Todays ride was a quick trail mapping ride today to adjust a section of map that we weren’t happy with. Usually the valley is pretty dry when the rest of Newcastle is unrideable. Today wasn’t one of those days. It was incredibly wet and the geary made crunchy noises that sounded expensive. The knee wasn’t too happy either even that I was babying it with gears.
Never-the-less, we got the stuff mapped that we needed and a gluggy days riding is still better than being at work.
Some time in the future when my Surly Moonlander hits these shores, I’ll be able to plan a fat packing adventure all of my own. Until such times, I’m pretty sure this blog is going to fulfill all my fat packing desires. Awesome photos, well written and a sense of adventure.
Check it out here: http://joecruz.wordpress.com/
Following on from Part 1:
It was a genuine 189k’s to Baledonia and it was freakin freezing. The wind off the Southern Ocean was howling yet again and for a brief minute, I thought I was going to get a tailwind until the grim reality of a third day of headwinds was apparent. Unfortunately, my knee wasn’t any better and if I was being honest with myself, it was slightly worse. It was paining almost constantly and with nearly 8 litres of water on the bike, there was no way to soft pedal. It was all grind.
My dad after caravanning trips has often described the road through this part of the world. You crest a hill and can see for 5km’s and when you finally arrive at the horizon, you crest another hill only to see another 5km’s of road… repeat, repeat, repeat. It took about 12 hours to make 189ks with my average speed falling fast. The worst part of the whole day were the road distance markers which diligently informed you of how much pain was left for the day in 10 km intervals. As much as I tried to ignore them, the knowledge that you still had over 100k’s to go into that wind just ate away at my mood.
Lots and lots of this then ride to the horizion
then lots and lots more of this
Salt marsh
I’d forgotten through my fog of knee pain, however this stretch of road crosses over the Fraser Ranges. Describing them as a ‘Range’ is probably a little optimistic when you consider the scale of the Alps or the Rockies, however it did go uphill and that wasn’t what I was hoping for at that point. There was a single point near the peak of the range where I encountered a spectacular looking grass covered ‘peak’. The camera didn’t really do justice to its beauty, although it could also be that since I am home and surrounded by green trees and grass, the peculiarity of this hill in its desolate surroundings is lost upon me.
The peak that so captivated me as I rode past
Late in the day I noticed a tent set up in a roadside parking bay. I couldn’t see the corresponding car but figured it must be parked behind a shrub only to be jolted from my idle thoughts as a person started running across the parking bay towards me. A few moments of shock ensued until I noticed he was wearing a cycling jersey and my brain managed to figure out that he was out here riding too. It was a Japanese rider who only spoke a spattering of english however he did know ‘headwind’ which I found amusing. He had given up for the day while I was determined to push through the next 40k’s to make Balledonia for the night and get another hotel room to try and let my knee rest.
It took nearly 2.5 hours to ride the last 40k’s despite the fact that my GPS informed me that it was slightly downhill. I could see the lights of Baledonia from nearly 5 k’s away and no matter how much I pedalled, it never seemed to get any closer. After a life time I arrived, wandered into the service station and ordered some food. I was so stiff and sore that I could barely function off the bike. I sat on a bar stool and stared vacantly at a wall while a restaurant full of dinners cautiously eyed the crazy man who had just entered their midst.
Food made a difference and after eating everything on my plate and then deciding it would be improper to finish food on everyone elses plate, I booked a hotel room and went to bed. I briefly caught the weather report on TV which forecast a huge high pressure system over the bite which would continue to bring SE winds for the next few days. That was the lowest point of the day. I drifted off to sleep hoping for a better knee in the morning.
I managed to get 11 hours sleep that night and my legs were feeling better than they had the day before when I first hopped on the bike. I was optimistic that I was over the hump of knee pain and might be starting to come good however this soon faded after 10 k’s on the bike. The wind wasn’t so bad this morning and I was actually making reasonable time. I was soft pedaling and holding about 25 kph however my hands were complaining now that I didn’t’ have the aerobars to take some of the pressure off them (I still have a numb finger now 2 weeks after finishing) and my knee was up to its usual tricks. I actually felt like I had enough power in the legs to push harder however every time I started to wind it up, the knee would flare and remind me that soft pedaling was less painful.
