So now I own a Raleigh Cameo...

With Deathtrap still in parts in my garage and realistically destined for the bin, I bid on and won a Raleigh Cameo on eBay last night. I will pick her up at the weekend.

This time there's not a lot to do to make this a perfect ride for me. The paintwork is in pretty good condition for the bike's age; apparently there are a few scratches and bits of missing paint, but this bike is at least 25 years old. The current owner - only the bike's second since new - believes she's a 1972 model.  I'll find out more when I have a good look at her in the flesh, or rather, metal.

I'll be changing the steel wheels for alloy 700C wheels and putting on my cream Delta Cruisers that are sitting in a box in the garage. Also going onto the wheels will be my 8 speed Shimano hub. The brake calipers may need to be replaced to allow for the 700C wheels. I may have to replace the crankset to find a good match for the hub gearset, but that's OK as the cranks are a bit rusty and pitted. I'll also repaint and install the chain guard that was on Deathtrap, as it's a copy of the Raleigh chain guard used on the loop frame/hub gear version of the Cameo. And that's it, apart from swapping the saddle and grips for my Brooks ones.

This time I paid a bit more than $56 - almost $230, but I suspect this is a much classier prospect than Deathtrap.

It does strike me that in owning this bike and the Pashley I will have two rather similar bikes, whereas now with the mixte and the Pashley I have two very different bikes. The Raleigh's geometry and setup is quite different to the Pashley's though, and I think she will weigh quite a bit less. At least I hope so! :-) 

I just hope she's physically a good fit. I think she's a mite smaller in frame size than Petunia, which is what I'm looking for, according to measurements supplied by the seller. Otherwise...oh well, she'll be going back on eBay!  I'm holding off giving her a name until I ride her and consider how well she suits me.

Can Pashleys and Road Bikes get on?

Common sense and practical advice from other bike bloggers like Velouria says that when you ride with your partner, make sure you are riding the same kind of bike, so one person isn't at a complete disadvantage if he or she is on a steel-framed upright bike and the other is on a road bike.

I love my Pashley. I enjoy riding her more than my road bike; she's more stable and the hub gears are a dream. My husband, however, adores his road bike and despite me hinting that he might like to test ride a Pashley roadster with its beautiful ride and inherent stability, he won't be tempted.

For most of our rides during the last month, then, I've been on my Penelope Pashley and he's been on his road bike. Even when I'm on my own mixte road bike I have trouble keeping up with him as he's bigger, stronger and rides at a different cadence to me.

But something strange has been happening. I've been keeping up with him. Even overtaking him. On the Pashley.

I'm getting fitter and lighter and stronger, which is marvellous. And I admit a few days ago I got angry. There I was, pedalling fairly swiftly away from our house down our street with - bliss! - newly laid asphalt. How smooth it was! The potholes had gone, and Penelope was almost singing with joy; I was too. Then t'other half pedalled furiously and with a "ner-ner-ner-NER-ner!" overtook me. He just HAS to be in front. Every time. It's a male thing. He might say it's because it's his comfy riding speed, but he seems determined to pass me as early in our rides as possible.

So I got mad and got even. I pedalled furiously too. I caught up, and although my muscles were whingeing and then begging for mercy, hung either beside him or right on his tail as we swept through the park and onto the roads and bike paths. On a couple of the downhill stretches I passed him, with my own "ner-ner-ner-NER-ner!" and two fingers held up as I swept by.

By the time we'd reached the half way point of our usual 30 minute ride, I was pumping. I wasn't blowing too hard, and on the way back managed to stay on his tail up the hill. I usually fall back up the hill. I resort to dropping to second gear, panting and puffing. Well I stayed in third, it nearly killed me, but there was no way I was leaving the rear wheel of that little black road bike.

I checked my watch when we got home, and we'd shaved a couple of minutes off the 30 minute standard. My muscles were quivering, but I felt fantastic and really energised. My husband felt stunned that I kept up.

