The Bribane River Loop…does a straight line back and forth constitute a loop?

BRISBANE RIVER LOOP

(I use the term ‘loop’ very losely)

Monday, 3 May 2010

 

For those who read / or are still in the throes of finishing my first blog entry “It’s Not About The Bike…It’s About The Rissoles” (brevity is not my strong point) you will be shocked to learn that – much like famous Aussie pop supergroup ‘Bardot’ – my peloton did disband briefly after some internal conflict over the accuracy of my reflection.   Fair to say there were rumblings I was becoming the ‘Sophie Monk’ of the group – Kirsten I suggest was just unhappy with her lack of publicity.  For all those fans who have been eagerly awaiting a follow-up, I trust the 2 of you will be comforted to learn that all issues have now been resolved (prior to publishing) following my gracious acceptance of Kirsten’s apology for not accepting the natural order by which the peloton is run. 

To explain:  I am a firm believer in a child’s schooling shaping their character in later life – the dignity, respect and basic good values that are entrenched in your impressionable years.  For fear of blowing my own trumpet, I earned these qualities in bucketloads whilst a) lining up on the school oval during a bomb scare; b) being detained in the school hall for innocently finding myself in the cross-fire of a food fight; and c) serving an indefinite ban on school excursions with my entire year level due to unruly behaviour at Ipswich City Cinemas watching Jurassic Park for Year 8 art class (should have seen my paper mache T-Rex).   This in mind, it was clear that Tracey and I – as graduates of the public schooling system – be anointed leaders of our group.   Thus, the pelotons natural order was born. 

THE NATURAL ORDER
1.  Tracey Pelling	Babinda STATE HIGH SCHOOL
2.  Melissa Bulow	Bremer STATE HIGH SCHOOL
…and the less fortunate private school girls:
3.  Louise Broadfoot	Methodist Ladies’ College*
4.  Kirsten Pike	St John’s College Nambour

* new inclusion (fans might know Louise as the founder of ‘the grape’)

With this settled, an informal offer was made by Tracey – Head Of The Natural Order (HOTNO) – to gage our collective interest in a lunch time cycle.  The reason I chose to filter this as ‘informal’ was due to a) the offer being made over coffee and a big breakfast – my focus was channelled toward my skinny cap froth; b) it was a PUBLIC HOLIDAY and I wished to treat it as such; c) the prospect of pedalling saw a microexpression of extreme despair which served to notify the table exactly how I was feeling. 

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” 

                                                                                                                                                                  – Galileo

 

No need Galileo – my face is its own lie detector. 

Not impressed with the sudden inclusion of physical activity into my day, Kirsten and I left New Farm Deli a contrasting picture of excitement and hopelessness.  We were given one hour by HOTNO to lycra-clad, muster a semblance of motivation (me), and make our way back to the designated departure point at Teneriffe. 

Our excitement upon arrival was somewhat tempered by the outfit of ‘choice’ of the newest inclusion to our peloton – Louise Broadfoot.  I personally thought the cycling mankini to be very unnecessary – and if she wasn’t such a good friend I would’ve pointed and laughed…for a second time. 

Having delayed the purchase of a road bike till my bank balance comes off life support, I borrowed the very same chariot of choice that faithfully gave me deliverance in the Brisbane to Ipswich.  A former accountant, I like to think I’m pretty astute – so when I saw that it was missing ummmm let me see…PEDALS…a microexpression along the lines of ‘what the f*&k’ flashed across my face.

Now aside from being astute, I also like to add talented to the mix.  As a little girl however, I can’t ever recall saying, ‘I want to be in Cirque De Soleil’ so the prospect of riding pedalless (yes this word is made-up) was somewhat akin to Don Bradman striding out to the crease without his bat – as talented as Sir Donald is.   Turns out, HOTNO had removed the clip-in pedals and replaced these with NOTHING except for the pins and needles I felt about 20 kilometres into the ride – more on this condition a little later. 

As I mounted my bike, I thought of Evonne Goolagong winning Wimbledon with her Dunlop wooden racquet and knew exactly how she must have felt.  Sweet sadness.  So off we set and not 100 metres into our journey a squeaky sound – not limited to our peloton but to curious Merthyr Road on-lookers – could be heard coming from my wheels (after first fearing my knee cap and patella tendonitis).  Having tentatively negotiated my wooden racquet oops sorry ‘bike without pedals’ to the safety of the floating pontoon, we had a quick maintenance pit-stop where the following conversation was overheard:

Tracey:  Is it coming from the front or back, Melly?

