I do enjoy a long time between drinks, so to speak.
It was 2008 when I last took to a bicycle and rode thousands of kilometers in anger. (SACAM 2008)
It is now 2016, so that's 8 years by my count.
The intervening years have seen me become a professional tour guide, taking tours from one end of Australia to another and racking up tons of invaluable experience and knowledge along the way but also at the sacrifice of not being able to see the world by bicycle, which is now my wont and desire.
Not that I won't be guiding anymore; I'll just be choosing to do more of the other stuff as well.
So this is where you may start to follow the adventure.
In a matter of days, I will be saddling up once again and taking on the mighty U.S Pacific Coast between Los Angeles and Vancouver.
It is a journey that will take me over approximately 3000 kilometers (2000 miles) and will last around 12 weeks.
During this time I will be riding, photographing, writing, filming and ultimately aiming to keep my readership entertained, and I will happily do all this in exchange for a small favour.
THE CAUSE
To the right-hand side of the blog, you will notice a short list of links which includes an option to sponsor the bike ride via my Crowdrise page.
This is because I have decided to use this adventure to contribute to an extremely worthy cause.
The Khaled Hosseini Foundation is my beneficiary of choice on this occasion, mainly because I have been a regular donor for the past couple of years.
Khaled Hosseini, for the uninitiated, is the well-known author of such books as "The Kite Runner", "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and "And The Mountains Echoed", all of which I would fully encourage people to read.
And of course, "The Kite Runner" has also been made into a feature film.
As well as being amazing and beautifully written stories, these books offer a rare insight into the culture and peoples of Afghanistan and in particular how these people have attempted to survive in the face of extreme adversity over a long period of time.
It offers a sharp perspective on one's own existence and underscores the reality that people in the world can have their destinies determined simply by being born in a certain place at a certain time.
But for the grace of God.
Without exception, it seems that it is the women and children of Afghanistan who have endured and suffered far more than should be deemed reasonable by those of us who experience normalcy and security as a given in our daily lives.
My wish therefore is to be able to help and hopefully make a difference in these people's lives beyond just making a regular monthly donation.
And to this end, it might as well be by doing something that I kind of enjoy.
So please take the provided link and visit my Crowdrise page, where you will have the option of sponsoring my adventure.
I have included a short paragraph on the page which outlines a suggested amount although this is by no means an expectation or an obligation.
WHY GO RECUMBENT??
Well, why not?
No, actually I do have my reasons.
It's totally different for a start. That always attracts me.
But it also makes sense to my brain.
The recumbent position by definition of the Collins English dictionary is as follows:
1) lying down; reclining
2) (of a part or organ) leaning or resting against another organ or the ground
⇒ a recumbent stem
3) (of a fold in a rock formation) in which the axial plane is nearly horizontal
The word itself is of Latin origin, according to the same source:
from Latin recumbere to lie back, from re- + cumbere to lie
So you get the picture.
To me though, it's the ergonomics that make recumbent riding really advantageous.
You are in a near-prone position, without the discomfort of hard saddle riding up between your legs for hours each day.
In that same near-prone position, you are also relieved of the need to hunch over a set of handlebars for extended periods, which clearly puts unnecessary (and unnatural) strain on the shoulders, arms and neck.
And before I am committed for heresy, I should make clear that this is no more or less than my opinion.....and my choice!
Each to their own and this is my own.
OK, so having dealt with what the recumbent position actually is, I can now explain the different styles of recumbent riding.
In 2007 I purchased my first recumbent - a tricycle - yes, that's 3 wheels, not 2.....
I took myself and that trike on a 6000 kilometer, 4-month epic through south-east Australia in the autumn and winter of 2008.
The trike was (and still is) big scale FUN!! .
With 3-wheels gripping the road at all times (two at the front, one at the back) and a particularly low center of gravity, you have unbelievable stability and control.
And whilst hill-climbing is inherently slow and at times infuriating, the corresponding rush of flying down the other side at a high clip, greasing into corners often without even barely touching the brakes and all while your arse is a shade more than 8 inches off the tarmac, more than makes up for all prior grief.
The steering is utterly consistent and superbly responsive - it is (almost) impossible to fall off unless engaging in some kind of radical act which would need to be Darwinian in its stupidity.
Being so low to the ground I guess is much like driving a Go-kart; just not quite as fast - but does also present the biggest disadvantage of riding a recumbent tricycle.....safety.
The potentiality of disappearing spontaneously underneath a larger, faster moving vehicle such as a road train or a tourist coach or even a humble family sedan, is not so far-fetched and there were enough close encounters back in 2008 to realise how easily it could happen.
And in taking on traffic in the United States and Canada, as I am about to do, I have remained convinced for some time that the recumbent trike was not going to cut it.