Sadly the weather has been awful since then; driving rain since the weekend. It wasn't raining this morning - yay! - but we elected for a walk before breakfast rather than a ride as our dog, like us, was exhibiting signs of cabin fever. Aside from which, wet jacaranda petals, which are strewing the street and our favourite bike path right now, are notoriously slippery and I don't feel confident riding on them. We've both nearly slipped over just walking on the wretched things.

Having achieved a modicum of fitness, I need to get out and exercise every day now. I feel uncomfortable if I don't.

So watch out, little black road bike. You won't have the clear road in front of you any more. You can admire the pretty taillight of a Pashley instead.

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.

Shopping with Basil

So far I haven't loaded up both my Basil bags with groceries, but we went for an early morning cycle today when the dew was still on the grass and the sun was low and gently warm. Everything felt newly-minted, there were no cars on the roads and the weekend noises of leafblowers and lawnmowers hadn't stared. I had the Postmenbag attached to Penelope as we needed to pick up a few things after our ride - namely 1.25 litres of soda water (in this hot weather it's bliss with ice, grown-up lime cordial and a squeeze and slice of fresh lime) and fruit/veg, in particular mangoes for our breakfast.

I'm desperately unfit at the moment - that's another story - and after a 45 minute cycle it was slightly hard going pedalling up the hills to our place with about 4kg of shopping on board. Not that the weight made any difference to the bike, her balance or handling; she was very stable and I didn't notice the bag was even there except that the last hill was a real bugger!

Here's my little haul of groceries; there was still plenty of room in the bag but not plenty of use left in my unfit legs so we stopped after getting these essentials. My husband doesn't have a front or rear rack on his bike so the load was all mine. Penelope weighs 20 kg so with the shopping my bike was precisely twice as heavy as my husband's. No wonder he powered up the hill ahead of me. Next time I'm putting a backpack on him so he can have some load too!

How do I know this was 4kg? I didn't do anything scientific such as put it on the scales. That's too much hard work. I used the Animal Method. If we want to get a rough idea of how much something weighs, we compare it to one of our pets. The dog weighs 10kg, the Birman boycat 6.5/7kg and the Birman girlcat 4.5 kg. It felt about the same as the girlcat when I picked her up and then the bag. :-)

As for the unfitness, I might have to head to the gym for a bit as well as ride some more. I caught a bug six weeks ago and felt like crap for almost a month. I still have the cough. Then the weather was either too hot or too wet to go riding. Wimp? Yes, unashamedly. Any fitness I had ran away and joined the circus, where it would have been appreciated. T'other half and I keep muttering that we should ride each morning before breakfast, but so rarely do. It's so hot and humid at nights at the moment we both have broken sleep and wake up late, all bleary-eyed.

Basil Bags - initial thoughts

I was a greedy pig over Christmas and bought myself not one but two Basil bike bags for Christmas.

I'd been taken with the super olive green design on the Postmenbag, but decided initially to get a Basil Mirte shopping bag (slightly bigger) in Rose, which Penelope Pashley is wearing below.

Having ordered that I then saw an olive green Postmenbag for a good price on eBay and splurged on that too. Both bags have arrived now and I have used the Postmenbag today for a very small shopping trip.

Initial thoughts are the quality is excellent. Well stitched, well lined. The white detachable strap on the Postmenbag offers lots of opportunities to get dirty, but I think could easily be cleaned by soaking it in Napisan or any other nappy wash product (no, I don't have kids, but these products are great stain removers). Cleaning the white binding around the bag, as it's bound to get dirty, would be a job for Orange Power upholstery cleaner. Only available in Australia at the moment but absolutely brilliant on fabrics as well as carpet and sofas. Digressing, my husband regularly drops chocolate on our white sofa and Orange Power gets rid of it in a flash.

