantages of travelling by bicycle is the ability to not miss these things, and such it was with the waterfall where we had a picnic (of sorts). Along this road there are also a few various fruit stalls, some of which I've shopped at in the past. Bindi was quite keen on these, and I might have been too had I brought the carrying capacity with me on this particular ride.

We had a fairly gentle ride back to Uki, with me noting that the wind had now swung around from the North, as it has done almost every other ride for the last two years. I should almost have enough headwind practice to return to New Zealand by now. We parted at Uki and I took the "alternative" route back into Murwillumbah along Bakers road, before returning home via Urliup and Bilambil, noting along the way just how often the dirt section on Urliup road is graded these days, and how it's probably overkill as the surface is sticky from the grader more often than it ever used to get really rough before. Occasionally, I just wish people would leave things alone.

Returning home after 175km, the first thing I did was call up my usual riding partner Martin and confirm the next two days -- 100km tomorrow, and 180km the following day to close out the long weekend. I wouldn't want to live any other way.

Tosspot of the week

2010-04-28T21:18:00.002+10:00

Every so often, a story comes along that makes you wonder how some people actually manage to get through day to day life:

http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2010/04/28/212645_gold-coast-news.html

Head alien made me crash, court told
Leah Fineran April 28th, 2010

Damian James Amos has pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving on the grounds of insanity.

DAMIAN Amos says he was just following orders from a 'head alien' when his car sped into another vehicle at Broadbeach in 2004, killing a Gold Coast grandfather.
But the Crown alleges Mr Amos was simply drunk.

During the opening day of his trial in Southport District Court yesterday, the 32-year-old pleaded not guilty, on the grounds of insanity, to the dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, causing death.

The jury was told Mr Amos had a history of paranoid schizophrenia and had not taken his medication the morning of October 9, 2004, when his car, travelling at 140km/h, rear-ended the hatchback of 58-year-old Keith Evenis on the Nerang-Broadbeach Road.

The massive impact shunted the hatchback forward 74m into a tree. It exploded in a fireball, instantly killing Mr Evenis.

Defence barrister Angelo Vasta, QC, told the jury Mr Amos's driving in the 70km/h zone could only be described as 'maniacal' but argued his client was not guilty.

He said Mr Amos should not be held criminally responsible as he had suffered a psychotic episode while driving and 'lacked capacity to control his actions'.

A document of facts accepted by both the Crown and defence was read to the jury stating that the traffic accident happened shortly after Mr Amos had been ejected from the Carrara Gardens Golf Club for hitting balls at other golfers.

Mr Vasta said his client left and drove east on Nerang-Broadbeach Road when he had a psychotic episode and believed he heard instructions from a 'head alien' to immediately return to his Broadbeach Waters home.

"The head alien told him he had to get home and he wanted to obey the command and he drove in a way that showed he was in control of the head alien," said Mr Vasta.

Yes, that's right, of all the excuses we've heard for vehicular homicide over the years, things like "I didn't see him", "I was drunk/stoned/talking on a Mobile phone/whatever other illegal act judges don't penalise" etc, now someone actually says they were instructed by aliens. I don't know what's more ridiculous here - the fact that someone has gone before a judge (with legal advice) and made such a claim, or the fact that the reluctance of Australian judges are to actually convict anybody these days means that it might just bloody work, and this guy will be behind the wheel of a car and ready to do it again by the end of the week. I don't know whether to laugh or cry about this one.

In other news, Pauline Hanson apparently hasn't had enough publicity to feed her ego lately, and consequently had a whine about New Zealand immigration officials actually doing their job and questioning her about her jail stint from a few years ago. The irony of Pauline Hanson being detained by immigration officials and then whining about it is actually quite amusing when one considers her "policies" from a few years back. However, the simple fact is, the immigration officials in New Zealand were simply doing their job in questioning a foreign national entering the country about a prior criminal conviction. I suspect the same would have happened to me in Auckland or Christchurch had I fraudulently registered a political party, then pocketed the donations from the rednecks dumb enough to actually believe the crap that came from the One Nation "party".

Frankly, Ms Hanson is very lucky not to still be in jail, and since law enforcement was something she was apparently in favour of, she's the last person who should be complaining about being questioned about a criminal record.

Reaching the Pinnacle

2010-04-13T19:48:00.002+10:00

The previous weekend I had decided that this would be the day I would finally reach "the Pinnacle" from the other side. The Pinnacle is a rock formation jutting out from the mountains of the Border Ranges National Park, near Kyogle. However, the bottom of it can also be accessed from Pumpenbil, near Tyalgum. It took me a few years to discover this, and even longer to actually do something about it, but this was going to be the day, regardless.

It all started simply enough, Martin joined me for the first 45km, and we took the usual route through Urliup. My legs were caning after the previous day's ride to Binna Burra in the mountains, but I also knew that I could ride myself into form given enough time and distance. The wind picked up from the south on the other side of Murwillumbah, and I prayed that for once it would continue from that direction, keeping the temperature down and giving me an easier ride home.

The clouds continued to hover around Mt Warning as I reached the pretty dirt section along Byrrill creek after Uki, and started the long, gentle climb through the forest passing the usual little waterfalls in the creek. This is one of my favourite stretches of road anywhere, but today it was made a little more treacherous by the local council's decision to water the road into submission, possibly in the hope that it might grow in the same kind of way that their integrity didn't. Of course, they tried this trick on me with a patch of roadwork at Tumbulgum some years earlier that led to me crashing, and the entire Tweed Shire Council were sacked for corruption a week later, and yes, I am going to keep reminding my 3 regular readers about this fact.

Descending off that climb into the grand, sweeping vistas of the Tyalgum section of the Tweed Valley is always a pleasant experience, but today I detoured out along Pinnacle Road, which offered a nice, steady climb for a few kilometers, before petering out at the bottom of Pinnacle Rock. Even without the view of the Pinnacle, the ride itself was pleasant, as it steadily rose above the surrounding area of lush green rolling hills. I was so inspired I later took a side trip along Bald Mountain road to see if it did actually climb Bald Mountain. It didn't, but the view it offered was pleasant enough anyway.

There was nothing left after this other than the return to Murwillumbah for the final climb over Tomewin to get home. This is actually a much more pleasant climb on a relatively cool day, as the bits exposed to the sunlight don't burn quite so badly. Of course, this was also only the second southern ride that has actually finished with a tailwind in the last two years, so that may have assisted in the fact that I had now ridden myself back into form.

The ride home from there was reasonably uneventful, apart from a couple of absolute idiots that I encountered upon returning to the coastal strip. I get the feeling that at least one of them won't be alive for much longer without some major behavioural changes, and the feeling is definitely a comforting one. Just why so many idiots around here feel the need to stop dead in the middle of the road for no readily apparent reason is beyond me, but sooner or later they'll try it on someone driving a bigger car than they are, and the results will end badly for them, but maybe not so badly for the rest of us.

Novelty

2010-04-12T20:41:00.002+10:00

33 hours have now elapsed since I got home from yesterday's rather interesting outing, and I am still trying to find a part of my body that doesn't actually hurt. Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I have climbed Springbrook mountain more times than I have taken hot showers over the last 15 years. Yesterday, however, Martin and I found a new and altogether more difficult and painful way to do it -- on a vertical single track that was totally unrideable for the entire length of the climb, which basically meant climbing the mountain on foot while finding a way to haul the bikes up the mountain.

The day had started so promisingly, too. The plan had been to scour the Numinbah State Forest at the bottom of the western slopes of the mountain, with a decent climb on the dirt of Chester's Road. We rode off over the rolling hills of Advancetown in a morning mist, along the various inlets of Advancetown Lake, which becomes Hinze Dam closer to Nerang. Along the way we found a new construction site for a boat ramp on to the lake. I have to admit to mixed feelings about it -- on the one hand, it's nice to open up a view like this, but on the other hand, I know what masses of people are likely to do to the area.

A little further on, I managed to get a flat tyre. This remarkable event (remarkable because it happened while I was riding with GEAX tyres) let to us meeting a group of bushwalkers who gave us some directions to Horseshoe Falls which weren't quite where I thought they should have been. Still, as I hadn't seen a map of the area, I saw no reason to argue with them. Initially we set off on a dirt track that crossed Waterfall Creek several times, this part was actually quite beautiful in and of itself.

It was after this that the mistakes started. Looking back, we may have been more than a little gullible. Just why you would follow a track leading away from waterfall creek when you're looking for a waterfall is anyone's guess, but we did, and it went dead straight up the hill at an unrideable gradient. Eventually we hauled the bikes to the top of this hill, and literally found a fork in the road. One side screamed back down into the valley (a descent I wasn't keen on as I my legs have another project to complete next weekend), and the other appeared to follow the ridge across toward Springbrook. By this stage we'd given up on Horseshoe falls for the day and decided to head for Springbrook instead. The only problem was the "No Entry" sign in front of the Springbrook fork.

What does a scofflaw cyclist do when confronted with a "No Entry" sign? You guessed it. This track also took a sharp descent straight into a creek bed, before climbing out vertically up the side of the mountain. Now we had to press on. I actually thought it would meet the road half way up the mountain on Pine Creek Road, intersecting a track I'd seen branching off when riding that road previously. This wasn't to be, and the track kept climbing steeply and interminably. A few times I pondered just staying there for the day, as it had to be more pleasant than either climbing out or the inevitable return to suburbia that would follow.

At the summit the inevitable happened, a "private property" sign. Fortunately, it was a very small sign, and I didn't see it. Even more fortunately, the owner of the land was a friendly guy, who even offered us some of his home grown plums, before telling us that Chester's Road had, in fact, been the right way to get to Horseshoe Falls, although apparently the track to it is severely overgrown (which won't stop me going and checking it out for myself later of course). There may possibly be another way to the falls, from a land owner at Springbrook near the Fudge Shop.

As it was, we decided to simply descent the mountain the conventional way, before crunching the last few rollers on the way home. Surprisingly, I found a second wind on the ride home for no readily rational reason. It was soon after we parted and I mopped up the last few hills through Robina that I realised I was hurting in places I didn't even know I had. Still, that's a positive thing as it shows that I had a productive weekend. There was a final insult in that I suffered yet another flat tyre (this time the opposite tyre) in the final 500 metres on the way home. I finished the day with two years' worth of GEAX flat tyres, simply incredible.

