We resumed our regular riding programmes, riding to work and Nundah-Redcliffe (about 60 km.) on Sundays. (These Sunday rides will be the subject of another blog and maybe an article in Australian Cyclist, if they accept it). However, Jan has always wanted to be faster, but doesn't have my athletic background and doesn't ride anywhere near the distance I do weekly. The long community rides such as Brissie to the Bay or the Wilson Brisbane to the Gold Coast 100 km ride, highlighted the differences in our speeds. Jan was starting to use the phrase "too slow" too often and getting a bit disheartened, especially with regard to CQ9.
One February or March Sunday at the Cafe on the Park at Shorncliffe, we rolled in and found the table next to ours occupied by a tandem team. This was a story familiar to us: two riders, the bloke quicker than the lady and tired of waiting for her to catch up. While I have always set my pace to suit Jan's (because the company's so good), she has always wanted to go faster. We had been thinking about a tandem for some time. The couple invited us to take their tandem for a spin and, despite nearly having an accident, decided getting a tandem had wheels on it.
The Courier-Mail's Weekend Shopper turned up a few, most of which we dismissed as too expensive. We did not want to spend $1500 or more on something that might not work out. I checked out some cheaper ones which looked suspiciously like 50 year-old bikes welded together, or were too expensive for the work needed to go into them, or were just too old.
6/4/2009
Continuing the search, I found myself visiting a house in Clayfield on the way home from work to check out two tandems priced at $350 and $250.
The $350 one was a Beachcomber and was sold. I'm glad it was because it looked too chintzy, but the other was a very solid and stolid old Southern Cross that reminded me of a lot of cars that I like: well-worn exterior that conceals a ton of guts and an indomitable ability to keep on going. The seller had been using it with one of his daughters, but his children had made it clear that they had done enough tandemming. I had my 1972 Holden 1-tonner there, the money changed hands, the tandem was fed into the back of the 1-tonner rear-end first and off to my shed for a detailed checkover.
At home, I noted the old chrome wheels, now covered in surface rust, old tyres, a bit of looseness in wheel bearings and that the rear wheel was a bit buckled, but nothing serious. I was impressed with how original it was, right down to the seats. It had, in fact, been the owner's parents' tandem from new. I forgot to ask how long they'd had it, but I'd guess that with non-indexed gears and other factors, it was about 20 years old at least. The following weekend, I repacked the bearings in the back axle, replaced the back tyre and fitted up a wireless Repco cyclometer, bottle carriers, tool bag and a decent tyre pump, about another $100 worth. The Sunday after that, we went tandemming and, at least every second Sunday after that, we did again along our Nundah-Redcliffe route.
The first time was pretty tiring. I wanted to keep our speed up to at least 20 kph and this was hard, but it has gotten easier as we have learned to work together. The tandem, we have found, attracts all sorts of wit from passing cyclists, such as "Isn't the person on the back supposed to pedal too?"; "Hey mate, she's taking it easy back there". Jan's response is "I pedal sometimes". I know they're really envious when she gives me a good back pounding or a shoulder massage. Tandems seem to bring out an extra aspect of the silly joy of cycling, because the ones we've encountered seem to be having a good time too.
19/4/2009
I like this photo so much you're getting it twice. Jan and the tandem at the Boondall Wetlands park, 19/4/2009
Launching the big bugger
Pretty good when we get it going
It's as much fun as it looks (but don't ask me about hills)
Steve and Sonya, who took the pictures of us, give it a try
Sonya, Steve and their very fit daughters
Gradually we got better. While we were ironing out the kinks in our technique, we ironed out the weaknesses in the bike. The rear chain (it has two) was the first to go. It broke as we groaned up the hill to Shorncliffe one Friday we had off after going to Simon and Garfunkle the night before with all the other old Baby Boomers. After it took about an hour getting out of the Brisbane Entertainment Centre's carpark, we had gotten to bed about 1.30 am, so work wasn't an option next day.
Feeling groovy, we decided to just roll down into Sandgate to Hoffy's and let Les and Marilyn fix it up while we went off and had lunch. Les ended up giving it a minor service, made some remarks about how it probably weighed 30 kgs and compared it to his swish Cannondale which is about 10 kgs lighter and twice as fast. But then, the Cannondale had a lot more than $500 or so invested in it.
The next thing to go was the back wheel which wasn't up to the mileage we were putting onto it, so I reluctantly replaced it with a much more upmarket looking $55 wheel. I really wanted to retain the daggy look, but loose spokes, a buckled rim and a bent axle didn't make good sense against a new wheel with a new tyre and tube. The gear cluster was still good, so it got a new home. The old tyre and tube migrated to the front. While we don't mind being a bit silly, we don't want to make fools of ourselves and we do want to give a good account for ourselves.