My brother-in-law has used cycling as his preferred form of transport since a teen (doesn't and won't own a car), and has had experience with all manner of bags. Bearing in mind the comments on the interweb about the plastic clips breaking, he had this to say once I'd shown him photos of the bags: "Those clips look familiar, and should be good for a few years unless they get very cold. And they appear to be removable/replaceable. Karrimore used to use alloy clips and they broke with great ease. Their plastics were an improvement..."

Very cold isn't likely to happen where I'm living. And while the bags don't look huge, they do carry more than you think they might. I think loading them to the point where the clips would break would make for a slow cycle back home in my case. The hills would be murder. In short I can do grocery runs for two people a couple of times a week with these bags. Easy peasy.

Talking of the clips, they fit easily onto the Plescher rack of the Pashley. Top tip is to feed the velcro strap underneath first otherwise you fumble a bit trying to loop it around. I'm guessing the velcro is merely insurance, but did find it difficult to do it up tightly, ie to a point where I felt it could hold the bag on for a little while if the clips ever broke (just till I got off the bike and slung the bag over my shoulder).

On today's shopping trip I only had to get a kilo of Cat's Delight (yes, the local pet food shop guy actually calls it that) for They Who Have Claws, and a packet of tea, without which I will have trouble functioning. I popped the Postmenbag on Penelope and set off. The bag sits well on the rack, doesn't rattle, doesn't interfere with the spokes. Here's what my shopping looks like in the bag. You can see there is a ton of room still there in this 12 litre bag. The goodies rattle around near the bottom.

Laden with this little haul plus a full 750ml water bottle in the bag, I headed home and the bag stayed secure and didn't move on the rack. Unlike my rear basket which tends to slide towards the back of Penelope's rack!

The Postmenbag closes with a flap and a clip; the Mirte with a zipper. I can see it would be very easy to transport objects like celery and leeks in the Postmenbag. It's deep enough for them to go in at an angle with their tops sticking out, and not overbalance and fall out of the bag. Likewise with the Mirte you can zip them into an attention stance, again with their tops out of the bag unless you buy very small leeks.

As both my bikes have racks, I tried the bags on Petunia as well. She looks pretty funky with the green bag - surfer bike!

It fits nicely on her rack and rests against the struts with no danger that I can see of interfering with the wheel.

She looks a little strange with the Mirte bag though - it's definitely more a Pashley bag I think.

And for not only aesthetic reasons. Laden with full baskets, both bikes behave very differently. Petunia has a distinct unsteadiness, a slight wobble at slow speed that Penelope doesn't. However, I will try a shopping trip using both baskets to simulate a pannier situation and therefore lower centre of gravity with Petunia and see if the ride improves. After all she's a touring bike and built to carry panniers. Maybe it's the weight on top of the rack in the form of a full rear basket that makes her very twitchy. Penelope, on the other hand, with her weighty steel body and innate steadiness, handles laden baskets back and front with barely a shimmer.

More thoughts forthcoming after a bigger shopping trip using both bags. But initially I'm impressed with the quality and capacity of the bags.

Yay, at last a ride lasting more than 10 minutes!

Gosh, it's been weeks since I've had a decent cycle. I contracted a bug on 1 December that's plagued me on and off since then, and before that we were interstate for a few days. In a nutshell my cycling muscles have gone to seed.

It was with a ton of joy I got onto Penelope Pashley today and had a forty minute ride. Half way through I was feeling it though. I'm still a bit weak from the bug I had and was coughing mightily. But with the fresh, cool, north east wind blowing on a summer's evening it was pure pleasure, even if much, much harder work than it was six weeks ago.

It's amazing how quickly one becomes unfit. I'd had a couple of rides to the shops lately and found it easy even laden with groceries. But those are mini rides, mere bagatelles. Even a forty minute ride is nothing really, but it was today.

Whatever the case, it was just flippin' fantastic to get out there and pedal. More of it tomorrow!