I am going to find these falls, however. It is now my obsession.

Going west

2010-04-08T21:29:00.002+10:00

This post is actually two weeks old, but at the time I was getting desperate. I'd had mechanical failures on four consecutive weekends, and I REALLY wanted to finish a long ride, ANY long ride. Consequently, I decided on a change of scenery, and headed west through Canungra, bypassing Beaudesert on the Mundoolun road (new territory) to end up at Jimboomba. I picked a reasonably pleasant day, and spent most of the day riding through rolling hills in surprising greenery (surprising, because that isn't always the case west of Canungra). There were even a couple of unseasonal flowers out on the Mundoolun road.

The arrival at Jimboomba on 72km turned into a mess, as there was nowhere in town to refill water bottles as all the faucets have been removed from the taps in the park, perhaps a relic of the drought of the mid 2000's. I then realised I'd left my money at home, so buying bottled water was going to be a problem. Fortunately I had enough change lying around in my rack bag to get something -- who said cleaning out these things was a good suggestion? Now I had to be careful. I knew there would be water available at the top of Mt Tamborine, but I had to get there without running out.

I was somewhat fortunate in that the temperature only reached 30 degrees C, an unusually cool day for this summer. I rode out of town on to the Mt Lindesay highway for a short distance (this was the busiest I've ever seen it), before turning off to Camp Cable Road, then on to Tamborine Road, again pushing up and down over rolling hills, before starting the 7km climb to the top of Mt Tamborine. The first 2-3km of this climb are pretty tough, before it levels out into a very pleasant switchback road. The higher parts of this road in the rainforest used to offer a great view of Curtis falls, but this is now pretty overgrown, so there is no waterfall shot in this post.

Tamborine itself was busy as usual for a Sunday, but fortunately there was only one moron who decided to stop dead in the middle of the road for no readily apparent reason, so all was well. Astonishingly, the water tank where I normally refill had run dry, so I ended up swiping some water from a tap at the Eagle Heights pub. I suppose all's well that ends well. I then set off on the steep descent, pausing at Welches Road at the bottom for another layer of sunscreen. I saw a couple of mountain bikers coming back from a rendezvous toward the end of that road, but didn't think to ask them where they'd been. Looks like I'll be forced to explore that one for myself later on.

After this it was a fairly straight forward ride home, with one more climb of note at Wongawallan. Wongawallan is an interesting climb in that it MUST be attacked. Riding defensively will not suffice (as a friend of mine found out when he snapped a chain there). If you just try to survive that climb, you won't. With this in mind, I found enough for an attack, and enjoyed the screaming descent into Oxenford. You learn something new everyday, and on this day I learned that Kevin Rudd will be calling an early election in Australia in the near future. How do I know this? Because the people responsible for the perpetual road construction at Hope Island (road work for six consecutive years and counting) have actually moved all their junk off the road.

Someone has obviously received orders from above on this matter, which suggests an election is not far off. After this is was simply a matter of cruising home with a tailwind, a result of yet another unseasonal northerly wind on a day I chose to ride a century, but this time I outsmarted it by taking a different route. The final tally was around 164km, but I can't give an exact measure because my computer stopped working somewhere around Oxenford. I am REALLY running out of patience with wireless cycle computers, but that's a rant for another post.

Warrie Circuit, Springbrook

2010-04-07T20:50:00.002+10:00

A week after the broken crank incident at O'Reilly's, I decided to join some friends to hike the finally re-opened Warrie Circuit in Springbrook National Park. It was closed for two years because of a landslide, and after the rain in the week leading up to this day, I thought they might close it again. Fortunately, that hadn't happened by the time I got up there. Of course, I was also hoping the ride up the mountain and back would be clear of mechanical problems, after three on consecutive weekends, I figured I was due for a change of luck.

That wasn't on the cards as it turned out, this time a brake pad slid out of the shoe, which hampered my braking on the 19% descents after ascending Best Of All Lookout at the summit. I'm just glad I decided not to try to overtake the car that held me up on the way down (before I had discovered the problem). Still, at least this one didn't stop me from completing the ride, or the hike. The waterfalls turned on a spectacular display, among the best I've seen at Springbrook (which is saying something), along with wildflowers and the occasional bit of wildlife not seen anywhere else.

Along the way we passed the bottom of the famous Goomoolahra Falls (immediately below), at the top of which some idiot got drunk one night and walked off the cliff (despite it being fenced), and fell 100 metres to his death. There was no danger of that today, but it's been a long time since I was able to access the lower part of the falls. It was certainly worth waiting for. A memorable day at one of my favourite places in the world. The only downside was a leech bite that got infected and hung around for a while. That said, it didn't stop me riding a century a week later (ride report to follow).

Three

2010-03-29T21:37:00.002+10:00

Two weeks ago I set off on a slightly ambitious ride. It was ambitious for two reasons, firstly, it involved the climb to and descent from O'Reilly's Plateau on a wet day, a descent on which I've had two nasty wet weather crashes before. The second reason was that I'd had a pump failure and a mega tyre blow out on the previous two weekends, so something nasty was almost certain to happen today. Yet that was all forgotten on the early part of the day, as I rode along The Gorge Road, and began the climb out of Canungra, where the surrounding patchy rain provided spectacular views over the ridges to the west.

On the higher parts of the mountain it got even better, particularly the final 10km of the climb through thick rainforest in the mist, which occasionally gives way to spectacular mountain views over Lamington National Park. There really is no need for heaven when you can ride through areas like this. I pondered launching an attack on the climb in the rain as the temperature had now dropped to 15 degrees C (in Queensland this is akin to snow on the Equator), yet I kept my pace constant, conserving energy for the Beechmont climb to come later in the day.

I donned the jacket for the descent as the rain seemed to be intensifying at the higher altitudes, and set off. The descent along this road isn't for the faint of heart or weak of bowel, as the narrow strip of bitumen winds through some massive rainforest trees, many of which are hundreds (or possibly thousands) of years old. The road is also pretty bumpy, and in the wet it gets very interesting. Still, I made it to the flatter part of the plateau near Mt Cainbable, and mentally prepared myself for the really treacherous part of the descent.

I needn't have worried about it. I decided to take the short detour to Kamarun lookout, because I figured the views would be spectacular on a day like this, but shortly after leaving the main road, the crank on the left-hand side simply fell off. I didn't just lose a pedal, I lost the entire crank. It dawned on me quickly that this was to be the end of the ride right here, with no great escape possible. All I could do was walk the 2km or so to the Alpaca Farm/Coffee Shop (one of two on the entire mountain) in intensifying rain, and hope they had a telephone I could use.

Luckily, I had just eaten lunch when I met up with a family of day-trippers from the Gold Coast who offered me a ride home, an invitation I gratefully accepted. I had to accompany them back up to O'Reillys while their kids fed the birds and did the treetop walk, but that wasn't a problem, it was actually fun in a way. I was glad I still had the jacket with me, because it was no warmer at O'Reilly's than it had been the first time I was up there. I still would have liked to have completed the ride, however, as the Beechmont section would have been doubly spectacular on a day like this.

That's three.

Tosspot of the week

2010-03-29T20:51:00.002+10:00

I had someone else in mind for this award this week, until today when some f*ckwit stole my bike helmet from the carpark at work today. Just why some tard felt the need to do that is beyond me, given that most people who ride bikes around here generally strap their helmet to the handlebars rather than actually wearing them. Yet it happened anyway. Still, the same total and complete lack of law enforcement that allows such crime to happen in the first place came in handy when nobody cared about me riding home from work "lidless", despite the fact that it's technically illegal.

I do actually have an old spare helmet at home in my garage, largely because I just haven't gotten around to throwing it out. I guess it will do the job for long enough for me to buy a replacement tomorrow, but I'll still be $50-$100 out of pocket. I guess when your luck's out, it's out.

Surviving the game part 2

2010-03-18T21:34:00.002+10:00

It was just a week after the Mullumbimby pump incident (forgive me taking so long to update), I figured that if I survived that, I should be in the clear for a while. Assumptions of that nature are, of course, fatal, but none of us ever seem to learn from them. So it was totally without this in mind that I set off for a morning's off road riding on the old fire trails in Mooball National Park, in the hills behind Murwillumbah. Of course, I was accompanied by the only northerly wind we'd had all week, meaning the humidity was about 169%.

The ride through the forest was beautiful as usual, I had an early taste winding along the dirt road through Urliup, then the ride through Murwillumbah, but I detoured slightly to avoid the industrial area, first taking the old highway south, before cutting back along Fernvale Road to reach the start of the climb at Smarts road. I detoured here as well, to avoid the knee-depth potholes on one section and take in an extra switchback. I then pushed my way through the 15% sections of the road, until I reached the "summit", before the descent along Cooradilla Road.

All the while I was marvelling at how pleasant it was to be riding through rainforest. I decided that I should really make the time to do some camping up here later in the year when the temperatures cool a little. I'm not entirely sure how I'd haul a fully loaded bike up some of those gradients (I once measured one earlier section at 22%), but the rewards of spending a night up here would make it all worthwhile.

Today's drama took place on the way home, having returned to the sealed road for the final rolling hills before Murwillumbah. It's not often that I get flats on the GEAX Evolution tyres, but when they do happen, they're usually spectacular. This one was no exception. A steel bolt somehow found it's way into the tyre. At 55km/h, it was always going to do some damage. Not only was the tube destroyed in three places (and probably more if I'd taken the time to look), the rim tape around the wheel was also snapped. Some of it must have broken off, because there wasn't enough to go around the wheel anymore.

I thought my ride was over, but then I realised that I was only about 5km from Murwillumbah, meaning that if I could fashion a bodgy repair, I might just be able to make it back into town and get some insulation tape from a service station to replace the rim tape temporarily, and limp home. The bodgy repair involved patching over the two spoke holes on the inside of the wheel with tyre patches, and using the glue from those to hold them and what was left of the rim tape in place. It was a completely stupid idea, but it worked. I made it to Murwillumbah, bought some insulation tape (there was no bike shop there that opened on a Sunday), and got myself on the road again. I was fortunate that somehow the tyre that took the hit on the outside was still in good shape.

