Self Righteous Cyclist

Yes, another story about cycling and coffee, with gratuitous cross promotion.  Recently I have seen more of Sydney, than my home base of Melbourne which has been a great opportunity to soak up the cycling culture of a different city.  More about the public opinion of Sydney's self appointed queen of cycling Clover Moore later.  Clover deserves her own post!  This post is dedicated to the little things which make cycling easier. Last Thursday, 30th October at Milsons Point on the North Sydney side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge the Bicycle Network and the coffee crew from Rapha worked very hard to capture cyclists attention to sign up new members prior to the end of October.  They were there offering free shots of coffee and Carmen's Dark Choc Espresso Nut bars .  Now I'm listening.  Actually I have been a Bicycle Network member for the past 5 years and will continue to do so.  The organisation is the peak body for representing cyclists' interests in Australia, off

Few drinks slake a hot summer’s day thirst like a cold beer.  Lager, bitter, wheat beer, Ale, Pilsner or stout, we all have our favourites.  But it’s winter in Melbourne and the love of a cold beer goes on. A couple of weeks ago I went down the local football ground to watch the second half of the game.  As I wandered along the outer wing I spied a small slab of Victoria Bitter strapped to a bike rack, complete with a Kransky in a roll resting on top.  The bike was angled on the slight rise so the next beer would just roll out gravity assisted.  A couple of geniuses if you ask me.  Fortunately for Matt & Matt pictured below it was about 10 degrees and the beer would stay cool for the remainder of the afternoon without any ice.  Like many great inventions Matt stumbled across the idea after going to his local bottle shop and wondered how he was going to get his mini slab home.  Eureka, the bike rack and a couple of octopus straps saved the day. Fast forward 2 days lat

I was reading a Mizuno advertisement recent which posed the question, "what if everyone ran?" Great question I thought and next I plugged my question into my search engine "what if everyone rode a bike?" and discovered I wasn't the first.  Rather than write a blog on the topic I'm going to throw this question out to my blog readers, twitter followers, Linked In colleagues and Facebook family and friends for the next week.   Here's your chance to write a line or two, a whole paragraph or a page.  Make it fun, make it serious.  To quote a tag line from another shoe maker, just do it!   Your thoughts will be pulled together and updated in this blog next week....... Well ok, it's been more than a week and if I was a journalist with a deadline I would have been sacked by now.  Here goes. To draw this question to an overdue conclusion, one of the best replies I had to this question was from a winemaker who lives in the Yarra Valley and

Sometimes function needs to overtake fashion.  Check out these stylish numbers top left. Last year it was one of those winter days when the weather bureau got it wrong and the afternoon ride home was not going to be as dry as expected.  The rain was bucketing down and I didn't bring my overshoes with me.  The desperate man in me scavenged the office for plastic bags to cover my shoes and these 3kg courier satchels were just the thing.  I placed one over each shoe, taped them firmly around my legs and the plastic was flexible enough for the cleats to clip into the pedals without causing the bag to break.  Needless to say that my feet were the driest part of me after my 18km ride home and I wondered how they would have gone on my hands.  I can see the headlines now "Crab Man rides bike in rain".   The other family contribution is courtesy of my 12 year old niece in Canada who wrapped her socked feet in plastic bags to keep them warm and dry during Canada's own

Eugene McGee  and   Kimberley Davis   are names you probably aren't familiar with, nor are their victims Ian Humphrey and a Koroit man, but for reasons which I'll highlight they should be along with Amy Gillett , herself a victim of a driver who lost control and collided with a bunch of cyclists in 2005.  As much as I've no desire to turn this blog into a name and shame tabloid style, I can't stand by and watch injustice pass by without saying something about recent news stories I’ve pieced together for this blog. The  Warnambool Standard  recently carried a story about the court case of Kimberley Davis, who collided with a male cyclist on the 20th September 2013 while sending and receiving text messages.  The offence resulted in  a $4500 fine and loss of licence for nine months. The Koroit man suffered  a spinal fracture and spent a significant time in hospital.  The original prognosis of being left a paraplegic was fortunately incorrect and the man spent 3 months

