VELO MODA

It’s time for me to come clean. I’ve been hiding a dirty little secret from you for about ten months now, dear reader. No, I haven’t been laundering money or smuggling illegal goods but I am only human and thus susceptible to the alluring forces of consumer marketing. Despite my best efforts to resist the many temptations blasted at me through the bicycle media, I have succumbed and purchased, yes, another bicycle. A brand new one, I’m afraid. And not just a practical, pragmatic beast of burden or creature of expedition. No, this bicycle is purely a plaything. A vessel of frivolity. Yes friends, I have dived headlong into the realm of the modern mountain bike. Continue reading “Dirty Little Secret”

Time is a scarce resource and for me (as I keep mentioning) that means I don’t necessarily post here as often as I’d like. Writing the longer, more detailed missives is what I love to do but reality doesn’t always allow that.

And so I’ve decided to try something a bit different here and offer a short form feed of bicycle related ideas, thoughts and news items that will be rougher and more incomplete than the main blog but, in exchange, I hope to be able to post there more often. I’ve called this my Microfeed. The main blog will continue as normal.

Yes, I know there are popular platforms in existence on the internet which already offer this kind of functionality but I made my choice on those quite a while back.

Anyway, here is the new Microfeed. I hope you like it and find it useful.

 

I realised not so long ago that my Yuba Boda Boda – my pack horse with a little charge has been with me for over five years now. It’s definitely a thing that both brings me joy and saves me money. It also does its’ bit for helping ease traffic congestion and reducing our collective boot print on this planet however small that effect may be and however much it may be smothered by activities doing the very opposite. It’s important to try, I think. If not for measurable net effect then for a slightly clearer mind – a little psychological boost knowing that you’ve at least tried something. Continue reading “Five Years Of Cargo Biking”

Did you think I was gone for good this time? Yep, it’s been even longer between drinks than usual. Partly because that’s just the way this website rolls – drifting between day and night, life and whatever happens after it, a leaf blowing in the wind. Continue reading “What Dimension Is This?”

The deeper you dig, the more you find. I’ve been exploring the Samford area quite a bit over the last few months. I’ve been looking for interesting off road link-ups between the northern suburbs and Samford in the hope of piecing together a complete loop that takes in Samford, Ironbark Gully and the Samford Pony Trails and I think I succeeded a few days ago. I’ve ridden in the Samford/Ironbark Gully/Mt Nebo area for many years but have all too often followed the same old routes without digging much deeper. I guess a combination of time constraints and a slight fear of “wasting” a ride by getting lost and needing to turn back has prevented any real exploration but these days I’m much less concerned with such things. To add to that, I can also say that plotting a route on an app or website vs actually going out to a place and putting some tyre tracks down on various trails, laneways and supposed dead ends are slightly different things. Obviously, the latter leaves you with a much better sense of a place and uncovers the actual reality of its traversability. Continue reading “On The Pony Trails Again”

Every once in a while, I’ll repeat myself by writing an article like the one you’re about to read for the purpose of reiterating that it’s probably best to approach bicycles with an open mind. While bicycles can definitely be for sport, they are made better when also viewed as a great method of transport, a creative outlet, vessels for escape and pretty much anything else you can morph them into. This particular missive is focused on my perpetual relationship with road biking. Continue reading “Form Vs Function”

Or maybe it’s more like “strike while the iron is hot”. Either way, the point, as Space For Cycling have said, is that with the new casino is pretty much finished, there should be no excuse for not going ahead with the completion of the George St bikeway in the CBD which was always meant to run its full length.

As such, there’s a petition on the BCC website here to try to convince those with the power and the pennies that it’s a really good idea (which it is). So please get clicking and add your name to the list. It’s really quick and really well worth it. Petition closes Sunday, 20th October, 2024.

EDIT: While we’re at it, there’s a heap of other bikeway upgrades that need doing in this great town so we may as well ask for some more. S4C have also put these up if you’re keen.

O’Connell Tce at Bowen Hills has been a dangerous and a pain in the butt for long time so now would be a great idea to put a bikeway in especially seeing as though there’s new multi-story parking in the RNA. Sign here.

