Another stinking hot day here in Canberra. In fact it is hotter now than it has been all day according to the temperature reading on my computer.
36 degrees outside. It doesn’t worry me. I have had my air conditioner on full bore for the last few hours and it is sitting comfortably on or about 23 degrees here in my little hideaway in the dining room.
Linda arrived home from work with a headache and is lying on the bed in our room, prey to the nastiness of summer and claims it is too cold to lie on the couch in the lounge room! Hmmm. That seems a very odd attitude to me. I am not turning the air conditioner down or off until the temperature starts to drop!
Unfortunately it is only going to get to a minimum of 21 degrees tonight so sleeping may be uncomfortable and the high overnight low is a mere prelude to the scorcher we are due to get tomorrow which is apparently rated “catastrophic” on the fire scale. Lovely. Summer in Australia can be tiresome.
I managed to get another ride in today, close to 40km I would imagine and went a lot better than I have in my last few outings. A little bit more condition, a little bit more care taken with breakfast, making sure I have had plenty to eat before I go out. Plenty of hydration.
The temperature wasn’t too bad this morning and it seemed a slight wind was keeping the day a little cooler.
Of course I just rolled along at a gentle pace, just enough to make sure I wasn’t captured and passed by any tourist wanting to make himself feel better by catching someone parading around the streets in lycra cycling pants, astride a racing machine. Getting caught by a dufus on a mountain bike is never good for the ego. I still have some professional pride!
Of course I try to hide my experience as a former racing cyclist by wearing a grubby red t-shirt whenever I go out. A t-shirt because I don’t want to make myself look like another lycra clad fool who is prone to jumping red lights annoying motorists and because all of my racing jersey’s are several years old and don’t fit me anymore! Also, red of course is bright and I don’t want to give any driver an excuse to hit me because I was wearing dark clothes.
I do wear cycling shorts and carry a musette bag over my shoulder in which I carry a pump and spare tyres along with my mobile phone and house keys. A comfortable pair of cycling mitts and the obligatory dark glasses and helmet top off my ensemble. And my cycling shoes of course!
I try to frequent the Canberra bike paths nowadays although getting out of home requires a couple of kilometres of road riding before I can get onto the bike path network. The network itself is great once you get out of the suburbs but can be hazardous in certain areas for a variety of reasons.
Anywhere in the vicinity of a school or playground usually bequeaths to the cyclist a carpet of broken glass provided by the adolescent cretins of Canberra who seem to have a sense of humour that is beyond my comprehension. Perhaps they merely enjoy the momentary thrill of hearing glass shattering on bitumen, safe in the knowledge that there is surely to be a cyclist come through this very spot at some point who will find his momentum ruined through having his tyre pierced by a shard of glass forcing him to dismount and provide surgery to his stricken machine, or better yet, be forced to call a loved one to pick he or she up because they are not carrying a spare tube!
Another danger is the hordes of pedestrians who frequent these paths, a phenomenon which I never encountered in my early days of cycling on Canberra’s bike paths, oh so many years ago.
There are all sorts, people walking to lose a few kilos, those who fancy themselves as athletes, haring along as if they are entering the final lap of the Olympic Championship. There are those walking dogs who seem to have no concern for others and let their canines off the leash to walk in front of cyclists and glare when those same riders give them a mouthful.
There are the young mothers walking along pushing heavy duty prams and my personal favourite, Dad and the kids, the young ones never seeming to be able to ride in a straight line and nearly always veering off centre into the path of oncoming velocipedes.
I have also learnt over the years that barrelling into blind corners on these paths is never a healthy action as there have been a number of times, the last two days included, that some deluded fellow or child has ignored the odds and taken a chance that you are not approaching the same point as them from a different direction and rolled the dice and bet they can get around that blind corner at speed in one piece.
So the bike paths are quite fun to ride on but you really have to take care on them at certain points.
So enjoyable have the last few days been that the thought of buying a racing license has occurred to me. I don’t particularly want to race again, especially not seriously as I have been out of the game far too long to compete with the young tyros who infiltrate the local clubs in earnest, endeavouring to follow in the footsteps of our gallant Aussie Tour de France champ, the great man himself, Cadel.
Just the thought of being part of the cycling community once more and perhaps partaking in a little bit of “lighter”competition. And of course acquiring the insurance cover which is provided by such a license is an incentive as well.
But knowing myself as I do the thought will pass and as summer shortens and devolves into winter the bike may well be confined once again to the shed and thoughts of a comeback of sorts once again will be confined to the darker recesses of my mind.
For the moment I am happy to once again cycle gaily through the suburbs and parched parkland of summertime Canberra and hopefully improve my fitness and lighten the ever increasing weight gathering around my girth.
So, until next time when we have passed through the dangers offered by our “catastrophic”weather conditions, I wish you all the best and look forward to seeing you on the other side.