Over the course of the next 2 hours I tried winding it up over and over again only to have the knee shut me down each time. It was clear that things were worse than the day before and there was simply no way I was going to be able to ride another 3000 kms. I kept choking that thought off however it kept coming back as it had for the last few days and at the start of the 90 mile straight I knew it was over. It didn’t have to be right there, but my time left on this ride was going to be measured in hundreds of kilometers rather than thousands. At some point the knee was going to completely explode and I was going to be left hopping along the side of the road in middle of nowhere. I thought about my options. It was clear that I had to stop. Risking permanent injury for what was really and exercise in vanity wasn’t an option. I was broken.
I cracked at this point. There were tears, there was a lot of swearing and an overwhelming feeling of sorrow. I had wanted this really badly and it had broken me. I spent a few lonely minutes on the side of the road attempting to gain my composure and come up with an exit strategy.
Breaking point
While there were heaps of cars with caravans rolling past in their early morning exodus from the caravan park at Balledonia, they were full to the hilt with junk and there would be no room for me and a bike. Flagging one of them down wasn’t an option. It was clear that the best spot to make contact with someone was at a service station where I could strike up a conversation. The only question being, which one? I was about 30 k’s out from Balledonia if I turned around and 146k’s from Caiguna if I rode through the rest of the day. The legwas telling me that picking up what would now be a tail wind and returning to Balledonia was the sensible option however my mind still wasn’t ready to retreat. I decided that Caiguna was where I was heading, leg be dammed.
I pedaled a long lonely 10km’s or so and then noticed a truck stopped in a parking bay with the driver out checking his load. This seemed like a reasonable opportunity and he had just climbed back into the cab as I approached. He eyed me suspiciously however we soon struck up a conversation and he agreed that he would get me out of a jam. He was taking a ute from Perth to Melbourne so we threw the bike in the back of the ute and I climbed up into the cab.
Rescue: I got to sleep in the van on the back of the truck
My first impression was the absolute WARP speed that the truck was traveling at. Of course, it was only doing the 100 kph speed limit but the 10km distance markers that had so drastically messed with my head the day before were now flying past at a dizzying rate.
So at this point it would seem that the adventure was over however there was still something to be said for travelling across the Nullabor with a truck driver who has been driving that route for 32 years. I gained a valuable insight into a world that I would never normally be exposed and spent the next 2.5 days in the truck as we made our way across to Melbourne.
While in the truck, my legs began to swell. Just a little big at first however after a couple of hours I couldn’t get my riding shoes back on my feet and had to buy some thongs at a truckstop. My legs ended up being puffy for several days and it wasn’t until I was back in Melbourne that I could put my feet up and it finally started to subside.
Among the many strange coincidences that seem to occur when something like this happens was the fact that his daughter had only recently been diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. We didn’t discuss it much as it was clearly still very raw and emotional but I think it meant something to him that there was a lunatic riding his bike in the middle of nowhere to raise money for OCA.
There are manny people I’d like to thank for helping me attempt something so foolish. There are all the staff at chemmart head office who helped me get a fantastic riding kit together, My business partner Rachel for helping with the time off and letting me use our store as a vehicle to draw attention to OCA, My wife who put up with thousands of hours of pre – Trans-Oz discussion and then had to rescue me when it all went sour. Finally, thanks Donny for picking me up in the middle of nowhere and driving me most of the way across the country.
Somebody very wise and long since fogotten in the fog of time once said “Whether you fall over or not doesn’t really matter, it’s how you pick yourself up again at the end” and at the moment I can truly identify with that.
It was the start of day 5 and the second on the Nulabor when I knew I was in trouble. My knee was getting progressively sorer and I was getting progressively slower. I’d managed to snap my aero bars off 2 days prior so there was no way to try and hide from the wind and with the prospect of nearly 1500k’s before I was back in any form of civilization, pedalling off into the wastelands with a bung knee was seeming less and less sensible.
