OK GO!

Bike / road

Basically…

Derrimut to Arthur’s Seat lookout. Maybe somewhere between 95 and 110km. Around about 4.5 hours. That’s when the flats came.

Replaced a slowly leaking tube with a fresh one only to have the valve tear out (and use up all my CO2). Figured I’d run the slow leaker and just pump it up at intervals until the valve tore out of that one too. Poooo!

Ok… try to patch up the least-destroyed tube and inflate. No dice.
Realisation: I’m a hundred k from home. The city is tiny on the horizon, on the other side of the bay. I’m out of spares. I spent my last five bucks on water and a muffin. I’m alone. Fee doesn’t finish work for two hours. And it’s two hours’ drive to here.

Better get comfortable.

So…
Four and a half hours of riding.
Four and a half hours of sitting around waiting to be rescued.

John had raced in an ammeter in Belgium in his youth and took an interest in the Baum. He insisted on me having lunch with him and his wife in the lookout restaurant, which I accepted with barely muted glee. He had some great stories from his time in Europe, was really interested in the boys at Baum and over the couple of hours we were there, we discovered we had a few common acquaintances.

They had to keep rolling on to Sorrento and I had some serious sitting around to get back to so we shook hands and bid each other farewell for now. I took a few photos for couples at the lookout, and met a guy who works at a community bicycle recycle in the city with a serious chip on his shoulder against China (and all things made therein). My blown tubes? Probably Chinese. Chinese bikes? No good. The cause: Communism! That boy who was hit by a car last week… guess what? The diver was Chinese. Still, I was glad for the entertainment.

When Fee finally rolled up the sun was getting low and the air wasn’t so warm. We made a dash for the last ferry to Queenscliff because, well, fuck the Nappean. We made it, and feasted on the greasy food of kings before cruising the freeway home.

I think that’s the last big solo I’ll be doing for a while. My get out of jail free credits are all used up.

Food

• Muesli w/fruit
• Banana
• GU
• Fruit and nut bar
• Grilled vegetable stack
• Fish and chips, two dim sims, a potato cake
• Fruit toast
• Green tea