I run the club’s big autumn ride out of Canberra every year, twenty-something bikes leaving the meet point in a loose group that has to survive fuel stops, a lunch break, three sets of traffic lights and at least one rider who’s never done a group ride before. The formation isn’t decoration – it’s the difference between a group that flows through a servo stop in four minutes and one that turns every intersection into a re-grouping exercise, and after a decade of organising this ride I’ve learned the formation matters more than the route.
Category Archives: Touring & Road Craft
Road Surfaces That Catch Riders Out
I’ve put down about four kilometres of my own farm track over the years, one wheelbarrow load of aggregate at a time, so I notice road surfaces most riders roll straight over without thinking. The corner that got me two winters ago wasn’t loose gravel or wet leaves – it was a patch where the seal had been cut for a water main repair and re-laid slightly proud of the original surface, a lip you’d never see from a car and absolutely feel on two wheels at 80 km/h. It put me down at low speed, more bruised pride than anything else, but it changed how closely I look at the road surface itself rather than just the traffic on it.
Crosswinds and Heavy Bikes: Reading the Road Before It Hits You
The gust came off a gap in the tree line on a farm road outside Austin, the kind of crosswind that doesn’t announce itself until the front end is already six inches off line, and twenty years on this style of bike I still felt my hands tighten on the bars before my brain caught up. That reaction – the grip, not the correction – is the first thing worth unlearning about crosswinds on something this heavy.
Packing a Cruiser for a Two-Week Tour
The panniers were out on the driveway by half past four, three separate piles that had already been rearranged twice, and the bike was still going to be over its rated load once I added two weeks of fuel stops. That is the part of touring nobody puts on a checklist: not what to bring, but what comes back off the pile, because a fully loaded flat-six with a pillion, camping gear and two weeks of clothes does not steer, brake or coast down a hill the way it does empty.