The Bicyclists

It's actually quite nice when you get there. As long as you don't stray from the main streets. It reminded me of Lima. Armed guards surrounding the Presidential Palace, warnings not to go a block away from the centre city. Hide your luggage deep inside your zoot suit. Brown's River this morning. A beautiful day. The feminisation of Australian men? Does 'recognising' or 'supporting' - so called 'marriage equality' mean we must become feminised? My Dad used to say "I don't mind homosexuality, as long as you don't thrust it down my [his] throat". And that is a fair comment for the time. We have had sooo much political correctness and 'social change' advanced upon us, that we no longer can have easy resort to a concept of who we are. That's not a bad thing, in a time of change. Don't mysogynise me: this isn't my opinion. Time of change? We will look back on this if we are permitted, if President Tro...

Facts and figures: Larkey, Fitz and Kimber - no Porter. Others, sporadicism. A very good average speed of 18.7km/hr. We normally find that difficult. I think the mid week rides for those without daytime jobs is proving very beneficial to the overall stamina and drive. Discussion about how best to set the gears to keep the legs moving, as opposed to how to get the feet back in the clips after stopping for a rest - very positive developments. Maximum speed 48km/hr - down from the top of the Bonnet. Still wet patches in the inside corners, threatening to spill a rider should the tread slip away underneath. Discussion of ice, a realistic concern, even by 1030hrs. Time from Nixon St to Bonnet and back, ignoring the stopping - 1hr 13min. Good. Everything over 40 minutes is worth twice the time before it. Tell that to Dr Who. Distance: 22.9 km.  I don't know if that is a lot or a little. I guess 30km would be desirable and under and hour and half. As I understand the mid-week ...

Cascades ride – also a personal journey, with literary allusions, like a wanker So we beat [ride] on, boats [bikes] against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. With a confused notion of the route to take from the RYCT – was it to be via King Street, Churchill Road, Derwent Boulevard, or some other road of Porter’s dissolving memory? – we four lit out for Cascades territory on what, for me, was to be a ride in remembrance of things past. Contemplating the gradient, endpoint and main road traffic ahead, I comforted myself with a corruption of Emma’s words: ‘Distance [and heart strain] is nothing if one has a motive’. I think she meant from Hartfield to Box Hill; can’t see her on a Malvern Star. So, with Porter ready to go (pret a porter?), Larkey astride the bluebird of happiness, Phil’s legs aKimbo and unpunnable me, we headed up King Street. First memory blast: 98 King Street, where my flatmate hurled drunken racist abuse from the garden to the Chin...

What style of writing is appropriate for this?  Third person omniscient? Or the 'opinion editorial', the questioning and clarifying, or the dictatorial? Ralph Vaughan Williams as a young man. A bit grumpy that day. His mother had tried to comb out the cow lick in his hair My thoughts (there, I've settled it by making personal, 1st person).... Or He woke up in the morning, all around the city men were stirring. Stirring to join the compelling earthly desire to .....[whatever it might be] Or Mix it up and confuse the reader? The 3rd person gives an impression of authority. The 1st person requires consideration of the affection for and bias of the writer. See what I've done there? Gave authority to my own statement by delivering it in the 3rd person. Compare: " I believe that 3rd person delivery is more powerful" . That, of course, invites those who agree to do so more violently (in the positive sense) and those who disagree to attack on the groun...

Your correspondent, so far the only of the bicyclists to remain in Tasmania all of the winter, can confidently say that last Sunday it was "as cold as buggery". Pell will know what that means. When the cold winds of discontent and accusation descend on the lonely man, the only way to warm up the cockles is a bike ride to Mona. And [I know, never start a sentence with a preposition] that is exactly what Larky, Porter and your correspondent did on the 1st July 2017. Larkey's strategy of holding off taking collection, and paying, for his new bike paid dividends. The masters of his fate offered a $150 off deal, just 'if you will just pick the bloody thing up and take it away'. So it was a colourful scene along the bike track. Porter in Red, Larkey in Blue, Kimber in White - something of a flag waving exercise, in readiness for the celebrations of the French Republic (the tricolour). So, as we entered MONA for the cuppa, the thermometer was just rising above...

The weather was magic. The traffic unusual. Many classic and vintage vehicles including motorcyclists paraded the long path from Sandy Bay to Taroona. Perhaps there were some odd people out, including your Bike Group. As we headed for the 20 km ride from 'sea to peak' - Yacht club to the torture of Bonnet Hill, an attempt to merge with the traffic drew a blast of effusive agitation from an old fart in a Ford Fortuna, maroon in colour. The Fart was headed into the Casino: "we went down to Havana, to have a gamble". But taking offence at one of our number's movement off the footpath into the very left lane of traffic, the horn (no not that one) blew (and not in that way) like a pissweak electronic buzzer, but shrill enough to disturb the peace. As we perched precariously atop our bikes at the intersection the Maroon Fortuna drew up beside us and started a gobshite of abuse. Andre Gromyko, leading the pack, mistook the abuse as directed to him- but he knew h...

The Group includes wankers who are overseas most of the time, flying first class, and putting up photos of their leather couches in the plane, and others renting bikes to cycle around Vancouver. For example, Porter is floating around Stanley Park with NO LYCRA AT ALL! Just the clothes he was brung into the place in! The Porter sans lycra, at Stanley Park - Vancouver Now that is tortured. But back to the ride. Saturday weather reports said she was going to rain mercilessly. As the 6am Sunday grey sky and light drizzle was going on against my window pane, a quick revolving resolution was unanimously agreed "No ride today". But by 8.30am the sun was out and Tasmania, typically Hobart, was telling us "18 degrees, calm breeze, lovely day". So Jeff and I pulled on the gear, and invited Merv to join us, and off we headed. Against the stream of City to Casino 'fun' runners, we made the bike track at the Cenotaph, and headed off north, at about 15km/h (...