Adrian Tritschler's stuff
My website, an agglomerative mess, probably half-eaten by a grue
© 1984 - 2026 Adrian Tritschler
Panaracer Gravelkings on AWOL, 8000km from Vittoria Randonneurs
Adrian Tritschler's stuff
My website, an agglomerative mess, probably half-eaten by a grue
© 1984 - 2026 Adrian Tritschler
Argh! The Cycliq Fly12 hasn't recorded any video since [2019-05-10 Fri]!
I plugged the Fly12 into my laptop this afternoon to see if I could extract the video of me catching up to, then overtaking, the motorist who choose to drive hugging the kerb and blocking the bike lane in Gardiner road yesterday. Frustrated that once again the Fly12 has failed me, this time there’s just not a single video since [2019-05-10 Fri]. I suspect that the SD card has failed, that’d be the SD card supplied with it that the camera has always periodically decided it can’t write to.Surprise again! Oakleigh station car park partly closed for crane work on shops – but blocking bike path again
Every time they take the easy way out, rather than leave a footpath width aisle at the south side of the car park to keep the Djerring trail open, they close off the entire end of the car park and force pedestrians and cyclists out to make their own way – either through the shopping centre on foot, or under it through the tunnel with bus, car and truck traffic.Surprise! East side ramp up from Oakleigh station underpass is closed off, go west and around
like being back in Skyrail construction times, Djerring trail closed for a week, trucks roaring up and down
Huge gravel trucks in and out of our street up onto the bike path, chain-link fence blocking access to the bike path. I think they’re removing the rest of the old signalling conduit and wiring and I guess doing some landscaping.Riding home; low sunlight, currawongs[1] calling, 13°C along the creek, its almost winter
[1] Pied currawong
GSRT day 4; Fish Creek to Leongatha
dst. (km) Today 35.9 Trip 168.4 Last morning of the mini trip; breakfast in shifts in the motel room since they only gave us two bowls. Pack the panniers one last time.
A bit more wind than the last few days, and slightly less small birdlife as it all sheltered away. Still plenty of larger birds in the paddocks, together with a magnificent view of a Wedge-tailed eagle soaring above the strip of forest over the railtrail, only just above the tree tops overhead, presumably watching for some of the many rabbits we saw.
GSRT day 3; Port Welshpool to Fish Creek
dst. (km) Today 45.4 Trip 132.5 A few spots of rain as we packed to leave this morning but none noticeable during the ride. Muesli and fruit in the cabin for breakfast, then pack up and start back towards Leongatha.
2019-04-13T09.28.09.0643_samsungPreparing for departure at the Long Jetty Caravan Park, Port Welshpool
Leaving the caravan park we headed straight out onto the Long Jetty for an essential last visit – out to the end, said hello to the catchless fisherman then turned around and back to land, rejoin the road to the far end of Port Welshpool, turn left and head inland on a few unmarked local roads and rejoin the rail trail.
GSRT day 2; Foster to Port Welshpool
dst. (km) Today 38.5 Trip 87.1 I think we’re in the groove today; breakfast in bed, then get up, pack up, second breakfast at the bakery in town and a quick look around, then off down the rail trail for today’s ride – shorter than anticipated due to a minor misreading of distances yesterday.
First breakfast was left-over pizza from the pub last night, second breakfast was pastries and coffee while sitting in the sun at Ando’s bakery.
GSRT day 1; Leongatha to Foster
dst. (km) Today 48.6 Trip 48.6 For the last three years we’ve tried to get away for a multi-day bike tour on the rail trails in Victoria. Nothing too adventurous, our setup is that Jo & Cam ride his tandem carrying a minimum of essentials in daypacks, I carry the luggage in panniers and bags on the AWOL. Staying in caravan park cabins or motels cuts down on what we need to take, as does eating out, so the panniers hold pretty much only a change of clothes and toiletries.
An after work beer, via a mini adventure
There are any number of small breweries around Melbourne, the trick seems to be finding them, and finding when they’re open. Leaving work a little bit early, today I had my sights set on Beach Hut Brewery – named in a way that implies a bay-side location, but tucked away in Scoresby near the corner of Ferntree Gully road and the Eastlink freeway.
A quick check of the map and it looks as though I can head east along Wellington road until it meets Dandenong creek and the Eastlink freeway, then follow the bike track alongside the freeway all the way up to the corner.
