bikes

When I was a child, I had a plastic toy camera, pilfered from a Weet-Bix box. It didn�t take photos, of course. It was free junk, a few centimetres of cubic plastic, painted in the design of a Kodak. I played with it for a few minutes before correctly deciding a football and the backyard offered more enjoyment. Now, as a middle-aged man, I�m susceptible to buying gadgets like the GoPro Hero2 HD video camera that mounts on the handlebars of my bicycle or helmet. This camera is no bigger than the cereal plastic toy of the sixties, only it offers hours of enjoyment... and befuddlement. But, more of that later. I�m not a tech-head. If you want the detailed specifications, go to the GoPro web-site . After two weeks of Hero2 ownership, these are my initial impressions. Yes, it�s tiny. And relatively easy to operate. There are only two buttons to click, for recording video and taking pictures and for adjusting the settings. It comes with a waterproof housing, great for rainy days on the bike,...

The iconic Six Foot Track is one of the most popular bush walks in the Blue Mountains, three days of trekking from Katoomba to the Jenolan Caves. The end of its first stage, the Megalong Valley cemetery is the destination of one of my favourite bike rides in the mountains. The ride starts in the village of Blackheath, home to at least ten coffee shops and the Victory Theatre... no movies, just antiques and crockery from your Grandma�s house. To reach the start of the ride, you cross the train tracks and immediately turn left. The signs point to Shipley Plateau and Megalong Valley. Before the sweeping seven-kilometre downhill ride to the valley floor, I always warm-up with a short pedal along the plateau, past suburban houses, the occasional mock-Italian villa and Logan Brae apple orchard, still selling fresh fruit and juice, and sublime apple jelly. At the Shipley Plateau Volunteer Fire Brigade, a life-like white cockatoo sits glued to the street sign, obviously on the lookout for bus...

There's debate as to whether the iconic bogong moth was named after the Bogong High Plains where they return every summer, or that the mountain range was named after the moths. Either way, it's widely accepted that bogong means 'big fellow'. I pedal out of the 'big fellow' village and set my sights on Falls Creek, a climb of nine hundred metres over fourteen kilometres, with an average gradient of 5.7%. Unlike yesterday's ride to Mt Buffalo, this gradient plays tricks, changing from a relaxing 5% to a 'my knees are shaking' 10%. But, don't be dismayed, the hard stuff is near the summit and doesn't last for long. And there's always the view to keep me occupied. The Weather Bureau has warned of high winds, storms and torrential rain. I start early enough, crossing the Pretty Valley Branch of the East Kiewa River - nice name that one. The climbing starts immediately on good tarmac winding through snow gums surrounded by a thick carpet of fer...

Bright is a lovely town nestling in the valley of the Victorian Alps, a perfect base for cycling some of Australia's admittedly few mountains. On Friday afternoon, the only sunny day of the week, I pedal down the tree-lined Great Alpine Road towards Mount Buffalo. I've wanted to climb this mountain for yonks! The serious climbing starts thirteen kilometres into the ride where the gradient reaches 6% and remains steady for the next twenty kilometres. Sure, there are patches of 8%, but nothing really scary. With all the recent rain, the one constant of this climb is the sound of gushing water. It's as if the mountain is slowly melting from the top down, a granite ice-cream cone in the sun. Just as I'm getting into a rhythm, a Council ute stops beside me and the driver says the road is closed ten kilometres ahead - a landslide with boulders bigger than a truck. I can't bear the thought of turning around, so decide to take my chances. It'd need to be a big boulder t...

The first time I rode my mountain bike up Megalong Street hill, I dry-retched. I needed a new bike, stronger legs and better-performing lungs. I bought a road bike and, for the past eighteen months, have been working on the legs and lungs. How can I say this, without sounding like an arrogant prig... but, I like riding up hills now. I actively seek them out. I'm willing to drive for a few hours to ride up the Category One climb from Kangaroo Valley to Moss Vale. Lovely hill that one - perfect road surface, tree cover so the sun is never a worry, and a relatively predictable gradient (average 7% over eight kilometres). Living in the Blue Mountains, I don't usually have to go so far for hills. Five hundred metres to be precise... Here's a saddle-eye view, no sorry, horrible image that one... here's a handlebar-eye view of my daily ride. It's starts each morning with a right turn onto quiet Cliff Drive. I pedal towards the Great Western Highway, which is not great and ...

Thai food has many essential ingredients - lemongrass, ginger, basil, rice. But, after two visits to this wonderful country over the past six months, and having eaten more than my fair share of sumptuous meals, I'm confident I've found the most added ingredient... sugar syrup. Iced tea, iced coffee, fruit shakes, in fact all of their drinks from juice to cocktails are loaded with the zappy liquid. All Thais love 'khonum', or sweets. Walk into a general store and the front table is filled to overflowing with brightly coloured treats, usually based on rice, coconuts, bananas and rocket fuel, sorry, sugar syrup. In my more cynical moments, I imagine that's why they are so often described as a sweet-natured people. They're full of the stuff! Don't get me wrong. If I was banished to a deserted island (perhaps for crimes against poetry?) with my choice of chef, I'd be hard-pressed choosing between an Italian, a French person and a Thai. But, I'm glad th...

I'm tempted to describe the fourth day of my Southern Thailand bike tour as the day of the debris . We start at Ban Krut, following the Gulf road and for the first time the road surface becomes potted and unpredictable. But that's okay, because there's little traffic, just the occasional ute-driving farmer and smiling schoolchildren on ancient scooters. We pass a fishing village, boats moored in the safe water of the river, racks with fish drying in the sun, old ladies at stalls selling fried banana, street dogs wandering aimlessly. A scooter repair shop owner has thrown all the disused tyres onto his thatched roof to hold it in place against the strong easterly. A pile of concrete water pipes are rolled into a ditch. Beside the river, piles of coconut husks are stacked twenty metres high. A man rides past on his scooter, a monkey on the handlebars, another on the pillion seat. They're used for climbing coconut trees to get the fruit. Much easier and cheaper than doing ...