Melbourne – Sorrento (to retirement home)
Writing by Sheridan on Tuesday, 22 of September , 2009 at 6:39 am
Have been doing some riding lately. On a bicycle. Just for health and fitness, etc. Plus it’s much quicker than getting public transport to work. Tim recently up-graded his bicycle with new pedals, which I have experienced from both on the bike and also lying tangled underneath it on the unrelenting concrete basement floor (but mercifully out of the public eye). And I have the bruises to demonstrate that unexpected stopping is generally a no-no with these things. So we have been riding around a bit, Tim with his death pedals and me with my pedals for the physically uncoordinated. I do look much hotter than him in tight pants and a jersey, though.
The other weekend some clown convinced us that riding to Sorrento (from Melbourne) seemed a good idea. It woudl be a nice day and we’d get the ferry across the waters to Queenscliff, from whence we would roll easily down into Geelong and get the train home. Sounds relatively simple. And it is. In a car.
The getting to Sorrento wasn’t the problem. Although there was one hill (Oliver’s Hill) which is so steep it is practically stairs. The other hills aren’t steep but are painfully drawn-out.
The ferry ride was psychedelic. The coulours and textures of all of the foods we ate will be with me forever. I recall Tim eating a slice of hedgehog meant to feed a family of 9. Some others may have consumed 2 or more pasties. I went to the toilet in an actual private room designed for the procedure. It was bliss. And we spent our time lambasting the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) for their seemingly inaccurate weather forecast. Wind? What wind? Sure, there had been a torrentail downpouring back in Frankston, but the skies were blue and luckily we were on a ferry, not a yacht. Surely the very short ride from Queenscliff to Geelong would barely register on the pain scale.
How very wrong we were. Just outside of Queenscliff the BOM’s prophecy was quickly turning into our reality. Winds of 50km/h, gusting up to 70km/h were recorded. We rode as a tightly-packed foursome, trying to avoid being blown into the path of an on-coming Kenworth as we pressed towards civilisation and a cold drink. At about the half-way mark, I got off my bike and was ready to push it into a ditch and walk away wiping my hands. Ideally, we had stopped outside a rural retirement home and I let the task of locating a cab fall to Tim while I fantasised about having a hot shower. The other half of our team continued on, not to be defeated by the wind. A cab materialised not much later and we rode in comfort to the station, handing over the best-spent cash of this year, if not this lifetime, when we arrived. Normally we would never pay anywhere near that amount for a cab, but I was only too happy to part with it. I would have paid double.
Conveniently we all met up at the station and rode home in comfort courtesy of V/Line, sharing conversation that would have been more at home in a room of people sharing mind-altering drugs. But nonethelss, we made it back to Southern Cross and proceeded to not ride home.
Comments (1)
Category: Uncategorized
Comment by Ian
Made Tuesday, 22 of September , 2009 at 11:53 am
I’m quite disappointed I didn’t manage to bring Tim around to my preferred brand of death pedals. He’ll just have to deal with an entirely poorer class of death.
I’ve toppled over a good half dozen times when learning to ride clipless pedals. Replacing the instinct to lift one’s foot up with one to rotate the ankle sideways takes time, but pain is a good incentive. That, and the embarrassment of falling over in the middle of Nicholson St in front of all that peak hour traffic.
Also see: http://sheldonbrown.com/gloss_da-o.html#deathcleats
