Mulezen
Well-Known Member
Just making a joke at R&M’s expense
Stefan Mikes
Gravel e-biker
- Region
- Europe
- City
- Mazovia, PL
What is more worrying is poor availability of premium e-bikes in Australia.
Adventum
Active Member
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.
Readytoride
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Virginia
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.
When are you planning to come out this way again?
Twin Valley
Well-Known Member
Today's ride is back in the East Kootenays of British Columbia where we have our home away from home. Felt kind of silly with the bike and bike rack on the back of vehicle driving out from Alberta in a nasty snow/wind storm - arrived and the wheels were so frozen they would not turn. But today's ride made it all worth it with temperature getting close to 0 degrees C and no wind! Rode along the new legacy trail from Fairmont Hot Springs to the town of Invermere for a few miles then headed straight up Brewer Creek road just to experience that e-bike grin once again. Not surprisingly, I had the legacy trail to myself and pedalling in a few centimetres of snow was easy enough. The Brewer Creek road had a few 4 wheel drive trucks about with hunting season in full swing here. I usually get a lot of 2nd and 3rd looks when they see me on my e-bike in turbo mode powering up the steep climb in a pretty remote area. Can't wait for tomorrow's ride, I think I'll head up the road to the Fairmont ski hill which still needs more snow before opening.
D
Deleted member 18083
Guest
Cows at work …
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 (pathetic pun, but what the hey) that I'd stopped in Lowood (52 km) for a milkshake.
Borallon, near Ipswich, QLD
12.05 pm; 72 km
They 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 (pathetic pun, but what the hey) that I'd stopped in Lowood (52 km) for a milkshake.
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Prairie Dog
Well-Known Member
- Region
- Canada
- City
- Red Deer
You do know what the say about cows....they're outstanding in their field!
RabH
Well-Known Member
I was hoping to get out yesterday but everything conspired against me so it wasn't to be! Today and for the foreseeable future the forecasts aren't looking very promising to say the least, but I decided to take a chance when I saw some clear skies to the south! There was a strong southwesterly wind gusting to around 30mph so the weather was changing rapidly, when I set off there was a double rainbow just to the north of me and it was starting to rain!
I made a dash to the south to avoid it and thankfully I only caught the edge of the squall, much to my relief! Yesterday my replacement trunk bag finally arrived so I fitted my rear rack, then I realised my sister had borrowed my bungee cords so I had no means of securing the bag properly! I was going to just use my backpack again when I suddenly had a brainwave, I made good use of one of my inner tube!
It didn't look great but it worked perfectly!
My spare battery only just fits inside the bag, it does have side panniers which drop down but I prefer to have such a weight centred for better stability! Over 4,000ft of climbing today and just over 50 miles covered and I didn't even get wet, my gamble paid off!
I made a dash to the south to avoid it and thankfully I only caught the edge of the squall, much to my relief! Yesterday my replacement trunk bag finally arrived so I fitted my rear rack, then I realised my sister had borrowed my bungee cords so I had no means of securing the bag properly! I was going to just use my backpack again when I suddenly had a brainwave, I made good use of one of my inner tube!
It didn't look great but it worked perfectly!My spare battery only just fits inside the bag, it does have side panniers which drop down but I prefer to have such a weight centred for better stability! Over 4,000ft of climbing today and just over 50 miles covered and I didn't even get wet, my gamble paid off!
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D
Deleted member 18083
Guest
Trash or treasure?
I had actually pulled over to photograph some wild ducks on the pond but, not having Stefan's big lenses, had to approach sufficiently close to frighten them away!
Next to Brisbane Valley Rail Trail
Coominya, Queensland
More than a tree growing through an abandoned water tank… also the farmer's car from before the era of 4x4 dual-cab pickups. The car is, of course, missing doors and windscreen but is kept company by what remains of the family caravan held in place by enormous discs cut from ancient trees. And, almost forgot, a stack of mismatched earthmover tyres with, no surprise, another tree growing through them.Coominya, Queensland
I had actually pulled over to photograph some wild ducks on the pond but, not having Stefan's big lenses, had to approach sufficiently close to frighten them away!
