ajft

I've written off to the managers of the Arintji café and Federation Square to ask them what the hell they are on about, the following made bugger all sense at the time — just another example of the mindless rules that seem to be increasing all the time, generally waved off with the all-powerful word “security” wafted over them to ward off evil spirits. I wonder what bizarre explanation they'll be able to offer.

Jo and I sat down for a late lunch and a beer at one of the cafés in Federation Square. We heard that Mountain Goat Hightail Ale was available, so ordered two and a few snacks.

The beers duly arrived, two bottles, and since its such a flavoursome beer we asked for glasses, the better to savour the smells and tastes. The conversation became somewat Dada-esque:

“Can we have glasses for the beers please?”

“We can't bring glasses outside”

“What about those glasses of wine, that glass of water, and these beers in glass bottles?”

“Sorry, but we're not allowed to give you glasses outside.”

“That is ridiculous, you've already given us glass bottles, and you've given those people glass glasses. What do you do with wine?”

“Those are the rules, they have told us we can't bring glasses outside.”

“Look, the beer tastes much better from a glass, surely we can drink it from glasses.”

“Ok, but security will tell us off if they see them!”

So there you have it, straight from the Stalinist Russia school of rules and security. No rationale, no explanation. These are the rules and they are policing them.

We did get our glasses, and the Goat tasted much better for it; we also received forks in a glass with the snacks! At eight bucks a bottle, I'm sure Arintji can afford to pay for the extra washing up, and I shall wait with bated breath for their responses to my letter of enquiry....

From now on I think I'll stick to drinking goat from the tap, somewhere pleasant like at the brewery or the GB in Richmond where it costs half as much!

Oh my god, Australian state secrets of critical importance are being published in the local newspaper — or at least in the monthly glossy insert of the local newspaper!

The world's entire supply of Vegemite™ is produced in one single factory in Fishermans Bend by only twenty six staff! Just imagine the devastating blow to the Australian economy and morale if a hijacked tram were to run into the building and destroy it all!

Surely there should be immediate high-level talks to cross-train staff at secret remote locations and bring a backup Vegemite facility online in case of national emergency...

CNA and CNE: Certainly No Experience and Can't Network Anything.

CNA and CNE: Certainly No Experience and Can't Network Anything.

I've a soft spot for the 500s, between about 1986 and 1990 I was half-owner of one, gloss-black with metal flakes. We had a ball in it for a couple of years until the other half drove it over a speed-hump too fast, an engine mount snapped and it went no more. For several years it sat in Richard's garden with the intention that we'd get it back on the road again — it never happened. He moved house and either sold it or sent it to the wreckers. I still get a wistful expression when I see them putter past on the streets.

Today I saw that the Fiat 500 has been named the number one sexiest car in the world! I'm sure it'll do wonderful things for their resale value, not so good things for my thoughts on one day getting one....

Sure wish I had a copy of the photo we took all those years ago of it sitting beside the Lambourghini Countach in the carpark of the Lakeside hotel...

I'd finally got around to taking the mountain bike in to the shop last week to see about the leaking oil seals, thinking of course that only the seals needed replacing. Got the phone call, the annodizing has been all worn off the fork legs and Rockshox don't make or don't stock spares for 2000-2001 SIDs anymore, or if they do they're several hundred dollars just for the legs.

I was offered a second-hand but unused pair of "seven or eight hundred dollar Springer" forks for $500 fitted, should probably have done a little more checking around first because I said yes. First time I looked once I really new the model name — but after I'd paid — had the forks for around $430! Another learning experience, even friends in bike shops are in business first. On the other hand, the amount of servicing and adjustment that was done for "no charge" probably more than makes up the difference!

Along the way the headset was replaced as well, this was definitely needed, the old bearing races were very pitted and worn — loose balls now, I'm sure it'll feel so much better when I ride.

Not as good as new, maybe better, definitely different — Norky bike just keeps on changing and mutating over the years.