Adventures on the commute home
Last Sunday we rode along the gravel path on the south side of Scotchmans creek from Stanley avenue near the Huntingdale wetlands up to the freeway, today on the ride home I decided to take a mini-adventure, retrace the route in reverse and take a few photos as I went.
Turn left off Forster road and onto the gravel track, no council vehicles today, no snakes either, so both warning signs can probably be ignored.
Skink Link cycling
A drizzly grey day after yesterday’s pouring rain, having spent the morning inside we went out for a ride in the early afternoon to take a look at the City of Monash “Skink Link” habitat works along Scotchmans Creek. I’d seen one of the piles of logs a few times while riding past but hadn’t stopped to look in detail, and in describing it had managed to confuse Jo, since she’d received email updates about the work, but it placed them on the other side of Drummond street.
Clyde Mountain cycling
Keeping in touch with my roots, I read Tim the Yowie Man’s column from the Canberra Times on local history of the Canberra area. I’d bookmarked The downhill daredevils who conquered The Clyde – two cyclists riding from Canberra to the coast in 1943 – and read it this afternoon, prompting almost a stream-of-consciousness of memories of a similar trip.
There aren’t many routes to take so it almost parallels the trip Richard & I made after the end of year 12; the road much improved from 1943 in that article, but for us two eighteen year olds quite an adventure, and given how long ago it was and that I can’t find anything I wrote about it, strong memories.
A loop of the lake
Well the intention today had been to drive in to Stawell and ride out along the Grampians Rail Trail back towards Halls Gap, but circumstances conspired against us – a longer than anticipated hike up to The Pinnacle in the morning, a late arrival in Stawell for lunch and finding the town much larger and more spread out than expected.
Instead we decided to start heading back towards Melbourne straight after lunch, but to stop in Ballarat for a lap of Lake Wendouree.
Two family rides out of Halls Gap
Two family rides today, morning ride to the north, along a firetrail at the base of the ridge, off towards the golf course through the bush and back into town. Then later an excursion out to Lake Bellfield, back for lunch, and a minor detour to search for – and find – geocache GC133Q5. Interestingly, both rides came in at 12.7km.
Morning – firetrails and an old rail line in the bush Walking across the sports ground in the morning I’d found that there was a dirt road, or more accurately a sand road, that skirted the base of the hills and headed north.
Lorne Otways loop
Going AWOL at the top of Teddy's Lookout Escape for a couple of hours in the afternoon; out of the car port and straight down into town without time to warm up. Then ten kilometres of the climb up Benwerrin, I suspect that I’ll never again surpass my quickest time up the climb. Turn left at the top and today there are no march flies, then there’s a quiet ten kilometres or so along the dirt road along the ridge.
Autumn bike commutes
My favourite time of year, the temperature is just right, usually not too wet, enough daylight hours and unlike spring, no swooping magpies! Although it’s heating up again later this week, on a still clear afternoon I took a few mini detours for a thoroughly enjoyable commute home.
Suburban back streets to Huntingdale, then through a back alley for some local colour, industrial brick buildings and rear yards. A few decades worth of discarded industrial detritus in some places.
Visualising cycling rides — relive.cc
A few weeks ago I followed a link to a visualisation of someone’s bike ride on https://relive.cc and was impressed with the insight it gave to a ride. So I signed in, carefully read the terms and conditions and privacy policy as one always does… and linked it with my strava account. Of course since then I don’t think I’ve ridden anywhere interesting, so it has waited until yesterday afternoon’s long ride home to get a decent video of my own.
Obstruction, my lord
About 15 years ago I moved to Oakleigh and although I’d probably used the “Station trail” bike path – now the “Djerring trail” – before then, that was when I started it using it at least weekly, sometimes daily.
The path is pretty poor, it runs between train stations but vanishes at each one. Too hard to work out a through-route for cyclists so in fairly typical Melbourne bike facilities fashion it just vanishes, leaves you to – “Cyclists dismount” – walk through connecting footpaths and pedestrian underpasses, then ride through car parks, then rejoin the next section of shared path – all additionally dangerous if you’ve got small children with you.
Coffeeneuring 2018 no. 7 — rainy day commute and a coffee
My seventh – and last – ride of the eighth coffeeneuring challenge.
The challenge ends on Sunday and there are things I must do on both days of the weekend, so I’d been wondering how I’d fit in the last ride. Earlier this week I’d been intending to go for a lunch ride on Thursday or Friday, similar to the shorter rides I did last year. Well it didn’t happen yesterday, so that left today.
