With contributions from Steve and Matt and photos from Steve's phone.
Mike and Steve had opted to fly to Melbourne on Friday morning, while
Danny, Bob, and I were to drive down in Danny's Land Rover, carrying all our
bikes. Matt was flying down Saturday afternoon.
The weather was somewhat less than promising, however, we terrestrials
started out in reasonable conditions, especially compared to that being
encountered by the jet setters as they disembarked in Melbourne.
SMSs:
“Arrived OK, but pissing down and cold!”
“Danny's just donning his sunnies. We'll see if we can drag some sunshine
in our slipstream.”
“What slipstream? Land Rovers having slipstreams, I don't think so; only
down a mine shaft.”
“Are you suggesting that Melbourne is not at the bottom of a mine shaft?”
“More like a well at the moment!”
“Hope you are wearing your floaties.”
“They're permanently attached!”
Anyway, before too long we too encountered the bad weather. The worst of it
was as we were approaching Holbrook. Here the road had already developed so
many pot holes that the trucks had opted to drive in the right lane, which had
suffered less.
There were several places where the left lane was covered with water. I
passed one car, as it returned to the left after overtaking a puddle, only to
find that the next puddle covered both lanes. Knowing the overtaken car would
look to move back to the right lane, where the puddle was clearly shallower, I
opted to plough into the puddle rather than slow. The puddle was quite an
effective brake, leaving me searching the cabin for where I'd left the gear
stick - no that's the water bottle - ah there it is. Well it gave the water
time to drain from the windscreen.
While filling up in Holbrook, where we had planned to have lunch, we fell
into to talking to a biker. The bad weather had forced this poor fellow to
slow to 120km/hr in places. He had heard from some truckies that the police
had plans to close the highway south of Holbrook, so we postponed lunch to
Wodonga. As it turned out, the worst of the flooding was behind us.
As we arrived on the outskirts of Melbourne, we took instruction from
Danny's new toy, a navigation computer. The route it tried to take us seemed
convoluted to me, though not as convoluted as the route we took in our
attempts to follow its instructions. We finally arrived at the right place,
thanks to a little assistance from Steve via mobiles, with all bikes in tact.
On Saturday morning, we breakfasted at a place called No.5, which provided
a number of pool balls in a glass jar (all numbered 5) as a table ornament.
This prompted Mike to comment that he may as well do the same with his balls
for all the use they get. After a moment’s awkward silence, he clarified: “I
mean my snooker balls!”
We then visited Alexandra Gardens, the ride start, to see if we could alter
Bob's ride options, so that he could ride anti-clockwise with the rest of us.
There were no places available on the other route options for Bob to swap to and
we were told, quite emphatically, that if he were to ride anti-clockwise, that
he would not be allowed on the ferry from Queenscliff to Sorrento.
We left the bikes in the Land Rover until Saturday afternoon. I seem to
recall that someone suggested a warm-up ride, but that was not greeted with
much enthusiasm.
Saturday night we were all awakened at around two o'clock by the race
organisers' SMS:
“Hi (insert name here) HBA Around the Bay Update: Reduced capacity on ferry
due to a breakdown. Likely delays during peak period. Bicycle Victoria”
The route data recorded by my Garmin during this event is available in the
Routes
section of this website. After bringing up the map for our
weekend rides, you'll need to click on the white “M” in a blue square
beside where it states “Port Philip Bay”.
We planned to leave the flat on Sunday morning at 5:15 in order to arrive
at Alexandra Gardens for the 5:30 start. With Bob still cosily tucked up in bed
and us only slightly daunted by the chilly weather, we managed to get away, a little
later than planned, arriving at the start at the moment the bikes were set going,
giving us a perfect rolling start. I'd credit it to equal measures of arse and
class.
Bob, on the other hand, arrived at the start for his group at the official
time of 6:30, only to be held back for three-quarters of an hour before being
let go.
The start of the ride is in the dark, through the streets of Melbourne,
resulting in us being stopped regularly at traffic lights, making it difficult
to stay together, whilst avoiding other riders. Here and there were riders
stopped by the side of the road for one reason or another, and in the
stop-start mayhem the occasional rider fell. Steve felt quite uncomfortable in
these conditions; me? I was too oblivious to care.
There were bollards setup along the road in places, intended to separate
the riders from the traffic, however, with the density of riders at this stage
of the ride, the pack was spread either side of the bollards. In places the
bollards were not aligned to the direction of travel, as they were attempting
to either broaden or narrow the width of road dedicated to the riders. In
these places, you could not see the bollards until the rider just in front of
you made a last minute change of direction to avoid it, leaving you with just
enough time to do likewise, but no time to signal the rider behind.
