2019 : Our Rides in Words, Photos & Maps

[PaD]

A horse …
View attachment 41028
At the risk of revealing a total lack of empathy, I must admit to being surprised by this fellow's choice of pasture. (And the thought of pushing one's throat across a barbed wire fence gives me the creeps!)

Ride : 59 km / 2019 : 13,643 km

The menu on the ground behind that barbed wire doesn’t look very tempting so I would also try to get a bite from whatever comes near.
If the horse is like a lot of us at this forum one bite could make it hooked for life on e-bikes so David - you have to go there now and then to at least let him have a lick

 

[Deleted member 18083]

Pied stilts seen from the Moreton Bay Cycleway …

The Nudgee Creek wetlands are a favourite feeding place for wading birds. Conveniently, a raised boardwalk takes cyclists and walkers across the western edge. Of course, today's large flock of wading Pied Stilts (Himantopus leucocephalus) chose to congregate on the far side! I stopped for ten minutes and a few wandered to within fifteen metres (a bus length) of me. Click!

Here is a previous post showing the boardwalk.

 

[Deleted member 18083]

First Avenue (Yes, really!) …

When I first started my bicycling adventures in the mid-fifties the Berry family lived in a numbered street (ours was Sixth Street, Hillary). Almost every town has its own take on this system, but starting the numbering with a sandpit that's below water for most of the time is indisputably unique!

The lumpy 'horizon' across most of the photo is actually Bribie Island on which my parents spent several idyllic decades of retirement and from where I sailed by yacht.

 

[Mike_V]

The Road Less Traveled (with apologies to Robert Frost). Upperville, Fauquier County, Virginia

View attachment 40646

The poem entered my mind when I saw this road, but it wasn't until I returned home and looked up Frost's writing that I realized how beautifully his words had echoed my reality.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Oh that's nice !
Thanks for sharing the photo and poem.

 

[Mike_V]

Me on The Connecticut 'Air Line'' rail trail.

 

[Deleted member 18083]

Cyclists aren't the only people having fun …

Click photo to fill screen.​

The Moreton Bay Cycleway is so close to the water that I didn't need to get off to snap this shot of a family heading out of Cabbage Tree Creek for a weekend on the bay.

Yes, I was envious!

 

[StmbtDave]

It doesn’t appear the cat in the background is going anywhere until the tide comes in.

 

[bastiarno]

Around Cheadle Staffs UK

 

[Deleted member 18083]

Not today's destination …

Dutton Park Cemetery, Brisbane. Photo between 32 and 33 km on map.

Ride : 139 km / 2019 : 14,037 km

 

[Readytoride]

32 miles on the Saturday before last. Stopped to take this photo of one steer's interesting set of lop sided horns, but he and his more traditionally horned buddies spooked as I rolled my bike up onto the grass to get a close shot.

Weather turned unfriendly the next day and through the rest of thr week, and I ended up too busy so wasn't able to ride until I squeezed in some time yesterday to bike 13 miles "around the block". Weather here in Virginia is supposed to go downhill really quickly by the end of the day today with rain ending as snow. As they say on Game of Thrones: "Winter is Coming".

A poem for the ride photo. (Apologies to all the true poets out there as I took pen in hand)

To The Cows In Their Field

One horn tiled high
The other towards the ground
The steer paused suspiciously
With a bovine frown

At the ebike's slow advance through the dry autumn grass
Wheels crunching closer, deceptive yet brass
The sly purpose of approach to the old fence line
Was only to take a picture, which would have been just fine

Had the rider not stopped
And raised the camera to shoot
But that was too much
For the bovine to not scoot

Away from the fence and into the field
With a friend who took up a cattle-like shield
Just out of range, no close shot to be had
Happily the one that I got wasn't quite all that bad.

 

[elect]

First Avenue (Yes, really!) …

I dont get, is that supposed to be a viable path?

 

[FlatSix911]

Not today's destination …
View attachment 41311
Dutton Park Cemetery, Brisbane. Photo between 32 and 33 km on map.

Ride : 139 km / 2019 : 14,037 km

Great image... I grew up in Brisbane back in the 60's

 

[Deleted member 18083]

Is that supposed to be a viable path?

Elect …
The First Avenue sandpit is certainly a favourite fishing spot when the tide is on the way out or, probably more excitingly, rising rapidly. In times past, it was also an easy place to land a rowboat and transport things ashore. But why 'First Avenue'? Whimsy prompted by an oddball sense of humour? I'd like to think so.
… David

 

[Deleted member 18083]

Stopped to take this photo of one steer's interesting set of lopsided horns, but he and his more traditionally horned buddies spooked as I rolled my bike up onto the grass to get a close shot.

R&R …
Oh, don't I know the feeling! Horses habitually come to the fence to socialise; Humpty, the camel who lives up the rail trail, saunters over for a snack; bovines are unpredictable; the blue solider crabs that I was so determined to photograph last week keep out of range when approached.

We enjoy and appreciate your poetry. Keep it coming!
… David

 

[Deleted member 18083]

The new and the old …

• Foreground : 2009 Kurilpa cycle and pedestrian cross-river link from parklands to city. Note: city hire bikes.
• Beyond : 1932 Grey Street concrete arch bridge – best avoided by ebikers not wearing fluro clothing.

 

[Alaskan]

Are you dealing with smoke and poor air quality yet? From the maps it looks to be quite close to you now.

 

[Deleted member 18083]

Richar

Are you dealing with smoke and poor air quality yet?

Richard…
The skies have been brown for days – exception when I took the photo at top and the wind was from the northeast (that is, from over the clear blue Pacific!). We need rain. Desperately. I looked up the total for Amberley (huge air force base not far from us): just 275mm so far this year.

If you click through to Steve's Wierd or Wonderful listing you'll notice that the buildings across the Brisbane River from the flipped elephant sculpture are almost obscured.
… David

 

[Deleted member 18083]

The invisible Divide …

A smoke-filled sky over a parched land limited visibility from the top of Evans Hill. Usually, I can see clear to the Great Dividing Range – four or five times more distant than the conical hill just left of centre. (Click for view in April.)

High temperatures, steady winds, low humidity and almost no rain for months have brought on extreme fire danger conditions in eastern Australia. Smoke hangs over the land from the fires that did start.

I cut this ride short when weather conditions became too unpleasant.

Ride : 65 km / 2019 : 14,162 km

 

[steve mercier]

The invisible Divide …
View attachment 41366
A smoke-filled sky over a parched land limited visibility from the top of Evans Hill. Usually, I can see clear to the Great Dividing Range – four or five times more distant than the conical hill just left of centre. (Click for view in April.)

High temperatures, steady winds, low humidity and almost no rain for months have brought on extreme fire danger conditions in eastern Australia. Smoke hangs over the land from the fires that did start.

I cut this ride short when weather conditions became too unpleasant.

Ride : 65 km / 2019 : 14,162 km

I suggest you need a GVS P100 Elipse P3 respirator mask

 

[steve mercier]

I have a pair of them, one large and one small and the small size keeps a tighter seal.