Sugarmill Rd at Pinkenba is another linkup that looks like a good idea to ride down from Eagle Farm on a map until you see how dangerous it can be in real life. It would be great to  make that safer for bikes too. Sign here.

See you out there sometime.

Sometimes it’s best to launch yourself into doing something before you can talk yourself out of it. Colder weather means excuses not to ride come more easily. Shorter days mean that there’s actually less time in the day to ride. There’s good news though; bike lights are really good nowadays and relatively cheap. I’ll bet you have a set or two that have rarely been attached to your bike. If you don’t, that’s OK because even the K-Mart ones are alright.

So maybe you were never a morning person and maybe the cold has made the thought of getting up early to ride even less appealing. But there’s still the night. You’re almost definitely still wide awake in the evening and you know all that extra eating and sleeping you’ve been doing through the winter is probably the reason why you’re not feeling as well as you’d like. You know what I’m going to say next. Pump the tyres, get those lights on and lube the chain on that whip. Throw yourself out the door. It doesn’t matter if you have a mountain bike and some trails nearby or a bike that prefers sealed surfaces and the city lights on your doorstep. Just get out and go before you think too much more about it. Continue reading “Night Time Is The Right Time”

As I’ve said before, bikes and trains go together like gin and tonic (if you fancy a tipple; even if you don’t it’s still a good analogy). This “compound” method of conveyance is, on one hand, as close to freedom as anyone alive today is likely to get and, on the other hand, can project you far from home quickly and efficiently. But it’s a piecemeal affair that requires a little knowledge, a little thinking, a little planning. Only a little but that’s what makes it so good – it’s the adventure of it, the detachment from the status quo, the pushing away of unthinking predictability, comfort, convenience and reliance. So simple, so cheap yet so satisfying. Continue reading “Coasting”

Life is full or ironies and, indeed, it was not very long ago that I opined regarding the upkeep of old bikes in order to keep them in service as long as possible and that, as long as the frame was still good, the bike should theoretically be able to keep going indefinitely. Alas, upon inspection of the frame of my trusty Cannondale F4 a while ago, I noticed a crack near one of the rear stays. Not a massive crack and I’m not really sure how long it’s been there but unsettling nonetheless. And I guess even if the stay cracked right though, it would probably not be a life threatening situation but it could mean quite a long walk home. And so, given that the bike is something of a pack horse which means continuous extra stress on the frame and also given that the bike is about sixteen years old now, I decided that maybe a replacement was in order. Continue reading “All Good Things”

The last few posts on this site have been a bit angry and a bit ranty. Whilst I’m still not sorry about that, I am now going to move on to lighter topics and cheerier moods. For a while anyway.

Samford is a magical little locality as a destination for riding a bicycle if you’re situated in Brisbane as I am. It’s very rural and far enough out to make the ride feel like an adventure but close enough that you can easily do it in half a day (depending on which part of Brisbane you’re riding from). It’s got some of the best food around Brisbane on offer, interesting historical venues and there’s even a place to camp not too far out of town if you wanted a short little overnight bikepacking trip to do (that’s still on my to-do list).
Continue reading “Rambling On”

This is going to be another one of those ranty posts because it can be and because I want to. And I’m not sorry. If you’re not interested, stop reading now.

This week I have the good fortune of enjoying a week off work and decided that the recently cooler afternoon temps offered a great opportunity to get the road bike out and plot a route around Brisbane’s northside. Lights were strapped on, cycling nicks were slipped into (a rare occurrence for me these days) and I was ready to roll down the tarmac. As I’ve mentioned before, road biking these days for me is a fairly nonchalant affair with mountain bike SPDs, a quick dry tee shirt and hip pack, the only really road bikey thing I have on is the nicks. Any other “performance enhancement” items seem like a waste of time for me now. I’m no racer boy. I go to sight see, to exercise and to enjoy the speed and effortlessness the road bike offers – the Zen of the rhythm. And there’s no mud or dust to hose off afterwards. Kooky, I know.

