Hawthorns abound and cameras are mis-managed.
Punctures
The authorities arrange for giant slashers to visit the rural lanes around here and their job is to crudely smash the hawthorn hedges into shape. One downside this year is that the job has been done at the start of Autumn and the slashing has removed a lot of the berries. The birds won’t get a good feed this winter. The other downside is – bicycle tyre punctures.
A sweeper does follow the slasher in an attempt to remove the debris from the road. From a driver point of view it fixes the problem. From a cyclist’s point of view a lot of individual thorns are left in the gaps of the chipseal and in the gravel by the side of the road.
I found one such thorn in my offside tyre after it deflated overnight. Offside? Yes, that was strange. It’s usually the inside tyre, the one closest to the hedge and which runs in the gravel as we make space for overtaking cars, trucks and ag equipment.
I found the thorn in the tyre and pulled it out. I eventually found a very small leak in the tube and patched it. All good, pumped up the tyre, replaced the wheel and put the trike away. The next morning – flat again. Another tiny hole in the tube letting the air out. Repeated the performance and checked the tyre to locate the cause. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any tiny sharp items in the tyre. Once again the next morning the tyre was flat. We were going on a Meander ride the next day, what to do?
Answer: I found an old tyre that was kept as a spare, fixed the inner tube and fitted the oldie. That worked OK.
Coincidently, the next day I received a call from Brian in Swan Hill. Brian bought the Anura trike from me back in 2018.
Brian also had a puncture but couldn’t find the actual sharp thing puncturing the inner tube. Snap !!
Adult Tricycle
We bought an adult tricycle some time ago. The objective was for Mrs C to ride it and for us to go and cycle parts of the NW Coastal trail together. I have been asked a few times how this is going.
For too many reasons such trips have had to be put on hold this summer.
A couple of weeks ago we decided to visit the Lakeside Caravan Park close to Latrobe with the intention of cycling the Latrobe to Devonport leg. Once I had loaded the camping gear into the trailer surprisingly there was little room for 1 trike let alone 2. So we decided to just camp that time and treat the cycling trips as separate activities.
Then the car decided to play up and checks by MG service indicated several faults in the Hybrid system. While the car goes most days, it’s probably not a good idea to tow a trailer on a 200 k round trip until things are fixed, so no NW Trail riding for a few weeks yet.
When thinking about combined camping / cycling trips we realised we would have to take Oscar along for the ride.
We set up the basket on the back of the bike to suit the new job and added Oscar. He accepted a trip around the backyard but will he accept a longer trip? We shall find out.
Meander and camera issues
I charged up the Insta360 and packed the elderly small digital camera ready for the Meander Valley ride.
With my car being unreliable, Colin drove us there towing my trailer as it can take the two trikes without needed to fold them. We drove to Deloraine on a cloudy morning but we were not expecting rain.
The trikes were unloaded, panniers added and we were good to go. I was pleased to see the old tyre with the repaired inner tube was holding up OK on the offside front wheel. Promising.
We chooffed slowly up the back streets, joined the main road, rounded the roundabout at the top and started the descent towards Mole Creek. The sense of anticipation built – soon we would be on Montana Road amid the peace and quiet of rural Tasmania heading for a coffee at 41 Degrees South, Georgie’s Cafe. But before then Mole Creek Road was proving a bit busy so – be careful.
The 360 camera was deployed and was getting some good shots of passing trucks with some carrying very large pieces of ag equipment. “That’s good” I thought – more context for the video. It was also working when we got into the delightful treed section of Montana Road prior to the turn-off for the cafe. I am now long-sighted and so cannot read the tiny 360 camera screen without reading glasses – which were at home. The camera seemed to be working but I began to realise the sounds might not be right!
