Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005
To:
touring@phred.org
From: “Michael Ayers” <michael@terminalia.org>
Subject: Gondwana - A New Sturdy Wheel in New South
Wales
G’Day Phreds,
Today I’m in Lithgow, NSW taking a day’s break to
relax and take care of numerous chores. Tomorrow I will spend a day walking
around in the nearby Blue Mountains, so that should be pretty relaxing as well.
I do need a bit of a break right about now, as the
last week, or so, turned out to be much tougher than I was expecting. Lots of
seemingly unnecessarily steep grades along the southern coast of NSW which
slowed me down quite a bit. And I was expecting things to flatten out somewhat
once I got to the western side of the Great Dividing Range, but that has yet to
happen and there are some seriously steep climbs here as well. (The actual
crossing of the range turned out to be one of the easier days of late.)
There have also been a few days of foul weather to
deal with, and I am certainly ready for some extended sunshine. In fact, the
two-year long drought that the region has been suffering through decided to end
the day before yesterday, exactly at the moment when I reached the only section
of dirt road that is on my route for the next several weeks. So, I had one of
those classic days that combined all of our “favorite” features; cold, rain,
hills, headwinds, and dirt road all at the same time. Glad that day is behind
me now.
But today is nice, and each day brings me a little bit
further north, towards Queensland, and the tropics. The thought of a warm,
sandy beach and a swim in a tepid ocean is extremely appealing right about now.
Last post, I mentioned two equipment problems that
were pestering me. Well, actually, they
were both rather big deals, but are now, or will be later today, resolved.
The bike issue was one that we all dread. On my last
day in Tasmania, I wore through the braking surface of my rear rim, causing a
6-cm long bulge along the rim edge. That was a sad day, as that was the best
wheel I have ever had, and I hated to see it go before it’s time. It was built
by our own Peter White and was never out of true for one second of its life. It
only had about 17,000 km on it, but that included my first tour of Madagascar,
which was like scraping it continuously with 60-grit sandpaper for two months,
and last years rainy Canada tour, which was not much better. One of those wet
descents on Tasmania must have been the last straw. I had actually debated with
myself for several weeks as to whether I should replace the rim before I left
home. I could feel some wear on the surface, but, of course, had no real idea
how much longer it would last. I was hoping to get at least another year out of
it, so I decided to leave it be. But, of course, with hindsight if I had known
it would go after only 10 days I would have swapped it out right away. I had
two spare rims in storage at home and someone helping me who can ship items
like that to me when needed, so I am expecting it to arrive here at any moment.
Tonight’s plan will then include rebuilding the wheel, and once that’s done,
I’ll be feeling extremely relieved. We’ll soon see how my wheel-building skills
stack up against Peter’s (Yeah.... Right!) Actually,
with the Phil Wood 145-mm rear hub I’m using the rear wheel is dishless, so it
should be a rather easy build for me (the dishless feature was one of the main
reasons I chose those specifications originally). Now I finally get to reap the
dividends of that particular equipment choice.
The amazing thing is that I rode all the way here (the
most convenient place on my route to meet a shipment from home) from Melbourne,
about 1,200 km, with a 6-cm chunk of rim missing! (The “bulge” that originally
formed became a “hole” a few days later when the broken piece popped off). I was surprised that the wheel stayed true
through all of that, and even more so that with such a large piece of the rim
bead missing that my tire did not fail (I rode for a whole day with a big open
gap before I noticed that the broken piece of rim had popped off, after that I
reinforced the area {slightly} with some kludgy
plastic strips) A testament, I suppose, to the strength of Schwalbe
Marathon XR tires. I’m not sure just how much longer everything would have
lasted before failing completely. Not much longer, I suspect. However, assuming
my package arrives today, all will be well.
The other equipment failure was my handheld PC (HP iPaq 4700) which decided to go on the blink the day after I
first noticed the rim problem. Fortunately, it was still under warranty, and HP
has a service center in Sydney, not far from here. They fixed it much faster
than I would have expected and it arrived here today as well.
Though you can imagine the confusion brought by the
following conversation:
HP tech center: “Ok, we’ll fix it for you. What is
your mailing address in Australia?”
Me: “Ummm... I don’t have one”
HP tech center: “Well, we at least need a phone number. What is yours?”
Me: “Ummm... I don’t have one”
Eventually we got it all straightened out and all is
well now. I have never carried any sort of electronic gadgets on tour until
last year. And now I am rather dependent on it (mostly for archiving and
backing up photos, and maps, logs, and local info) and
I felt really lost while it was gone. Oh, for the good old days, eh?
Alright, that’s all for now. I’ll be continuing north
on the “Ride to Daylight” in a couple of days.
No Worries!