Bicycle Queensland had arranged secure parking in Toowoomba at the showgrounds, which was where the tour was going to end, so our plan was to go to Toowoomba the day before the start in the 1-ton ute, stay the night in a motel, take the ute to the showgrounds, get the bus provided back to the start point and have a great tour. As is usual with all plans that sound good, a few things happened that weren't so good.
I had faced CQ8 with some trepidation because of the "H" word. The hills on CQ7 just got testier and testier as we climbed out of the plains and into the coastal ranges. By the time we got to Maleny my knees were set to abandon the tour and Jan was laughing far too much. Fortunately it was all downhill after that, except for a couple of nasty surprises in nasty developer's paradise Mooloolabah. I thought I was sweet for CQ8 because it was all downhill from Bundaberg to Brisbane ("Just look at the map", Jan said). However, I had my accident which put paid to CQ8, but CQ9 looked very promising, being just a tour around the Darling Downs and presumably "flat as".
Here's a map, bludged from the Bicycle Queensland CQ9 itinerary page (and used with their permission).
Cycle Queensland route map. Click on it and it'll enlarge
The flatness of this route encouraged us to enter our tandem.
The 1-tonner needed some prior attention too. A water leak proved to be a cactus radiator. I got that replaced, but the upshot was a new leak onto the front passenger's floor. This turned out to be the heater matrix that was probably unable to cope with the extra pressure created by the new radiator. Since the ute was 37 years old and the heater matrix was probably the original, I guess this had to happen. Fortunately it wasn't a big deal, although replacing the heater matrix was a hassle when I got around to doing it a few months later, when the water pump carked it as well and I couldn't put it off any longer.
1972 Holden HQ 1-tonner with new radiator outside Jan's house on 4/9/2009
18/8/2009
We received our tickets, ride guide, bike numbers (0121 and 0107! )It's going to look funny with two numbers on the front, but since we've decided to call ourselves The Pink Sock Tandem Team and wear pink laced shoes and pink socks, why not?
4/9/2009
Jan wearing CQ7 T-shirt and ute loaded with our baggage and tandem
Another view of ute loaded with our baggage and tandem. The tandem is a neat fit. Note bulb horn
Jan's cat, Parvarti
After Jan had a tearful farewell with her cat, we battled our way out of Brisbane along Ipswich Rd., through roadworks at Gailes that seem to have been going on forever (and will probably be knocked down, ripped up or drastically modified as soon as they are completed - if that ever happens) and were not comfortable until we were well clear of Ipswich. In Toowoomba we checked into the Garden City Motel and humoured the proprietors by riding the tandem around the car park. On their part, a case of double astonishment: that we would contemplate doing a 560 km. ride and that we would attempt to do it on what was plainly a clunky old tandem. After a meal at Chutney Mary's we crashed for the night. Jan was worried that my bag would be over the weight limit.
5/9/2009
After an expensive breakfast, which was made doubly annoying by the cafe staff forgotting, which made us late, we proceeded to the tour's starting point, which was in the grounds of the Toowoomba campus of the Southern Queensland Institute of TAFE. We off-loaded our gear, then I drove to the Toowoomba Showgrounds and got the ute undercover in a cavernous shed. After I bid the ute a tearful farewell, I had to leg it about 500 metres to catch a shuttlebus back to the starting point. On the way, I noticed my mobile was missing from the back of my bike jersey and hoped it was on the seat of the ute. Annoying things were beginning to stack up.
An interesting diversion that I had to miss was a static display by a group of local antique bicycle enthusiasts who had unloaded a number of such bikes from the back of a 1960 Bedford truck. Some of these bikes were remarkable. James had attended the sale of the items of the Canberra Bicycle Museum, which had been part of the Canberra Workers' Club and were sold by an incoming new manager who deemed the old bikes not commensurate with the image of the club. Their loss; Toowoomba's gain.
James explains the Dursley-Pedersen to a tour entrant
A close-up of the Dursley-Pedersen's seating arrangement
The start of the tour at about 12 noon was a bit farcical. Toowoomba's streets are narrow and picturesque and were unable to cope with 1200 cyclists and regular vehicular traffic. There was no police intervention and the traffic lights operated as usual. Some of the time we were walking, either on the road or on the footpath and it probably took us 30 minutes to clear town. Out on the road we went OK for a while until we hit a series of hills. Hills! this tour was supposed to be flat! The limitations of riding a tandem then came home to us. We had been fondly imagining that we had been training and I was determined not to be beaten, but at the top of one hill not far from lunch at Merringandan, I was feeling really distressed.
23/9/2009
We did the tour with minor mishaps. The major mishap occurred after the tour when I said something I shouldn't have. I may load the photos soon but will be taking my time writing it up. This is a Major Upsett, as Russell Brockbank would say.
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