The Slog, 2018, 160km
My sixth time around the loop; 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and now 2018. I’d entered in 2013 but had the flu the week before the ride and that Saturday it poured with rain, so I sensibly stayed home.
The official timing reports say that I completed the ride in 7hr 22min 36sec, which puts me 9th last of the 177 riders in the 160 km event, and 3hr 22min behind Eric who was first to finish!
Coffeeneuring 2018 no. 6 — Early home, chores, a coffee
My sixth ride of the eighth coffeeneuring challenge; tomorrow I’m off on “an event” which rules out my Saturday ride being counted as part of the challenge, so I snuck in a coffeeneuring coffee as my late lunch, going home early to work from home, and to do some secret chores.
Circumstances dictated that I had to collect kid from school, so an early ride home and then work from home was called for.
Coffeeneuring 2018 no. 5 — The other river, yesterday's donut, a hipster coffee
My fifth ride of the eighth coffeeneuring challenge; each one different so far; back in Melbourne after last weekend away and a bit of exploration – urban and riverside – then a coffee on the way home.
I’d had a hankering to go west and explore the Maribyrnong for a few weeks – partly after going over it on our Around the Bay ride, and partly after hearing a relation talk of his work on an engineering project out that way – it reminded me I rarely go out there and hadn’t seen much of that side of Melbourne for years.
Coffeeneuring 2018 no. 4 — The Great Ocean Road, the wind, the coffee
My fourth ride of the eighth coffeeneuring challenge; each one different so far; equally good scenery to last week, but much better coffee.
We were going away for a four day weekend due to the Melbourne festival of horse whipping, drunkenness and gambling … err, the Melbourne Cup … and taking the bikes with us. It takes up too much of the day if I try and ride the whole 200 km from Melbourne to Lorne so I’d decided to wait until somewhere around Freshwater Creek or Moriac – depending on the route we took – and ride the rest of the way from there.
Coffeeneuring 2018 no. 3 — Mountain ash, tree ferns, bad coffee
My third ride of the eighth coffeeneuring challenge; far better weather than a week ago, but much worse coffee.
A six thirty start, first time back on the AWOL after it spent the week at the LBS having the bottom bracket replaced. Last Saturday’s gritty rain ride was the last straw, although it had seemed OK on Sunday when we went out exploring, on Monday morning it was dead – the occasional noise under load was now a constant grinding.
Coffeeneuring 2018 no. 2 — Just like Spring rain…
My second ride of the eighth coffeeneuring challenge; a very different ride to a week ago and a lot fewer people about.
I’d woken up around 4 am to the sound of heavy rain on the roof, not a good sign, but by the time I woke a second time at around 6:30 am the rain seemed to have stopped, although everything was very wet.
I left under dull grey skies, temperature of 10.
Every day is ride2work day
Today is the annual event of “Ride2Work day” that Bicycle Network organize to try and get people to try cycle commuting, even if only for the one day a year. Free breakfasts at various places, promotions, you name it. If I’d been going to work on campus I could have helped myself to either of two breakfasts depending on whether I came in the north or the south end of campus, instead it was the first day of the eResearch Australasia conference and I found myself heading towards the city.
Coffeeneuring 2018 no. 1 — Saturday morning bay ride
Last year I stumbled on the semi-humorous “coffeeneuring” cycling challenge via the Chasing Mailboxes blog and had lots of fun as a result. The months have rolled around and here it is again, their eighth coffeeneuring challenge, my second time through. Seven rides to seven coffees in seven weeks… how hard can it be?
A quick perusal of the rules… hmm, I think rule 9 would have tripped me up last year – one of my coffees was taken during The Slog and wouldn’t qualify this year, I’d better be more careful!
ATBIAD, 50km on the tandem
A long day, truly magnificent weather and a fantastic day out for Cam’s longest ride ever – almost 70 km by the time we added in 9 km getting to the start and home afterwards.
Despite my misgivings about logistics and timing, it all went to plan, although as usual my body clock refused to trust the alarm clock, so I woke up pretty much every half hour from 1 am to 4 am, and barely got back to sleep in between.
