Is it autumn... or fall?

Hurrah, the sun was shining on Saturday and Olympic Park, with its 35km of bike trails, beckoned. I reckoned it was time Penelope got a run around the Park - last time I took Petunia, but this is really Penelope's territory. Relatively flat, it's ideal territory to get a heavy hub-gear ladies' cruiser going at a smart pace. Our ride usually starts near the river, where we warm up our muscles riding along watching boats on the sparkling water.

As you can see, it was warm for late autumn - I'm in clothes that scream 'spring'. Or scream something, anyway. Stripes with an Hawaiian print skirt - what WAS I thinking!? :-) T'other Half isn't as sartorial as I when we go out; it's always the same old shorts and t-shirt mix.

Once you've gone along the water you can choose to turn left at Silverwater Bridge, and ride up past the prison to Holker Street. Holker Street has a slight slope up to a set of traffic lights and then a long, lovely straight run that's slightly downhill. You have a bike lane all to yourself and a bus lane between you and the cars. You can go like stink. We did. T'other Half told me he was in top gear pedalling down Holker. So was I - and I was gaining on him. Penelope gathers a lot of momentum when she has the space to. I don't usually get to put her in top gear as a lot of our local riding is stop/start. It felt absolutely wonderful screaming along as hard as I could pedal with the lightweight little road bike in front getting closer and closer to Penelope's front wheel.

Then we were back on the bike paths, where I typically hover between third and fourth gear. They're winding and go past wetlands, and through bushy areas, past the back of houses, and criss-cross around the place. We usually do the Riverside ride, about 17km, then cross over a main road and ride around Olympic Park itself or the Bicentennial Wetlands. There's another opportunity to pedal like fury on some of the quieter roads there, as they have bike lanes, new and smooth tarmac, and glorious sweeping bends.

However, we'd reached the spot at the southern end of Riverside where we usually turn around and backtrack a bit until we get to the main road when T'other Half tried to turn his bike in a very tight turn and hit the tarmac.

We were only going at walking pace, so it wasn't a bad fall, but he hurt his hip and his knee - ironically, not on the side that actually hit the ground, but I think he twisted his other leg trying to keep his balance or stay on the bike.

T'other Half picked himself up and made masculine grunty moany noises and remounted, but we didn't go on for the longer ride. He was in a bit of pain and for once didn't charge off ahead of me but was content to stay at my tail as we rode back to the car. He said he has now given up all ideas of joining a Golden Oldies Rugby Club; he just doesn't bounce like he used to.

We're both rubbish at tight turns; I've fallen down a couple of times at slow speed trying to do a 180 but then I have awful balance anyway. That's why I find Penelope, with her stability, much nicer to ride than Petunia despite her weight. I think I'll have to do more practice on turns; I usually dismount if we have to turn around on a narrow pathway and retrace our steps.

It's Monday as I write this and he's much better now, but was still stiff yesterday so no riding or avid dog-walking either. Tomorrow we'll be back into it though. We're already planning another ride for this weekend as the weather is just so wonderful right now.

Marathons get the thumbs-up

The sky was brilliant blue in spring sunshine today - a great morning to head to Sydney Olympic Park with our bikes. It was a tossup for me: I longed to take Penelope as I thoroughly enjoyed riding her there last time and she gets me fitter, but I did want to try out Petunia's new tyres, so the Mixte got put on the bike rack this time.

The Scwalbes are excellent - I had suspected they would be. They are replacing the original tyres that Petunia had when she was new 25 years ago. Realistically any tyre would be an improvement one would think, but the Marathons are great. Very quiet, very grippy. Sydney Olympic Park is mainly paved bike tracks but there are some clay/gravel tracks there too which we tried out. I felt more confident riding on the dirt tracks with the new tyres :-). They feel much more stable. They are currently inflated to 80 psi but as they can take more I'll put them up to 85 for my next ride and see how that feels.

As usual I had the camera but was so busy riding I didn't think to stop for pics. D'Oh!

Sydney Olympic Park

One of our regular weekend rides is Sydney Olympic Park. If you get there early enough, the cycleways (shared with pedestrians) aren't too hectic and you can get a bit of speed and constant movement going. There are around 35km of paths in the park, and we typically do about 22-25km of them on our rides. More info about them can be found here. While the presence of families cycling slowly can be a hazard to navigation, the nice thing is that the paths are for the most part off road, and the scenery along the river is always cheering. You ride through bushland and smell the crisp eucalypts, or the heady scent of wattle. Birdsong trills about you, and aside from tracks that run beside the roads, there is no traffic noise.

The whole area is relatively flat,with a few hills and rises, some of them optional. On a gorgeous day like today heading out there after breakfast was a no-brainer. For Penelope, it seems these bike paths and the bike lanes on adjacent streets are her native territory. The winding, undulating paths are like any you'd find in the UK, just right for a British bike.

The whole area was developed around ten years ago, so the roads themselves are smooth and pothole free. Any bumps are treated with disdain by Penelope. I found my lovely Pashley just as easy to ride as Petunia this morning, quite light despite her steelness, and nimble in mid-range acceleration. Cycling on the shared paths can be stop-start, or slow-go as you negotiate pedestrians, dogwalkers and cyclists who just go too slowly. We generally ride on the roads for a little while as well, as this part of Sydney is geared for cycling and has a superb bike lane structure. She came into her own on one of the back roads - a long, sweeping bend, no traffic... I pedalled madly and was rewarded with a smooth, blisteringly fast (for my level of fitness :-) few minutes. Greg had to drop a gear and go like mad to catch me.

And - nice to know - I CAN stand up and pedal on hills. It feels rather precarious compared to a road bike or MTB, but it works. Greg led us down a wrong turn in search of a different entrance into the park, and it was up hill and down dale for a bit. The down dale was brilliant, and the up hill surprised me. Yesterday's ride must have done my muscles some good as I was getting up the hills easily enough, especially when I got the hang of standing up.

By the time we got back to the car it was getting madly busy; on weekends cyclists outnumber cars in this area about 10 to 1. Next weekend there's a special family cycling day at the Park so we'll give that a miss and head out into the country instead.