*******************************************************
Sat 22 July - Melbourne-Roubaiz "Hell of the Northcote"
*******************************************************
12PM - Starting from Fed. Square.  Fun for all! - course will be run over
melbourne's brutal pave,railway crossings, dirt tracks and finishing with
a lap at the brunswick velodrome.  All finishers go into a draw for major
prizes.  This is NOT a race!
FREE but bring $10 to purchase items along the way and a panier or backpack.
organiser: Simon of Darebin BUG

BREAK

It should take us about an hour to get to the start, so 11 o'clock and out the door — first time on the tandem for quite a few months! Oakleigh, Hughesdale, Murrumbeena, Malvern and onto the Gardiners creek trail. Major detours around Hawthorn where the path is being repaved, restored or maybe just re-layed. Follow the trail to Richmond and the city and join the crowd clustering around in Federation square, awaiting the signal, all the while under the watchful eye of two of Fed Square's burly security men. Maps are distributed, bicycles are examined.

“Alright everybody, this is Ugly. Remember Ugly. You will need to find Ugly.” Easy to hear when the megaphone points at you, very hard to hear when it points elsewhere. We get the rough idea, a few minutes more and finally we're told to head off — first stop is to get to Rod Laver arena where Ugly will hand us our cards and our instructions. That's not so hard, we just came from there, so along with however many others we all headed off along the river in the direction of Richmond.

Arriving at Rod Laver arena, I held the bike while Jo vanished into the throng, returning with our card. Then off to squat on the road and peruse the map, where are these twelve points, what is the optimal route between them?

We figured out a rough plan of attack — the first two not just closest but also in familiar territory — then headed off in the direction of Fitzroy. Short cut past the MCG along one of the newer footbridges and off through East Melbourne, Victoria parade the first challenge as major roadworks made crossing a hassle. Something resembling a hook-u-turn got us around and back down the direction we wanted, then off up Rokeby street searching for the building site with the Austral sign — Q.6. What is the block number of the building site with the Austral sign.

Rokeby street seemed to finish, a narrow bluestone lane matching up on the opposite side of Gipps street — Aha, our first section of the dreaded Melbourne pavé — brace the shoulders and power the tandem off down the lane, gradually narrowing to impassable where a builder's truck blocked all progress. Squeezing past, Jo helpfully pointed out that this was the Austral bricks sign we should be looking for! One question down, eleven more to go...

Number two — or five on the card — was easy. Cut across to Richmond and count the pink gates in an alleyway. Saturday Victoria street and the tandem don't seem to agree, it just doesn't have the acceleration for right-turns through the traffic! More pavé in the lane and one pink gate, two more cyclists enter the alley as we're leaving. Down through Richmond using all of Jo's sneaky local knowlege culled from years of walking to work, then Church street and Toorak road for checkpoint four at the far end of Rokeby — amazing, no pavé! A handy park, empty the bladder and fill the bidon.

Another right turn, across packed Toorak road, half a dozen others speed past in the direction we just came, I think they're taking this much more seriously than we are, or maybe just much more quickly! Off along Toorak road, damn, should have stopped at the bakery and grabbed a bite to eat. Randall place is checkpoint three and the first place where we met other riders at a checkpoint. There's a lot of discussion of the question, “the last three digits on the lamp-post”. The bloody lamp post seems to be covered in numbers, 703 on one tag, a five digit number on one sticker, K285 hammered in down low seems last to me!

Back to Toorak road, right turn a piece of cake across a bizarrely empty road, Albert road to south melbourne then stop at the lights for the first occurrence of map-reading failure. “Go right here”, so we're in the right lane — “um no, straight ahead I think”. The lights went green and there's no option, right we went, then up the kerb and cut into Dundas place. “Oh yes, this is where I meant, the map was upside down”. Okay, it seemed to work!

Pavé and slimy mud, a wonderful combination. We came through unscathed and found checkpoint two, then an easy run back up Ferars street to Soutbank to find Railway place. Left or right at the end here? Mental coin toss and the wrong choice, back the other way onto the worse looking cobbles (that should have clued me in) and count the gas bottles three. Checkpoint one complete. Tandem u-turn in the alley, through the chicanes across the light rail and back past Jeff's shed and north over the river.

North wharf road through docklands seemed to be hiding from us, we had a vague idea of where it should be but couldn't seem to find it. At last I spotted two riders on fixies off to my left so we picked a path and found our way over there, sure enough, North wharf road! It seemed to go on for ever, ending almost under the Bolte bridge. Q12, How many “Allez” are painted on the rusty steel pipes? See for yourself, there are five.

Now back to the city for checkpoint eleven and our first major navigational stuff up. Docklands to the city seems to contain a few walls of concrete and roads that will exist — in the future. We followed a sign that helpfully said “City,” but a left instead of a right had me in a concrete canyon and heading for Footscray road. Oh well, back into the CBD from the North-West and down to Lonsdale street.

