It’s Been a While

Some of that time I spent with Covid. It took me 5 years to catch it, 4-5 weeks to get rid of it and I didn’t like it much!!

Anyway, what with that and a Tasmanian Spring with colder, windier and wetter weather compared to the average, I have been only riding short rides between plenty of indoor and car trip time. Now things are perking up nicely and the only weather item staying with us is the wind. This is not unusual but the strength remains stronger for longer than usual.

Saddle Stories

I’m having trouble with the saddles on the two wheelers. Either the saddles have stopped working for me or I need some “riding in time” or my inbuilt padding is playing up.

1. Brooks B17 based Flyer

Some time ago after a 50k ride to Carrick on the E-City and an uncomfortable final 10k, I decided to swap out the native saddle and mount my Brooks Flyer on it. I have had this saddle for probably 10 years now. It was first on my Vivente touring bike and since then has graced the Brompton for ages. It has worked well with me and been reasonably comfortable.

After some months with the Flyer on the E-City I felt it wasn’t as comfortable as I remembered, even with padded shorts. So I took it off again and put the large Smartmotion saddle back on. Hmmm – still not quite comfortable!? I guess my personal padding may be not functioning correctly! For now I will persevere with the Smartmotion saddle and see if it’s just a matter of getting the kilometres in.

2. Brompton

OK, I removed the Brooks from the Brompton but what to replace it with? The huge saddle from the E-City is much too big, so I put the original Brompton saddle back on and took the bike over to Perth for a bit of a ride round. Read on for the story as to how that went.

Can and Bottle Collecting

1. Perth Shared Path towards Longford

I have mostly been riding short, local loops when I have been out over the Spring and 1st month of Summer. On several rides I also collected cans and bottles for recycling. It is quite noticeable on a couple of the loops that the rubbish numbers are reducing. I have to leave the roadside verges to fill up again and a ride only once a week or so to make the numbers worth bothering with.

One day I was driving past the shared path to Perth and I noticed cans were visible. When I wanted to test the Brompton saddle on the Brompton (see above) I thought let’s combine the saddle test with a ride along the shared path and collect some cans.

So I drove to Perth with Brompton and set off riding.

As soon as I started I realised the saddle wasn’t set up right and I had left the toolkit in a recumbent trike saddlebag. It seemed like it was going to be a very short ride around Perth as the saddle kicked up too much at the front and was being quite ..um.., intrusive. However it wasn’t that far to the shared pathway from which I could access the trash area and so I decided to think cans and carry on.

Well, it was a great disappointment. Yes, there were cans and plastic bottles for the picking. I think most were blown in off the highway verge arriving onto the shared pathway and the ditch running alongside. Most items were damaged, either by tyres running over them, time taking it’s toll making the bar codes unreadable or vehicle occupants crushing the cans in the bar code area before tossing them.

The silver lining was that, while collecting the rubbish, I was reviewing what I had that I could use to loosen the saddle and re-position it. Then “what an idiot….”! Why does an older brain sometimes take so long to work things out? I finally remembered Brompton has a small but perfectly adequate toolkit stored inside the frame!

Yes !! it was still there. The problem was soon solved using the correct allen key but why hadn’t I thought of this sooner?

Another thought then struck me (I was on a roll!). I remembered tightening up the leather on the Flyer last winter. Maybe that is what makes it a bit difficult to ride on? I will test this by slackening the leather and giving it more leather softener. Then the question will be – which bike to test it on. Decisions, decisions – something for next year I think.

What did I do with the damaged bar code rubbish? Took it home and stuck it in the recycling bin where it should be recycled by the Council.

How did the original saddle go? Perfectly fine (but it was a short ride!).

To the Midland highway

The day we shop in Kings Meadows was coming up fast. It is also where we recycle the cans and bottles and our collection box wasn’t very full. The trip Longford-Woolmers-Midland Highway is usually productive in a rubbishy way and when Colin and I cycled the route a few days ago I had noticed a fair few possibilities by the roadside.

The wide saddle on the E-City doesn’t work too well with the pannier system on the rack, so I took the panniers off. The question was then, how to carry cans and bottles? Well, I have rebuilt the Burley trailer after using the axle, wheels and tow bar on the bicycle camper trailer. The camper now being scrapped, the parts were available and the original trailer appeared out of the shed.

And off we went viewing land usage as well as looking for spoils.

Spring has sprung, so we are lead to believe, and the farms are starting to show their wares.

There are a lot more poppy paddocks visible this year compared to recent times. Has the overstocked international opiates market cleared and so more are needed? Looks like it. There are also huge numbers of lambs filling grassy areas and it looks like there is a healthy lamb supply this year.

Amid all this farm bonanza I was having a great day. Lots of bottles, cans plus non-recyclable coffee and soft drink cups were lying about just waiting to be picked up. So I did.

By the time I had reached the Midland Highway the box in the trailer was half full. By the time I left the pull-in at the junction with the Midland Highway it was 3/4 full. Such a lot of rubbish there ranging from pristine cans to old snotties and signs of car-based romantic dalliances plus half a rotting Pademelon (small wallaby) which was rather on the nose.

Not too far into the journey back the box was full, as were two plastic bags containing the non-recyclable takeaway coffee and soft drink cups. Now, when pot holes in the road were cycled over, things began to jump out. So it was a slow cycle home with occasional stops to pick up escapees wanting to redistribute themselves far from their original resting place.

I will have to fit a cover to the box and find a second box.

The recycling box at home was now full with the addition of 32 recyclable items.

The machine rejected 1 plastic bottle due to the bar code having faded so, in total for the past 2 weeks, 81 were recycled this way while a further 2 dozen or so were recycled via the Council bin at home. A good way to end the year.

A couple of other things

A very woolly sheep

The sheep is within a Hydro depot on Wilmore’s Lane and I have seen vehicles in there so it’s whereabouts are known. Whenever I try to get a decent picture of it, it quickly gets out of sight! I assume it’s a bit quicker than catchers so far.

And Now – Seasonal Greetings

NB: Thanks for the wine and chips Mike and Simon, they make a good seasonal picture.

’til next time …………………………………………………..