Stress free commuting? Yeah, right!
A change is as good as a holiday, or so they say. I’m now in Sydney, having started my postdoc. Things are going swimmingly and (apart from missing Zoe) I’ve quickly fallen into the postdoc work habit of writing funding proposals and papers.
Timtim and I have been bike commuting into the city from Hornsby for the last few days - a trip of some 30-odd kilometres. So far there hasn’t been much riding home, with foul weather and other commitments (such as dancing up a storm at the Blue King Brown concert) taking over - not to mention the large hills en route.
The Pacific Highway is a load of laughs in the mornings, as we track the progress of cars against our own. Mr Carpet was late for work today, unlike yesterday when he roared past us. The favourite move is lane splitting over the Pymble bridge (a swooping downhill s-bend). People tend to get a little grumpy, but they get over it when timtim and I wave, ‘Hello!’.
This RTA brochure emphasises the stress free nature of cycling to work. I can tell you right now that whoever wrote it doesn’t commute down the Pacific Highway. There’s nothing stress free about it.
Every day brings new honks and aggressive swerves. Ben said that we could probably increase the average number of honks per ride (currently 0.15 honks per km) if we, “end up half way across a main road in fast moving merging traffic, in the rain - this I tried with great success yesterday”.
If I survive the week, then it’ll be into the fire of lock’s eastern suburbs training loop.
March 20th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
You guys must have nerves of steel. I find it stressful enough driving Pacific Highway in peak hours.
March 20th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
well everyone should ride a bike and then it wouldn’t be stressful at all.
I learnt riding home this afternoon as I stopped to help a guy push is car off the road that it is really easy to pick my vehicle up and carry it off the road if it were to break down and that after stopping to help the distressed car in Roseville I could still pass all the traffic that passed me by Gordon. And there are some nice B-double drivers out there
March 21st, 2007 at 11:53 am
Come ride to work in Phnom Penh. Stress isn’t the word. The number of times I think I’m done for are astounding. I get nervous before and after getting on my $20, second-hand bike. Yesterday the streets were flooded and I had to ride through water up to my calves. And I use the term water losely. I had to have a half-body shower when I got to work to wash the klong-water off me. Noone looks before pulling out, the bigger the car the faster they go, there’s no lanes and no real correct side of the road to be on. There are no traffic lights and no give way signs. You just try and align yourself next to a car to get across an intersection, and hope that the car doesn’t run you down. But hey, it _somehow_ works.
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:02 am
You should send us some photos of your commuting antics!
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:19 pm
20 Bucks for a bike in Cambodia!! You could have bought a house for that much couldn’t you?
Yes, riding down the highway last Saturday in the pissing rain after ‘dropping off’ Tom and Timtim from the bike bus, I did have a few scary moments when I grabbed the brakes and it took another 10 meters before the rims had shed enough water to provide any braking power at all. Those brake lights sure rush up on you when it’s wet!
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Sounds like your eyes are still moist…
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Tom Fully booked for fly fishing trip to the Alpine streams of the snowys, new dates 21st-23rd of April, are u IN ? give me a call.
Cheers
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Damn, the timing couldn’t be any worse! I have to go in for some ankle surgery on the 17th - I’ll be on crutchers for the following week. Apart from that I’m totally down for it.