We found Niagara lane easily enough — more pavé of course — but couldn't find the clue. The first run through the alley was riding with a 4WD on our tail, the second pass on foot heading back. Finally Jo spotted the answer, hidden behind two cars parked in a sub-alley off the main alley! Can't remember the last time I entered the CBD, let alone rode up an alley here....

Carlton next, first to spot #7, just off Canning street, then off to in Taplin place. Major overshoot by a couple of blocks, it seems that a street we were looking for had different names either side of a main road. Madame navigator was looking for one name while we rode purposefully past the other one! How come those three girls behind us aren't there anymore? Oh, that'd be because they turned off where we should have! U-turn in Canning street and back down to Macpherson street. Mud and slime on top of the pavé this time, an extra degree of difficulty. I think this is where I nearly lost it and bashed my shoulder against the fence to keep the Trek upright.

North and east from Carlton to Northcote, Nicholson and Holden streets rather than St Georges road — no obvious reason, they just seemed right at the time. Checkpoint #9 was in a tiny street with no signpost, pavé of course. Then simply go around the block and up the alley to #10. There was a lot of up in the alley, it had been named Col d'Ugly on the notes and at the top were a couple alternating between photographing the arrivals and screaming "Don't you dare get off!", "Allez, allez!" and other words of encouragement and derision. Brute force and stupidity triumphed as we powered the tandem over the jack-hammer bluestones, a near-crash with the alley wall resulting in Jo unclipping both feet in preparation for an emergency dismount, then flailing around madly as she realised we were still underway! We made it to the top, our polaroid photo taken to be used as a ticket in the raffle.

A pause to regain our breath, then over to the Northcote plaza for our contribution to the barbecue — $10 worth of orange juice, 3 two litre bottles — a challenge to carry! We ended up with one stuffed down my shirt and the other two in bags, one on each side of the rear handlebars, then rode across to Brunswick taking care not to set up too much of a swaying motion.

Finally into the velodrome to thunderous applause — yeah right, maybe in my head. In true Roubaix/Roobaix fashion it isn't over without the lap of the velodrome — this could be interesting, a lap of a steep concrete velodrome on the tandem and avoiding the massed bodies scoffing sausages and beer! Hardest part was getting started, I'd rolled forwards past the crowd but that left us in a steeper spot and I couldn't get my leg over.... A bit of a push, much ribald encouragement and we were off, must have been the slowest lap of the day, but it'll do for a first attempt!

Food, drink, talk, look at bikes. This all could have gone on far longer, and for many it probably did, but for us we realised that although the inaugural Melburn-Roobaix was now over, we were still twenty-five kilometres from home and only one hour to sundown! Easy for some, not at the end of this day for us, the last suburb or so was pretty dark, luckily the yellow jacket and reflectors stood out like the proverbial, and no grumpy policemen were encountered.

A bit of magic with the one-wire weather station and RRDtool.

July 2006 and I still have not mounted the weather station outside, so the information recorded is from it resting on the table near my PC. Despite the gaps under the door, there's only temperature information, no wind speed or direction!

Today's data

This week's data

This Month's data

The Atomic

A magnificent find! Jo and I were rummaging through a second-hand book and Brik-a-brack store in Inverell when we spotted it.

The Bialetti

The Vesuviana

It isn't mine, some friends resurrected it from a bedraggled state after discovering it in the back of a cupboard.

External Links

• www.espresso.com
• www.bialetti.it

Birrarung Marr is a new park on the banks of the Yarra, “Melbourne's first new park in 100 years.” Opened officially on Australia day 2002. Nobody seems to know about it yet, maybe next summer when Federation Square is open people will come through there and down to the river.

After months of talking about it, one Saturday, Jo and I walked along the river from Richmond and explored what there was to see. Most striking is the Federation Bells, but they're only played at 8am and 5pm, so we couldn't hear what they sound like.

One final look at the city skyline from the park.

What did you expect to see in here? I'm married now, not allowed to have a girlfriend!

This is Jo, she's still my girlfriend, even though we were married in April 2003.

  One of my many bicycles.
A tandem at last — No collection of bicycles is complete without at

least one tandem.

After several years of thought, and several months of searching, Jo and I finally bought ourselves a tandem. Second-hand, a trifle scratched and worn, but mechanically magnificent.