Sitting here now thinking about it, It doesn’t really sound that bleak but at the time, through the fog of exhaustion and pain, it really did feel like a heavy situation. Of course, there were cars and truck passing all the time but there was a sense of isolation deep in the Australia outback that is hard to quantify.
Unpacking in the hotel room
The first day didn’t really go according to plan. I had anticipated a lead out with a rider from Perth to get me through the suburbs of an unfamiliar city and out on the open road. This didn’t quite pan out and with no pre-mapped Perth escape route, I resorted to google maps on the iphone to give me some sense of direction. I think I managed to find every single road without a shoulder and was left dodging in and out of traffic while desperately trying to avoid drain covers seemingly made of square edges and sharp things. I hadn’t yet found somewhere to stop to use a compressor and the resultant pinch flat was inevitable when I was only running pressures achievable with a mini pump in the hotel room. The knowledge that my own lack of preparation was the sole cause of the puncture left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Of course things didn’t go smoothly in changing the tube and a cantankerous rear brake soon spat the brake pads all over the pavement rather than accept the rotor when putting the wheels back on. It took a phenomenal amount of stuffing around to get the pads to go back in and the wheel back in the drop outs. I was already frustrated and I had only been riding for 10 kms, not how I had pictured the start in my minds eye.
About 40k’s into the ride I was surprised to find a climb. Isn’t Australia entirely flat? It wasn’t a huge climb but a solid enough rise, around 400m over the course of 5 or 6 k’s. The day was fairly warm and I started peeling layers off.
Even though I didn't stop here, the pie shop photo op was too good to pass up
Nothing of any significance occured for the next few hours. Lots of narrow roads and heavy traffic however there was a particularly large cookie obtained in Northam which was set aside for later in the day when the inevitable first bonk occured.
Happiness is a massive cookie on a lonely road
Swan river in Northam
I remember looking at my watch around 3ish and returning a call to B-rad while I was in Northam. I was only about 120k’s into the day and it was already getting late. I would have to get a move on if I was going to make get any sort of significant k’s done for the day.
Sun sets over day one
I pushed along through many small towns that evening before arriving at Kellerberrin. It was about 9pm and Kellerberrin had been my target for the day. Everything looked to be closed but there was a pub which was still open so I headed in. The place was deserted and when i asked if they were still serving food, I found out the kitchen had shut about 20 minutes before. I bought a couple of packets of chips and sat down for a minute and got talking with the bar tender. I told him I was going to try and ride the 60k’s through the Merriden tonight and he said “I don’t even like driving that far. I can’t let you go out there without a meal” and with that, he headed off into the kitchen and cooked me a burger and chips. Pure Joy.
Fuel
I figured getting into Merriden that night made sense as it put me in a reasonable spot to shoot for Coolgardie the next day if things went well. I made it within 20k’s of Merriden before I started fading badly as I went crosseyed and drooling with fatigue. I pulled the pin for the evening at a roadside parking area and set up the bivvy in the bush and quickly drifted off to sleep with close enough to 250-270k’s for the day.
Hotel room on the first night
The following morning, I was up and on the road around 0730 ish. I took the time too cook up a dehydrated lamb fettucinne for breakfast to make sure I had enough calories on board to get me through to second breakfast. It was a good plan but I was noticing the day 2 legs on that 20 k’s into Merriden and sounded fairly average on the phone to the Mrs when I strayed into reception and could call out. I grabbed a dodgy service station BLT and started work on the 110ks to Southern Cross.
Canola fields
Shite road. Happiness is a change from coarse to smoother
It was about here that it became apparent that my planned 28kph average speed was a laughable over-estimate as the choppy, narrow, soul destroyingly coarse roads worked their magic on me. The aggregate used to make the roads was so coarse that it robbed all forward momentum and i was struggling to make it past 24 kph on flat ground and the cross/headwind was only making matters worse. The road was actually noticeably smoother to ride on the groove where the car/truck tyres had smoothed things out however the roar of the headwind in your ears meant you couldn’t hear approaching traffic and it was suicide to ride out there unless you wanted to spent the next 200k’s looking over your shoulder every 10 seconds. Cyclist Vs Road train only ever ends one way.