As we pulled into the car park for Georgie’s Cafe it was obvious there were a few people already there. Walking into the place showed it was full of teenagers obviously on some sort of bus trip! Busy? Very !! As some moved away from the counter others came in the doors and took their place. Two people walked in with what I initially thought was a bundle of french loaves in their arms. No – they were entire smoked salmon. Colin and I looked at each other and decided to give it a miss this trip. Time to head to the Meander Valley cafe in Meander.
Just before arriving at the cafe the electrics on my trike had played up a bit. I thought I had a puncture but no, the power was on to the display, the display showed I was on level 3 but no power was getting to the motor. The driveway from Georgies out to the road is pretty steep and quite gravelly so I hoped turning the electrics off and on again had fixed the problem. It was with some relief the power started to flow as per normal. I used low settings and cycled up the drive without problem. Colin’s system seems to feed the power in more intrusively than mine and he found his trike slipping and sliding on the way up. We remembered his difficulties getting the trike and trailer up a gravel hill when we left the Liffey Falls campsite last year – but this time he made it to the road without pushing.
After a couple of kilometres my power cut again. This time the display was showing P mode when it should have been a number. What’s going on? Turned it off and on again and things returned to normal. And remained OK as the sun made itself known and we carried on into Meander. The paddocks all around were brown and tired looking – there hasn’t been much rain in recent months. The views didn’t seem to me to have the same “sparkle” they usually display.
I tried taking some shots with the small camera I had packed. It has a very small view screen and, did I say, I didn’t pack reading glasses! It was obvious though that settings were not right but I couldn’t see well enough to fix the issue. A few shots were taken which later proved to be rubbish! What with that and the 360 not sounding right and my new long-sightedness, I gave up recording the trip with the exception of a few pictures grabbed using the phone.
Must do better!!!
The Meander Valley Cafe proved to have grown over recent months. More seating areas inside and out. The quality of the food and coffee is still good and we had a very pleasant lunch. Two couples at the adjoining table asked about the trikes and our trips. I don’t think they were convinced trike travel is for them.
The ride out of the valley is always of interest. It doesn’t look like the road flows downhill and there was no wind to speak of BUT the ride is so easy it MUST be downhill.
There was a band of green along the roadside. The yellow flowers were attracting cabbage white butterflies. The trike flags are maybe indicating a light cross-wind but it was not really noticeable.
My 5 year old battery still had a lot of power in it and the system had given no further trouble since just after leaving 41 degrees south, so, when we reached the hill climb out of the valley, I powered up to test it. Using levels 5 & 6 I shot up the climb and waiting at the top for Colin. It worked fine.
The run along the A6 back to Deloraine is one of my least favourite stretches that we cycle on. 100 kph traffic, narrow hard shoulder and too many lengths of very narrow shoulders with armco barriers to squeeze up against. On this day I thought “Sod it”, powered up and shot along there as fast as I could. As a further test for the troublesome power system, it came through with flying colours. What the problem was earlier; will it come back; who knows.
On arrival in Deloraine I waited for Colin at the entrance to the pathway leading to the new bridge over the Meander River by the caravan park. The old bridge was quite a steep affair and if your gearing was wrong it meant a reverse back down and retry. It was also a bit hard to walk up in icy weather. The new bridge is a much gentler slope and has no such concerns. We cruised slowly back to the car using the shared pathways by the river and it was good to see many people out and about enjoying the walkways.
We finished the ride with an ice-cream. Just the job as the sun had warmed things up nicely.
A few notes.
360 Camera. Problem seemed to be I didn’t empty the card before starting the trip. But when emptied, it was still saying “card full”. A format didn’t fix so I guess the card has had the sword. A replacement card is working well.
Small digital camera. Not sure what the problem was as it worked OK the next day. I presume it was the operator.
Trike electrical system. No idea. It’s all working well at the moment and I await the problem’s reappearance.
Tyre. Haven’t found the pinpoint inner tube hole maker yet so the old tyre is still on the trike.
’til next time ………………………..
Tony's Tasmanian Cycling Blog 