Mike
--
The Tour of Gondwana
May 02005 - Oct 02007
http://www.terminalia.org/tour
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005
From: “Michael Ayers” <michael@terminalia.org>
Subject: Gondwana - Nice, Sunny & Warm (no, not really) in New South Wales
G’Day Phreds,
A few days late with this one as no good access was to be found lately...
First, a correction to my previous post. When I was in Lithgow, I wrote that the new rim I needed to repair my rear wheel would arrive “Any minute now.” Well, as it turned out, the package was quarantined by Australian customs for three days. Why a brand new, 500-gram metal hoop needed to be quarantined, I will probably never know. Perhaps they were worried about an infestation by the dreaded North American Aluminum-Eating Weevil.
In any case, not willing to just sit around and wait that long, I asked the carrier to redirect the package to another city a few days further along my route. It took a fax and about ten phone calls to arrange that, and I didn’t even know for sure until the morning that both I and the rim were supposed to arrive in Moree, NSW whether they actually sent it to the new address.
I was also not sure whether my old broken wheel would last that far, but I’m happy to say that it did, holding out for 1,900 km, instead of 1,300 as I had previously stated. I was also happy to arrive in Moree for another reason. That town has a deep artesian well that pumps 41ºC water into every pool in town. I had been dreaming about finding a hot springs since the tour began, and so before making the repair I took a much-needed soak. Afterwards, I did the rim transplant in my motel room and, even though I used the ol’ upside-down-bike-truing-stand method, it turned out pretty well.
A note of thanks to list member P. Lynn Miller of Chainring Transit Authority (http://www.chainringtransitauthority.com/) in Sydney, who suggested many helpful alternatives should the new rim never arrive. In the end it was just a matter of waiting for the package to finally arrive, but it was nice to know that I could still get going again if it didn’t. Aussie phreds should send some business their way.
However, over the last couple of weeks, that was not the only thing I had to worry about. Over that time I experienced numerous other equipment problems with camping gear, bike parts and clothing. I’ve been touring for twelve years, and I realize that things’ breaking is part of the game but, crikey, this was a bit ridiculous! I seriously considered titling this post “Nothing Shall Work in New South Wales, but that seemed a little negative. Perhaps the most frustrating was when BOTH of my tent poles broke (one of them twice) within seven days. For the moment, at least, everything is either repaired, replaced, or soon to be, so I seem to be moving along alright for now.
Anyway, back to the actual ride. After leaving Lithgow there were several days of riding north through the New South Wales high country. There were some fairly easy days and some very strenuous ones, the latter due to heavy rolling terrain, bad weather, the aforementioned equipment problems, or sometimes all three at once.
In that area I also began to have more frequent sightings of that hopping symbol of Australia, the loveable ‘Roo (kanga-, that is). They are proving to be rather challenging to photograph, but they sure are fun to watch. Seeing one hop over a fence in a single bound is a thing of beauty.
After Moree, I turned to the east and headed back towards the coast, which, I assumed, would be a rather easy ride as I would frequently have the wind at my back. While that was true for much of the time, I was not expecting the snow that fell on me as I crossed the Great Dividing Range for the second time. Because of that and some more equipment problems (see above,) I stopped early that day and tried to dry out in the hill town of Glen Innes.
That turned out to be a good decision, as the weather turned nice for the following two days (wow, two whole days in a row!) Because of that I was finally able to enjoy some of the natural attractions along the way. Previously, just about every time I reached an interesting park or other nice area, the weather was not really good enough to enjoy the scenery. This time, however, I was able to take a couple short hikes in Gibraltar Range and Washpool National Parks, and spend an entire day at the seaside village of Iluka and Bundjalung National Park.
Between Washpool and Iluka was the first really fun descent of the tour, a drop of about 900 meters. The best part was that as I went down the slope towards the east and the coast, I began to see tropical foliage mixed in with the surrounding forest. That meant I was finally leaving the cold and ice behind and entering the edge of the tropics. That picked me up quite a bit, as I had been looking forward to some warmth for a few weeks. In subsequent days I passed sugar and coffee plantations, the most southerly of Australia, also a good sign. However, all was not well as the last two days in the state were spoiled a bit by another feature of the tropics, torrential rain. Well, at least it was warm rain for a change.
A “Ride to Daylight” update:
Since the most southerly point of the Stage 1 route, just north of Hobart, Tasmania, I have traveled 16 degrees 41 minutes of latitude to the north. In Tasmania, sunrise was at 7:22 AM, and sunset was at 4:47 PM, for about 9.5 hours of daylight. Now, the sun rises at 6:37 AM and sets at 5:10 PM for a gain of an hour and ten minutes. That is a step in the right direction, at least. With me heading north, and the Sun “moving” south now that the winter solstice has passed, I will really start to see some improvement!
Up next is Queensland, and a ride straight up its tropical coast toward Cairns.
No worries,
Mike
--
The Tour of Gondwana
May 02005 - Oct 02007
http://www.terminalia.org/tour