Summer's day, flowing skirt

This week t'other half and I made a pledge that no matter what we needed at the shopping centre, we were cycling there to get it. It's bedlam this time of year if you drive a car there. Harassed mothers with carsful of children wanting to see Santa Claus; equally harassed mothers pushing overladen trolleys in every direction and hanging desperately onto screaming toddlers; cars circling around and around in the heat trying to find a place. You can leave our place on two wheels and be chaining your bike up inside ten minutes, and that's cycling slowly. No traffic, no waiting around to find a park. The parking angel is always looking kindly on you when you cycle there.

I had to go down there today to get my eyes tested. I've seen a gorgeous pair of frames at half price and needed to know my prescription was still valid. It was. Not that that's relevant to this story.

Anyway, I'm a big wimp when it comes to cycling at temps above 30 celsius, and our neighbour's outdoor thermometer registered 35 when I set off on Penelope. Ugh. However... despite the helmet I stayed cool as whizzed along in the slight breeze; movement itself cooled me down, and if I sweated a little the air rushing past my damp skin did the trick. Now I'm home again I'm BOILING though - it was that last push up that last hill that did it!

Today I chose to wear a long, full skirt of fine, light cotton. I've never cycled in this one before, and it did what full skirts did and blew everywhere. Not to worry; I tucked it firmly under my backside as I sat on the saddle. I also, because nobody should be subjected to a glimpse of these thunder thighs, wore a pair of lightweight bike short-type pants underneath :-).

I usually wear an old pair of prescription RayBans when I cycle in case they fall off; they're so old it's no big deal. Today though, in honour of the pretty skirt, I wore my usual sunnies, vintage 1950s cats' eye frames with my prescription lenses. I love these frames. I bought them two years ago at a vintage clothing fair and it was clear from their condition they had never been used. They'd just sat in someone's drawer, waiting for me to find them and put them to loving use.

As you can see they have diamantes on the cats' eye edges. Gorgeous!

There's a storm outside now, so I've just got back in time. Big spots of rain are splodging against the window. Nice! Think I'll go and stand in the rain for a bit and cool down :-)

Two wheeled weather again and a note about Pashley kickstand

Oh, the bliss of a cool change! Yesterday it topped 40 here. Somewhere over 100 on the Fahrenheit scale. A haze hung over the sky; thankfully as full sunshine would have made it even hotter. We do often get a hot spell in spring, but it typically contains itself to one or two days of about 30 or 32, not a week of temps over 35 with punishing humidity. The only nice thing you can say about yesterday was that it wasn't humid. Anyway, all week it's been too hot to get out and get riding. We've had aims of getting up early and cycling before breakfast, but we've both had horrid broken nights of sleep all week. Despite the ceiling fan, it's been too hot and we've both woken during the night and felt wrecked the next day.

But last night the cool change came. It's 20 degrees cooler today, cloudy and a bit rainy. Penelope and I hit the road for a ride around and then a trip to the shops to pick up some veggies to complement tonight's roast chicken. I bought a lovely free range chicken at the farmers' markets at the weekend but cooking it in that heat was just unimaginable.

The wind was cool, the rain on and off but gentle and reviving. I usually hate riding or walking in the rain. I wear glasses and it's infuriating when they get covered in raindrops and I can't see properly. After the last week it was a delight to be out there with the cool rain caressing me. It was invigorating; I whizzed up hills with an energy I hadn't had for days.

I must make the most of it because we're flying to Melbourne on Thursday for a long weekend to visit my stepdaughter and her baby. I joke to my husband that I'm married to a grandfather. :-) His daughter is nearly twenty, and the baby coming up for 10 months, so we don't feel too ancient. There's a lot of cycle hire in Melbourne but I don't know that I'll get the opportunity to do it. Worth packing a helmet? Maybe. Whatever, the bikes and I will be taking to the road every day between then and now, revelling in the gentle, mild weather.