On one gentle rise, a rider fell across our path. I veered right
(unnoticed), leaving Steve room to demonstrate his much lauded (by Steve)
skill in avoiding the rider. Matt was not so fortunate and, after hitting
Steve, collected the fallen rider, landing on his right. Mike and Danny were a
little distance back and so were clear of the incident. Matt was quickly back
in the saddle and off again, with a slightly sore hip, but had to complete the
ride with a bent wheel.
By the time the pack started to thin, I found myself drafting behind Matt,
with the others somewhere behind. Matt: “We'll wait for them at the drinks
stop”. Well the first drinks stop came and went (Matt was reluctant to stop
for drinks at a sewage treatment works). Somewhere between that and the next,
I let Matt go, continuing at my own pace to the second drinks stop, where I
waited for the others.
Steve, meanwhile, had ridden clear of Mike and Danny. He was particularly
amused by the jersey of one very rotund rider: “The Fat Bastard's Cycling Club
for people who enjoy eating but have a cycling disorder”. Sometime after
passing this rider, Steve suffered a puncture. Whilst fixing that, Fat Bastard
passed him.
With the tube repaired, Steve was soon to pass Fat Bastard, before reaching
me at the second drinks stop, where we continued to wait for Danny and Mike.
While waiting, we noticed Fat Bastard passing.
At some point along this leg, I failed to clip in
when starting uphill at a set of traffic lights. As a result of rolling back and
thanks to bicycles not employing quadrature encoders,
I recorded a maximum speed of 93 kilometres per hour.
It wasn't long before the rain started to return. Matt had fallen in with a
group of garrulous, amicable cyclists. You'll find most cyclists to be
amicable, as the arse holes would be at home stuffed in a lounge with a beer and
race guide listening to Alan Jones. Matt's group were managing an average speed
of 28 km/hr for this leg of the trip, braving the rain and crosswinds, not to
mention cyclists in see-through knicks
Our group persisted riding through the rain till we reached Port Arlington.
It was ten o'clock with pretty miserable conditions, so we decided to stop for
coffee. By the way, we had passed Fat Bastard once more.
SMSs:
“Hi heroes, hope all is going well and the weather is kind. Geoff and I
have just done the Halcrows route in good sunshine. P and G.”
“It's pissing down here. Steve keeps asking ‘When does the fun start?’,
whilst looking wistfully to the stairs. ‘No, Steve, it's been done before!’.
Lost Matt, Bob had to go the other way around. M, D, S, and G.”
From Port Arlington, the route took us to and along the coast. This was the
nicest part of the ride so far, and, as well, the weather had eased and the
road was flat.
As the route turned back away from the coast to unite with the 210km ride
option and take us to Queenscliff, the road took on a slight uphill gradient.
Here, we, again, passed Fat Bastard.
According to Danny, the final 12 kilometres to Queenscliff was to be a 1%
downhill gradient - bull dust!
The roads that we had encountered on this leg
of the ride could be compared to, for the Sydney-based reader, a combination
of the M7, M4, Paramatta Road and Silverwater Road.
We arrived at Queenscliff at 11:30, but ten minutes late to be given
tickets for the 1:00 ferry, so had to settle for the 2:00 one.
And Steve missed out on his vegetarian lunch.
He had to settle for a chicken sandwich.
We managed to meet up with Bob here, as he disembarked from his ferry
(Sorrento to Queenscliff).
We found the lunch break and subsequent ferry ride were quite relaxing,
with the sun starting to poke through, but it had allowed Fat Bastard to catch
us once more. Matt, on the other hand, having arrived when the rain was still
with us, had a pretty miserable lunch and crossing.
Steve and Greg on ferry, as photographed by a pretty pink Turramurra
Cyclery lass - hence the smiles.
Getting off the ferry, we commenced the final hundred or so kilometres with
some apprehension, as Steve, Mike and I were starting to feel it in our legs
and my sitting bones were making their presence felt as well - a discomfort
that I suspect Fat Bastard had never experienced.
