Day 170 | A day trip to an Alice tourist sight: time for a quickish spin on the bike
A day off, who invented this work thing, they clearly didn’t realise it is deleterious to the casual riding of bikes, particularly when the work is 55 hours a week. I do hop aboard for the 5 minute cruise down the Todd River, (famous for having an annual boat race where the locals are required to carry the boats, water is in evidence only a few days each year), for my 7 am start at work but it’s not quite the same.
There’s been some mucking around on my day off, washing etc, so it’s mid afternoon before I’m away, 34°C, first decent stretch of the legs for 3 weeks since I arrived in town.
I’ve learned of a few mountain bike single tracks to have a whirl around, and you just ride to the edge of town, ie, 10 minutes away, and the fun begins. By the time I’ve whizzed around the first k or so it’s already apparent that if I keep it up I’m guaranteed castration: my chain is slipping when major force is applied and on this great track it’s pretty well constant effort. I beat a retreat.
By the time I’m back on the asphalt it’s clear the rear cassette has issues, well, my favourite gears after 7500 km are somewhat worn but if I increase cadence and change gears using the front derailleur all is good, the bike now effectively a 3 speed. The short term solution, just changing the chain this morning, clearly ain’t enough, it’s new cassette and middle ring time.
Three speed is enough to power me up to the start of the bike track out to Simpsons Gap, 17 km each way from the start at Flynn’s Grave on the town outskirts. She’s a fun corkscrewing sealed track well away from traffic, the designers of the route with sensibilities in direct A to B travel akin to my own, ie, wiggly woggly is best.
No load on, no other riders to contend with, swishing around the curves, up little rises then powering down, it’s all sinusoidal, in three dimensions, not a straight line anywhere, a magnificent ride, indeed not dissimilar to the world beating bikepath out to Twilight Beach at Esperance, however the view here of arid ranges not blue Southern Ocean.
I can see that this form of entertainment is going to become a highlight of my days off.