Apologies to those of you whose hearts skipped a beat and were suddenly transported back to the 80's TV show starring David Hasselhoff and Kitt. Those of us in the southern hemisphere are moving into shorter days and more time spent riding in the dark.  Yes, we are Night Riders and the only flashing lights you'll see are those which adorn our bikes. Having to work back late I was faced with a more than a few choices as to how I was going to get home a lift home with my work colleague, which would have meant leaving the bike at work riding to the nearest railway station and catching two trains, which would have meant having to face those smug Collingwood supporters whose team had just had given my beloved Richmond a thumping at the MCG get a taxi, which is no easy thing in that neighbourhood at that time on a Friday night ride home on the road, which only takes 40min to cover the 18km, but still left me more exposed to the odd idiot on the road take the bike p

Strange things happen when you ‘Like’ a Facebook page with the aim of winning a prize.   When I liked ‘ The Squeaky Wheel ’, a cycling group I had not heard of before, I found myself the lucky winner of awesome stuff, including an invitation to attend and review the upcoming show ‘ PushyWomen – North ’, the second in a series of Melbourne based events showcasing the talents of 8 women speaking about their loves, disappointments, misdemeanors and misadventures on two wheels. The afternoon started on a high note when I rode my bike along High St from the Westgarth Theatre to the Thornbury Theatre and didn't have to stop for one red light or pedestrian at those dodgy tram stops.  The entertainment continued with engaging stories from the 8 speakers: Catherine Deveney , the MC, dispensed sage like advice that would indicate she’s been battling her own personal “Hell of the North” every day for the past 25 years and survived to tell a tale or two about it.  Listening to C

How often have you sat and watched the Tour de France or big cycling event and listened to the commentators say the riders are pushing a very high tempo averaging 110 RPM and wondered what the hell are they talking about?  RPM, otherwise known as Cadence refers to revolutions per minute or how many times you turn your cranks over per minute.  Actually there's a very good reason why they are doing this.  Firstly it's sustainable over a longer period to pedal faster, rather than harder. They will also be maintaining a lower level of   lactic acid   in the muscles which is known to slow down muscle responsiveness as you near your physical limits.   If you've ever been puffed after ten minutes on a bike then you're possibly on a steep hill or perhaps you're in the wrong gear.  I learnt early in my cycling life not to worry about speed and concentrate on having a cadence of at least 90 RPM.  Nowadays I'm the one inquiring about cadence, making the s

Every time I see, hear or read a story about someone being knocked off their bike by motor vehicle it provides a reality check that any one of us who rides on the road is a vulnerable road user.  Every time I'm passed closely by a car while cycling my instinctive reaction is to check how much space there was between the car and the line on the road and the distance is usually about a metre.  Whether I'm behind the wheel or behind the handle bars, I believe in the old adage that I need to treat everyone else on the road like they're idiots. Therefore I need to go on the selfrighteouscyclist self-protective  defensive and take on the mindset that I'm invisible to other road users. I put my flashing lights on, wear bright colours and constantly remind myself to be hyper aware of what's going on around me.   However the sobering national road toll statistics from 2013 (see Figure 1 below) remind us that  the number of cyclist deaths on roads rose from 33 to 50 or a 51%

I've often heard visitors to Melbourne question, what is it with you people from Melbourne, you're always talking about the weather.  Weather makes great small talk, but when the weather is the news we're all in it together.  Everyone is sleep deprived. Suddenly the office is the place you’d rather be because it’s warmer inside your house than outside and you feel as withered as the drying leaves on our deciduous trees. In the temperate climes of Melbourne there's a saying that if you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes.  Melbourne is also known as the city famous for four seasons in one day.  However a few weeks ago Melbourne experienced 4 consecutive days of 40 plus degrees Celsius, topping out at 44 and it was more a case of wait five days.  Even the night time temperatures barely dropped below 25C.  It was the hottest consecutive weather for over   100 years . To paint a picture for those of you not from Melbourne or South East Australia, h