Last minute training?

I said I was going to record every "training-worthy" kilometre I did... so riding the 'just short of 5km' to pick up the car from the mechanics yesterday qualifies. Particularly as I'm the one who probably requires the most training. Even if 5km hardly seems worth getting the bike out for.

I feel quite odd, as you just don't see many other 40 + yr old local mothers getting around on their bikes as a means of getting from A to B. For that distance I throw on all the bike clobber, and bike shoes, simply because they are more comfortable to ride in. Think I've said before that I feel like a bit of a wally, but if it makes the riding easier, well, who cares.

The bike shoes are one of the best investments we made. I'd never experienced clipping in to the pedals before, and couldn't believe the difference they made. Had them a year now. I christened them on the Spring Cycle last year - a baptism by fire as there was a bit of stop/starting involved on that route. Caitlin is starting to agitate for a pair.. now that her feet are almost as big as mine, she thinks she will be safe from growing out of them. As she still wants to grow a couple of inches (to catch up with friends), I'm not sure she's grown out of her puppy feet yet... so it's hard to know when to make the investment for her.

Meanwhile, I'm getting interested in the idea of another bike - more road than mountain bike. Though perhaps the slogging along the road on the chunky tyres qualifies as the equivalent of weight training.

So.. anyway... Sydney bound on Saturday.. and hopefully meeting up with a bunch of other tandem nuts around 8 am Sunday morning.!! Lets hope it doesn't rain like they are predicting!

Coffs BUG ride.

So we decided to do another Coffs BUG ride.. this time a Medium grade one, a bit of a drive (1.5 hours ) south down the highway. Scotts Head to Stuarts Point, start time 9.45am for a 10am departure. Approx. 35 km return.

We decided it was worth going to a) test the trailer set up, b) a different way to get us riding that sort of distance, and c) it would be more social than just us trying to clock up that many km by ourselves. (We ended up joining up to Coffs BUG... at the end of it. I am pretty keen to help out in any way I can with bicycle advocacy.. more bike paths I say!)

We arrived to find that Bob and Barbara (who live about 100 metres from our place in the next street, and who we met on the Big Ride) were there. Barbara had apparently considered knocking on our door during the week to ask us to go on the ride (but hadn't.) The mental telepathy had done just fine instead!

The ride was pretty cruisy.. we had no problems keeping up, and didn't even get overtaken on the hills (a nice change from the Big Ride.) It was a smaller group than the Breakfast ride, so it was easier to talk to people, and this time we got to learn a few names. Riding with the BUG is a safer way to ride on roads - a case of motorists seeing a few riders, and (hopefully) being more alert as to other riders ahead. The leaders are very caring, so less experienced riders are well looked after.

Needless to say there was a little bit of interest in the triplet, and how we got it. I guess if you can't confess to a bit of a mad-sounding jaunt overseas to pick up a special kind of bike while you're in a group of bike riding enthusiasts, then where can you confess to it?

So, around 13 km to Stuarts Point. Stop at the local takeaway, order lunch for a bit later, sit down and have a snack.. then zip the 5km out to Fisherman's Reach and back. Pick up lunch.. coast down to the park, and eat burgers by the river.

Anyway, here are some photos of the day...

The group at Fisherman's Reach .

Caitlin did her 'pillion photography' thing; this one is taken from our bike, looking behind (yes, we did get ahead of the triplet a couple of times), while Mum tries to keep the bike steady, on the road into Stuarts Point.

Fisherman's Reach.

Stopping after a hill to regroup and wait for the slower riders. A good excuse for a rest.

Us at Stuarts Point. Team Blue.

Awww....

And this is how the bikes are travelling.

There were a few other photos.. As the Blogger in Charge here, however, I retain the right not to publish any unflattering ones of me. (And believe me there were a few of them... I should ride 35km every day ... and not eat rubbish in between.)

Trailer tinkering

He has been busy this week, in between full time work, getting the rusty, trusty old trailer ready for triplet transportation.

Last night in the carport:


With 'new' tyres, and new lights, she's ready to go. We think we will go down to the Coffs BUG ride from Stuarts Point to Scotts Head (35km) on Sunday morning. Test drive the trailer transport as well.

Test rides, and a whole lot of tinkering...

Finally, the weekend, and a chance to take the new machine for a proper spin. Friday night we made grand plans to go riding in Coffs, after Marc had done an hour of training for Touch. By midnight he realised that neither of his two ideas for transporting the triplet were going to work.