• 40 hole Shimano XT hubs
• Velocity Dyad rims
• Shimano Ultegra shifters
• Shimano Deore DX 9-speed rear derailleur
• Shimano 105 triple front derailleur

1750mm long, with the wheels removed, a trifle cumbersome to carry up and down the stairs or to put in the car! So far, so good, and it is lots of fun.

I'm sure it doesn't get used as much as it should, mostly due to the pain of taking it anywhere; major expeditions so far have been a nine-day Bicycle NSW tour and the minimal 80km version of the Audax Alpine classic.

Richmond to Monash University, and home again. Here are some of the hi-lights and low-lights of my daily ride to and from work.

Despite a personal dislike for “cycle paths” and most other cycle-specific infrastructure, most of my commute does use one of Melbourne's bike paths... except that they aren't really bike paths.

Every off-road bicycle path in Melbourne is really a shared-use pedestrian footway, where pedestrians have right of way over cyclists, and there is no legal enforcement of the keep left requirement, or any of the other rules and regulations, which appear to be little more than local council suggestions.

So why do I use the Gardiners creek path? Mostly because it is the quickest and most direct route. It would be even quicker if the designers of the path hadn't been besotted with bridges, and made the path cross back and forth over the creek at every opportunity. On the plus side, there's a wealth of wildlife to be seen — mostly birds — and its generally much quieter than the road.

The majority of commuters are those that live in the suburbs and work in the city, so each day I pass a fairly constant group of riders heading in the opposite direction. Sometimes we nod to each other, but I've no idea who any of them are. Every couple of weeks a friend of mine hurtles past in a blur heading home — we've never quite collided head on, but there's been a few close calls!

Leaving home, an illegal short-cut across 50m of footpath between Park street and Yarra Boulevard, then right along Yarra Boulevard, ignoring the narrow, winding, bumpy and unmaintained Yarra bike path. Minor hazards to avoid here are the speeding motorists, and the rapidly opening doors from those who use the road as their daily car-park.

After following Yarra Boulevard to where the Gardiners creek path joins the Yarra path, there's a tight left-hand turn and climb up onto the cycle-path bridge, then along one of Melbourne's cycle path engineering marvels — the suspended cycle path. Rather than build the track alongside the creek, millions of dollars were spent on constructing a suspended track that hangs down underneath the Monash freeway. Why do this rather than along the public land next to the creek? There is a private school bordering the public land, I've been told that they pressured the government into disallowing the cycle track next to their property...

Under Glennferrie road, a commonly flooded underpass, then up and around the badly-cambered spiral ramp, over the creek and a right turn to follow the cycle track across the sports oval. This section of the track is used by a large number of students from Melbourne University's Hawthorn campus, and from their behaviour, the majority of them are incapable of reading the English-language signs stating “Keep Left”

Leaving the students, I continue on around past the velodrome, then follow the track along the creek, under Toorak road, the most common site of flooding, then follow the path all the way to East Malvern train station, first through the wasteland near the Coles Myer head office, then the parks and reserves of Glen Iris. Two major and one minor roads to go under, Burke road, High street, and Great Valley parade, the latter two both having steep windy ramps to get down to creek level and under the roadway.

The last kilometre or so of this is around the public golf course, thankfully separated by a 3m high chain-mesh fence, designed to protect the general public from random golf-balls. Unfortunately, the users of the golf course have chosen to cut large holes in the fence to expedite crossing from one green to another, and the occasional stray ball hurtles through, along with golfers who step out in front of cyclists.

Across the foot-bridge over the Monash freeway, glancing down to read the amusing “Slow Down” painted on the way up the steepest part of the bridge, then follow the track around to the left. I try to remember to hold my breath while crossing the first park, since there's been a sewage leak there for as long as I can remember. Then continue along behind the houses to the crossing over Waverley road.

The pedestrian crossing at Waverley road is a good place to catch my breath, since there's usually a delay of almost a minute between pushing the button and the lights starting to change... then there's the 15 seconds while I watch for motorists driving through the orange and then red lights, before finally I can continue on my way!

The path continues through the narrow park between the freeway sound-abatement fence and the back of the houses towards Warrigal road, here I'm within half a suburb of the Chadstone shopping centre, so the likelihood of meeting abandoned shopping trolleys is high. It also seems to be some sort of epicentre for migratory plastic bags — every bush is festooned with them.