ATBIAD preliminaries
After over a decade of not riding in the Around the Bay in a Day bike ride, this year Cam and I have entered for the family option on the tandem. It used to be that when you said you’d ridden “Around the Bay in a Day” it meant that you had, in fact, ridden around Port Phillip bay and that you had done so in a day. There are now so many options and distances that you can pay your money, ride 20 km from Albert park down to Elwood and back and say you have “Ridden in Around the Bay in a Day (event)”.
enjoyable ride along the GOR
Cam and I rode from Lorne to Wye River and stopped for a coffee or hot chocolate, then met up with Jo on her way back from Skenes creek and rode together back to Lorne. Timed it perfectly to miss bus o’clock – the hour from 10-11am when all the outbound tour buses head down the Great Ocean Road, and even spotted an echidna in the grass on the way back down to St George river
Sunday Skyrail Bikepath Exploration
Off for an hour and a half to explore the progress of the bikepath along the railway… south and east along the line from Oakleigh to Dandenong, then turn around retrace my steps.
One of the benefits of the Level Crossing Removal Project. They say there’ll be a “Continuous Bike Path” from Caulfield to Dandenong, so off I went to see how far along the construction has progressed. Although they did say that for a while, then the wording changed a bit.
Where is the small allen key?
After the Gravel Grind ride last Sunday, or the corrugated parts in particular, one of my bidon cages has worked loose and the bottle has wobbled to and fro on my rides to work. Hunting around for the correct sized allen key this morning I found out just how many of them I have lying around the house… and shed. Unfortunately I think I’ve only got one or two of the 2mm size that these bolts are I was beginning to suspect that I’d carefully put them somewhere safe – so safe that I couldn’t find them.post-ride aches
I really should give up on this idea of entering moderately hard bike rides and not doing any training. Relying on generaly fitness and my minimal commutes just doesn’t cut it! Today I’m a bundle of aches and pains, moving around the house like an old man and having trouble bending down to pick things up. The back of my neck and trapezius aches, probably from carrying the little backpack for the whole day.
Cold commute home
Riding home on the coldest day so far this year, on the third last day of what is officially winter. There was a frost this morning and it was cold and still all day, thankfully with a clear blue sky so any time you could get out in the sun you felt warmer.
Around 8 °C as I left the building, the sun still above the horizon for another half hour or so.
Yellow-tailed black cockatoos[1] on the commute
Crossing over Dandenong road on the ride home and over the traffic noise in the damp and gloom there’s the unmistakable creaking call of a black cockatoo – no idea where it was, but they always bring a smile to my face [1] Yellow-tailed black cockatoo
Winter commute
Another cold and misty day, 3.5°C on the ride to work and a low fog bank off to the east filling Dandenong creek valley. A hazy mist in the air all day and a magnificent full moon rising through it on the way homemorning commute
Chilly ride to school and work, then got here and made the lift break down – I pushed the button, the indicator said it was at 3, 2, 1, G…. Then all the lights on the board went out and I heard it shut down. Waited a few minutes, pressed a few buttons, then gave up, hoiked bike up onto my shoulder and walked up the stairs to the third floor
Cycliq Fly12 Woes
Yesterday for the first time in ages I took a look at a video from the Cycliq Fly12 – I wanted to see what the grid-locked traffic looked like. As usual, I did it through the USB connection since I’ve found the Android app to be barely usable for connecting to the device, let along trying to view any video. Watching the video I realised it was still set to GMT+11 so the timestamps were an hour out.
birds on the commute
Damp and grey, the first rainy morning I can remember for months. Riding in the last few streets to work there were currawongs[1] calling, somewhere, evoking winter. Then a butcherbird[2] loudly telling the world it was raining [1] Pied currawong [2] Grey butcherbirdAbout
ajft looking stylish and black
…The Owner
There’s not much more I can add to who I am.
…The Site
Vanity site? Technology experiment? Learning tool? Blog? Journal? Diary? Photo album? I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you…
I experiment. I play. I write and I take pictures. Some of the site is organised around topics, other parts are organized by date, then there’s always the cross-references between them.
Its all been here a fairly long time. Like the papers on my desk, or the books on the bedside table, the pile just grew… and it all grew without much plan or structure. I try not to break URLs, so historical oddities abound.
Long ago it started as a learning experiment with a few static HTML pages, then I added a bit of server-side includes and some very ugly PHP. A hand-built journal/blog on top of that PHP, then a few experiments in moving to various static publishing systems. I’ve never wanted a database-based blogging engine, so over the years I’ve tried PHP, nanoblogger, emacs-muse, silkpage and docbook before settling on Emacs Org mode for writing and jekyll for publishing. But the itch remained… I never really liked jekyll and the ruby underneath always seemed so much black magic. So now the latest incarnation is Org mode and hugo.
…The ISP
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