Having had Penelope now for a couple of months there's one thing about her that's a little annoying. The kickstand. It works fine, don't get me wrong. It does its job and holds the bike upright when it's asked to. But... the arrangement of cable along the frame above the kickstand means that unless you're careful you catch your toe in the cable when you deploy the kickstand. This is not an ideal arrangement and I'm going to drop the people at Pashley a note about it. Having tweaked the cable several times at first I'm now a lot more careful but I could see this becoming a safety issue for the unwary.

Saturday morning in the park

Finally some pics of me in Penelope I can send to Kate at Steel City Cycle works for her bike gallery. All my other pics show me without the helmet that is mandatory in Australia - yes, I'm a lawbreaker!! >;-) I do hate wearing the bloody things but I do realise they help protect you from brain damage; helmets seem to be contentious topic on the net. My personal view is that they should be mandatory for children but optional for adults. Usually I'm wandering around the back streets or on bike tracks and it irks me having a hot sweaty head. If I were commuting in traffic I'd certainly wear a helmet without question. I had concussion twice during my horse riding years and would have been dead without my horse riding helmet. Horses are far less predictable than bikes though!

Proof that Penelope can go reeeeaally slow below in these pics. Greg was using my little Lumix digital which often has a lag between pressing the button and taking the photo... so there were a few that showed me disappearing out of shot. And this was on sport mode. Hmm. Anyway I dawdled along hoping he'd manage to get me in frame and these are the results.

This is in a little park about 4km from our house; typically it's the turnaround point for our usual 30 minute ride. At the moment it looks beautifully verdant courtesy of heavy rain earlier in the week, and a wet start to October. Come the middle of summer the grass will be yellowing and tired.

A bit of Pashley info

I came across this article in the UK Independent during a little search to find out more about when the Pashley Princess was designed and put into production. In a nutshell, nobody at Pashley seems to know :-)! But the article is lovely... makes you want to sit down with a nice cup of tea, a digestive biscuit, and hum "Rule Brittania".

And I'd like to think that this chap - or someone very like him - was responsible for turning Penelope from tubes of steel into a masterpiece.

What a difference a service makes!

I had Penelope serviced late last week and have since then only really ridden her to the shops a couple of times. This morning, as it was sunny and glorious at 6.30am, I jumped out of bed (winced at my knees) and took her for a 30 minute ride. What a difference! Although I love her I confess I was feeling a bit worried about ever getting used to her as she seemed so sluggish compared to my mixte Petunia.

But the simple 30 day service, tightening everything up, checking all was bedded in correctly, made a world of difference. The little Pashley seemed so light and vigorous. For the first time I got her into top gear and pedalled happily without any effort. I've been struggling, on the same bike path, in fourth and even third. But she went like a bird. Last time I rode her up the main hill on this ride I'd had to move into low gear near the top. Today it was easy in second, I was hardly blowing. And it's not as if I've got much fitter in the last five days.

I'm really falling in love with this bike! She is a dream, a jewel. Pashleys rool. They do.

A trip down the coast

Penelope has been for her 30-day tweaking, and it was a gorgeous drive down the coast to Thirroul yesterday. It took about 90 minutes each way. It's doable by train, and you can take your bike on the train, but it's a good two and a half hours each way from where we live... so maybe something to do another time when we are feeling less pressured and not skiving a day off work.

But the view below, from a lookout near Austinmer, was enough to relax us. Heavenly! You can see it was a bit windy - there are tons of white horses on the beach. With a cool south wind blowing nobody was in swimming anywhere we passed despite it being school holidays here.

Here's Penelope on her rack down at Austinmer beach, where we stopped to breathe in gulps of salty air.

The villages between Sydney and Wollongong offer you the opportunity to step back in time. Yes, there are lots of modern houses but lots of charming old ones too, and commercial and public buildings like these two. Here is a theatre in Thirroul which has been put to good use as commercial premises, keeping its intriguing art deco meets Tudor exterior. This area was a popular holiday spot in the first half of the 20th century. Er...it still is! Although these days it's more an extended suburb of Wollongong.