One idea, using its convertible features, had been to pull it apart, reconnect it as a tandem, and put the middle section on the Mac Rac (where we'd previously carried the trailer bike.) He pretty quickly decided that that wasn't going to be practical.. couldn't be good for the bike to be pulling the connectors apart frequently... never mind the time involved (removing the chains etc as well.)

Next he decided to extend the racks we were already using. (He had come up with a very clever system of overlapping, and screwing together two bike racks, for carrying the other tandem. - more details about that some other time...) It was strong enough in the middle, but hung over the roof rack too far at the front, and the clamp was thus moved too far back, so that wouldn't work either.

Hmmm.

Looks like the only option was going to be to use a trailer... and that was going to take some tinkering to set it up. Just another bike related project.

Meantime we have a backyard full of tandems:

To get the 'Tank' (which is what I've now dubbed the green tandem), operational again, he had to borrow the back wheel from the purple one while we get two broken spokes replaced. For now, he's also had to borrow the pedals from the purple one as well, for the CoMotion. So it's sitting there, cannibalised for spare parts at the moment.

Anyway, we finally got out... basically in our old configuration (Marc, Cait and Zoe on one, Alison and me on the old faithful green one) because we were running out of time to muck around with seat heights. (Alison is due for a turn riding with gung ho Dad, and not stuck with Mum... 500km with Mum is probably more than anyone deserves...)

We headed north on the same route we did with the Coffs BUG breakfast ride, and ended up at Mullaway for a quick icecream from the general store, then hightailed it home before it got dark. Clocked up 26km, and Marc had only praise for the CoMotion. He confessed that he'd been just a bit anxious about whether it was going to be as good as the hype (and the money!)

Even I could tell it was good.. they were leaving us for dead - even faster than he was when they were handicapped by the trailer bike! He said it handled like a dream at higher speeds as well. And the gearing was great.. didn't even hit granny gear. - stayed on the middle gear, even up a couple of short sharp hills. He had the grace to feel a bit guilty that he was riding such a nice bike, and two of us would still be on the Tank. [*Well, to be fair, maybe I could ride the Santana, but I will need to wait till he is able to change the gear levers on it... Or maybe I could just play on the conscience factor, and get me a nice CoMotion tandem as well. It wouldn't be as pricey as a convertible triplet! At the very least, I demand a lower geared cluster on the Tank!]

I just wished I had helmet-cam or some such, to record the reactions of people we passed. Some would do a double take just after the CoMotion whizzed past them, when they realised it was a triplet. The funniest was the person on the tennis court, serving, who stopped, mid-toss, to gape. "Take it again!" we heard their magnanimous opponent say.

At least we all felt pretty good after 26 km - like a walk in the park. Must be some residual bike fitness left over from the Big Ride. A new experience for Zoe having to pedal along with the pace Marc sets, but she is all positive about it all, acknowledging that she has to get used to it, but keen all the same.


Much of Sunday Marc spent working on the trailer, which is a bit of a rust bucket. We are really due for a new one, but it will have to do for now. New lights were needed; there had always been a problem with the earth on the old ones.

I went out to pump up the tyres on the Tank, and just as I was asking Marc if the triplet would need pumping up too, I saw that its back tyre was flat! Another job... this time patching. And the realisation that we didn't have the correct spare tubes for it!

So we decided with this ride we'd have to stay close to home.. just in case. We headed out with new combos... Caitlin and me on the Tank, and Alison on the triplet. Pretty quickly I realised that Cait wasn't just a pretty face.. (or just a pain in the bum - trust me, most days I feel like strangling her at least once.) She had learnt a lot from riding stoker to Marc... , had good 'stoker intuition' and was giving me instructions on how to get into a rhythm! And it certainly evened out the ledger... Marc was struggling a bit more with Alison, who, to be fair, still has to get used to the way he rides. Plus she also tends to be more erratic with her riding... either full on turbo, or clocking off! Caitlin, meantime, has the benefit of age (maturity?) and the fact that she has never ridden enough solo to get used to doing her own 'thang'.. unlike Alison who has clocked up 387 km on her own bike, riding to and from school, since she got her bike computer last christmas!


I suggested to Caitlin that she might have to do these next two rides with me... we'll be even faster if she's not taking photos as we ride along!



Might be harder for Marc, (the CoMotion didn't seem quite so fast!) .. but at least I won't be left behind!

