The start of Winter

I see I am not writing much this year. There are several reasons for this, one being I’m not actually riding very often. In fact Mrs C and I are doing a bit more walking – hence the above picture from the Tamar Wetlands walk.

Why am I not riding very often? you may well ask.

I guess there are several reasons. We continually seem to have things that must be done, appointments to keep etc and lots of these things clash with days I could be riding. Plus I haven’t the “push” to get out and about on the bike now the weather is a bit inclement!

Consequently I have not been meeting my New Year Resolution of 78 kilometres a week. Rather I ride one 30-40k ride a week then a few short trips in and around Longford. This is a bit annoying – so I decided something must be done!!

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A couple of weeks ago Colin and I did take a ride to Evandale towing our camper trailers. This was not an overnight camp but rather a ride and a lunch by the river in order to test all the changes Colin has made to his camper. Both trailers were fully loaded with normal camping gear. Colin’s to test the changes he has made to wheels, axle and tow bar, mine to test battery usage and towing speed when using very low power input and higher human input.

The trip wash-up. Both trailers behaved well and in my case the slower speed did help with power consumption.

The slower speed does mean it’s hard to use lower power for those days when the hours of darkness are longer than the hours of daylight. There’s just not enough time to get anywhere nice that’s a legal stopover with power on a pole and a nice warm shower block.

BTW: The coffee I made at Honeysuckle Banks was bloody awful and had to be thrown out. Not sure why yet.

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Trike Maintenance

The Rohloff hub has now travelled some 5,000 kilometres so it was time for an oil change. The oil change kit is not available locally so I ordered one from Melbourne. It’s costs a surprising amount for so little oil plus some cleaner solution but to stay within warranty one must use the right stuff.

The oil change went well. Draining the oil/cleaning solution took a bit of time (overnight) as the cold weather doesn’t help the solution to drain out of the hub. Eventually I had the expected 50ml drained. New oil in the hub and a newly oiled chain has the transmission sounding really quiet.

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The past two weeks have seen my hands and right wrist not working too well (cool temps plus arthritis I suppose) so riding Brompton is not on. It’s not encouraging trike riding either.

BUT this week I decided to get on with it and completed 78+ kilometres with a solo ride to Bishopsbourne, a ride to Panshanger with Colin and a third ride being a solo outer Longford circuit involving some tar and some gravel.

Here are pictures with my thoughts re winter riding.

On the third ride I passed by the above tree again.

They are a big destructive bird and have a loud shrieking call. Mini Nazguls they are.

Also seen on ride 3 were a number of Magpies, 2 Eastern Rosellas and a group of Noisy Minors. The Rosellas and Noisy Miners are not a feature of inner Longford so it made a change to see them and remember why Noisy Miners are so called – as well as being bold and curious they are very noisy.

Also on ride 3. between 2 sections of nicely graded gravel there is a stretch of chipseal from Cressy Road up to a couple of very well maintained, prosperous looking farmhouses. I noticed today it is very good chipseal. Small, well graded gravel, compressed together nicely to give a really smooth surface. Later in the ride I hit some new Longford chipseal in Ansty Street – much larger chunks and not so well compressed together. Obviously we in town don’t rate the good stuff!!

One week – 78 kilometres ridden. Next week ?

’til next time ……………………………………