Me:  Oh it’s definitely the front (said with absolute assuredness).

Tracey does a quick spin and check of the front tyre to discover no signs of friction.  For completeness, Tracey does the same with the back tyre where a distinctive and familiar sssqqquuueeeaaaakkkk starts sounding. 

 

I said I didn’t really want to be there anyway.

Repairs completed, it was back on task – task being to negotiate the RiverWalk without causing casualty to oncoming pedestrians.  Meandering through the City Botanic Gardens, it seemed our one and only HOTNO was ‘multi-tasking’ – how I hear you ask?  Well HOTNO was not simply streamlining in and out of foot traffic but dealing with the debilitating cycling condition called ‘bunching’.  To experience bunching at the 3.8 kilometre is certainly not ideal (particularly if you find yourself downwind) and is now cause for me to refer to our HOTNO by her given name – I just don’t think it befitting for a HOTNO to experience this bodily problem…and maintain credibility. 

So what in fact is ‘bunching’?  For those not quite up to speed, let me start with ‘Bus bunching’:

Bus bunching is a classical theory for a causal model for irregular intervals, on the premise that a late bus tends to get later and later as it completes its run, while the bus following it tends to get earlier and earlier.

 

‘Bunching’ in the world of cycling, is also formerly known as ‘Underwear bunching’.  See below:

Underwear bunching is a condition where (as you cycle) the underwear disappears further and further ‘up your date’, while the intervals between underwear retrieval gets shorter and shorter.

Poor Tracey.

With both public school girls showing extraordinary courage, we made it to the University of Queensland where a decision was required re. doing the ‘longer’ cycle or ‘shorter’ cycle.  Based upon the following factors, it appeared this decision wouldn’t be one for the Commonwealth Heads of Government: 

a)      Tracey’s bunching,

b)      the pins and needles I was not so quietly dealing with as they referred through the length of my metatarsals (did I mention my bike had no pedals?), and

c)       the mention of a very conspicuous hill toward the back of Graceville.

Tracey was first to opt out, followed closely by myself on the grounds of a) being a true friend to Tracey and b) can’t be sure that the mention of a hill didn’t flag that same microexpression I so subtly flashed in New Farm Deli.    With the public school alumni – as expected – being decisive, both Tracey and I sat and watched the private school girls mull over what they should do and the benefits of contributing to their respective private school building funds. 

Seeing the day evaporate before our eyes, Tracey and I encouraged both Kirsten and Lou to challenge themselves to the longer ride whilst we promised to do the same.  Our challenge just proved to be more task-oriented – the ability to chat, answer phones, criticise, solve the world’s pressing problems, and be generally funny whilst traversing the University’s endless hills (ok speed bumps) is an art form for which we take much pride.  Do they offer a Bachelor in that?

As Kirsten and Lou disappeared into the horizon, Tracey and I toyed with the idea of a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ scenario.  In this adventure, there were two (2) possible endings:

1. Re-tracing our cycle path back to our starting point.
2. Jumping on the UQ City Cat back to New Farm.

 

Adventure #2 held much appeal, allowing us to revisit our senior school days and the tendency to take the much more appealing option (aka a day off) in lieu of the annual swimming carnival.  Turning our thoughts to the present, we realised the negative signal this would send to all our young fans and accepted the small sacrifice of the return journey…which is more than can be said for the City Cat operator who wouldn’t accept my frayed cotton Brisbane to Ipswich cycling cap in consideration for a double adult fare. 

At the 26.8 kilometre mark, Tracey noted that her bunching had just reached critical levels.  Harnessing Lorna Jane, I mentioned something along the lines of ‘pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever’ and received one of my very own microexpressions of disgust.  In my defence, I think I was just thrown by Tracey ‘Maths In Space’s’ use of the first decimal. 

Well into the throes of our usual warm-down stretches – or just the ‘lying prone couch stretch’ – Louise and Kirsten wearily trudged in and asked “how long have you girls been home?”  Looking at each other we agree “Oh what do you think…probably a good 5 minutes”.   Hmmm did I mention Maths In Space?  Calculations of time came well after decimal point usage.