Up and over Warrigal road, then along back streets to the crossing with Atkinson street in Oakleigh — why bother going up and down kerbs onto the bike track when there's perfectly good quiet streets to use? Back onto the track for the block or so to the Oakleigh Recreation Centre, then back onto the roads to wend my way around the car yards and tyre vendors' premises to get to Ferntree Gully road. Anything and everything goes here, there are cars facing both ways parked on both sides of the street and I might meet anything from a fork-lift to a semi-trailer, but it still seems easier than attempting to use the track that crosses all their driveways!

Now for my daily hill-climb training. Ferntree Gully road heads straight up to a crossing with Huntingdale road, a pause at the lights, then coast down and a second climb up to Clayton road. There's usually no problems with traffic, other than the noise, the only excitement comes at the right-hand turn into Clayton road. Depending on the phase of the lights, traffic, and personal whim, I'll either cross the three lanes to the right-turn lane, or perform a hook turn from the left.

Clayton road can be a intimidating. A widely ignored 60km/hr speed limit, two narrow lanes in each direction, and a lot of passing traffic doesn't particularly recommend it, the alternative is to continue along to the lightly-trafficed Gardiners road, which has a 50km/hr speed limit, one wide lane, and use the cycle lane along the left. Unfortunately, or typically, the cycle lane ends half a block from the intersection with Bayview avenue, and traffic turning into the University squeezes cyclists off the road well before the corner. Riding down Clayton road to turn left into Bayview gives a clear run straight to the University gate.

Last noteworthy obstacle of the day is the large roundabout inside the gate. A right-hand turn around this can be accomplished with varying degrees of ease depending on the number, and skill-level, of the students and staff attempting to overtake me, and on the one or two each year who manage to drive the wrong way up the one way roads.

Returning home is almost the reverse of the morning ride, with a few exceptions. Leaving the University I head up the cycle lane in Gardiner road to turn left into Ferntree Gully road. I usually cut the left turn out by detouring through the Bunnings car-park, since there's a squeeze point at the traffic lights, where naturally the cycle lane disappears. The cycle lane is also a clearway, so there shouldn't be anyone parked in it, but it also goes past a pub, so there usually are cars parked in it.

Along Ferntree Gully road almost to the junction with Dandenong road, this is the fastest section of the day's riding, I think I've hit around 65km/hr down one section. A right turn into a side road, then an illegal shortcut along the paths through Brickmaker's park — at least I think its illegal, there are so many bits of path and track around there that I'm not sure what is bike path and what is footpath. The two hi-lights of the park are the old brick-making equipment, and the stream through the centre — it's been turned into a kids' activity centre with water-wheels and movable gates, definitely worth investigating!

From the western end of the park, its back along the Gardiners creek track as far as the crossing of Waverley road, then I usually turn left and use the road as far as High street. It seems to take the same amount of time whether I use the bike track and have to ride slowly and zig-zag over the creek, or use Waverley, and then Malvern, roads at a faster pace, but stopping for the traffic lights. Where these roads are wide there's a bicycle lane, naturally this disappears at every intersection or where the road becomes congested — I really don't know why they bother!

The turn from Malvern road into High street is always exciting, with motorists following each other lemming-like through orange and red lights, then invariably being stopped at the traffic light combination of pedestrian crossing, railway crossing, and freeway crossing. Once I've made it through this, a quick left turn into Hope's Rise and I rejoin the Gardiners creek bike track for the remainder of the way home.

Cruising around Yarra Boulevard in the evenings is generally pleasant, its a common trainng ride for some, a recreational ride for others. At the Swan street bridge I often find rock-climbers practicing on the blue-stone boulders that make up the wall — inching their way the length of the underpass, 30cm off the ground.

The last detour that I sometimes make on the way home is to continue for the length of Yarra Boulevard, turning left into Bridge road to stop for an hour at the first corner. Why? The Bridge Hotel is at the end of my street, its a fine place for a beer on a sunny evening!

Hazards

Of course no ride is perfect, mine includes a number of hazards. The most prevalent are pedestrians, with or without dogs, walking, jogging or running, on the left, on the right, or along the centre... The jogger pictured is one of about 40% who keep left, as is legally required, I'm usually too busy swearing, cursing, and swerving to get a photo of the rest of them.

I'm always wary of the requirement to “audibly warn pedestrians of my approach” — too many times I've found that people behave in a completely random manner, and are just as likely to leap from the left of the path across to the right-hand side as they are to keep left. There's also a percentage who just don't care and ignore cyclists anyway, and a smaller percentage who go out of their way to force riders off the path!