Anyway, being a late afternoon start, the ride coincided with the afternoon peak hour which wasn’t much bother to me because I was mainly on bikeways so I had minimum contact with the chaos. But the chaos did highlight how ridiculously bad Brisbane’s traffic congestion problems really are. As a I spun along the Gateway Bikeway, it quickly became apparent that, even without much effort, I was moving significantly faster than the traffic on the other side of the fence next to me. That’s a 100kmh motorway over there. Continue reading “Should We Just Ignore That Stench Because It’s Easier That Way?”

The rain is coming down. A few days worth in one day. It’s a reality now – we’re going to get more and more of this sort of thing (climate change induced weather anomalies). No, it’s not just another Queensland summer like you remember twenty years ago. The stats are a bit more reliable than your memory. Continue reading “The Show Must On”

Around this time of year, many of the real bicycling websites put together lists of their favourite products and services for the year which usually appears as a curated list of endorsements of the sites’ sponsors’ offerings (call me cynical). They usually also add a list of their favourite music tracks at the end to set the mood.

This website, on the other hand, is a wholly non-commercial, unsponsored, free-flowing indulgence of molten rants, tepid ideas and other random garbage. It has no income and, in return, is beholden to nobody.

Nonetheless, I have curated my own “best of 2023” list because it’s fun and because I can. Needless to say, it is somewhat more derisive than the other lists and contains items that may more widely be regarded as a bit odd but don’t let that stop you from adopting my recommendations. So, in no particular order, here we go: Continue reading “The List 2023”

In need of some adventure and exploration, I was fortunate recently to be invited to join a trip away to try out the Northern Rivers Rail Trail just over the NSW border in the picturesque town of Murwillumbah. The NRRT is one of the newest rail trails in this part of the country and I have to say that it really is a cracker. Continue reading “Northern Rivers Rail Trail”

Summer is back with a vengeance and it’s time once again for that pastel, sun faded everything heat that happens here in Brisbane. I love it most of all because it leaves the streets and other places emptier and quieter than usual. Kind of like a ghost town (or just Brisbane in the 80s). Continue reading “Bike Pooling”

This ride was done in April 2023 but only written up now due to time constraints.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the great things about riding in the Brisbane area is the sheer variety of different environments available from relatively remote and very rugged bushland to high quality inner city bikeways and all within riding distance from home, no car required, even if you don’t live particularly close to the CBD.

I recently cobbled together one such route taking in Bellbird Grove and the Enoggera Reservoir at the base of Mt Nebo, Gap Creek Rd Reserve and finally inner city Southbank. Continue reading “Variable Environments”

I’m a little slow off the mark again but I do like to stay in the know about what’s happening regarding getting around by bike in the CBD and recently discovered that the Brisbane CityLink trial has now officially been deemed a success and moves will be made to make the CityLink bike lanes a permanent feature of the city. Continue reading “Some Good News”

Cycling and the bike industry, like most others in this capitalist environment, are highly susceptible to and reliant upon the forces of ever-changing fashion. The industry is forever manufacturing new trends in bikes, apparel and accessories which render current products obsolete or, at the very least, unwanted and force consumers to make often irrational choices to purchase items they don’t actually need. It’s how capitalist industries keep increasing profits and we all (including me) fall under their marketing spells to some extent at some time.

Some of the changes driven by fashion represent genuine innovations while others are simply changes for the sake of change to create revenue. The discussion regarding the ethics behind such practices is far beyond the scope of this blog post (imho, I would prefer a world where industries were prevented from behaving this way) but it’s safe to say that, amongst the plethora of marketing induced garbage, there is also a core of products that have stood the test of time and which continue to ride out the hills and valleys of fashion because they are perpetually useful and reliable. Continue reading “Ode To The Humble Pannier Bag”

It’s gotten to that time of the year again where it’s oppressively hot in the daytime and the increased humidity makes it all that much worse. The changing climate is not helping the situation, of course.

I reckon I have a fairly high tolerance for these sorts of conditions and I’ll just ride through it most of the time but the other day it took it’s toll and I decided to forfeit a planned ride in exchange for the breezy open windows and shaded patio of the great indoors.

That was all fine until the latter part of the day when the knowledge that I’d turned away otherwise perfectly good riding time began to bite. The whisper in my head turned into a stern talking to. I needed a plan. I needed to make things right again. Continue reading “Hiding In The Dark”