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ME & MY RECUMBENT RIG IN THE FLINDERS RANGES, SOUTH AUSTRALIA 2008 |
ENTER THE RECUMBENT BICYCLE
Since 2008 I have mused on the possibilities of a recumbent bike.
Pros?
More upright and higher center of gravity, hence greater safety.
Cons?
Ugly and ungainly appearance.
Expensive.
No obvious design or product that was really doing it for me.
It's a riddle for which there has been no easy answer.
I even went so far as to test ride a bike in Canberra in 2013 and whilst the package offered was tempting, I still wasn't sold.
As the prospect of another long distance tour loomed for 2016, I felt that I was getting closer to busting a move.
I must also admit that sourcing a suitable beast had proved problematic.
My previous recumbent specialist in Canberra had proved increasingly unreliable over a long period of time to the point where it is no longer in business.
Fortuitously, during a research session in mid-2015, I had found a new, alternate recumbent dealer who happened to be located about 20 minutes from home in Sydney.
100% GOLD!!!!
Totally encouraged, I was re-energised in making a commitment to chase things up when I returned home after the 2015 touring season in Western Australia.
As I continued to research and consider things, the more convinced I was that a recumbent bike was the way to go.
The recumbent concept was one I loved and simply couldn't see myself undertaking a long-distance tour on anything else, even though I'd thought about it more than once.
I was also sold on the idea of under-seat steering ahead of above-seat steering, the difference between which you can see here:
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| RECUMBENT BIKE WITH ABOVE-SEAT STEERING |
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| RECUMBENT BIKE WITH UNDER-SEAT STEERING |
The bike of choice was set to be the HP Velotechnik Grasshopper Fx, a folding recumbent bike that offered everything I could have wanted in a touring rig, including the under-seat steering option.
German designed, manufactured and engineered, HP Velotechnik products are high-quality from start to finish and are frequently recommended by those who know their business.
My feeling was that in spite of a final quotation that was well in excess of any figure I had previously contemplated, I would certainly get what I paid for if I were to go ahead.
The final piece of the puzzle was set to be put in place on 2 February 2016, based on the outcome of the test ride.
I had already gone ahead and ordered the bike from Germany several weeks earlier on obligation-free terms from the vendor.
The agreement was if I ultimately decided that it wasn't for me, the bike could be sold as stock regardless.
I agreed willingly to these terms and so long as the bike and I didn't have completely adverse chemistry, I was fully set to test ride and purchase on the same day.
And so it came to be.....
It was a large relief to have finally made a decision.
From this point, I really started to feel that things were going to happen.
The rig as I saw it was complete; fully set up to my specifications and on this front, I couldn't have been happier.
The list of accessories required was also firmly set within my head and there was likely to be some online shopping time ahead.
Possibly the greatest challenge was going to be finding time to get everything together.
My work schedule this summer in Sydney has been ridiculous.
Ridiculous and relentless.
Between my 3 employment situations, I have barely had any days to spare at all.
Whilst it is a nice dilemma to have and I should be appreciative and all that, it has not made life particularly easy, although my bank account has been lapping it up.
In terms of finding quality training time, I conceded from the start that it was not likely to happen.
From experience, this was no biggie.
The best training for something like this has always been hitting the road.
My gym work has been super-consistent during this period in the face of my employment schedule and I'm in pretty good shape.
In saying this, it was still going to be necessary to get out on the bike at least a few times just to get the feel for it.
A recumbent bike has unique geometry and managing your balance on the rig is paramount.
As difficult as it is to come to grief off a recumbent tricycle, it is just as easy to kook it clean off a recumbent bicycle and end up sprawling on the turf.
In addition, the under-seat steering set-up is not 1:1.
To imagine this, think back to the scene in Goldmember with Austen Powers riding on top of Mini-Me's shoulders when they were trying to infiltrate Dr Evil's submarine.
It's a bit like this.
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NOT HAVING 1:1 UNDER-SEAT STEERING CAN TAKE A BIT OF GETTING USED TO.... |
Distance wise, it has just squeaked past 100 km, but I've made a point of including a decent degree of difficulty on both.
Coastal Sydney has a rich menu of hills and slopes from which to select, so it hasn't been difficult to include any number of them.
I've also made a point of adding weight to the rig by affixing my panniers and loading up the trolley - still not quite to touring weight but probably as much as a half-load.
This has helped, although the biggest issues so far have actually been technical - stuff that be tweaked and adjusted readily and have running repairs applied to it if necessary.
Generally, I've coped pretty well with the steering situation, although one definitely has to concentrate a bit harder when cogging slowly uphill.
As simple as it sounds though, starting and stopping are by far the hardest aspects of physically riding the bike.
Already I've fallen off clean once and nearly done so several more times.
If "training" has had to count for something, then making sure I stay upright as much as possible has been worth it.
I'm looking towards one final training run leading up to departure on 1 April.