Now all that was left was the final climb over Tomewin (which was as much to get out of the wind as anything else), and the final ride home through suburbia. Unfortunately there was no rain on Tomewin today, but it was nice enough just the same. I reached the summit, cruised across the top of the range and descended back to the coast, realising that I had dodged a bullet for the second consecutive weekend. Still, they say these things happen in threes, so there might be another surprise on the way.

Surviving the game

2010-03-03T21:48:00.002+10:00

There are some rides that are awesome epics, days when you think anything is possible, days when you reach new heights, visit places of amazing beauty and/or pull off superhuman feats on the bike that will stay with you forever. Then there are days when you are just glad to survive the ride and get it under your belt. Last Sunday was one of those. The original plan had been to ride into Wanganui Gorge, to the south of Mullumbimby, the land of waterfalls cascading down the sides of the surrounding mountains. It didn't quite work out that way.

The day didn't have the best start in the world. I set off on my journey, but only managed 2km before losing a bolt from my pannier rack. I turned around and pedalled home, dug out a spare bolt from the clutter in my garage, and set off again. The southerly wind was picking up as I headed down the Tweed Coast, but I wasn't worried. I was handling the job of pushing into it pretty well, and I figured there was a chance it would be with me on the way home, all was almost well with the world.

8km before Mullumbimby a eucalyptus tree was totally defying the seasons and flowering in late summer. That should have been a sign that things were going to get a little crazy, but as usual, I didn't pick up on it. 10km down the road, as I was about to start the climb of Wilson's Creek, it happened. First it was a flat tyre, something I've had plenty of experience in dealing with over the years. I let out a few expletives, but overall it was okay, or so I thought. I removed the offending piece of glass, and re-inflated the tyre, but there was one problem. The pump that I had originally picked up in Scotland, which has followed me through tours in three countries and four different Australian states, decided not to work. It was finally cactus.

It was here that I realised I wasn't going to make it to Wanganui Gorge today. I basically had to walk the 2km back to Mullumbimby, find a service station pump, and ride home from there, hoping that if I got another flat tyre, it would at least have a slow enough leak for me to make it to the next service station. Fortunately, there were no more flat tyres, as I headed home via Mooball, Burringbar and Murwillumbah, figuring there were more service stations lining the old Pacific Highway than there would be on any other route.

Of course, there was another reverse at Murwillumbah when I temporarily ran out of hills to hide in, the wind had again swung around from the North, and the temperature and jumped to 32 degrees C, both factors were in total defiance of the weather forecast. Fortunately, I could climb home over Tomewin, which gave me a mountain climb instead of a headwind for a large part of the ride home. Even more fortunately was the sudden downpour that soaked me on the climb and took 10 degrees off the temperature, and yet stopped on the descent. I passed another rider on the climb, who agreed with me that the downpour was a godsend.

In the end I finished with 167km for the day, and was more than happy to clock up another century under the circumstances. It won't go down as my fastest or most brilliant century, but for sheer persistence and "making do", it's more than satisfactory.

Made in Minyon

2010-02-19T20:39:00.002+10:00

There has been a relative shortage of epic adventures in my life recently. Last Saturday I took some steps to rectify that with a ride to Minyon Falls, a 7km walk through the rainforest, and a ride home, which left me with 212km on the bike for the day. It had clearly been too long since the last time I did something like that, but it felt good. As the weather cools in the coming months, I might look to string a few more together.

I set off at 4am to meet with some friends at Minyon Falls by 9am. This had another benefit in that it meant conditions were slightly cooler for longer as I headed down the Tweed Coast early. It also meant that the northerly wind that was to spring up later in the day (as if by obligation these days) would take an hour longer. This was a rather dubious "benefit" as it was supposed to be behind me early on. Even so, I managed to put the smackdown on the climb out of Mullumbimby toward the Crystal Castle, and reached the first destination with around 20 minutes to spare.

The next step was to join with some friends to walk the full circuit around Minyon Falls -- something I hadn't actually managed yet as the track always seems to be closed when I come down here. Actually, the NPWS website had suggested it should be closed again, but someone apparently forgot to tell the Park Ranger. Needless to say, the stroll through the rainforest to the creek at the bottom was worthwhile. We had split into two groups to do the circuit in opposite directions and meet at the base of the falls. Most of my group bailed on the final rock scramble to get to the falls as they perceived it as too difficult. The few of us who proceeded were awarded with something very special.

The 100-metre falls had been swelled by recent rain, meaning that those of us who braved a dip in the rockpool had to contend with waves. The water was beautiful, however, especially as it was now quite a hot day. There had actually been a couple of nude bathers when we arrived at the rock pool, and the fact that I didn't bring out the camera when they were around means I probably don't have much of a future as a pornographer. Such is life.

The walk back basically involved a long, winding climb from the base of the falls back to the top, passing through a million different types of rainforest, another waterfall, and eventually some spectacular views at the top. There was a slight disquiet that I still had to ride 108km home against the wind at the end of this climb, but as this wasn't like wading through Canungra Creek to get to Stairway Falls two years ago, and as I had a light that would save me if it got dark, I wasn't overly bothered. At times like this, it's far better to just enjoy the moment for what it is.

After lunch at the cafe at the entrance to Nightcap National Park, it was time to say goodbye to the others (most of whom continued on at the Brunswick Heads pub), and start the long ride home. The temperature hit 33 degrees C as I descended from Minyon (for once, minus a full touring load), and settled into the series of climbs and descents en route to Mullumbimby. This really is a very scenic stretch of road, and riding it twice in the same day wasn't a problem. The climb at Repentence Creek is long on a hot day, but the views over Cape Byron at the summit are worth the effort.

I then decided to take the final 85km over Mt Jerusalem National Park (note, this is NOT the real Mt Jerusalem), and finally climbing over Tomewin at the end. The extra hills would cut out both headwind and suburbia, so it was a smart move all round. At times both climbs felt like a struggle, but I seemed to be feeling OK on reaching the summits. I was perhaps fortunate that the dirt road through the Jerusalem NP is in better condition than it has been for some time. I would have thought the recent rain would have made it worse, but that's life.

I had planned to buy something sweet to gorge on in Uki, but there were no shops open at that time of day -- somehow I had overlooked the fact that it was an hour later in New South Wales. Strangely, the same thing happened in Murwillumbah, so at that point I decided to just press on and ride home without it. In the end it was a tiring, but extremely rewarding day, and just what I needed. While this weekend won't see any major epics due to a dental appointment, and watching Gold Coast United in the A-League finals, it has set up my appetite for the longer rides, and I can promise there will be plenty to come in the coming months.

Twin Falls, Springbrook

2010-02-11T20:33:00.003+10:00

Since it's been a while between posts, and since I didn't do a great deal last weekend as a result of a flood, I'm going to post some pictures here from a day out at Springbrook a few weeks ago. This was a little while before last weekend's downpour, so I imagine things look completely different up there now. For the record, yes I did ride up the mountain that day, as I always do. The great thing about being able to ride to a place like Springbrook is that just locking the bike up for an hour and continuing on foot can allow one to access another world.

Although it's obscured in this shot, there is a decent swimming hole at the bottom of Twin Falls. Even on the hottest day (which is rare at Springbrook), the water in that pool is absolutely freezing, it's a very effective way to cool down (and more) after riding up the mountain. It is actually possible to paddle to the far side of the pool and sit right under the falls themselves, but it's probably not a good idea to stay there very long.

I have a much greater epic planned for this weekend, and the recent rain should make things very interesting.

The first century

2010-02-02T20:19:00.002+10:00

It's perhaps astonishing, but it took me until January 31 to ride my first real century of the year. Some would argue that Tuesday's epic at Lamington National Park, which included both a metric century and a 23km hike in the mountains was more physically difficult, but riding 100 miles (or 161km) is a completely different achievement. On the other hand, I need to get cracking if I'm going to complete the 25 I was planning to ride this year.

The plan on Sunday was just to ride a Tweed Valley circuit, a slight variation on the route that was my first ever century a little over 10 years ago. The weather forecast offered strong winds and occasional rain, but more importantly, the temperature was only expected to reach 28 degrees C. In fact, it hit 29 near Tyalgum, but that was still the first day not to break 30 around here since about August 15. I opened with a decent climb on Tomewin instead of finishing that way -- I figured I could shelter from the southerly wind early and catch a ride home on a tailwind. That would prove to be a mistake.

Somehow I managed to miss the rain for most of the day -- it seemed that the rain had just stopped everywhere I went, meaning that I had to negotiate wet roads without having the pleasure of being drenched. I made the one big mistake of the day's ride when I left the first food stop at Uki without refilling the water bottles. Fortunately Tyalgum was only 30km away, but that 30km did include the bulk of the day's dirt roads as well as some decent hills. To combat this I rode through the biggest puddle I could find as soon as I realised it, and the drenching my feet got managed to keep me cool for most of the ride.

The ride through the forest to Tyalgum, and then over the hills from Tyalgum obscured the fact that the wind had now swung around from the North, meaning I was going to get hammered both ways today. In reality it just meant the ride would take a little longer to finish, but over the last two years it's been almost impossible to finish a ride with a southerly wind -- irrespective of what the wind is doing every other day of the week. I did get some protection riding home through the rainforest of Urliup, but I knew it would be on after Bilambil.

I took an unscheduled stop for some more food and drinks, before decided to take the wind head-on for the last 25km of the ride. I'm still not sure where the power for that attack came from, but it seemed to work. In fact, it worked so well that the wind swung around again, and actually gave me a tailwind for the last 5km. It doesn't mean a thing I know, but at least it was something. All in all it was another rewarding day, and if the "cool" weather continues, I might make a few more of them happen.

A northern ride

2010-01-21T20:30:00.002+10:00

This might amuse those of you who are sick of reading about rides in the Tweed Valley or Byron Hinterland. The northern end of the Gold Coast isn't exactly a hot-bed of spectacular riding. It's flat, with relatively few trees and the rapidly expanding scourge of suburbia. About the only thing it's famous for is a piece of roadwork on Hope Island that has now been going continually since 2004. It might surprise some of you then, that I set off with my regular ride partner Martin, and we actually found something.