Every little town had its School of Arts back in the day, and this sweet wee one is at Clifton. Here's where ladies practiced flower arranging, art exhibitions were held, and generally the School of Arts was a focus of life in the village.

And finally, the new Sea Gate Bridge at Coalcliff, completed in 2005. The road used to run alongside the cliff, but a landslide in 2003 washed the road away and essentially cut off half the villages from using the coast road - they had to backtrack inland to get from one town to another. Read more about this bridge and see some stunning pics here. It's a remarkable drive - you are held up on pillars high above the ocean.

After all that, Penelope had some minor tweaks, tightenings and adjustments done. I did an adjustment myself today (my middle name is now Spanner) with the saddle, moving it on its runners so it sits further forward. I was finding I was riding on the front rather than the seat; I have short arms and legs. A test ride this afternoon proved much more comfortable.

I also swapped the bolt that adjusts the seat post height for an adjustable one from my MTB. This may sound terribly girly, but it means I can adjust the saddle height now for maximum comfort for each pair of shoes I choose to ride in. Ahh-!!! I found riding in my Colorado clogs a different and uncomfortable experience than riding in my Geox flats, for instance. Mmm, I love tinkering!

A gripping yarn

I was going to wait until Penelope had had her first service, but I couldn't. Those Brooks grips were calling me from the garage :-), so I had no option but to put them on at lunchtime. Measuring them against the existing grips, I realised I'd have to take a few rings out of the grips. I didn't want to mess around with putting Penelope's cables any further along; they are obviously adjusted and made to be just where they are.

I'd fitted the same grips to Petunia some months back but hadn't had to remove any of the leather rings. Well, I could have but I was a little lazy so they're about 1cm too long at the ends of the handlebars, but let's not go thre. The Brooks leaflet stated that adjusting the grips to fit your bike was a fairly easy task achieved with a screwdriver, pliers and a file. Lacking pliers and a file (our tool kit isn't huge) I decided a hacksaw would do the job just as well, and it did. It was just as easy as the leaflet promised.

I had to lose five rings from each grip.

Installing them on the bike was dead easy. Fortunately the other grips came off easily enough thanks to the technique from Bicycle Tutor, and within a couple of minutes I had the Brooks grips on and tightened up.

MUCH nicer than those black plasticky things! Penelope looks like she's itching to go out on the street and show off her new grips.

They look a little on the short side, but then I have quite small hands, so are a comfortable fit as I discovered on a test ride afterwards. I was a little worried that the five rings was one ring too many and I'd be gripping the metal rather than the leather on the edges, but no.

Mmm, Brooks. What an excellent way to use up spare saddle leather and bike spokes!

Postman Pat's Brooks delivery

Postman Pat knocked on our door this afternoon with a special delivery for the green lady. Penelope is finally getting pretty grips to replace the rather uncomfortable standard Pashley plastic jobbies. I was considering getting her green grips to match her pretty paintwork, but the only green grips I could find were $105 on eBay from the US, and I got these for $65 on eBay from the UK. They are honey coloured, the same as Penelope's. Delivery was super quick - I only bought these five days ago!

Charley our Birman boy gives them the seal (point) of approval. He is the inspector of everything that comes into the house. If it can be chewed, clawed or rolled on the floor it's fantastic by him and the grips meet all three criteria. They are now locked in the garage until I fit them over the weekend.

The venerable Bicycle Tutor has an excellent tutorial on how to replace your grips. I didn't realise the 'proper' way to do things when I replaced Petunia's grips - I simply cut through the old, cheap ones with a Stanley knife :-) (Looks heavenward and whistles tunelessly.) I think I should probably do things properly with Penelope.

