Stefan Mikes
Gravel e-biker
- Region
- Europe
- City
- Mazovia, PL
What is more worrying is poor availability of premium e-bikes in Australia.
FUNThere is nothing more fun than a gaggle of 5 funloving, bright, outgoing, college educated 60something ladies out for a bike ride. Picture giggles, laughter, stopping mutiple times for multiple group photos, and unending gossip of new events and old. Combine with picturesque scenery, spectacular weather, and 15 miles of gentle quiet gravel roads, and you have the perfect afternoon.
We old broads would get a kick out to having some guys along for an ebike ride. What a hoot that would be. Guaranteed the guys would be grinning ear to ear because we're a bit of a raucous group of gals, I'll have you know. And we're killer riders, too. Slow isn't our middle name. I found out after the ride that I could have cut the ride time in half and gone a lot further. I was running under the assumption that since they rode analog bikes (they all arrived with their riding kits: helmets, cycling shorts, gloves, etc) they, by default, thus rode slower and wouldn't get in sync with an ebike speed for their first ride. Wasn't the case. Even though they thoroughly enjoyed the ride, next time we'll go faster AND farther.FUN
What a delightful adventure. I wonder if you could have so much fun if you had some guys along... perhaps getting them to giggle and gossip too.
You do know what the say about cows....they're outstanding in their field!Cows at work …
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Borallon, near Ipswich, QLDThey just ignored me!
12.05 pm; 72 km
If you look at the map between 70 and 75 km, you'll see how I detoured up the cows' road to take their photo. Maybe, they'd heard that I'd stopped in Lowood (52 km) for a milkshake.
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That could totally be England, and I actually thought it was at first.Distant rain shower …
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Scarborough, Moreton BayWe, that is our midweek oldies cycling group, dodged the showers this week. This photo is from outside the Sea, Salt and Vine Café. We lingered too long! Is that possible?
10.35 am; 50 km
Foreground:
Horizon (from the left):
- Scarborough Beach
- The strangely-shaped sandbar is known as First Avenue. Just how that came to be I do not know, but the local streets are named Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth Avenue. Why not?
- The lines of dark flotsam on the beach are chomped up seagrass. Blame the dugongs!
- The other 'litter' is a mix of dead coral and pumice stone (Volcanoes here? Yes, long, long ago! Photos some other time.)
Sea:
- Beachmere (a quiet 'forgotten' bayside village)
- Bribie Island (the very low land beyond the spit)
- Coral Sea (being rained on!)
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- This is where I sailed my yacht long ago. My parents spent their retirement years on Bribie Island. Paradise? To them, most definitely!
- All of these waters can be referred to as Moreton Bay but the section to the west (photo looking north) is known as Deception Bay (confusing?); the calm strait separating Bribie from the continent is Pumicestone Passage; the open ocean being rained on is the South Pacific (for obvious reason – think Great Barrier Reef – known as the Coral Sea).
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Photo looking north from 50 km
Looks like a McCormick horse drawn thresher. McCormick Harvesting Machine Co became International Harvester in 1902.But that wasn't on my mind at the moment I was zipping down the glass-smooth paved road at 36mph, and about to come to a screeching halt in order to take a photo of something I've been meaning to photograph for months. I believe it's a thresher or something? Now re-purposed as a sign holder for a property. I have no idea how old it is, but everything suggests it harks well back to the early days of the prior century. Why someone would chose this monstrosity to be parked at their front entrance is beyond me. But it was certainly picture-worthy. Enough to truncate a fast ride downhill in order to take a photo or two.
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As a little boy around 1955 I remember 'threshing time' at grandpa and grandma's farm in Kansas. Grandma had a table that telescoped out to 12 feet long and it was covered with every kind of food as you would expect for a grand Thanksgiving meal. And every chair around the table was filled with the threshers. Men who traveled from Texas all the way to N. Dakota following the wheat harvest as it ripened. Of course they were using combines by then but everyone still called it threshing and the men were threshers.Looks like a McCormick horse drawn thresher. McCormick Harvesting Machine Co became International Harvester in 1902.
Don't apologize. You offer a chance for others to see a different part of the world. Honestly, I was intrigued and had lots of questions about those that live that type of on-the-water existence, the wrecks, who has control over the canal(s) (government, private ownership), docking privileges, do they pay taxes or are boats a free ride, etc. That's the type info I love to know - the landscape as it relates to a ride.Thanks for your likes, its hard trying to big up a boggy canal against the stuff on here
Cheers, I'm just under the lockdown blues I guess, going to have a look at this bike tomorrow.Don't apologize. You offer a chance for others to see a different part of the world. Honestly, I was intrigued and had lots of questions about those that live that type of on-the-water existence, the wrecks, who has control over the canal(s) (government, private ownership), docking privileges, do they pay taxes or are boats a free ride, etc. That's the type info I love to know - the landscape as it relates to a ride.