The ride using the service roads west of the M1 to Oxenford was more pleasant than I had expected, if not particularly interesting, but it was after turning off and over the climb of Bailey's Mountain road (at 100 metres in height, it hardly qualifies as a mountain, but I digress). The view from the summit was largely obscured, but the descent found a lush green valley stretching as far as the eye could see. As we continued north, there were even patches of rainforest to keep us amused. The only downside was the road through that area ending after just a few kilometres and forcing us back to the V1 to the north.

Looks like some kids had some fun without having any idea what they were doing. Oh, to be that young again. As it happened, Martin and I decided to detour to Upper Ormeau road (something I've written about in the past, look it up), before returning home. On the way back (in blistering heat), we bumped into an old friend who was hosting a German cycle tourist. This lady had cycled across Europe and Asia, and around most of Australia solo. Now there's someone I truly admire! I'd love the time to do a trip like that, maybe one day....

Tosspot of the week

2010-01-20T20:10:00.002+10:00

According to this report, there have been 441 hit and run assaults on the Gold Coast in the last 12 months, and yes, the term "assault" is a far more accurate description than the politically correct expression, "accident".

441 hit-and-runs on Gold Coast
Stephanie Bedo January 20th, 2010

THERE is more than one hit-and-run on the Gold Coast each day, with a six-year-old being dragged for 20m after being struck by a moped in the most recent incident.

As police hunt the callous moped rider, figures released yesterday showed an alarming 441 hit-and-run incidents happened on the Gold Coast in 2009.

On Monday a moped rider struck the boy, who was riding a children's scooter on a footpath in Seaworld Drive in Main Beach.

The boy, who was holidaying with his family from NSW and staying at the Sheraton Mirage Resort, is in an induced coma in Brisbane's Mater Children's Hospital with a fractured skull and severely cut leg.

He was riding his scooter with his nanny when the moped crashed into him from behind.

Police said the moped rider dragged the boy for about 20m on the front of the bike.

Other pedestrians had to jump out of the way as the moped nearly hit them while fleeing.

Gold Coast Police District Superintendent Jim Keogh said he did not know why the moped rider was illegally on the footpath.

"I don't know if it's deliberate (but) it's certainly a callous act when you consider the young boy was dragged along for some (distance)," he said.

Supt Keogh said the moped looked too 'flashy' to be from a hire company.

"Without doubt he's hit the boy and knew he struck him," he said.

Regional traffic co-ordinator Darren Soppa said hit-and-runs made up about a tenth of all accidents on the Coast.

"It means people aren't abiding by traffic regulations in that they're supposed to stop and provide details of name and address and contact details so appropriate action can be taken," he said.

Let's be realistic here, people run away from these crime scenes because they have something to hide. This guy took off in the way he did because he was drunk, stoned or guilty of something else that would have been exposed if he waited the two hours it takes for the police to show up, and that's before we even consider the illegality of the act of running away, but then, it's not as if the police or the courts ever consider that either.

I've said this before, but now would be a good opportunity to say it again, this problem requires a serious, third-world fascist police state solution. What is needed here is to bring in a penalty that includes a mandatory minimum five year prison sentence for ANY hit and run assault, and a mandatory minimum 25 years if the victim is killed. Do that, and the hit and run assaults will stop after the first two offenders are sentenced. Unfortunately, road safety just isn't a high enough priority in the eyes of the electorate, so after the usual whining, nothing will be done.

The next generation has arrived

2010-01-12T21:12:00.002+10:00

The next generation of headlight has arrived. Regular readers of this blog (both of you) have probably tired of my harping on about how wonderful my E6 headlight was, and how it enabled me to take long rides on dark, deserted country roads late at night. There were even occasions where that light allowed me to ride through the night. Pretty good, huh? Well now it appears to have been superseded.

Last night I took my first proper night ride with my newly fitted E3 headlight (which runs off the same Schmidt hub Dynamo generatior as the E6 did). It was absolutely superb. Similar in brightness, but with a wider beam than the E6, but still managed to focus most of the light on the road where it's needed, although it provided more than enough ambient light to read roadsigns and so on (and this on a dark night with NO moonlight). In fact, where the beam focussed on the road made the car headlights look dim by comparison. Yet when I hit the stretch of the ride where glow worms lined the side of the road, they weren't disturbed by excessive ambient light. I don't think much more can be asked of a light.

I'm looking forward to giving it a more solid hit out when the Audax season starts. In the meantime, I'll probably keep an E6 on hand as a back up, should anything happen to my E3 (I'm not sure how waterproof they are, and last night wasn't going to test that, unless my excessive perspiration counts). For the moment, however, I seem to have found the next generation in headlights for long distance cycling. I might just give it another run on Thursday night.

The downpour

2010-01-10T16:54:00.002+10:00

I'm late on this post, but such is life. At the end of last month, we received the first decent rain in five months, a freakish downpour that lasted several days. Of course, I rode in the rain everyday, even though it cost me a camera. Due to time constraints, most of the rides were 100km "training rides" rather than epics, so I didn't see the point of typing out massive ride reports. Instead, I'm just going to post a heap of random pictures from the various rides in the rain, just to show why rain is the ideal cycling weather -- and indeed the ideal weather for general existence.

Housekeeping - links

2009-12-31T20:42:00.004+10:00

I am somewhat guilty of neglecting this blog to a degree in recent months, and it has come to my attention that there are pages linking to this site that have not received any reciprocal links. I intend to rectify this when I return from Mullumbimby on Sunday afternoon. If your site is one of those linking to mine and you would like a reciprocal link (or if I've linked to your site incorrectly), please leave a comment at the bottom of this post, and I'll do something about it on Sunday. Please be aware, however, that the final decision on whether or not I link to you is mine, so if your site is either offensive or just plain crap, you won't get a link.

My mountain

2009-12-31T20:28:00.002+10:00

Did you know that I actually own a mountain? I have quite legitimate claims to be the owner of Mt Nimmel in it's entirety. How? As far as I'm aware, I'm the only cyclist to ride up Mt Nimmel (apart from my riding partner Martin, and he only did it after I conned him into it), but more importantly, the wikipedia entry for Mt Nimmel is take almost word for word from a post on this blog that is almost three years old. Look it up, it's true. I only wish I could claim ownership of some of the surrounding areas, such as Little Nerang Dam:

Austinville:

And anything else I might fancy around the place:

For the moment, however, Mt Nimmel remains among my most prized possessions. I promise to take good care of it, and slaughter the 20% grades on the climb on a regular basis.

Restoring the balance

2009-12-31T19:59:00.002+10:00

Does anybody in South East Queensland want to know the real reason it has started raining again, after five complete months without it? Some have claimed that it's just that the wet season has started, others have held that a tropical cyclone from Western Australia decided to cross the country instead of just going out to see like they normally do, and consequently gave everyone a good soaking. Other theories have ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, but how many of you would like to know the REAL reason?

I can reveal that the real reason for the return of the rain is down to me, and only me. Those who have been reading this blog for a while will remember that I had a nasty crash when descending a wet mountain road in July (I can't be bothered to dig up the link, you can search the archives if you want to read about it). Of course, that was the last time it rained here, even if I did get a drenching on the other side of the country in September. So what did I do to make it rain again? I crashed again, of course.

It was while climbing Springbrook, the highest peak in the Gold Coast Hinterland that it happened. I committed the cardinal sin of trying to change gear while pushing up a 15% gradient (instead of just getting into the gear before I hit the hill), causing the chain to slip off, and for some reason, at that moment, I couldn't manage to unclip from the pedals. Of course, the gradient caused the bike to stop and topple over quite quickly, leaving me on the ground. Fortunately this time I wasn't hurt (although I did spill a bit of blood), and was able to get up and slaughter the remainder of the mountain.

It has barely stopped raining since. In fact, some local flood warnings were issued earlier this week. The farmers can send their cheques to me.

Oh my Darling(ton)

2009-12-31T19:06:00.004+10:00

A couple of weeks ago it was brought to my attention that there is a mountain range around here that I haven't actually climbed. Astonishing! Even more astonishing was the fact that I have ridden past the turn off to get there many hundreds of times, without ever taking the road. Earlier this month I decided to rectify the situation.

Getting there involved a regulation ride to Canungra, taking a back road out of the town and up the range. Of course, being Canungra, the opening to the climb was mind-buggeringly steep. This wasn't a problem until I hit the dirt section, and some huge corrugations. Looking back in hindsight, perhaps it's just as well that I did this before the recent rain, because this road may well become impassable in the wet. The road flattened momentarily, before opening up into an even steeper climb on narrow, loose gravel. It seemed like a huge effort, but the reward when I reached the plateau at the top was worth the effort, with views opening up in every direction.

Riding across the top of this range was like stepping back in time 100 years, with the old farm houses, the dirt road and cattle wandering around the paddocks unrestrained. A few times I was glad I didn't wear red after catching the sight of the odd bull among the herd. Of course, anything that goes up has to come down again, albeit reluctantly. The descent back to Canungra on the corrugated dirt road was frightening, and I've never been so glad to return to that town after a ride before.

I opted to detour over Beechmont on the way home, another stiff climb, but two mountains in one morning is nothing unusual these days, and I was able to slaughter the climb. The ride across the greenery of the Beechmont Range is always beautiful, and I took my time, trying to delay the descent back to the heat of the coast for as long as possible. It was a great way to cap of a great ride.

For the two people who actually read this blog, I do have some posts to catch up on, but first I have to try to retrieve some pictures from a camera that drowned in the rain of earlier this week. Before that, there is a small matter of a weekend away, starting tomorrow. Bring it on.

Rising above

2009-12-10T19:52:00.003+10:00

Some of the people reading this from colder parts of the world may not appreciate the sentiment, but the heatwave engulfing South East Queensland is now almost four months old. Consequently, it was with some relief last Saturday that I was able to spend a couple of glorious hours riding high on the Beechmont Range, and managing to breathe some cool mountain air, while the surrounding lowlands sweltered.

