Cyclist power maybe, an accident, who cares about the icecaps, Warbuton rail trail take 2.

Its school holidays in Melbourne, and after extolling the beauties and delights of the Lilydale Warburton rail trail to the family, we decided that we would try it together on the weekend. So I booked a day's leave for Friday, and a park cabin at the Warburton Caravan Park, and I had something to look forward to.

The short week's commuting was memorable for a number of things, some good, some not so good. Monday it rained on and off coming home. The dangerous gravel detours along the front of the Waterfront City Project in Footscray road have been replaced by concrete temporary path, which is an improvement, though still suboptimal. The developers, Hansen Yunken Pty Ltd, were requested by Melbourne City Council to improve the quality of the path after the council received complaints from cyclists (including this one) - which goes to show that it can be worth writing to the relevant council on issues which
impact on your cycling and which are within their area of responsibility. What remains to be seen is how disruptive to the bike path the new developments will be - having more car traffic cutting across the path without some form of traffic control is a recipe for a future disaster, though I can't say the prospect of more traffic lights along the bike path fills me with great joy either.

The consequences of lack of adequate traffic control were underlined for me on Tuesday morning by a tableau glimpsed as I rode down Moreland Street heading up to Footscray Road. Most cycle commuters fight their way across Whitehall Street which can be fairly hair raising, head down Parker Street, then cut across Moreland Street onto the shared bike-footpath via the drive way into an industrial estate. This maneouver can be quite challenging, as coming towards you there is a lot of heavy traffic coming off Footscray Road, you need to watch for the occasional traffic coming from behind, and there is always the prospect of traffic coming out of the industrial estate -
which I suspect is what had happened Tuesday morning. There on the grass face down was a cyclist,
with two worried looking people, one holding the fallen cyclist's bike and another on a mobile phone, probably calling an ambulance. My guess is that he had hit or
had been hit by a van coming out of the industrial estate.

Tuesday I used the road bike I bought on ebay a year or so ago, instead of my faithful steel framed bike which I've been riding for more than 30 years. Though its faster, the road bike is a lot less comfortable, and its tyres aren't so good either - got a puncture before I got to the city.
On the steel frame bike I carry a long pump, but on the road bike I just had one of those mini pump things, which are fine as ballast but fairly useless I find as implements for putting air in tyres. Managed to get about 60 psi in before my eyes started to pop out. The bright idea struck me that I could stop at Abbotsford cycles on the way and put some more air in with a decent pump, rather than risking blowing more blood vessels trying with the mini pump. So I rode very conservatively to Richmond. When I got there I figured as I didn't have a spare tube for the rest of the ride, it would make sense to get another. And I remembered that I'd blown a 27 x 1.25 tube on the weekend so I might as well get one of those. Then I had a good look at the tyre that had punctured, and thought it was looking pretty shabby, and when would I get a better opportunity to get a replacement. Then I remembered I was going to do the Warburton trail on the weekend with the tandem, and that I really did need a new rack as the existing one was tied with wire, and wobbling round in alarming fashion. So, for a person who entered the shop with the intention of getting some air, I left having spent $80.

I was doing some research on salary sacrifice during the week and discovered that you can in effect get a tax break for buying a car, get a tax break for carparking fees, and claim as a tax deduction milage under a wide variety of flimsy pretexts. You cannot however get the same tax advantage for buying a bicycle, nor for a yearly public transport ticket, nor can you claim anything for mileage or wear and tear on a bicycle which you could be using in precisely the same way that you could claim a mileage allowance on for a car. Which leads me to conclude that collectively we haven't even begun to get serious about reducing green house gases or making our city more liveable. Bye bye polar icecaps. Any party that proposes tax deductability for bike stuff gets my vote.

Friday dawned with ominous line squalls sweeping over us, and an apocalyptic weather forecast, strong wind warnings, rain, hail and snow down to 900 metres. How high above sea level is warburton? Took the dogs out early for a walk and we all came home sodden, to find the family with long faces about the trip. We'd paid for the accommodation, and the sky did brighten a bit, so we figured we'd give it a go. Good old public transport got us comfortably to Lilydale - its fantastic outside peak period - and we were on the trail by a bit after 11.00. About half way up the hill to Mt Evelyn I realised that the rest of the family weren't quite as bike fit as I thought they were. Lots of complaining, especially from Vincent, from whom, as he was on the back of the tandem, I couldn't escape. Still, we got over the hill ok, with me saying "its only a kilometre to the top" most of the way. Restoring muffins, coffee and milkshakes at Cog Cafe as well as the long down hill raised collective spirits, and we even got some patches of sun. Even on a bad weather day the trail is still beautiful, but behind us the sky was becoming blacker as another storm front approached.

A few k outside Woori Yallock the rain hit us and we sheltered under a line of fir trees surrounded by black cattle, who from the bellowing they were making weren't any happier about it than we were. Wind was whistling through and Vincent was starting to turn blue, so when the rain eased a bit we set off again for a quick dash to the Woori Yallock Bakery, home of the spahgetti bolognese pie, which sounds disgusting but kids seem to like them. We plugged on damply with Vincent saying things like "This is the worst holiday ever". Started raining again as we got near Warburton, then hail. Anne vanished into the IGL store to stock up on alcohol. By the time we got to the cabin, the cycling troupe was on the verge of mutiny about the prospect of riding back along the trail the next day, so I figured time for plan b. Thanks once again to the wonders of public transport, I was able to walk up to the bus stop a hundred metres from the caravan park, catch a bus back to lilydale, and be back home in about 3 hours. Got the car, and drove back to Warburton by 11.00. Next morning, we managed to fit two bikes and the tandem less its wheels on the back of the car, and after a lovely breakfast in The Good Food Room, drove back home. Despite the weather and the bail out, it was fun. The kids are great company despite the complaining and its nice to do things as a family, nice to have them where they can't escape into their various pursuits. But family rides are sure a different proposition to heading off by yourself.

Tally for the week:

246 k
Rain: Monday night ride home, plus multiple drenching Friday.
Near misses: none
Puncture: one
$ spent on bike stuff: $80