Last year I did a lot of riding around the Norfolk Plains. Although the experience of each ride is different, the views superb and traffic light, writing about them tends to be repetitive. This year I decided to write an EOM wrap-up of the “standard” cycling activities within each month and add separate posts for any ride a bit out of the ordinary.
EOM January
I have set up distance challenges for the year within Ride with GPS – once again 5,000 kilometers for the year plus monthly targets. I thought about setting the annual goal at 6,000 and, who knows, a six month review in June may have me raising (or lowering) it. A crazy idea of riding 100 kilometres for every year of age popped out and was soon dropped – 7,600 kilometres would be a crank too far!
For January things are going well with over 500 kilometres chalked up and mini-goal 1 of 12 met.
Here are some thoughts for January :
Photography
I’ve started playing with black and white images. It is a whole new ballgame to do this digitally. I was in a camera club back in the 1970’s when living in Sydney. It was a postal club and each month a folder arrived with one B&W picture per person in the group. The object was to comment on each others pictures highlighting the good points and offering advice to lift our skills. You removed your “last month” picture, read the comments and added your new one before sending the package on.
At the time I was developing B&W pictures old school – in the bathroom suitably set up as a red-lit darkroom housing enlarger, developing tank, trays, paper and chemicals all balancing precariously in their temporary homes.
I can’t remember doing much good and packed it in after a couple of years. I still have some of the pictures and a quick look tells me .. yep, not very good.
I started this month by taking some colour images and converting them to black and white.
Using Affinity Photo to play around with the images, it is surprisingly difficult to use all the adjustment sliders and get to a point where the detail you want to show becomes visible with clarity. This did not happen with the above image although some detail does show up if you raise the on-screen brightness!
The story will continue.
Ernie Bike E and Ernie Muppet
Ernie M hasn’t abandoned ship – yet. Here he is reminding me to check in and sanitise at the Bishopsbourne Sports Ground.
And here he is excitedly telling me “Stop, LOOK!”
Why? Well, the odometer on Ernie B had just ticked over 1,000 kilometers. That’s 1,000k on the Bafang hub motor which was installed mid October 2021 while still running using the temporary PAS fitting. I will develop a permanent fitting; one day!
“What’s a Dean?” we asked. Colin and I had ridden to Evandale for a coffee and found the above sign inside the Cafe. It turned out that Dean is one of the owners of the Cafe and is a person that doesn’t like kittens – hence the middle giveaway. The owner of the kitten then added Dean to the list. We had no room on the trikes and so left Dean and the kitten behind.
On the way to Evandale we could hear a lot of banging in the distance. Gunshots? Should we be worried? As we got closer to the sound it was obviously shotguns firing – clay pigeon shooting?
Finally, there was a great nature event on Bishopsbourne Road last Tuesday. I spotted a Harrier flying purposefully around a small bit of long grass between two paddocks from which hay has recently been cut. Looking carefully I then saw two ears and a little bit of head stickling up – a hare. I stopped and watched. Would I see a hare carried off by a Harrier? Well, the bird circled around and the hare crouched lower and lower until ….. the Harrier flew off!! Good in one way – disappointing in the other.
February
What will February hold for this cyclist? One thing will be a decision re “The Edge of the World” cycle tour – go or no go? I have pencilled in 3 weeks for the trip managing to slot it in between medical visits and other stuff. What will covid be doing then? Omicron Mk II is already in Australia.
Another thing should be a S36O overnight ride/ camp up to Liffey Falls. It’s a bit busy up there at the moment due to school holidays but next week the kids go back to actual in-school learning, so the Falls camp grounds should empty out a bit.
February started with a downpour; hopefully not a sign of how things will continue. Today we are getting the back end of the Monsoon which dropped so much rain on mainland Australia that Darwin, Alice Springs, Coober Pedy and West Australia are currently cut off from supplies as road and rail links are cut. Their supermarkets are empty again and, this time, not from covid.
’til next time ………………………………..
Tony's Tasmanian Cycling Blog 
You are definitely off to a flying start in January – well done! We finally, finally had that month’s worth of heat and humidity blown out and had 2 nice days (while I was working, of course). But good weather remains and beckons for a weekend ride. Good to see Ernie and Ernie still getting along, but gosh, Muppet Ernie is almost rudely enthusiastic in the pic at the 1000 km mark. Crossing my fingers that the end of the world tour slots in nicely and is a go-er.
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