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Chargeride
Well-Known Member
That could totally be England, and I actually thought it was at first.
A lot of the terraced rows are called 1st..2nd..3rd avenue around here.
Minus the fantastic beaches and spiders.
Readytoride
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Virginia
Another MAMB ("Me And My Bike") day yesterday. Once again, escaping for some mental downtime by wandering the countryside on a bike with the wind in my face, the road under my feet, and toe-tapping-pedal-turning music playing in my ear.
This ride wound through the countryside on the paved roads since, for the next week or so more, the Vado is my sole mount. The LaFree is in the shop, awaiting a new battery mount under warranty. The current mount just won't connect to the battery anymore. Apparently (from what my mechanic described) two of the terminals were eroded as if they had been sandpapered. Almost 3,000 miles of gravel road riding had been too much for this delicate method of back-rack-battery-to-bike connection. "It's a commuter bike", he explained, "and you're using it like a mountain bike." I shrugged. "There isn't anything saying I can't use it on gravel roads", I countered. "It's a carbon belt drive. It begs to be used on a gravel road." He agreed, then said he doesn't understand why the bike companies don't use the more stringent electrical connections found in cars and motorcycles that allow the battery to be firmly locked in place with the connections and float together when they hit rough patches. The only flaw to that idea is the frequency we exchange batteries on an ebike, something you don't do on a motorcycle or a car.
At some point a solution will be found for ebikes and their tenuious connective relationship with batteries.
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.
Back on the bike I was met with a roller coaster of hills that got my heart rate pounding and my breath coming in gasps. Sometimes it's refreshing to expend some good old fashioned analog bike effort to get up hills...and to know that a killer assist is merely a finger tap away.
My goal had been to do simply 25 miles since son and his wife were coming for dinner that night, but the roads had a siren call that are hard to resist, and I kept coming up with excuses to take the longer roads heading back home. In one case those decisions took me monetarily into the lower county, although a quarter of a mile later the more responsibly minded road twisted and dutifully dumped me back into my own county once again.
Still, the diversion took me on a terrific "highway avoidance" side road that I've never cycled: namely a sweet, gravel road that escorted me into Middleburg at a calm scenic "why hurry?" pace while only yards away, out of sight behind the trees, determined traffic raced by at frantic speed on the main east-west highway between Washingtin DC and points west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The sweet laziness of the gravel road gently guided me into the main thoroughfare of Middleburg where I had no more excuses. No more side roads to explore to delay my return back home. It was all business heading straight on the paved roads back home ...until I was seduced by a beckoning gravel road that promised a "better" ride home. Perhaps a "few more miles added just for kicks?" Who was I to say no?
This gravel road went past the entryway of the old estate Huntlands. The estate came into being in the 1800s as a foxhunting lodge and kennels. The owner hunted his pack of foxhounds from here for many years, and his love of the chase, and his hounds, is forever encribed on the front gates. The wrought iron gates and brick pillars are imposing enough by themselves for a photograph, but it is the unique writing built into the pillars that I found most intriguing. One pillar had the inscription in English, the other in the dead language known as Latin. I understand it was once all the rage to use the old Roman language to denote high tone breeding and lofty ancestry. But what's left to the generstions is now basically a babble of indecipherable words, unless one uses Google translate. So much for pompous rhetoric meant to impress the span the ages.
Fields woods streams
Each towering hill
Each humble vale below
Shall hear my cheering voice
My hounds shall wake
The lazy morn
And glad the horizon round
This inscription apparently is from Virgil. It translates in the far more word-strewn English as (very loosely):
"Greetings
Come on, then, break out of sluggish delays.
With mighty shout Mt. Cithaeron and the hounds of
Taygetus and Epidaurus
mistress of horses, call. And their cry,
echoed by the applause of the woods, roars back."
(The National Park service has this as the English language translation which appears on their website paperwork for this property. I'll find time later to do a true word-for-word translation)
Peeking through the front gates I checked out the view. I do know the owner, and maybe one day when I bump into her somewhere someplace I'll wrangle an invitation to see the main house (again). She's a very sweet, very gracious lady that I've known for decades. I'm sure she'd be happy to invite me for tea and a tour.