I've been coming here for a number of years, at times when I've needed a quick getaway, when I've been short of time and just wanted a change of scenery. Of course, the climb up the mountain is also a good way to release the frustrations of the week, and there were plenty of those around last week. As it happened, I was climbing the mountain on about two hours' sleep from the night before, but after a slow start, the mountain air woke me up in it's gentle way.

The other thing that's astonishing on the mountain is the enternal greenery. Astonishing because it's now over five months since the last substantial rain. Yet this area never seems to be affected. It was yet another refreshing realisation as I crossed the plateau en route to Binna Burra, where another would opens up in the rainforests of Lamington National Park. On this day, however time was short, so I had to be content with a detour along the often ignored western spur of the range, where I was able to watch the mountains roll away in the distance.

It was a nice escape for a couple of hours, before returning to the coast, and the heat. It's a 7km descent from Lower Beechmont to Advancetown, and I'm fairly certain the temperature rose by at least 7 degrees during that ride. Sometimes I really wonder about the wisdom of coming home at all.

The calm after the storm

2009-11-19T20:09:00.002+10:00

It is very rare that I write about mid week rides on this blog these days. It seems I can't write anything without adding a picture, and I often don't bother to carry the camera on a quick 45km jaunt before work. For all that, however, I try to remember the camera if I'm going on a pre-work ride to Little Nerang Dam after a storm the previous night. On those occasions, there's probably a 90% chance that something spectacular will appear.

These pictures were taken at 5am, before public access to the area was even officially "open" that day. It makes me wonder just how many people are even aware of what happens out here at these times, but I also wonder how many people even care. I really believe that people are losing touch with nature, and that it's generally to their own detriment. Just take a look at the number of people living in large cities who rely on alcohol or various drugs (whether they be hard drugs, legal drugs or even anti-depressants) to get through life and you'll see what I mean. If these people put the same effort into escaping concrete as they do into obtaining their "fix", I think many of their problems would be rendered inconsequential by the sense of perspective they would gain.

On days like this, however, I have little concern for what other people are doing. I'm more interested in beholding the sight before me. On this particular day, I thought about the perspective I might get from a post-storm ride to the summit of Mt Nimmel. With the storm season in its infancy, I may get that opportunity in the future. On this day, however, I was more concerned with the beauty before me. The world is an amazing place.

Le tour de Tomewin

2009-11-10T20:55:00.002+10:00

Believe it or not, I didn't ride last weekend. I had a nasty chest infection that effectively put paid to any riding plans I had. As bad as that was, it has now given me a chance to catch up on a few blog entries that I never quite got around to writing on recent weekends. The day after the Springbrook/Mt Nimmel climb in the previous post, I decided to seek out the dirt roads on Tomewin Mountain. The showers that were around promised to add a bit of spice to the ride.

I started off with a ride through the rainforest at Urliup to commence the Tomewin climb from the south. It was perhaps a little ironic that the rain should stop as I ride through the first patch of rainforest, but there was plenty of that to come later in the ride. The rain did return for the climb of Tomewin, which allowed me to take nine minutes off the previous week's time on the 6km climb. More importantly, the rain brought out the mist on the top of the mountain, which made some of the views even more interesting.

I took the detour along Garden of Eden road, taking in the sweeping views and the rainforest. Astonishingly, the rain that fell earlier in the week (the first in four months) hadn't cut up the road at all, which made the whole thing easier to negotiate than I'd expected. The most exciting thing that happened on this stretch was reaching the end and realising my sunscreen was still at home. Fortunately, it was only a half-day ride and it was raining -- maybe I could escape the ride without any more melanomas.

After that it was time to head out along the old Glengarrie Road. Up until a few months ago, this road used to skirt the top of the range, before winding it's way back to the coast at Bilambil. The rich boys have moved in and now the road at the top of the pass is impassable, but much of the road from the western side is still rideable, and still beautiful. I followed it across the top of the range, taking in the views until I reached the really rough part, before returning to the main road. I realised on this stretch just how much I miss the ability to ride the full circuit.

On the final descent on the ride home there was a final surprise. One of the old mountain houses was being raided by peacocks. One of them was sitting majestically on the front gate when I arrived, but didn't hang around for long enough to take a picture. Still, it was an interesting way to finish the ride, and gives me the opportunity of another half-day ride to add to my list.

Back to the mountains

2009-11-04T20:00:00.003+10:00

Last Saturday I made good on my promise to return to the mountains as quickly as possible. I had also hoped for a little rain, but I would have to wait another day for that. Still, the temperature did cool a little when I reached the higher parts of Springbrook, which made it all a worthwhile exercise. It's always interesting to observe the way that each mountain has it's own character, and Springbrook is no exception. It's one of those things you have to be there to experience.

What has been intersting about this part of the world in the last month or so has been the colour in the scenery created by the blooming of the flame trees and the jacarandas. This, of course, won't be around much longer, but the little picnic area at the bottom of the mountain had turned almost completely purple as a couple of grand old jacarandas started to drop their flowers. On the other hand, the blooming of the red flame trees six weeks early explains why it's been so bloody hot lately.

I couldn't help but have Mt Nimmel for desert on the way home -- a slight detour, but worth every one of the 8km extra. Oddly, the steep gradients didn't bother me in the heat, and there were even a couple of locals hanging around to cheer me on. Most of my rides up this mountain are either at night or early in the morning, so it was interesting to take in the different appearance of the views slightly later in the day. Absolutely beautiful.

Round two

2009-10-29T20:40:00.002+10:00

Saturday was round two of my annual war against summer. I decided on a long ride in the Byron Hinterland in Northern New South Wales. I was hoping for 200km, but ultimately ended up with 193km. That said, considering the state in which I finished the ride, I wasn't about to complain.

I started off heading south along the Tweed Coast after clearing the first 45km or so of suburbia. I had a roaring tailwind in the early part of the ride, which, of course, meant that it would not only be a headwind on the way home, but a hot northerly. I opted to try to make up time by attacking when I had the tailwind early on. It was counterintuitive, but I felt it was worth a shot on this occasion.

The Coolamon Scenic Drive behind Mullumbimby was the day's destination, with it's sweeping views up and down the north coast after the climb. What was noticeable today was how dry the landscape had become after four months without rain. One hopes the wet season arrives soon. There really is a different vibe around the countryside in this part of the world, and it was still in evidence today, but I was more concerned about the heat after the descent from the plateau back to the coastal plain.

The string of hills through the Burrinbar range and across Tomewin provided some relief from the wind on the final stretch home, but the heat became more intense. The final climb of Tomewin today took longer than it had with a full touring load two months ago. The views were spectacular as usual, however, so I had something to keep me occupied. I was also fortunate that a storm started to move across when I returned to the urban coastal strip, as it cooled the temperature by about five degrees C. If it had only brought some rain with it.

In the end it was quite a memorable ride, even if it left me exhausted at the end. This weekend I'll be back in the mountains.

Tosspot of the week

2009-10-16T20:46:00.002+10:00

This week's award goes to Frank Farina, former coach of the Brisbane Roar football (or "soccer" as it's known to the uncultured) club. If it wasn't bad enough that he was done for drunk driving on the way to training for the second time in three years (does anyone realise what an achievement it is to be caught twice by the Queensland police? It's a little bit like being struck by lightning twice), he then sought to blame everyone else instead of pointing the blame where it truly belongs this time around.

But on a day where the Roar would thrust, Farina was there to parry. He said legal advice had shown there was no clause in any of his contracts that suggested he would be sacked should he be caught drink driving again.

"Not in the contract that I've got. The previous contract for two years, it wasn't in there. The new one was just a continuation," he said. "Contrary to what people have said, the first time I wasn't under contract at the Brisbane Roar."

After labelling the Roar a club rife with internal problems, Farina then adjusted his sights to target the FFA, an organisation with which he has had a rocky relationship in the past. He said he had no doubt the FFA pressured the Roar to sack him, although Bombolas has since denied the suggestion.

"I think def there was some pressure, without doubt," Farina said. "And in the board meeting - I've got nothing to lose here - they (the Roar) did say to me they were getting pressure from the FFA.

"Whether that's because the FFA were talking of coming in (to be part-owners), I'm not sure. I don't know how I've upset people, whether it be on our board or elsewhere. Maybe it's because I speak my mind."

Here is a coach being paid a reported $250,000 per annum, who was caught with a blood alcohol content of twice the legal limit, on the way to work for the second time, and he thinks the only reason he was fired was because the club were "under pressure" from the FFA. I would simply ask what Farina would have done had it been one of his players who had turned up drunk for training? Actually, the answer to that may not be as certain as we think.

I was actually at Lang Park (I still can't bring myself to call it by it's politically correct name just yet) to watch Brisbane get beaten by Gold Coast United on the weekend. I have to say that the club in general just seems to have a problem with discipline at the moment. Some of the fouls committed by some of their players on the field (those who actually weren't suspended) were pretty obvious, and pretty pathetic. If the club were wondering why they have a poor disciplinary record this season, they only need look at the guy setting the example, and then trying to pass the blame off to everyone else.

A worthy Tosspot of the Week.

The impostor!

2009-10-13T20:47:00.002+10:00

Around 80km to the south of here is a dirt road climbing over a range that passes through Mt Jerusalem National Park. This climb is quite steep in places (particularly from the north side), so much so that for a long time I actually mistook it for the real Mt Jerusalem. Ironically, it was only after I discovered that it was a fake that I discovered many of the other attractions in the area. However, last Saturday was all about incorporating the ride as part of a circuit. For once it was a cool day -- at 24 degrees C it felt more like winter than summer, so I was going to make the most of it.

The rainforest of Urliup is now my regular start to most of the southern rides. It was once the regular ride home, until I was reminded that the climb over Tomewin to get home cuts out around 10km of suburbia. At the start or the finish, Urliup is still quite pleasant. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that the rally last month hadn't torn the place to shreds. It was also interesting to see that someone obviously reads this blog because some tracks indicated someone HAD actually taken a road bike along the now very smooth dirt road. Interesting.