We only managed just about 20km, doing 2 circuits of the same route... but it's better than nothing. Listen to us... "ONLY 20km" !!!

Twice during the weekend's rides, the CoMotion had two near misses, which is pretty damn scary. On Saturday, we were barely a block from home, when a car just about sailed out of a side street into the triplet. Both Marc, and I following on behind, could see that he looked right, past both of us... a road train of bikes, and was about to sail on out till Marc yelled. At least he had the grace to acknowledge the near miss as he passed us... and it was a reminder of the importance of making eye contact with drivers, so that you know they know you are there.

On Sunday, just whizzing around the local streets, a guy picked up a big chair or something out of the back of his ute, and just stepped out into the street without even looking, only a few metres from Marc. I suppose he expected that he would have heard a car, and wasn't expecting a triplet bike in stealth mode. Again Marc yelled, and the guy jumped back just in time. Could have been nasty.. never mind the injuries to the people.. it'd be impossible to replace any bent bike parts in a hurry.

Anyway, back home, and Marc was back out in the carport tinkering on the trailer. No rest for this boy over the next week or so... It's tough being the bike mechanic and general handyman and resident technical expert.

An early morning ride.

.. and on a weekday too!

Marc will confirm this - I am so not a morning person. I normally struggle to get up at 7am. But I suppose I make an exception for bike rides. [Yes indeed.. how many early mornings on the Big Ride?!] But basically, if it's suggested, I'm not really game to say no! Can't be a party pooper.

We made arrangements to meet a bike riding friend to do the ride down the highway again.
Despite being half an hour earlier than the other Sunday we did it, the highway was, of course, much busier, which freaked me out a bit. Still, we had a good ride... think I did better on the 3km ride up through the banana plantations this time. Marc said he could feel the 'after burners' kicking in a couple of times. Perhaps a few of my little rides helped. [*Note to self - continue solo ride training, there's a good girl]

45km, 1 hour, 45 mins, average speed 26.1 kph, max speed 69 kph. (yee ha!) With a tail wind back along the highway, Marc reckoned we were doing around 40 kph. Home by 8am; Zoe was only just getting up, and the other two were still asleep!

Riding the Santana is a real hoot!

[Oh yes, the magpie factor! We'd just passed the school, and I said to Marc, "Phew, no magpies today". Oops, spoke too soon. We got swooped a couple of times, but at least the tandem moves faster than my MTB. Needless to say, though, the return trip was playing on my mind. By unspoken agreement our rate increased as we approached the maggie zone. Increased? I was pedalling as hard as I could. Hah! .. too slow this time Maggie. ]

Locked in...

We decided, what the hell, what's a thousand kilometre drive, twice, only a fortnight apart. We are going to the Sydney Spring Cycle on the 22nd October. The Gong Ride is only 2 weekends later.

We figured we should test drive the triplet on the 50km route before embarking on the 90km Gong route. (Plus there are some people from the Big Ride that we'd like to meet up with on the Spring Cycle.)

And we are a bit crazy.

So then come the logistics!

We decided, in the end, to stay at Wollongong the night before and after the Gong ride. We discussed many variations, including staying in Sydney the night before, but as Marc will have to catch the train back to pick up the car, (unless we can find someone willing to drive the car down for us, and make their own way back) we would have needed to pack the panniers up with clothes to change into, ra, ra, ra.

Accommodation for 2 nights starts getting expensive, particularly when you have 3 kids. Only people with 3 or more kids would know what it's like to find that most 'family' accommodation only accounts for 2 children. (Mr Costello should consider that when he urges families to have 'one for the country').

When a cabin at the caravan park was going to cost us $135 a night (for a cabin that takes 5 or 6) as opposed to $85 (for a cabin that only takes 4 people) we decided in the end (after revisiting the 'stay in Sydney Saturday night option') that if we could camp on the Big Ride, we could manage to camp for two nights in a holiday park resort.

Fingers crossed it doesn't rain, eh.

We have this u-beaut canvas touring tent now, which we bought so we can start doing some serious touring/camping trips with the (finally acquired) 4WD. Problem is, we haven't yet sorted roof racks for carrying bikes on the landcruiser, and we won't have the time to sort that in the next couple of weeks. (There will also be a height issue involved in getting tandems onto the top of a landcruiser!!) For now the tent touring and the bike touring won't mix, but that probably won't stop Marc working on it.