Dog owners seem especially self-righteous, it is far more common to see dogs roaming around while the owner casually waves an unused lead, than to see the dogs on the lead — regardless of whether the council signs say its an Off-lead area or not. And the “Clean Up After Your Dog” signs seem to always apply to other people's dogs — yet another unsavoury hazard on the paths.

Less frequent than the pedestrians are the vehicles, council workers who think nothing of driving trucks at 30km/hr along narrow cycle tracks, or parking to completely block the path, motorists who use the bike tracks to park broken-down vehicles, the odd abandoned car, and the occasional motor-cyclist using the bike track as a short-cut between roads.

On the roads there's always the motorists with the mobile phone, or the ones that must overtake and then turn sharply left. Other cyclists are hazardous at times, the main problems I find are at night in the winter on the unlit paths, some have lights so badly adjusted that they dazzle, some have no lights at all, and some have a red-flashing light on the front of their bike! This last lot are scary, with no other light around I think that they are heading in the same direction I am, only slower. Trying to “overtake” results in a near miss and much swearing!

Environmental hazards come last, the design decision to stick a bike track along what is basically a storm-water drain means that parts of the track become impassable after the slightest rain. Lack of drainage and lack of maintenance add to the excitement of using the track — there's always an overhanging branch or encroaching bush to duck around, or cracks, potholes and large pools of standing water to avoid.

Wildlife

One advantage of a ride along the creek and through parkland is seeing the multitude of wildlife, even in the city and suburbs. I'm sure if I stopped for a while I'd see even more. Without including the pet dogs and cats, I think I can remember seeing:

Fish: European Carp, Eel

Reptile: Eastern Long-necked tortoise (Chelodina longicollis), skinks, Red-bellied Black snake (Pseudechis porphyriacus)

Bird: Crested Pigeon (Ocyphaps lophotes), Common Bronzewing (Phaps chalcoptera), Spotted Turtle-Dove (Streptopelia chinensis), Red-rump Grass Parrot, King Parrot (Alisterus scapularis), Eastern Rosella, Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus), Sulfer-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita), Galah (Cacatua rosiecapilla), Yello-Tailed Black Cockatoo, Gang-Gang Cockatoo (Callocephalon fimbriatum), Cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus) — probably an aviary escapee, Pied Mudlark (Grallina cyanoleuca), Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen), Australian Raven (Corvus coronoides), Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae), Superb Blue Wren, Pacific Black Duck (Anas superciliosa), Australian Wood Duck (Chenonetta jubata), Australian Shelduck (Tadorna tadornoides), White-faced heron (Egretta novaehollandiae), Nankeen Night heron (Nycticorax caledonicus), Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca), Great Egret (Ardea alba), Little Cormorant, Eurasian Coot (Fulica atra), Dusky Moorhen (Gallinula tenebrosa), Masked Lapwing (Vanellus miles), Willy Wagtail (Rhipidura leucophrys), Noisy Miner, Bell Miner, Silver Gull (Larus novaehollandiae), Australasian Grebe, Little Pied Cormorant (Phalacrocorax melanoleucos), Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena), Pied Currawang (Stepera graculina)

Mammal: Water rat, mice, Brush-tail possum, Ring-tailed possum

Pest: Sparrow, Blackbird, Indian Mynah, Mallard, Pigeon, Geese, Goldfinch

Experiences with Bicycles and Airlines

As they say in the classics, Your mileage may vary. Here is a summary of my experiences with taking bicycles on airlines, both within and outside Australia.

In general I've found that officially, all the airlines will insist that a bike is boxed. Bikes also count as oversize and fragile items, so if they choose, they can decide not to carry it, and if they damage it, in theory its your fault not theirs.

In practice the staff seem to make the rules up on the spot, and anything you are told will apply only to the person who tells it to you. Rules change arbitrarily with the airlines "code-sharing" routes, you can be quoted one set of rules by one airline, then turn up to find that you're flying on a different one... I generally box my bike, arrive in plenty of time, and smile a lot... it generally works.

Air New Zealand

January 2002; Probably the friendliest airline I've ever flown with respect to carrying a bike. A phone enquiry when I booked the ticket told me that bikes must be boxed, so I did. No charges.

Ansett

In Theory...