Further south, it looks like the local sugar cane farmers have taken to burning some of their crops for some reason. I'm not quite sure what this achieves, but I can only guess that sugar is a product that doesn't store very well, meaning there's no point having it on hand if you don't get a decent price for it immediately. The strong southerly wind that was around blew the smoke away fairly quickly regardless, and it was now time to start the series of climbs over Round Mountain and Cudgera Creek, to the next phase of the ride.

It seems as though my blog is making me something of a celebrity in these parts, and sometimes the recognition comes in the most out of the way places. This conversation informed me, among other things, that the dirt road over the Impostor would be in a treacherous condition due to the amount of dust around. Fortunately, a couple of rain showers eased that problem by the time I hit the climb. There really is something unbelievably beautiful about the Australian bush when it's wet. It's an intangible quality that really has to be experienced because it just can't be described.

The descent into Uki was notable for the dropping temperature in the rain -- now just 14 degrees C, which at this time of year is a little like snow on the Equator. At Uki I ran into group of hippies who were on a short (three day) bike tour of the Tweed Valley. One of them had broken a derailleur a few kilometres up the road, and had limped into the village. The nearest bike shop was in Murwillumbah, and that was closed. They were asking people in the village if anyone had an old bike from which they could salvage the part they needed. Last I heard they were heading for the Murwillumbah rubbish tip (wherever that is) to try to find an old bike there. Given that the ride back to Banora Point where they started is basically flat, they might as well have just ridden straight back.

For my part, I still had the final climb over Tomewin to navigate, and that was after a surprising headwind between Uki and Murwillumbah. What was surprising about this is that it required the wind to come from the North, when it had spent the rest of the day coming from the South quite strongly. Normal service was resumed just after Murwillumbah, so I'm not sure what the wind was on about here. Either way, it was forgotten with a clinical demolition of the Tomewin climb. While it wasn't my fastest time, it was still pretty good at the end of a ride of this length, and left me with plenty in reserve to mop up the last 30km from the top.

I finished the day with 180km, and still felt fine that the finish. Since returning from my tour, all I've wanted to do is ride. I thought motivation was supposed to go the other way after a tour, but I'm not complaining.

Awesome!

2009-10-12T20:54:00.002+10:00

Last night I capped off what had been an awesome weekend by seeing another live show from Sarah Blasko in Brisbane. I've written a number of posts here talking about her music in the past, but as a live performer she is something else. It's very rare to go to a concert with incredibly high expectations and find that they're actually exceeded, but everytime I go and see Sarah, it happens. In short, if you haven't been to see Sarah Blasko live, why are you still alive?

It's hard to words that can really do justice to such an incredible performance, but I did dig up a youtube video of Sarah performing "Hammer" from a concert a couple of years ago. Apparently you tube don't want me to embed this video here for some reason (it usually works, but it doesn't want to tonight). Actually, this video may not even do her justice, but for anyone who's interested, it may provide a taste of what I've been raving about for the best part of five years.

Round one

2009-10-05T21:02:00.003+10:00

Summer has now officially commenced, with the first hot ride of the season coming about two days into it. Saturday was as hot as promised, and may have been a few degrees warmer than the predicted 33, but as long as there are mountains out there to climb, I'll be in the thick of the action. At least I was able to spend some time at an altitude that was a couple of degrees cooler than the coast on the 165km epic. I wouldn't have achieved that by staying at home.

It was an interesting feeling at the start of this ride, the anticipation of the day ahead was replaced by relief. All week my body has been craving the endorphins that it became accustomed to on tour, and the initial 16km to clear suburbia was more or less what I needed. The real ride started after Canungra -- around 36km in, for the long, gradual climb to O'Reillys Plateau. I decided to just pace myself on this climb, particularly the opening 15km@3.5%. The mountain views at the summit were somewhat hindered by the haze that came from bushfires, dust storms and all the other things that happened while I was hogging the rain on the other side of the country, but the higher parts through the rainforest were still stunning.

The wind was doing some pretty insane things on the switchback descent of that mountain. It might have worried me on another day, but today I had another mountain to throw at it, and so it was that I returned to Canungra and started the long grind up the western side of Beechmont. This climb can be brutal on a hot day, climbing on the opposite side of the range to where the wind normally blows. Today, however, it was doubtful if the northerly wind would have cooled me off anyway, so with the liberal use of the granny ring I reached the summit reasonably comfortably.

Two magpies appeared to try to take my head off as soon as I reached the summit, meaning there was no time for a victory salute. There was, however, the unmistakable sense that the wind was now from the north west, meaning a tail wind once I started the descent from Lower Beechmont. So it was, that after stocking up on fluids and ice cream at the Lower Beechmont store, I was able to zoom home around 30 minutes faster than I had been expecting. I guess I'm still underestimating myself a bit. Another memorable ride in the mountains, even if the heat did affect me a little at the finish. One of the often forgotten benefits of going away on a bike tour is that it refreshes one's appetite for local rides after the event. I plan on making the most of that in coming weeks.

33

2009-10-02T20:21:00.002+10:00

A few things seem to be going unnoticed lately. I quietly returned from Western Australia last Sunday, and I quietly had a birthday yesterday. Apparently 33 is supposed to be the start of mid-life crisis in a man (so I've heard somewhere), but as a cynical Gen-Xer, I expect I'll probably be immune to that, and consequently, I don't really have any special insights to offer at this point. I have, however, decided to get myself a little birthday present in the form of a ticket to the Sarah Blasko concert in Brisbane in just over a week -- the extra show that's been added after the original one sold out weeks ago.

By a curious coincidence, 33 also represents the forecast temperature tomorrow (in degrees celsuis if anyone was confused) on what is going to be my first solid ride since I came home. That could make things intersting, considering that I've just spent three weeks in Western Australia's coldest and wettest September in as long as anyone can remember. How cold was it? When I climbed Bluff Knoll in the Stirling Ranges, it actually snowed! Well, I was planning to meet the summer heat head on this year, and there's nothing wrong with starting tomorrow.

For those who are wondering, I do plan on finishing the narrative and adding pictures to my (to date) sadly neglected WA page on crazyguyonabike.com, I'm just not sure exactly when I'll get around to it.

Time to go again

2009-09-03T21:43:00.002+10:00

Finally! It's here! Saturday morning I leave for Western Australia, and three weeks of cycletouring. As a result, this blog now goes on hold for three weeks or so (until I get back and have something to write about). Those who want to follow my tour can do so here, where I have also uploaded pictures and a trip report from last weekend's warm up in the Byron Hinterland. Adios!

Summer has returned

2009-08-27T21:20:00.002+10:00

This week summer has returned, and will probably hang around for another eight months or so. Sunday's ride hit 33 degrees C, despite the fact that it's supposed to "officially" be "winter". I had set out on a ride through the northern end of the Tweed Valley, culminating in a steep climb on dirt up a mountain behind Mt Warning. In truth, this mountain climb would be the most pleasant part of the day, passing through rainforest sprinkled with spring flowers.

It was interesting to note that both this road and Urliup road (the other dirt road) have been 'upgraded' in preparation for an "off-road" rally around the Tweed Valley. My understanding of these events is that they are somehow supposed to be run in 'extreme' conditions, yet these dirt roads (apart from the uphill grind on Tyalgum Ridge Road) could have easily been ridden on a road bike, so many times have they been graded. I guess the risk of law suits is a bigger concern than the integrity of a car rally.

For my part, I descended Condowie road a little faster than usual on the smoother surface, then returned to Tyalgum through the rolling hills. Reaching the bottom of the valley gave me a good blast of hot northerly wind, and I realised the remainder of the day was going to be difficult. I even canned the detour out along Pinnacle Road because I figured I would need more time to get home. I was right, too. I crested the two hills out of Tyalgum, but totally ran out of legs shortly after passing the village of Chillingham, and I still had one more major climb to come.

I detoured on Chilcott's Road, figuring it would be my last chance for a while to ride across a flooded creek (it hasn't actually rained in these parts for around two months), then continued along my way. I managed to get absolutely hammered by the hot north-easterly winds in the canefields near Murwillumbah, and my speed even dropped to 18km/h on the flat at one point! I made it to the climb of Tomewin, which actually provided some relief -- even if I rode the 6km climb a full seven minutes slower than two weeks ago in cooler temperatures. Even the ride up the coastal strip at the end was slow in the wind and the heat. One hopes the performance in the heat might improve as I adjust to it.

* * * * * *

In the coming weeks I have bigger fish to fry. This weekend is a long weekend in this part of the world, meaning another bike tour. This weekend I'm looking at three days in the Byron Hinterland, and the following weekend I fly to Perth for three weeks in Western Australia. So much riding to do and so little time!

2009-08-23T18:30:00.002+10:00

Yesterday morning I decided to take out The Blonde Assassin for some action on the dirt. The venue was going to be the old horse trail somewhere behind Mudgeeraba. It actually turned out to be an extremely beautiful morning -- before the heat set in. Most of the trail was in surprisingly good condition (apart from the totally unrideable gradients at the end). Perhaps the most obvious thing that I noticed was the start of the wildflower season. Oddly, there hasn't been a great deal when I walked the Dave's Creek circuit at Binna Burra, which is noted for them. However, they came out here yesterday.

Further along the trail, it descends to the water, which surprisingly, turns out to be a spur of the Hinze Dam, many kilometres to the north. That was when I decided to ride to Little Nerang Dam on the way home and link up the two dams. The subsequent decision to also ride up Mt Nimmel may not have been the wisest I've ever made with a big ride following the next day, but Mt Nimmel offers great views when you actually reach the summit -- even if your legs invariably fall off on the climb.

I defy anyone to tell me anywhere else you would see such a variety of scenery in the space of just 57km.

The destruction of Tomewin

2009-08-20T21:32:00.002+10:00

Hard to believe that it's almost two weeks since I produced what will probably go down as my most devastating performance of the year. It was earlier this month that the 200k randonee in the Tweed Valley was held. It was an a-typical August day in these parts because the wind was strong from the south. Consequently I took my time heading south through the Hogan rainforest toward Murwillumbah. The hilly detour out to Tyalgum provided some relief, before the wind went to work again on the southern run to Uki.

