I got out for a lunchtime ride today and chose Olympic Park as my destination. I like riding out there, it has a little bit of something for everyone. If you want to have a nice easy ride, especially with kids, there is a great network of paths, and they do bike hire and supply maps. Things get a little crowded on weekends and you see a few wobbly riders, but if you go through the week the place is…

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Today was the first time I rode to work in a looonnnggg time - over a year, maybe closer to 2. Huge achievement for me. It's a short trip - Glebe to Balmain (it worries me when others on this site define 'short' as 40ks..), but long enough given my fitness is basically zero.

A good thing was that I used to ride regularly so felt fairly confident and most of the trip is either off the main road or on the footpath (which is another issue in itself). Also against the gung ho speeders…

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3:30 PM and the DVD needs to be back at the shop or I get a fine.

Driving a mere 1.5km is not on ... and the kids will want to come for the drive. And the kids are ... let's say the kids love the video shop for the same reason I hate taking them to the video shop.

So ... bike it is!

But how will I carry the DVD? I could just whack it in one hand, but that never feels safe.

Too hot for a backpack.

I know! Why not whack on a jersey and tuck it into a back… Continue

Unlike most of the super scary (!) people here, I'm not currently a regular rider. I was a fairly major bike rider when I lived in Melbourne, before my move to Sydney four years ago, it was by far my preferred means of transport when communiting and generally getting around from place to place - ie daily. Tried keeping it up when I moved to Sydney, but got scared of lack of dedicated bike lanes, driver awareness and obscene number of inner city hills. Gradually even shortish commute to work…

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A great thing about riding a bike around inner city areas is the bike gives me a great way to get close to the action, much easier than having to find a place to park a car and walk.



This comes in very handy when you have a two year old boy with a train and fire engine obsession.…

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I have big feet. Seriously big. Think size 13.

So it is bloody hard for me to buy shoes.

I gather the reason why is that shoes are made on a bell curve. Manufacturers make plenty for average sized people and then fewer and fewer the further away from the norm.

Often, a shop will have only one or two pairs of shoes in my size. Plenty of shops won't carry shoes at the extreme ends of the bell curve, the size sixes and thirteens, because we are so rare.

And bike shoes?… Continue

Short ride today from Marrickville to Redfern for a meeting.

I followed the route I use to tow one of my kids to school (see http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/My-ride-to-school) which follows some laneways parallel to Enmore road.

They are good riding territory. In more than 75 trips down these lanes, I have hardly ever encountered a moving car. There's no parking, so no dooring. You do lose momentum crossing the larger streets, but Enmore road is peppered with traffic… Continue

Anyone remember Ros Kelly, the Keating government minister?

She used to tell a great story about her cocker spaniel and how it propelled her into the ministry.

The story said that when she was working her way up in the ALP, she would walk her dog to party meetings. Everyone there would come over to pat the dog.

She would capitalise on their presence by schmoozing them.

Eventually, she got preselected, became a minister and the rest is history ... up until her brush with a… Continue

I had a nice and easy ride around Centennial Park today with Phil. It was a chance to get a ride in before the rain, chat about the site and also get some photos to put up.



While we were out, Phil recorded a mobile podcast you can listen to here :



Spinopsys Mobilecast #3 - Riding around Centennial Park





Then it was time for a quick… Continue

I was going to start a new Wordpress blog to detail my cycling exploits, such as they are.

I'll give this a try instead, by detailing a fun ride I did two Sundays back.

I started from my Marrickville eyrie and ducked down Illawarra Road onto the Cooks cycleway, out through Rookwood, Lidcombe, eventually to Granville where I dicked around getting lost before finding the Parra-Liverpool cycleway. I followed that to Canley Vale before heading East, intending to follow the… Continue

Today was the day of the Spring Cycle, a ride I've done and enjoyed for the last two years. This year I hadn't gotten around to entering, and when I had a look yesterday I'd missed the cutoff. A good friend of mine had done the same, so we decided to do our own ride. We decided on the La Perouse loop as a nice easy ride that we didn't have to be up too early for (we both have new babies, and other halves that deserve some sleep).



We got off at about 7, and the ride started slowly with… Continue

So I've had an idea to build a Sydney centric cycling site (how's that for an alliteration) for a while. Phil was playing with Ning a while back, and I had a quick look and didn't think much about it at the time. The other day I was riding and it popped back into my head, and tonight it did that again and I thought I'd have a look at the possibility of building what I wanted.



It seems to fit… Continue