The following was quoted over the phone to me from a document that they would not name and could not provide me with a copy of!:

• Handlebars and pedals must be turned inwards, or removed.
• Front wheel must be removed and strapped to the bike.
• Tyres do not have to be let down.
• Bikes count as two pieces of excess luggage, and if you are charged will cost $AU20 per flight. However, you may not be charged if you have only one other piece of luggage (at the airlines discretion).

...In Practice

Various times that I've flown with my bike on Ansett:

• Launceston-Melbourne: no charge, bike in box, not required to sign disclaimer.
• Melbourne-Hobart: no charge, bike in box, required to sign the disclaimer saying it was insufficiently protected.
• Canberra: Since I had only one other bag, no $AU20 charge, required to remove pedals and front wheel, wrap the chain, turn the handlebars.
• Melbourne: Bicycle was not loaded at airport due to mistake by baggage crew, Ansett brought it up and delivered it via taxi to my work within 2hrs.
• Melbourne: Both my girlfriend and myself were required to let the tyres down.
• Sydney: Both my girlfriend and myself were required to sign a declaration that the bikes were "insufficiently protected" and thus the airline took no responsibility for damage.

Qantas

Insisted that the bike be in a box. If you don't have a bike box, Qantas will sell you one for $AU20, or $AU10 (they never seem to know which). A warning though, different airports stock varying numbers of boxes, it's probably advisable to call ahead to find if one is available.

Travelling internationally I found I had to walk from the international to the domestic terminal to pick up the box, and due to their confusion was not charged for it.

March 2002; for the first time ever I was charged $AU11 to take my bike from Melbourne to Sydney. This was quoted as a Mandatory Charge, however it was not repeated when we flew back a week later.

Lufthansa

November 1998:

When I came to fly from Heathrow to Sydney I was told that on the leg from Frankfurt to Singapore there would be a $AU70 charge! This was despite there being no mention of charges when I had booked the ticket and asked specifically, nor was there any charge eight weeks earlier when I flew the same leg in the opposite direction. After a bit of discussion this was waived as "I had not previously been informed".

At Frankfurt airport I got to watch through the window as a member of the ground crew picked up my bike box, threw it onto the luggage trolley, then kick it back when it fell off towards him! Arriving home I found that the front brakes required complete dissasembly to realign and reattach them.

Phillipine Airlines

Sometime circa 1994

I never took my bike with Phillipine Airlines. When I initially purchased a ticket for travel from Australia to the UK I asked and was told that it was ok and the bike would count as one of two allowable pieces of luggage. A day or so before I travelled I called the airline directly and was told that it might be a normal piece of luggage, or they might decide to charge it entirely as excess luggage, at a $AU60 per kilogram charge — approximately $AU600 — $AU900 each direction!

After my general experiences with that airline I would probably never choose to travel with them again, they no longer service the Australian market and may be out of business entirely.

Last night stage 15 of le Tour de France finished up on l'Alpe d'Huez, fantastic racing and amazing scenery as always. I did think that with the camera cutting back and forth you just couldn't get much of an idea of how steep that mountain really is.

From the www.cyclingnews.com special page on l'Alpe d'Huez: Unofficially, the top twelve times are as follows:

1. Marco Pantani (1995) 36’ 50
2. Marco Pantani (1997) 36’ 55
3. Marco Pantani (1994) 37’ 15
4. Lance Armstrong (2004) 37’ 36
5. Jan Ullrich (1997) 37’ 40
6. Lance Armstrong (2001) 38’ 05
7. Miguel Indurain (1995) 38’ 10
8. Alex Zülle (1995) 38’ 10
9. Bjarne Riis (1995) 38’ 15
10. Richard Virenque (1997) 38’ 20
11. Iban Mayo (2003) 39’ 06
12. Giuseppe Guerini (1999) 41’ 52

... and from Friday the 13th, July 2001, the very non-competitive time:

13. Adrian Tritschler (2001) 74'

Ok, ok, so there's probably a lot of other times between numbers 12 and 13! Oh, and I hadn't ridden 150km at a race pace before hand, nor was I two weeks into a three week race, and I stopped at the main square in l'Alpe!

Why shiny white paint is a cop out.

I'm of the firm opinion that the provision of segregated bicycle lanes and seperate facilities is not achieving much for me as a cyclist.

Bicycle Victoria, and many other formal and informal groups seem to believe that since cycling on a public road is percieved as a dangerous activity, since cyclists are a vulnerable group, that a whole range of segregated facilities should be built for them — whether these be on-road bicycle lanes, or nice safe off-road paths.