It took forever to get to Southern Cross and I hit town around 2:30 feeling like the day was nearly over and I had only done 150ks so far (this was going to be a recurring theme through the ride). I had a burger at the cafe, bought a heap of food at the local IGA and headed out of town knowing full well that cranking out 180k’s to Coolgaride that evening was never going to happen but I would at least take a sizeable bite out of it before stopping for the evening. I discovered after talking to a local that there was actually a roadhouse about 40k’s out of town which meant the distance between water sources was less than I been planning for. I took the opportunity to stock up on more fluids at this truckstop just on dusk and then kept pedalling into the encroaching darkness.
The bike hit the dust seconds after the photo was taken
One of the problems with riding Eastward is the sunsets are always behind you and I missed some glorious moments while I stared at my GPS screen with my head down fighting the wind. It was probably safer that way however as traffic approaching from behind wasn’t staring directly into the sun while driving past. I guess I’ll take safety over scenery.
Thankfully, shortly after dusk, the headwind that I had been fighting the whole day eased and suddenly it felt like I was making good time again. One of the advantages of riding at night in the outback is the distance headlights from vehicles carry. I could now ride in the middle of the lane as I had at least 5 minutes warning that a car was coming as the glow from their lights appeared long before the car approached. It was so reliable that I put in the ipod headphones and grooved the evening away as I rode across moon lit plateaus. I resolved to get halfway to Coolgardie and finally pulled the pin for the night around 8pm about 80 k’s out having ridden around 230-240k’s.
No shoulder and marbles off the edge of the road. Pretty time of day though
That night the wind picked up and the following morning it was howling. Lying in my bivvy, I was momentarily hopeful it would be a tailwind however my hopes were soon shattered as I realized it was the same SE direction I had ridden through the day before. I was on the road a little after 7am and made Coolgardie around midday. My knees had been pretty good thus far despite my pre ride concerns however literally 20 meters from town, my right knee did something strange leaving me with stabbing pain in the outside of the knee athough it soon passed. I shrugged off the knee pain as ‘weird’ and I headed straight for the local cafe and demolished an all day breakfast before another trip to the IGA, then on the road with a vague idea of getting as close to Noreseman as possible that evening. Widgiemooltha was 75ks away and Norseman another 92k’s and I had turned directly into the teeth of the wind so it was going to be a horrible afternoon.
When a cyclist dies and goes to hell, they are destined to spend eternity riding the road between Coolgardie and Widgie. It would have to be the most desolate, forlorn, barren, lifeless, dry and depressing place I have ever been. To top it off, there was plenty of hills to climb and it was nearly 4.5 hours later that I reached Widgie and had a chicken burger, chocolate milk and bought some food for the road at astronomical prices thanks to the isolation.
I figured I would get to within 40 k’s of Norseman and call it a night however as the wind eased a little on dusk, I found myself 60k’s out and wondering why I shouldn’t push through until Norseman. My knee was giving me hell and left me grimacing with pain every time it flared up so a night in a hotel bed in Norseman sounded really appealing. The headphones went in since the sun was down and I hummed along on the aerobars until I realized something wasn’t right. “Were the aerobars always pointing in this direction?” I thought to myself. “Surely they didn’t flex like this yesterday?”. I resolved to stay off them until I could inspect them in daylight since a high speed crash in a remote area at night didn’t sound very inviting. I listened to ‘The Porkers’ and eventually rolled into Norseman just on 9pm and organized a room as they were closing for the night.It was my first shower in 3 days and it was heaven. I was asleep in minutes but woke around 5am. I dozed for an hour or so before getting up, heading to the truck stop and sorting my gear for the day.
To be continued…..
EDIT: PART 2
Since I haven’t quite got around to finishing at Trans-OZ wrap up yet, readers will just have to content themselves with this little beuty of a vid which has been doing the rounds on American blogs this morning. Pure Gold
Well, I finally made it home last night and it surely is a great place to be. After all the traveling I have done in the last 2 weeks, I’m glad to be laying on the couch with no agenda and nowhere to go. I’ll start working on a post shortly detailing some of the places I visited in Trans-Oz, however for now I am just glad to be back.