36 degrees outside. It doesn’t worry me. I have had my air conditioner on full bore for the last few hours and it is sitting comfortably on or about 23 degrees here in my little hideaway in the dining room.
Linda arrived home from work with a headache and is lying on the bed in our room, prey to the nastiness of summer and claims it is too cold to lie on the couch in the lounge room! Hmmm. That seems a very odd attitude to me. I am not turning the air conditioner down or off until the temperature starts to drop!
Unfortunately it is only going to get to a minimum of 21 degrees tonight so sleeping may be uncomfortable and the high overnight low is a mere prelude to the scorcher we are due to get tomorrow which is apparently rated “catastrophic” on the fire scale. Lovely. Summer in Australia can be tiresome.
I managed to get another ride in today, close to 40km I would imagine and went a lot better than I have in my last few outings. A little bit more condition, a little bit more care taken with breakfast, making sure I have had plenty to eat before I go out. Plenty of hydration.
The temperature wasn’t too bad this morning and it seemed a slight wind was keeping the day a little cooler.
Of course I just rolled along at a gentle pace, just enough to make sure I wasn’t captured and passed by any tourist wanting to make himself feel better by catching someone parading around the streets in lycra cycling pants, astride a racing machine. Getting caught by a dufus on a mountain bike is never good for the ego. I still have some professional pride!
Of course I try to hide my experience as a former racing cyclist by wearing a grubby red t-shirt whenever I go out. A t-shirt because I don’t want to make myself look like another lycra clad fool who is prone to jumping red lights annoying motorists and because all of my racing jersey’s are several years old and don’t fit me anymore! Also, red of course is bright and I don’t want to give any driver an excuse to hit me because I was wearing dark clothes.
I do wear cycling shorts and carry a musette bag over my shoulder in which I carry a pump and spare tyres along with my mobile phone and house keys. A comfortable pair of cycling mitts and the obligatory dark glasses and helmet top off my ensemble. And my cycling shoes of course!
I try to frequent the Canberra bike paths nowadays although getting out of home requires a couple of kilometres of road riding before I can get onto the bike path network. The network itself is great once you get out of the suburbs but can be hazardous in certain areas for a variety of reasons.
Anywhere in the vicinity of a school or playground usually bequeaths to the cyclist a carpet of broken glass provided by the adolescent cretins of Canberra who seem to have a sense of humour that is beyond my comprehension. Perhaps they merely enjoy the momentary thrill of hearing glass shattering on bitumen, safe in the knowledge that there is surely to be a cyclist come through this very spot at some point who will find his momentum ruined through having his tyre pierced by a shard of glass forcing him to dismount and provide surgery to his stricken machine, or better yet, be forced to call a loved one to pick he or she up because they are not carrying a spare tube!
Another danger is the hordes of pedestrians who frequent these paths, a phenomenon which I never encountered in my early days of cycling on Canberra’s bike paths, oh so many years ago.
There are all sorts, people walking to lose a few kilos, those who fancy themselves as athletes, haring along as if they are entering the final lap of the Olympic Championship. There are those walking dogs who seem to have no concern for others and let their canines off the leash to walk in front of cyclists and glare when those same riders give them a mouthful.
There are the young mothers walking along pushing heavy duty prams and my personal favourite, Dad and the kids, the young ones never seeming to be able to ride in a straight line and nearly always veering off centre into the path of oncoming velocipedes.
I have also learnt over the years that barrelling into blind corners on these paths is never a healthy action as there have been a number of times, the last two days included, that some deluded fellow or child has ignored the odds and taken a chance that you are not approaching the same point as them from a different direction and rolled the dice and bet they can get around that blind corner at speed in one piece.
So the bike paths are quite fun to ride on but you really have to take care on them at certain points.
So enjoyable have the last few days been that the thought of buying a racing license has occurred to me. I don’t particularly want to race again, especially not seriously as I have been out of the game far too long to compete with the young tyros who infiltrate the local clubs in earnest, endeavouring to follow in the footsteps of our gallant Aussie Tour de France champ, the great man himself, Cadel.
Just the thought of being part of the cycling community once more and perhaps partaking in a little bit of “lighter”competition. And of course acquiring the insurance cover which is provided by such a license is an incentive as well.
But knowing myself as I do the thought will pass and as summer shortens and devolves into winter the bike may well be confined once again to the shed and thoughts of a comeback of sorts once again will be confined to the darker recesses of my mind.
For the moment I am happy to once again cycle gaily through the suburbs and parched parkland of summertime Canberra and hopefully improve my fitness and lighten the ever increasing weight gathering around my girth.
So, until next time when we have passed through the dangers offered by our “catastrophic”weather conditions, I wish you all the best and look forward to seeing you on the other side.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 