So it's the old faithful Commodore again for these two bike adventures, and so we have a space issue with the canvas tent (plus all the bike gear). Back to using the two domes we took on the Big Ride. At least we are flexible!

The kids won't mind if the trade-off is getting to go SWIMMING after the Ride (and, indeed, the afternoon before!)


That weekend's sleep sorted. Next is to hassle some relos for somewhere to sleep before the Spring Cycle. And sweet talking my Dad to do the car shuffle for us like he did last year.

Things are just that bit more complex when you're carting round tandems!

And exactly how are we going to transport the triplet? Lucky it's a convertible... plan is take out the middle section, put it on the mack rack (where the trailer bike used to travel).. make the triplet into a tandem, and carry on top as before. Easy. (Just trying not to think about the time we will have to get up on the morning of each ride so as to stick it all back together before starting off!)

Road test for everyone...

Monday afternoon after more twiddling.




And you're not seeing the one of me on it... till I lose about 10 kg. I am resigned to the fact that it might be some time before I end up getting a seat on it on any long distance ride.

Still a few things to fix up on it.. a few issues to decide. Thinking we might put Zoe in the middle. Still have to fix the front brake. Marc wants to replace the cable ends.. and a chain. More stuff that wasn't done properly in Lithuania.

Oh yeah, apparently Co-Motion do supply instructions.. and a CD... but no sign of them.

Road test time...

Yesterday afternoon (just before we were due to go out) he got it ready for a quick road test.


No, it's not got a great turning circle! - but hey, you can't have everything!

Pedals now required for the back two.. (plus a shopping list to be made of 3 new sets.) Meantime will have to borrow from our other bikes.

Plan today is for us all to go riding... short straws to be drawn for who gets to go with Mum on the other tandem.. or rather, one of the other tandems.

Pity I'm not quite confident enough to captain the Santana... With zilch experience in riding a single road bike, and not being comfortable with the current gear shift set up, for now I'm happy with my stoker status on the back of this one.


Marc intends to change the gear shift set up. Just something else on the list!

What instructions?!

Had a Special Request from a certain friend, to show blow by blow photos of the triplet as it is assembled. So E. This is for you. (Would have done it anyway, but I like to make people feel special!)

No, there weren't any instructions! (Foreign language or otherwise!) I suppose the US company that shipped the bike to Lithuania for this beer company competition assumed that someone would know what they were doing when they put it together.
Marc discovered during the dismantling process, that the Lithuanian bike shop that had been called upon to help this guy put it together didn't really know what they were doing and had made a few mistakes. Lucky it never got ridden anywhere!

Anyway... Saturday 30th September:

Marc arrives home with the precious cargo. Barely time for the 'welcome home' hugs and kisses - he was straight into it (in between, as you can see from the streamers out front) watching the Swans lose the AFL grand final by one point... *sobs*


The wheels went in one half of the case... he even had to let tyres down to fit them in! (The case, incidentally, was one a mate at work was about to take to Vinnies (full of old clothes). The clasps were broken, but it was certainly useable, especially as Marc intended to tape it shut anyway.)


Tubing in the other half.. (and at KL he had to repack it with the few extra clothes he had taken for work.)


And the frame, and seats, and more bits, were in the carton... complete with screwed up Russian language newspaper (some of the pages raising Marc's eyebrows because of some rather raunchy photos - think Page 3 girl but more so). Sergej, the guy he was buying it from, helped him. They managed most of this without an interpreter - as Sergej's wife's friend (who had been helping out a lot with interpreting and translating leading up to this moment) had to go back to work. They did pretty well - despite the fact that Marc came away thinking Sergej had never seen electricians tape before - when it turns out he actually just wanted to know what it was called in English! Doh!

Hmmm.. looks like it could make a bike...







By dusk, he pretty much had it all together.. just waiting for daylight on Sunday (and getting it back out of the shed) to take a decent photo. Marc is on a mission this morning to get a couple of new cable connectors (the dude in the bike shop over there hadn't assembled the 'travel agent' correctly (info for all you bike geeks out there)... and so when done properly, the cable came up short. So we weren't keen on taking it for a spin with only the front brake 'sort of' working.

Also missing is one little spring that went 'boing' off some cable and got lost in the grass. And he needed to get a bigger allen key for tightening up some other part... (Techo talk from Tracey here: could be revised when He proof reads this!..)

More photos to come today!!