The rain had passed, the day was looking almost passable, and we were
making steady progress until I succumbed to drawing pin sabotage. There were
half-a-dozen other riders similarly inflicted. When Danny and I last did this
ride, there had been a similar sabotage incident involving drawing pins and I
have since learned from other riders that the same thing had happened last
year. Obviously, not all the arse holes were stuffed in a lounge, listening to
Alan Jones. I took out my three spare tubes, the first was obviously patched,
so I chose the second, which upon unrolling, also revealed a patch, but not
wanting to antagonise Steve and Mike further, I used it. It proved to have a
slow leak - an undetected puncture from a previous incident, so I had a second
puncture stop - more haste, less speed.
Needless to say, Fat Bastard passed us once more.
SMS:
“Finished 250km. Matt”
Matt and his adopted group of cyclists had taken full advangate of the improved
road conditions on this leg of the ride, managing to average 32 km/hr from
Sorrento to Melbourne.
Meanwhile, at around the 210 km mark, with forty kilometres to go, we
noticed that Fat Bastard had pulled into a service station, and was phoning a
friend with a fag in the other hand. Steve had finally won his battle with
obesity! Still, you have to admire someone carrying that much weight who can
complete even 210 kilometres.
This segment of the journey is, certainly, the prettiest, as the road
closely hugs the coastline, where it features beach after beach.
With about twenty kilometres to go, my sitting bones were not prepared to
take much more. With my mind, now, exclusively focussed on reaching the end
and getting my arse off the bike, I found myself pulling away from the others,
causing Danny to have to catch up and haul me in when Steve started feeling
feeling out-of-sorts - perhaps the chicken. We moved over into a beachside car park,
where Steve took time to recover and the rest of us refilled out water bottles.
On the road again and we were soon back in Melbourne, where we received a quick
introduction to the concept of hook turns, which sorted the natives from the
out-of-towners.
At around 6:30, four very relieved riders reached Alexandra Gardens. Bob
had already arrived. Matt had probably showered, rested, and was itching
to prepare for the Fitz Challenge. We managed an average speed of 27 km/hr.
Steve, Mike, Greg, and Danny at Alexandra Gardens after the ride. That's
not a distortion of the fish-eyed lens: Steve's head was actually exploding
and Mike really is a leprechaun.
SMS:
“Well done you heroes! Hope it was fun. Now rehydrate and warm up. See you
next week. Peter”
We made a bee-line to the Spokes Bar.
In spite of protestations to the contrary, Steve maintains that he did,
indeed, have fun. Though only Danny is prepared to back up for the ride again.
Everything that you always wanted to know about Quadrature Encoders, but were afraid to ask
For those of you without an engineering background and wishing to understand
the earlier reference to quadrature encoders, here is a quick introduction.
A bicycle, these days, measures distance, and hence speed, by means of a magnet
mounted on a wheel spoke and a sensor mounted of the frame on the bike, which
allows the counting of revolutions of the wheel. Diagramatically, this could be
represented below:
The above diagram shows the count increases by one each time the magnet is
detected.
Now, for quadrature encoding, instead of counting each revolution as 1, you
would count 4 and divide this by four to get the number of revolutions, as shown
below:
Of course, this is no improvement at all, however, what we do is use two sensors
in place of one, arranged so that the magnet activates one before the other, but
activates the other before deactivating the first. That is, the sensors are very
close to one another along the arc traversed by the magnet as the wheel turns.
This results in two signals as shown below:
A: _|^^^|____________|^^^|____________|^^^|____________|^^^|____________|^^^|_
B: ___|^^^|____________|^^^|____________|^^^|____________|^^^|____________|^^^
Count: -1-2-3-4----------5-6-7-8----------9 and so on.
On the other hand, the count is decremented by one when:
signal B rises, whilst signal A is low,
signal A rises, whilst signal B is high,
signal B falls, whilst signal A is high, and
signal A falls, whilst signal B is low.
Now, if you reconsider the single sensor under the conditions, where the wheel is
momentarily reversed just after the magnet passes the sensor, the situation would be
as shown below:
Now the speed is based on the time between counts, which, in the above illustration,
is very short between 2 and 3, causing a false high speed to be measured.
Consider the same situation with quadrature encoders:
Forward--------------->|<-Reverse->|<-------------Forward----------------->
A: _|^^^|____________|^^^|_|^^^|____________|^^^|____________|^^^|____________
B: ___|^^^|____________|^^^^^|________________|^^^|____________|^^^|__________
Count: -1-2-3-4----------5-6-7-6-5-4------------5-6-7-8----------9 and so on.
So, with the above signals, the bicycle speedo would know that the bicycle had gone
backwards and would not record silly top speed figures.
