Home Bound

June 3, 2021

And Lessons Learned

I’m travelling on a Murrays Bus. The Sydney-Canberra Express. It’s pouring rain. One of the days when cycle touring would be a drenching experience.

I’ll be home in about three hours after a four hour flight from Perth to Sydney yesterday, and then overnighting in Sydney to visit my son who lives fairly close to the airport. Close enough for me to taxi to his place, and for him to store my boxed bike and other bulky cycle touring luggage which I can collect by car when I next visit him.

The exit from Perth by air (my first plane flight in about 15 months) went smoothly. The only slight hiccup was airport security insisting I open the box so they could look inside. This meant cutting the tape and resealing with a cutter and tape they provided. Thankfully Mark Feldman, the Perth bicycle mechanic who packed my bike did such a tidy job, this box-check process was an easy task.

The bike transport sequence of trolley to taxi to trolley to plane to trolley to taxi and finally to storage at my son’s place went smoothly, even though my left hand and right arm still aren’t fully functional from the injury sustained in a fall from the bike last week. When other travel modes are needed, a lot of lifting and lugging is needed with touring bikes and a full load of touring gear.

This is also the first time since 1989 I’ve flown with a non-folding bike, and it has been a good reminder of why folding bikes are so convenient for multi-modal travel.

I’ve had a few days to reflect on the “Against the Wind” fundraising ride. Overall I’m delighted at how well the 3820 km ride went. My co-riders were amazing, the people we met along the way were great, the fundraising is going well enough and the logistics of the tour worked well. The obvious high probability risks of bad weather, mechanical failures, accidents, injury, illness, fatigue, and Covid travel restrictions caused almost no issues. For 60+year old riders on fully loaded bikes, we covered the distance at a reasonable pace. We had time to meet people, see things, do media interviews and experience localities along the way. But we did finish in a reasonably short time of exactly six weeks, averaging about 90-100km per day.

My overwhelming hindsight impression is how vast and arid is the country transected by the classic trans Australia ride route. The sheer lack of water, shelter and people en-route is mind boggling. Doing the ride in autumn saved us a lot of discomfort and risk. We managed water well. It would be very easy to get this wrong by carrying too little or too much water. People do often ride/walk the Nullarbor crossing solo, however I think doing it with at least one other rider was far safer and more enjoyable.

With 20:20 hindsight, what would I have done differently? There are only a few minor practical things needing adjustment. For example next time I would not start with new shoes. Mine were a tad too small, were never really comfortable. I should have simply worn a pair of well worn-in riding shoes or even sandals.

Another change is that I wouldn’t have done such long distances at the start of the ride. Especially if the mornings are as as cold as what they were on Day 2 of the ride. This caused a sore knee (classic ‘cyclists knee’) which bothered me slightly for several weeks. Thankfully the condition didn’t worsen and did improve once I began wearing an extra layer of longs to keep the knees warm for cold morning dawn starts.

Would I recommend this ride to others? Yes but with the caveat not to underestimate the risk of trucks, road trains and other large vehicles on sections such as the Hay Plain, The Nullarbor and especially The Goldfields region of WA. The riding conditions are dangerous and a high level of diligence, experience and visibility are essential to avoid death and injury by collision with motor vehicles. These are not roads for inexperienced, nor gung-ho daredevil riders. There are numerous roadside memorials (including many multiple fatalities) for people who have died on these roads. The risks are manageable, but I would not recommend the ride to anyone who is not prepared to be careful, courageous and relentlessly sensible in areas where there are many, large articulated trucks sharing the space. Safety first.

Thank you for taking time to read my journal. It’s been fun doing the ride and recording it here.

A few final pics.

The wet weather which welcomed us to Perth settled in for a few days over wide areas of southern WA. How fortunate we were to finish the ride when we did. Winter has really begun now.

How did I celebrate the end of the ride? Don’t tell anyone, but a couple of hours in a high tech laundromat was my idea of fun. It’s the cleanest I’ve felt for six weeks.

This statue in a Perth plaza sums up the ecstatic feeling of finishing this long ride.

Perth has an excellent light rail system. It seems very underused.

View from the train window heading north of Perth to visit my cousin. Note the excellent bike path.

Sea views. The Indian Ocean from my cousin’s house at Quinns Rocks. This is as close as I got to dipping the bike wheel in the ocean. That is, not very close at all.

With my cousin Eric. We grew up in the same small town of Barraba NSW, and both have very strong links to our family roots in that resilient community. Eric had distinguished careers in the army and later as a paramedic. It was wonderful spending the day with him to reconnect over our shared family and community history though we lost contact for decades and both now live a long way apart from each other and from our home village.

If you ever need an excellent bicycle mechanic in Perth, contact me for the number of Mark Feldman. A former work colleague is married to Mark, and she introduced me to him. At very short notice, Mark fully serviced my bike and did a top job of packing it for the flight back east.

Sunset in Sydney near my son’s place. Like so many days in the past six weeks, it’s been a dawn to dusk day of travel. However today the bicycle was being transported. It was not the transport.

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Victa CalvoThanks for taking us all along on your ride Graham, it was a great read.

Victor
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3 years ago

Graham SmithThanks Victa. I’m happy with the photos, but I was so busy / tired riding 6-8 hours day, I didn’t put much effort into the writing. I wanted to post daily, rather than writing retrospectively. Anyway I’m glad I managed to produce a journal. I also used Facebook a lot on this ride, and the posts there had a good number of people taking an interest via that medium as well.
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3 years ago

Bill ShaneyfeltAs always, I have really enjoyed following along. Your journal helps alleviate the craving to ride Oz myself. At 75 with failing knees, it will never happen for me, but your nature shots are outstanding and help fill the void. I appreciate the ID info too.

Looking forward to your next ride, wherever that may be.
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3 years ago

Graham SmithTo Bill ShaneyfeltThanks Bill. It’s nice to get the feedback.

One thing about the ride was that the roads (with a few exceptions such as the first three days) were rarely knee testing with climbs because the approx 8000 metres of ascents are mostly so gentle and spread over 4000km. On the other hand, the sheer distances (and winds) are knee testing.

The remarkable Jim McTaggart rode Adelaide to Sydney when he was 77 years old. He called in to visit us in Canberra on the way, and he looked fresh as a daisy.

I’m glad I’ve done the ride, but it’s not on my list of rides I’d highly recommend to anyone to any age because of the traffic dangers. There are plenty more rides in Australia and New Zealand I’d suggest before the one I’ve just finished.

Areas I’d happily go back to ride in would be The Eyre Peninsula, parts of The Riverina, and The Riverland of South Australia. The Nullarbor is amazing, but questionable as an on-road cycle touring destination. If I were to ride it again, I’d prefer to have a bike /tyres/wheels with more off road capability. Such a set up would be helpful for using side tracks and verges more often to avoid the stress of dodging big trucks.
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3 years ago