Max's Miscellaneous Musings

Today, I decided to ride to Griffith Uni, come hell or high water.  Predictably, whatever I did to the bike yesterday did not fix it, so when it started making its funny noises again, I made the executive decision to just ignore it.    Yesterday's 17Km trip was not exactly a workout.

So I rode into town.  You'll recall that this leg of the trip contains a stop sign followed by a climb, so I decided to find another way onto Herston Road.  I took the side street prior to stop sign road, and was immediately confronted with a bitch of a climb.  Even in the lowest gear, I struggled to get up it.  I felt like I was pedalling squares!  No way I'd be able to climb that with a load on my back.  The upside is, however, that it has a corresponding downhill to a set of lights that a) are actually triggered by the bike, and b) give me right of way to jump onto the bikepath.  So it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.  Do I go with stop sign road, or do I go with bitchy climb?  I am as yet undecided.

In town, I followed the route I'd sussed out the other day in order to get onto the riverside bikeway.  It was pretty straight-forward, and within minutes I was riding along the river.  I crossed over to the Kangaroo Point side of the river, and onto the South East Freeway bikeway.  This took me all the way to Stones Corner, where the roadworks kind of confused things for me.  Anyway, I muddled my way to the Stones Corner stretch of the bike path, and went on.  This part of the "bikeway" (if it can be called that) is barely 1.5m wide, and I found myself wondering just how practical it would be to attempt to commute using this path.  There was one section of path that consisted of an "S" bend down a very steep descent (thankfully it was only 1m).  A sign next to it said something along the lines of "very steep, cyclists should dismount".  I don't get it:  If it was built as a bikeway, and intended to be used as a bikeway, then why in the bloody hell would you intentionally build part of it in such a manner that it is actually unusable by bicycles!!!!!!  Still, I persevered, and eventually found myself in Tarragindi.

Up until now, the path had been OK, despite its narrowness and occasional uneven pothole patching.  But once at Tarragindi, it really turned to crap.  The "bikeway" became a whole bunch of badly-patched footpaths, interrupted every 100m or so by roads, at which the cyclist must dismount.  I found myself cursing and muttering that I might as well just get off the bike altogether and just walk the rest of the way to work.

Finally, it reverted to being a real bikeway (ie smooth pavement at least 3m wide), and I followed the signs to Griffith Uni.  Almost at the last minute, I saw the turnoff, and headed through Toohey Forest.  Urgh.  Scenic, yes.  A commute route, no.  This part of the path is a 1.5m wide asphalted track, covered in leaves, twigs and miscellaneous crud.  It was scary enough doing it in the daytime.  No way in the world would I want to try it at night.

I finally got to Griffith, and decided to just keep rolling through to my work.  After my experiences so far, I decided not to waste my time with the goat track that runs alongside Kessels Road.  I braved a couple of main roads to get there.  It actually wasn't too bad, given that it's a weekend, but I sure wouldn't want to ride them on a weekday!  Also, I met the local magpie! 

Having found my way to work, I decided to stop at the local Maccas for a coffee break.  Also, I'd decided there was no way I wanted to return home the way I came, and seeing no other alternative, I called MaxBabe to pick me up.

Lest you think my entire post is a whinge about the ride, here are some positives:

1. The ride was pretty much spot on the distance I anticipated (I guesstimated 40Km, it turned out to be 37.8Km)
2. I got there in just a touch over 2 hours, which actually is a pretty crappy average speed, but I was taking it easy
3. That means, even if I'm taking it easy, I can get to work in a reasonable amount of time.

However.. there's no way I'm ever riding that way to get to work again.  The track is just no good once you get to the last third of the route.

So next weekend I'll be riding to BestMate's place, and from there using his route to ride to work.  I've actually done this ride a couple times, but I've never really paid attention to the route because BestMate was leading the way.  So I need to figure out how to do it solo.

All in all, I feel like I'm making progress in my quest to ride to work a couple days a week.  I think next weekend's experiences will let me know one way or the other if it's something I want to do long-term.