Penelope is going back to Kate at Steel City Cycle Works on Friday for her first service. She comes with an impressive warranty but has to be serviced within, approximately, 30 days of purchase. I'm nearer 40 days but the shop is a couple of hours' drive from our place so we have to fit her service in with our work and, lately, our busy or soaking wet weekends. Kate is pretty cool though.

Petunia is getting her new Brooks saddle too, a B66S, finally. There's been a holdup as the saddles come via sea mail from the UK. The new shipment is due in this week and I've got one in Antique Brown put aside for me. I would have preferred Honey to match her grips but sadly not available here in the antipodes. Antique Brown will look just as nice with her champagne frame and anyway the grips go darker the more you use them as I've discovered.

So... a happy weekend fitting new grips to Penelope, and if I'm lucky I'll get the call before the weekend that Petunia's new saddle is in stock too. Just in time to get in the best of spring!

Kitted out for a ride to the grocery store

Curse this workload!! It's far too nice a day. I'm glad I worked a bit over the long weekend as the sun was still shining today at lunchtime - so I persuaded t'other half that we should ride to the shops to pick up a few groceries. I ride there when we only need enough things to fill a bike basket or two; one front, one rear. It's an excuse to get out in the fresh air and get some exercise, and is better than taking the car out for just one or two items. (Unless the one item is an economy pack of 16 loo rolls or something!)

Last year I bought a very useful detachable rear basket for Petunia, which looks even better on Penelope. It's plastic wicker, with a handle so you can detach it and carry it into the shops. The handle has an unfortunate habit of bouncing from the back of the basket to the front and when I'm on Petunia, whose luggage rack slopes towards the saddle, hits me on the backside.

Penelope's luggage rack is nice and flat, so the basket itself stays where you put it instead of sliding forward, and if the handle bounces my bum is well forward of it anyway.

Below is a closeup of how it attaches - you simply pull handles on each side underneath to compress the springs, and let go so it grips on. It's a neat little unit, weighs a kilo and a bit, carries quite a lot and is very stable. Sadly there's no cover on the top, so I usually put an eco shopping bag inside and tie the handles together to stop anything bouncing out.

The basket cost me $39 on eBay. I've seen them for more in the shops, even allowing for eBay postage.

Today was the first time I've needed to put the rear basket on Penelope, and she carried a good load of fruit, veg and meat back from the shops. I hardly noticed the basket was there despite the extra weight - she is so lovely to ride!

My husband doesn't have any racks on his bike - a smug 12kg road bike with no mudguards - so carries his load in a backpack as he did today. Even if we fitted racks to his bike I can't quite see him with a twee basket like mine :-). Might have to persuade him to fit racks and buy panniers, so we can shop by bike more often and do most of the grocery load that way.

A burst of summer and an early morning ride

Whew... it was a scorcher yesterday! Temps topped the thirties and suddenly we'd gone from a mild spring to midsummer in 24 hours. The cats demanded to go out into the garden and hunt flies and other insects, and laze about in the sun. The garden burst into flower and then gasped and wilted, and we debated turning the aircon on in the house but held back. A bit silly of us as it was so muggy by bedtime we had trouble cooling down to sleep. Our house is brick veneer and cheaply built so you feel the heat and cold very quickly when the seasons change.

Thankfully we got a cool change overnight and now it's cloudy and set for the early twenties again. It's a long weekend this weekend - Labor Day - and of course rain is forecast for all three days. Well, we need it. Just WHY couldn't it hold off until next week? :-)

We both woke early this morning and decided to get the bikes out before breakfast. Inspired by how fit I felt a few days ago I took Petunia for our usual 8km ride - and absolutely flew along sooooo easily. I don't have a huge amount of stamina, I never have, so on the long 1km stretch where we usually pedal flat out by the creek I was coasting a little by the end, but was able to overtake Greg easily going up hills - which was nice :-). The little mixte felt so light :-))!! Can't wait until my Brooks saddle comes into stock though - I really notice the bumps now I've got used to the smooth ride on the Pashley.

