1. Don't do that again, it hurts. I was in a hurry, thinking of other things, and distracted by some nearby pedestrians, but this tight turn requires my undivided attention.
2. The crash detection function on my Garmin Forerunner 255 watch works as intended. My watch and phone both beeped for a while before sending an incident notification email with live GPS location link to my wife, then when I finally cancelled it sent an "I'm OK actually, I don't need help" follow up notification.
3. If I'm going to crash, crash closer to home. Now I'm at the office with my bike feeling like I'm not going to be able to ride it home or walk to and from train stations with it. Might need to leave it parked in the staff bike storage room here until after the holidays.
Arse. Misjudged my setup for the temporary hairpin at the north end of the Shrimpton's Creek Cycleway, clipped the fence on the right, and went down on my left.
Grazed knee, very sore toe, and overstretched calf muscles, but nothing serious. Just some minor scrapes on the left side of the bike, so after straightening the handlebars I was able to get back on it and slowly ride the remaining kilometre to work.
This has taught me a few things...
What's the least favourite part of your commute, Anthony?
Definitely that bit. That bit right there, when the gradient briefly gets close to 13%. Even with e-assist on maximum I still have to work hard to drag my heavy bike, heavy pannier bag and heavy self up that slope.
Fortunately it's very short, it's on a low traffic road, and it's the only climb of any note on the entire route. For the rest of the ride I turn down the e-assist to level 2 of 3, unless I'm in a big hurry.
Some people might wonder why I went to the effort of hunting down NTA 8776 helmets for myself and the kid, given that it's a Dutch standard motivated by high power e-bikes capable of motoring themselves up to 45 km/h (functionally electric mopeds) and neither the kid nor I have one of those. I ride a low power e-bike (<250W up to 25 km/h) while the kid rides a purely pedal powered flat bar gravel bike.
The thing is, *any* bicycle is capable of 45 km/h or more if you put the effort in and/or go downhill. NTA 8776 helmets are designed to offer enhanced protection against higher speed impacts and cover more of the head compared to helmets that only meet the normal EN 1078 or equivalent standards. I certainly want that for myself and especially my kid so it's a bit frustrating that the cycling gear distributors in Australia still can't be bothered to import them, and most of the overseas online stores don't seem to have realised that that they're allowed to ship them here now either.
Doing some thread necromancy to note that the broadening of Australian bicycle helmet regulations to accept EU & US certifications has, since September, made absolutely no difference to the very limited selection of bicycle helmets available here. The entire urban/commuter/e-bike ranges from most manufacturers remain completely unavailable locally, and the overseas online shops (with one exception) won't ship helmets to Australia either. If you want an NTA 8776 certified helmet you still have exactly 3 local choices, the base model (non-MIPs, not ACE) Abus Pedelec 2.0 (white only) or Purl-Y (black only), or the Unit 1 Aura "smart helmet".
I have discovered, however, that LordGun will ship a wide variety of helmets to Australia so I bought a couple of Abus Pedelec 2.0 for myself and the kid, maximally nerdy gloss high-vis yellow for me and slightly cooler matt navy blue for the kid. Next to my trusty MET Rivale it certainly feels a bit more substantial and robust, but is comfortable on the head and doesn't feel too heavy.
After the tune-up my ride to work this morning was noticeably quieter, at least. No rattling from the rear rack, and no ominous noises from the wheels. I did a personal best time up the only hill of note on my route, but I can't feel too pleased with myself because half way up another guy on an e-bike blasted past me like I was standing still!
https://strava.app.link/PpGHxaKOxYb
#BikeTooter #Cycling #CycleCommuting #UrbanCycling #SydneyCycling #Ebike
Welp, spend my Sunday evening doing bicycle maintenance.
My Orbea Vibe generally doesn't need much attention, but now that I've gone back to regular cycle commuting the combination of heavy loads and crappy roads/paths has been giving it a beating, and things have been working loose. My front wheel has been talking to me for a while (that telltale clicking sound that warns of loose spokes), and the rear rack + mudguard assembly had developed a lot of play.
So, I tightened up the rear rack (which annoyingly required removing the rear wheel to access the mudguard's front attachment point, down by the bottom bracket) then dug my wheel tools out of the shed and gave both wheels a good going over with a spoke key. They're now a lot better than they were, but I'll check them again next weekend to see if any further tweaks are warranted.
Blimey. I didn't think my heartrate could go that high, at least not anymore. The "220 minus your age" rule of thumb has always been useless but I thought that my maximum was more like 185 bpm, not 190+.
Anthony Horton
Duncan Smith
