It's not what you're thinking!
For some of you who saw that heading - perhaps mostly of the masculine gender - the title of this post may have suggested a somewhat salacious connotation. Admittedly, there was an intention to grab your attention but that was all really. Double entendres are great fun in that regard though, don't you think? (Aside time: one of the most famous examples of this idiom used as a double entendre was when Jonathan Agnew employed it whilst commentating on a cricket match.) He so caused his fellow commentators to crack up that about a minute of giggling was caught on BBC radio and broadcast around the world ...
(Wait for it and you'll hear some uncontrolled giggling as the video plays ...)
In this case I was simply after a more literal meaning and actually referring to Di and me getting our legs over ... the saddles on our bikes. After rupturing my Achilles tendon and badly spraining my ankle (today is four months to the day since I had the operation to repair my Achilles) it became clear that we'd have to rejig our plans for the year. Riding would be the only one of our favourite activities that I would be able to do for an extended period of time so we decided to get back on our bikes, which we've rather been neglecting for the past few years.
We are hoping to do a big ride across the continent of Australia later in the year. (I thought we should play our cards close to our chests on this for a while but Di has already spilt the beans to just about everybody we know so it might as well be out there in the ether known as the Internet.) What better incentive to get back on the bike. It's a long way (approximately 4925 kilometres!) over almost two months (including some rest days along the way) so we need to get fit. Let's hope that nothing goes amiss and we are able to start and, more importantly, complete this undertaking. Di commenced her training while I was still hobbling around in my cast and has started to build up a good base of cycling fitness. It is a bit of a worry though that her hip started playing up a bit when she took a break from riding her bike to hike the Overland Track with our French friend Michel and his son Bryce. Fingers crossed that it will settle down again.
Riding On The Flats
Although I'd rather not have ruptured my Achilles, it is fantastic being back on the bike regularly. Like most things, the more you put into cycling the more you get out. I'm slowly catching up to Di in the distance I can ride. Currently, each time I go a little further than the previous longest ride in my rehab there is a bit of a flare-up in the ankle joint but it settles back down afterwards. Di has done one ride of 120 kilometres; the most I've got to so far is an 80 km ride just past New Norfolk and back, which we did on Monday. It was a sublime day, with very gentle north-westerlies blowing. This meant that we had a light headwind on the way out but then the return journey was fantastic. The journey itself is a mix of urban riding along the Intercity Cycleway and rural riding alongside the Derwent River. Here's a Google Earth image of the the route ...
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| Ride to New Norfolk |
The only thing that took the edge off that ride was a moron in a utility who was leaving New Norfolk just as we were arriving. I was a little ahead of Di and I heard a beep so I looked across. For whatever reason, the moron in question decided to draw my attention to him just so he could give me the finger ...
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| Another moron on the road |
Sadly, there is a small proportion of drivers who don't understand that cyclists have a right to be on the road and go out of their way to make life unpleasant for those of us self-powered two-wheeled vehicles. As my dear mom used to say, it takes all kinds.
Pretty much every ride Dianne and I do together at this stage involves riding out the cycleway for at least the start and finish. To go in a different direction would require fairly sustained hill climbing which I'm not yet up to. While I'd like to be able to ride south to Huonville and beyond before we head to the mainland for our epic journey, it's not essential that we do much in the way of hills as the ride across the continent will be fairly flat. In fact the first six days of riding only involves about 2,800 metres of climbing, which we can easily do in a day's riding here in Hobart. And the following 17 days (just a shade under 2000 kilometres) across the southern part of Western Australia into South Australia involves only about 3,700 metres of climbing. Easily manageable, I reckon.
Each time I visit my wonderful physiotherapist Rebecca Marshall, she keeps reminding me that it takes a long time to rebuild the strength in a surgically repaired Achilles tendon. And being on the bike tells me that she's right. Because of this I'm restricted to mostly flat riding as I can't really get up out of the saddle for more than a few pedal strokes at a time. Those of you who know Hobart well will know how limiting this is: we live in a hilly place; those of you know me well will know how frustrating I find this!
It's All About The Bike
Even though I'm still very restricted in how far I can go and am limited currently to mostly flat terrain, as I said earlier it's great being back on the bike. And I'm looking forward to longer, hillier rides. If you ride a bike regularly you'll know what I'm talking about. It might be hard work riding up a long hill but when upon arrival at the top you get to see what's on the other side. And then there's the sheer joy of plummeting downwards after all the hard work of pedalling up. So, I enjoy riding hilly terrain and look forward to a time when I will be able to do more of it.
Just about everybody has ridden a bike sometime in their lives. I find it a bit sad that more people don't continue to do so. There's a real sense of camaraderie amongst cyclists: there's something special about sharing the experience of getting somewhere under one's own steam using an ingenious contraption. It's a simple vehicle that's used by people across all walks of life for transporting goods, like the example of this bloke transporting bricks in Burundi ...
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| Utilitarian Bike Use In Deepest Africa |
... and it's even used for getting about in high heels ...
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| Classy Cycling Get-up, No? |
... and roaming around in the woods ...
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| Single Track Cycling |
... to riding a quiet road in the mountains with a group of friends ...
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| Exploring The Landscape |
... to touring the world with everything you need on your bike ...
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| Out And About On The Bike |
... not to mention the crazy fun of riding the famous slick rock around Moab ...
... which we've done in the distant past ...
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| Di At Moab On Her Very Basic MTB in 1991 |
You can of course even use your bike to do the shopping ...
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| See You At The Supermarket! |
And now to finish off, there's a phrase that echoes in my mind from time to time: "it's all about the bike". Not sure how it got there so I decided to Google it and, amongst other things, found this wonderful video first screened on the BBC which documents one man's passion for the bicycle ...
If you don't have an hour or so to enjoy this video, here's the short version where he just puts his dream bike together by visiting various artisans around the world ...
If you haven't been on a bike for a while maybe this post will get you thinking about hopping on two wheels again. And that's about it for this entry. Cheers for now!