What's funny is that when I ride Penelope I move between the first three gears. I've never got into fifth gear yet (must try it downhill sometime). On Petunia, I usually use a good range of the gears on any ride. Today, I found myself essentially using two rear gears and shifting between high and low range, and this seemed to cover most eventualities, even hills. Pleasing.

If it's not raining later this afternoon I'll take Penelope for a ride too, just to get whatever exercise I can in before the storms and showers set in. Since it's unlikely we'll get our usual long weekend ride in this week I want to make the most of my bikes.

Get fit...ride a Pashley!

I had to nip down to the shops this morning to buy some more printer cartridges, and thought I'd take Petunia the Mixte for a ride in the lovely spring sunshine. I deliberately haven't ridden her since I bought Penelope, as I wanted to get to know Penelope inside out and get used to riding her with her extra 7 kilos.

So I was astonished today at how much fitter I seem to have become in the last three weeks. Honestly I think I was channelling Cadell Evans this morning :-). I was pelting up the little hills in a higher gear than I used to ride Petunia in, and not even blowing by the time I got to the top. Doing the same route on Penelope leaves me gasping, with aching legs, but perseverance is the key, and today's little exercise tells me Penelope is doing me a lot of good.

I'm lucky to have two lovely and very different bicycles to ride, luckier too that spring is here and the sunshine is a siren song to get out there and enjoy them both.

Now the skies are clear again...

... we went for an early morning cycle before breakfast this morning. The sun is rising earlier now and it's light by 6am, so we were out on the bikes at about 6.30.

Not far from our house is a field with a couple of ponies in it. Being a horsey person from long ago I often stop for a chat and today was able to give them a couple of apples. The owners don't seem to mind them getting treats, and I'm mindful to only give them things that are good for them. So many people feed horses fresh bread and that's NOT good - it's an invitation to colic. Old, dry bread is OK though. Anyway, I digress.

I took Penelope for my ride this morning and I think that was probably a mistake. My body was low on fuel and I found the last half a kilometre quite hard going. I'll experiment tomorrow or the next day and take Petunia for a pre-breakfast ride instead.

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.

A journey back home

What a gorgeous spring day! Temps in the early to mid 20s, sunshine, the incredible scents of everything floral bursting into the air. We loaded our bikes onto the car and drove to my childhood home, where my mother still lives. This is such a gorgeous, graceful part of town. Old stone houses, tons of trees both native and European. In particular, the azaleas and wisterias which dot just about every old, established garden were in full swing, heaven to look at and heaven to smell.

This was the first time I'd ridden around here in about ten years. Back then I was riding a 21 speed mountain bike and able to negotiate all the hills in this hilly bit of town really easily once I'd got fit, standing up and pedalling like fury. Taking Penelope there for a ride was a different matter. She's much heavier and her lowest gear doesn't match the range on an MTB or hybrid. On the flat bits she was just brilliant, so easy to get her up and speeding along, and down the hills she flew like a bird, giving my other half on his road bike a serious run for his money. But I'm ashamed to say that I got off and pushed on the biggest hill (just as I did the first ever time I tried that particular hill on my MTB). My legs were aching like mad and I was gasping. Even low gear wasn't enough, so I think I'll have to get the bottom gear lowered, aside from working on my personal fitness. More disturbing was the realisation that it's really, really awkward if not unsettling to try and stand up on the pedals to get up hills. The geometry of the bike doesn't really allow it.

That being said, she really is lovely to ride and it means adapting to her geometry and gearing as well as making such mods as I can afford. Sydney is a hilly ci

ty, more suited to bikes with more gears and in particular more low range gears if you're an unfit lass like me.

Next time I take her to Mum's I'll be fitter and more used to her. She's worth all the perseverance, all the aching legs and gasping breath, as she is a diamond on two wheels.