To me, this sounds tantamount to admitting that the cause of the threat is untreatable; that Australia's motorists are so ignorant, untrained and il-behaved, that it is not possible for a motorist to share a public road with a cyclist without them gravely endangering the cyclist. That the only possible course of action is to remove pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists from the roads, and to surround the motorists with air-bags and bullbars, so that when they run into each other, they won't suffer too badly.

Additionally, I find that the provision of cycle lanes:

• only occurs where the road is wide enough, or where they won't inconvenience motorised traffic; so narrow roads where the problem of motorist encroachment is worst, are by definition omitted.
• Provoke a fair proportion of motorists to believe that cyclists must use the cycle lane, which is then a short mental leap to...
• Enforce the belief that cyclists must not ride where there are no explicit provisions for them

After several weeks riding in France, Spain and Portugal I found that despite these places having fewer specific cycle lanes or facilities, they have a much higher proportion of cyclists on the roads. The attitude of the motorists is different, and sharing with other tranports is accepted.

Damn, I wish I'd written down the rest of the beautifully printed, but appallingly worded notice from the café window.

  Wanted experienced Café's staff.
  Please summit your resume.

Every year the radio station RRR and Intrepid travel get together and have a trip somewhere in the world that's a Triple-R trip — every year until now that is. For eight years enough people have signed up for it to be held, this year the time was right for Jo and I and the place looked right for Jo and I. We signed up, we paid our deposit, then yesterday we were told that the trip's been cancelled. Damn!

I was really starting to look forward to two weeks in China in September. Where to now for our annual holiday?

There's one less website in the world for the search engines to worry about indexing. I've been happily using planner-mode inside XEmacs at work to keep track of what needs to be done and what I do get done, and publishing the result as HTML to my personal pages. Today I was directed to remove some as they identified specific people, products and practices. Thinking about it a little showed that I really couldn't publish any of them without massive sanitising at ever step, so rather than worry about what I could and couldn't say, I've removed the lot.

If anyone wants to see what happens at Monash University or in the ITS division, they'll just have to read the official documentation from the Marketing and Public Affairs people.

I've been importing my photos into Adobe Photoshop Album over the last few years, entering titles and tagging the images. The titles go into the images in the EXIF header, but the tags and other information is held in Adobe's proprietary database. I can extract the EXIF:ImageDescription with python or perl, and some of the other image viewers will display it... some, but not all. My latest experiments have been with Google's picasa, or more specifically, the beta version from picasaweb.google.com, which allows geocoding and has various tie-ins with GoogleEarth. Unfortunately it seems that Picasa uses the IPTC:Caption-Abstract as the source of its title, so all the information I've entered via Photoshop Album is ignored.

A few quick searches and then, Phil Harvey's came exiftool to the rescue! Read and write every single possible type of metadata, at least every possible type I'm interested in at the moment.

exiftool -IPTC:Country-PrimaryLocationCode=AUS *JPG
exiftool -IPTC:Country-PrimaryLocationName=Australia *JPG

I'm not really sure what to do with the postcodes (zipcodes), I think I'll put them into IPTC:Sub-Location, at least until someone sends me a nasty-gram telling me the correct field to use.

PSAtools was next (the author no longer maintains it, but I found a copy archived elsewhere. Dump out the Photoshop Album catalogue into CSV and XML text files so I can play with it to my heart's content.

After only a week, another update from Garmin for the Edge305, Software Version: 2.70 and GPS: 2.60, up from 2.60 and 2.40 respectively. Fingers crossed, but I haven't had the device hang or flatten the battery overnight since the last upgrade....

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Seven days a week we get the Age delivered in the mornings; for the first year or so that we lived here, whoever was delivering it managed to sling it up alongside or underneath the car — no problem, other than having to grovel around on our knees some mornings to get it out. About a year ago they changed their approach, it gets lobbed over the fence and lands bomb-like in the courtyard-sized front garden. Over the months we've been getting more and more branches broken off plants, and repeated phone calls and visits to the local newsagency result in bugger-all being done. Three out of four times the guy in the shop has denied that they deliver to our street at all!

Sent off an official complaint to the subscriptions department on Friday, then today the paper has broken off one of the four main branches of one plant! Maybe when we pay the next bill we should attach damages claims for each destroyed plant....