Trans-Oz as Sir Lenny commented, has been a great success for OCA fund raising yet for me personally it feels like there is unfinished business. Whether I ever summon up the enthusiasm to take another swing is a whole other matter however. I did learn that while massive solo rides are pretty cool, massive rides with mates are even better. Particularly when they are off-road rather than following the black top. At least off road bumpy trails mean there is something else to focus on other than how much your knee hurts. Road riding means you just look around at the scenery and when the scenery has been EXACTLY the same for the last 10 hours a little part of you dies inside.
The worst time is morning. Everything hurts and all you have to look forward to is another 12 hours of pedaling along a boring strip of road. So while my knee was what took me out of the ride, how long before my brain shut down and I called it quits will never be known.
At least I have the HuRT to start working on now. A man without a goal is a lost cause indeed and the HuRT will be just the right length and the single track just superb enough that i’ll go for a ride and a smile and enjoy being on the bike.
So anyone who has been watching Ross’ spot tracking will have noticed that he has picked up a huge amount of speed today. It is not due to a superhuman burst of strength, unfortunately. It is because Ross’ knees have blown out completely, and he has had to call it quits.
I haven’t spoken to him directly, but I received a phone message, letting me know that he’s been picked up by a passing truckie, who will give him a lift to Adelaide.
I had managed to talk to Ross a few times over the last few days, and each time, he had been sounding worse and worse. For the first four days of the ride, he had nothing but headwind – enough to drop his pace from his usual 30kph down to as little as 15kph. The going has sounded pretty tough, and even on the second day his knees were giving him some trouble. He has struggled into this headwind, grovelling along and constantly needing to fight to keep moving… not an ideal situation for someone with already-sore knees.
However, despite this, he was pushing on and forcing himself through… but his knee pain has obviously got much worse in the last 24 hours.
From the phone message, Ross sounded pretty devastated, and very tired. I don’t yet know whether he can even walk – but obviously he could not ride any longer. As anyone who knows Ross knows he does not give up on things easily, and I sincerely believe that he would have only stopped because he literally could not go on.
I’ll try to log on with further updates if and when I get them. I’m intending to fly down to Adelaide tomorrow to try to meet up with him and work out how he gets home. After all, right now, Ross doesn’t have clothes save cycling attire, and has no shoes or any of the other ‘normal’ things that you need to get through. We’ll have to find a bike box in Adelaide, and get some flights and accommodation. But I think the worst part will be Ross’ own disappointment in himself and his knees. Pouring yourself into something like this takes a lot out of you, and to not hit your goal because your body let you down is pretty devastating.
While Ross is off on his grand cycling adventure, I’m going to drop by here every now and then to give updates on his progress, since he won’t always have time/technology/access.
This first update is happening earlier than I anticipated however, as about 45 minutes ago, Ross called me to say that he’s had his first pinch flat. He was meant to be starting his ride at 9.00am Perth time, accompanied by a fellow rider who had volunteered to show him the way. Unfortunately, that guy didn’t show up, and thus within the first half hour of his ride across the country, Ross was on bad roads (with some kind of drain causing no end of bumps), on only 70% inflated tyres (all he could do with the mini pump), and one tyre now flatted altogether. It’s probably fair to say that this was not the start to this adventure that Ross was hoping for.
I’ll drop back and update more if and when I hear from Ross (phone signal dependent). In the mean time, you can track his progress here.
Lots of people interested in tracking my ride. To do so, go here: ****EDIT***** I stuffed up the link. I need a holiday. Lets try that again – http://tinyurl.com/TransOz
It will start updating when I fire it up on Monday morning.
I put everything on the bathroom scales last night for a laugh and my bike plus gear weighs about 20kg. When I add 8 litres of water, it is going to get a little heavier.
The weather forecast looks a bit miserable at the start line, but as long as there isn’t a head wind, I won’t really care.
Not long now, god I’m ready to start pedalling.
the unknown rider 