The wind wasn't finished yet of course, but the climb over the Burringbar range was always going to silence it quickly. After the turn around just south of Mooball and hitting the Tweed coast for the run home with a tailwind, it always takes a while to adjust to actually riding with the wind. This is something I've never quite understood, but I've been around long enough to learn not to rush it. Refusing to rush it was going to prove a smart decision later in the day. After leaving the Tweed coast at Cabarita and heading inland, the ride loses much of it's scenic interest until the final climb at Tomewin.

My previous best time on this climb had been 23.15, a ride after which I soon picked up a nasty illness (to go with the crash that followed my previous record time). Consequently, I wasn't intending to break the record today. Two km into the climb I decided to go on the attack anyway on the grounds that I still felt good. I figured I wouldn't get near my record time, but I could still have a crack at it. Well I kept attacking the steep bit, cleared it, and reached the final kilometre which now had an easier gradient. I wanted to attack here as well, but my legs had nothing left. I resigned myself to not getting the record, but still being satisfied with getting close. Then I rounded a corner and saw the summit ahead of me -- I was actually going to pull it off! The final time ended up being 22.30, with 185km in my legs that day already!

After that I slaughtered the remainder of the ride with ease, which was hardly surprising considering it was mainly down hill, with a tailwind, and I was already inspired. I know I'm unlikely to get near that time again this year (this weekend is already forecast to hit 30 degrees C, and it's only going to get warmer). For all that, however, I was extremely satisfied with what I did that day, and there are plenty of other great days to come.

Going to hell

2009-08-11T21:00:00.002+10:00

One of these days I promise to actually get a post uploaded right away. It won't be today however. In this case, I'm around nine days late in documenting what was one of the best rides of the year -- to a place called Hell's Hole, hidden in Mt Jerusalem National park. This day was made special because of what came before I got anywhere near the destination, and started with a climb over Tomewin right on sunrise. What followed was quite spectactular and totally unexpected.

I descended into the Tweed Valley, into almost freezing temperatures (4 degrees C on the valley floor), and into a thick mist and a southerly wind blast that came out of absolutely nowhere. This route passes the bottom of Mt Warning, but the mountain might as well have spent a morning at the beach for all I knew, as visibility was only around 200 metres or so. I was actually pondering whether or not the condensation in the air might clean some of the dirt off the bike, so thick was it. Yet by the time I started the next climb to the national park, it was all but gone.

There are some really stunning patches of rainforest in Mt Jerusalem National Park, but Spring is also the wildflower season. The flowers seen in this area don't seem to make it to the nearby Lamington or Nightcap national parks, but here they find a home. Today I was meeting some friends at the top of the final climb for the final walk to Hell's Hole itself, and the waterfalls that surround it. This is a truly beautiful area, and one that I only discovered, believe it or not, last year.

Today a few members of the group got even more ambitious, and tried to descend to the big rock pool at the bottom. Nobody made it of course, as I understand it has to be approached from a track on the other side, followed by a scramble along the creek. I've since looked at a topographic map of the area, which suggests that it may even be a different creek, but that's an adventure for another day. While this effort didn't make it to the rock pool, it did yield a slightly different view of the waterfall at the end that drops right into the Hole itself.

After all this it was time to retire to the cafe in Uki for (in my case) a double-serving of lunch before the ride home. If there was one sad thing to come from the day, it's looking at what the Tweed Shire Council have done to Urliup Road, as they appear to be preparing to seal what may be my favourite dirt road in the world at present. This would, of course, be a tragedy for all of mankind, but I guess it was inevitable sooner or later. Still, this would be an opportune time to remind the Tweed Shire Council of what happened last time they upset me. They have been warned!

Cop that!

2009-07-30T21:16:00.003+10:00

I am now officially "back" after a bout of bronchitis followed by a "recovery" time that was longer than I had hoped. I did manage a couple of rides last weekend (which I will write about when I get a few spare minutes), but I had no power. Tonight's ride as a different matter, a final confirmation that I am officially "back".

The original plan had been a ride to Little Nerang Dam, and I did manage a blistering start, but a little further along, some thick bushfire smoke coated the surrounding hills, not something I wanted to ride through. I rode the top of a short 2km climb before turning for home. I still felt strong, so when I saw the turn off for Monaro Road, I decided one more climb might suit things. 3km horizontally and 300 metres of height later, I was "back".

The early part of the climb was easy enough, but later on came the kick. I'm not sure of the gradient, but I felt as though I was on the edge, before the road turned a corner and steepened even further. I had to increase the intensity. The moonlight revealed a climb that seemed to go on forever, at a ridiculous gradient. I maintained the consistency, getting in touch with my inner leech, and just hanging on. In a grim kind of way, I began to enjoy it. I must have been doing alright, because I reached the summit sooner than I'd expected, and took in a spectacular view over the lights of the coast bathed in moonlight. That felt goooood!

The arch

2009-07-19T21:07:00.002+10:00

I have to be honest and say that being sick totally sucks. I have basically done NOTHING for the last five days because of a nasty case of bronchitis according to my doctor. I think I would have been better off with swine flu -- at least then I could have seen the doctor for an OINKment. Still it does give me a chance to catch up on some of the posts I haven't made lately (or in other words, crap on about rides I did last week or the week before). When I'm back on the bike, hopefully tomorrow, I'll then have something more interesting to talk about.

The previous weekend I headed for Numinbah Valley again, as I didn't really have the time or inclination for a 200k epic, and I had to back up and ride to Brisbane the next day. This area is always pleasant for a quick 115km, especially when it's combined with a crossing of the Wunburra Range at Springbrook, then a climb out of the Tweed Valley at Tomewin (more on that later). This day was going to be slightly different, however, because I decided to visit the Natural Arch (pictured at the top of the page), hidden away in the rainforest.

Last year there had been speculation in the local tabloid that the Natural Arch was actually closed to the public, due to the fact that the cave roof was about to collapse. Everyone else seemed to think so, because there was nobody there on the morning I visited. Yet there were also no signs indicating any closure of the area. There was nothing to stop me from walking right into the cave itself. It is, of course, entirely possible that the whole story was a media beat-up (it wouldn't be the first time). I doubt the National Parks mob would have allowed anyone to do any work on the cave itself, but either way, it was just as beautiful as I remember it, even if the walking track was/is a little over-developed.

All that was left now was to finish the climb over Numinbah Gap, drop down into the Tweed Valley, and then climb home over Tomewin. Throughout the morning I had been hammered by a southerly wind that forced me to ride through Numinbah Valley at a touring pace, now it was payback time. I responded by setting a fastest ever time for the climb over Tomewin -- 23.15, 45 seconds off my previous best. Once again, I thought I'd blown it on the steep mid-section, and once again I realised in the last kilometre that I had it beaten. I can only assume that the "mid-section" is closer to the summit than the bottom. A great way to spend a morning if ever there was one.

Is this the world's oldest bike?

2009-07-04T21:10:00.003+10:00

I saw this machine at a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition in Brisbane earlier today (although this particular picture was nicked from a random flickr account). Apparently Leonardo Da Vinci came up with this design sometime around 1493, although it was probably never built because, being 400 years ahead of it's time (like most of Da Vinci's designs), it was probably greeted with a lot of "that will never work" critiques.

There are some suggestions flying around on the Internet that this may be a hoax. Still, I have to confess that I was wondering how it would ride up Mt Nimmel when I saw it.

My ride up Mt Nimmel in the moonlight on Wednesday was the best I've had since my crash last week. I've been feeling my way back just to make sure my knee is 100%, and it seems to be close after it coped with Mt Nimmel. In the meantime, I've been turning my attetion to other things as, much to my chagrin, I can't go and ride 250km each day. Last night I went to a free concert in Brisbane from local band The Boat People. Those who remember when I used to make the occasional music post on this blog would be aware of them, those who aren't should click on the link and take a listen. They put on a great live show, these guys are the real deal.

Crash

2009-06-22T20:00:00.002+10:00

There is nothing nice about crashing. I can't say I've ever enjoyed the experience, and if I ride long enough to accumulate another million kilometres, I don't expect I ever will. It's not so much the injuries sustained (although in my case, these have never included so much as a broken fingernail), it's more the time off the bike that follows (two days so far and I'm already climbing the walls), and the anger in the immediate aftermath of the crash that never quite subsides, the wishing you could go back and navigate that corner again just one more time, and all the things you would do differently.

Yes, mine happened on the descent from O'Reilly's Plateau at Lamington National Park on Saturday in the wet. For me the really annoying thing was that it was the absolute last corner of the descent that I failed to navigate, having easily dealt with every other corner on that 14km descent. I suppose I should look on the bright side and be glad I didn't crash higher up the mountain (as I did in 2002) and have to deal with cooler temperatures and the prospect of still having half the descent to do, yet it's still rather annoying.

The day itself had been wet, and the temperature barely made it into double figures on the mountain itself, yet conditions in the valley below were pleasant enough to make me think about climbing Beechmont for an encore on the way home. The dropping temperatures on the climb didn't concern me because I generally enjoy riding in the rain. Today there was an added bonus as the rainforest on the final 7km of the climb came alive even more than usual.

Of course, the descent on that higher part of the mountain was freezing, but I had brought a long a jacket I'd bought in New Zealand some three years previously. It hasn't had much use on this side of the Tasman, but it justified it's price tag today. I even detoured out to Kamarun Lookout, just a little off the "main" road to take in some really spectacular views of the clouds swirling around the mountains on what had been a truly remarkable day in terms of the weather.

Of course, my crash at the bottom put paid to any plans I had of returning over Beechmont and another ride in the clouds. That said, I was genuinely surprised how well I handled the final 50km ride home, particularly the climbs on the gorge road from Canungra. It was only the flat final stretch after Nerang that caused limbs to stiffen up and the loss of blood started to pose an issue. I ended up buying an energy drink at a convenience store to make sure I got through it all. That said, the final damage hasn't been too significant - despite the blood stains on that cycling jersey that didn't come out in the wash. My knee looks to be regaining flexibility already, and I could be back on the bike in time for the weekend. God knows I need it.

I have my mountain back!

2009-06-15T20:30:00.002+10:00

One of my cycling goals this year is to ride a vertical century, or accumulate 100 miles of total climbing before December 31. Oddly, I was actually a little behind schedule until last month, when I managed 17km of climbing in 31 days. Yet I had to do all that without being able to climb the highest mountain in the area, as it has been closed by the landslide that came within 15 minutes of killing me for the last two months. Well, the road to Springbrook was re-opened last week, but as I was touring around Crows Nest, I didn't get a crack at it until Saturday morning. It's amazing how I didn't think what happened last time, and simply headed straight for it.

The landslide from before took out quite a chunk of the mountain, and the view from the inside of one particular narrow switchback will be scarred for some time. Oddly, given the length of time that the road was closed, there was surprisingly little work done in the area - only the erection of a rather flimsy 'fence' that won't even slow another landslide should it happen next wet season. Nevertheless, it was a good feeling to be back. Each mountain climb has a unique feeling about it, and Springbrook's was in evidence on a cool morning. I realised how much I've missed it since that crazy April day.

Yet something else about that place that's not often noticed is just how many different things there are to see, be it flower or exotic plants. I think that's why I keep coming back, even when the mountain threatens to throw rocks at me. Still, I don't mind, the variety gives me a great escape from suburbia, and a great way to spend a morning. Now that I have my mountain back, nothing is going to stop me!

The awakening

2009-06-09T20:24:00.003+10:00

Again it seems to have been a while between posts. Actually, there are a few things that have been happening, but I've not had time to write anything lately. Last weekend I finally made it to Crows Nest National Park for a three day bike tour, the one I've been planning for almost three years. It was beautiful as expected, and a few other little events made it more interesting than I'd hoped.

I'm also taking pictures on a new camera after the previous one took an impromptu swim in Mt Cougal Creek at Dickfos Falls a week and a half ago when I fell on it. The old camera took over 2,200 pictures in the 18 months or so that I had it, so perhaps it was time for an upgrade. I've gone for another Canon camera because I've always been impressed with the pictures they take, but the resolution of this one is 10 MP. The rate at which these things are improving is almost scary, I remember 5MP being state-of-the-art just a few years ago, now 10 MP is relatively inexpensive. That said, I'm still hoping to save the last few pictures from the old camera.

Finally, changed the route by which I was riding to work, by more or less restoring my old commute through Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach. I now have a 26km round trip as opposed to the 17km round trip that just wasn't doing it for me before, and I get to spend a big chunk of the ride next to the ocean. On the other hand, passing through Surfers Paradise enables me to observe some of the great nonsensical situations of mankind.

For the last two weeks there has been a guy holding up one of those stop/go signs that is used to control traffic in road construction zones. His problem? He's at least a kilometre away from the nearest bit of construction that's actually going on. I'm not entirely sure what this is supposed to achieve. I do realise that all current construction projects relating to public infrastructure aren't due to be completed until at least 2010 (there are no elections this year at any level of government around here), but really, this is a waste of time even allowing for that fact. Oh well, I'm sure I'll have plenty of similar tales to relate in the coming months.

The Blonde Assassin

2009-05-25T20:25:00.003+10:00

I will concede that it may be a strange name, but in view of the colour scheme of my new MTB, and in view of something that happened on Saturday, I think it's wholly appropriate. Martin and I decided on a slightly shorter ride taking in Urliup and Tomewin, with a slight detour out to the Garden of Eden on the dirt. The reason for the shorter ride was largely to do with the crazy weather that we've been experiencing lately. Only on Friday, someone in Surfers Paradise had been killed by a tree branch being driven through a window, but that's not enough to keep me off the bike for a day.

As it happened, we did get battered by a headwind while heading south, but the rainforest at Urliup provides shelter against the most vicious wind in existence, and in truth, despite the extravagant language used in some of the news reports, I still recall encountering stronger winds in both New Zealand and Scotland in the past. Still, we also had to negotiate FIVE flooded creek crossings in the first 45km of the ride to reach the start of the climb of Tomewin.

I had never managed to do this climb in under 25 minutes before Saturday, and I didn't look like I would this time either, as my early attack faded alarmingly quickly. However, when the climb kicked up to 11% in the middle, I felt strangely comfortable. At the higher end, where the gradient eased to something a little more sane, I realised I had more than enough time to finish this one off. I did it in just under 24 minutes at it turned out, on the first ride on an MTB!? I think The Blonde Assassin is highly appropriate after this.

We took a detour on the very beautiful but very cut up Garden of Eden road at the top. These days we can no longer ride across the top of the ridge back to Bilambil, so we had to settle for the out and back ride on the western side. I'm still trying to figure out how there were no leeches in the rainforest on a day like this. After this little detour, it was a simple matter of descending Tomewin, and coasting home on the back of the tailwind. The only noteworthy thing that happened on the rest of the day was a successful "test" of my disc brakes on the 14% section of the descent in the wet.

I feel sorry for those suckers who stayed inside during the wind and the rain. I really do.

Tosspot of the week

2009-05-25T19:48:00.002+10:00

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry over this story.

Two friends held mobile phones to each other's heads pretending they were guns when one grabbed a loaded firearm and fatally fired at the other, a court has heard.

Driver Scott Quantrelle, 26, fatally shot his front-seat passenger and friend Luke Pollock early on Sunday while in a moving car, the Melbourne Magistrates' Court has heard.

Detective Senior Constable Sallyanne Leach said the pair were holding mobile phones to each other's heads pretending they were guns before the incident at Seaford in Melbourne's southeast.

As Quantrelle drove, he grabbed a loaded sawn-off .22 gauge firearm that was in the car, and the gun discharged, wounding Pollock, she said.

Pollack, aged in his 20s, from the Seaford/Frankston area, suffered a head wound and died. He was driven to a home in Seaford, where police were called about 1.10am (AEST) on Sunday.

Det Sen Const Leach said Quantrelle tried to resuscitate Pollack and waited at the scene while paramedics worked.

She said Quantrelle had known the trigger was sensitive.

Quantrelle, of Seafood, is charged with manslaughter and six other counts including recklessly causing serious injury, reckless conduct, possessing an unregistered handgun and ammunition without a licence.

I suppose to doesn't technically qualify as a Darwin Award, but it's probably the next best thing. Apparently the offender is up on seven different charges, but we really need an eighth charge to include "being a dickhead".

Perfect timing

2009-05-21T22:01:00.002+10:00

Perfect timing is sometimes the most important thing when it comes to experiencing the awesome power of nature. After two days of wild weather culminating in floods, road closures and trees coming down, I managed to get out for a quick 45km ride this evening. I left a little later than usual because of time I had to spend doing other things, but that may have been for the best. I headed for Little Nerang Dam, but at the crossing of Mudgeeraba Creek near Austinville, some sirens illuminated a "road closed" sign.

A quick discussion with a council worker told me I had arrived around 10 minutes after the water had fallen below the road level (although not by very much as it turned out), so I was able to continue. A little further along I turned off, and started climbing the gorge to Little Nerang Dam, this was where the ride really got interesting. My eyes for the moment had to focus on avoiding some debris, which took a little more work than expected due to some thick fog that covered parts of the ride, but my ears were given the treat this time. On one side of the gorge I could hear cascading waterfalls, on the other, the torrent that Little Nerang Creek had become.

On reaching the summit and descending right to the dam wall, it got even better. Little Nerang Dam simply wasn't designed to hold the volume of water that was now flowing in from the downpours in the mountains around, and the gorge below had flooded. Somehow some ambient light had made it's way here (from where I don't know, there was no moon up), and I could clearly see the torrent cutting through the gorge between Mt Nimmel and the Wunburra Range, the former shrouded in cloud.

Yet away from the power of this torrent, the other side of the dam wall was the complete opposite. The almost total lack of wind in the valley had given the lake an appearance not unlike glass. There was not a ripple in the water, and I could clearly see the reflection of Springbrook and the surrounding hills. In the sky, there was a clear view of a million stars above. All of this, was just a matter of perfect timing, and nothing more.

Upper Ormeauning

2009-05-18T20:22:00.002+10:00

Someone needs to tell me not to make all "recovery" rides over 100km, but for the moment I can't help myself. So it was yesterday, as I 'recovered' from another epic day in Lamington National Park on Saturday (more on that when my Internet connection is working properly), I opted for a not-so-quick 108km into the valley at Upper Ormeau, to the north of the Gold Coast. Just how I originally discovered this place, and what motivated me to come here five years ago I don't know. While the valley itself is undoubtedly beautiful, there is nothing in the surrounding areas to suggest there would be anything worth seeing here.

As it was, yesterday I took it in for the first time since 2006, and wondered just why I had stayed away for so long. I guess the 90km return ride through less than inspiring places can't justify the pretty 18km or so in the valley. Whatever the reason, it was good to be back.

History

2009-05-11T20:05:00.002+10:00

After a late night Saturday night I was chasing a shorter ride yesterday, just 117km. Since Springbrook road is still closed after a landslide, I decided to do the old Numinbah Valley ride the old way, via Advancetown lake. There was another detour required, through Latimers Crossing Road, because the road over Hinze Dam is also closed (as it has been since 2006). Still, it was pleasant, but the real attraction started on the old Nerang-Murwillumbah Road near the lake.

The road twists and turns, climbs and descents sharply by the lakeside in the shadow of the Beechmont Range. I should take this route more often, or perhaps I shouldn't. A causeway has been named Shingles Creek since I was last here, I was wondering if Swine Flu was going to be next. Still, the headwind slowed me down much more than any illness would have done. Numinbah Valley is like a funnel when the southerly wind blows, intensifying the wind speed to three times what it is anywhere else in the area.

At the southern end, the valley flattens out, then climbs gradually, revealing spectacular views of Springbrook to the East, and Lamington National Park to the west, while climbing through rolling greenery. When the southerly blows, it's virtually impossible to feel the climb, but the scenery compensates. Just a few kilometres before the NSW border, the Natural Arch can be visited, or at least it could be if it were not also closed. It seems "closure" is the order of the day, but not in a legal sense. It gave me something to ponder as I crested the Macpherson range, and descended into the Tweed Valley.