Being that Huntlands is only about 3 miles from my place via the paved roads, and 6 to 8 miles via the various gravel roads, I'll let you guess which way I chose to go home. Suffice to say I arrived back with only 19% battery left, and dust on my bike chain.
Next time I'm going to take the spare battery with me...and be late for dinner. I'm sure everyone will understand.
This ride wound through the countryside on the paved roads since, for the next week or so more, the Vado is my sole mount. The LaFree is in the shop, awaiting a new battery mount under warranty. The current mount just won't connect to the battery anymore. Apparently (from what my mechanic described) two of the terminals were eroded as if they had been sandpapered. Almost 3,000 miles of gravel road riding had been too much for this delicate method of back-rack-battery-to-bike connection. "It's a commuter bike", he explained, "and you're using it like a mountain bike." I shrugged. "There isn't anything saying I can't use it on gravel roads", I countered. "It's a carbon belt drive. It begs to be used on a gravel road." He agreed, then said he doesn't understand why the bike companies don't use the more stringent electrical connections found in cars and motorcycles that allow the battery to be firmly locked in place with the connections and float together when they hit rough patches. The only flaw to that idea is the frequency we exchange batteries on an ebike, something you don't do on a motorcycle or a car.
At some point a solution will be found for ebikes and their tenuious connective relationship with batteries.
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.
Back on the bike I was met with a roller coaster of hills that got my heart rate pounding and my breath coming in gasps. Sometimes it's refreshing to expend some good old fashioned analog bike effort to get up hills...and to know that a killer assist is merely a finger tap away.
My goal had been to do simply 25 miles since son and his wife were coming for dinner that night, but the roads had a siren call that are hard to resist, and I kept coming up with excuses to take the longer roads heading back home. In one case those decisions took me monetarily into the lower county, although a quarter of a mile later the more responsibly minded road twisted and dutifully dumped me back into my own county once again.
Still, the diversion took me on a terrific "highway avoidance" side road that I've never cycled: namely a sweet, gravel road that escorted me into Middleburg at a calm scenic "why hurry?" pace while only yards away, out of sight behind the trees, determined traffic raced by at frantic speed on the main east-west highway between Washingtin DC and points west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The sweet laziness of the gravel road gently guided me into the main thoroughfare of Middleburg where I had no more excuses. No more side roads to explore to delay my return back home. It was all business heading straight on the paved roads back home ...until I was seduced by a beckoning gravel road that promised a "better" ride home. Perhaps a "few more miles added just for kicks?" Who was I to say no?
This gravel road went past the entryway of the old estate Huntlands. The estate came into being in the 1800s as a foxhunting lodge and kennels. The owner hunted his pack of foxhounds from here for many years, and his love of the chase, and his hounds, is forever encribed on the front gates. The wrought iron gates and brick pillars are imposing enough by themselves for a photograph, but it is the unique writing built into the pillars that I found most intriguing. One pillar had the inscription in English, the other in the dead language known as Latin. I understand it was once all the rage to use the old Roman language to denote high tone breeding and lofty ancestry. But what's left to the generstions is now basically a babble of indecipherable words, unless one uses Google translate. So much for pompous rhetoric meant to impress the span the ages.
Fields woods streams
Each towering hill
Each humble vale below
Shall hear my cheering voice
My hounds shall wake
The lazy morn
And glad the horizon round
This inscription apparently is from Virgil. It translates in the far more word-strewn English as (very loosely):
"Greetings
Come on, then, break out of sluggish delays.
With mighty shout Mt. Cithaeron and the hounds of
Taygetus and Epidaurus
mistress of horses, call. And their cry,
echoed by the applause of the woods, roars back."
(The National Park service has this as the English language translation which appears on their website paperwork for this property. I'll find time later to do a true word-for-word translation)
Peeking through the front gates I checked out the view. I do know the owner, and maybe one day when I bump into her somewhere someplace I'll wrangle an invitation to see the main house (again). She's a very sweet, very gracious lady that I've known for decades. I'm sure she'd be happy to invite me for tea and a tour.
Being that Huntlands is only about 3 miles from my place via the paved roads, and 6 to 8 miles via the various gravel roads, I'll let you guess which way I chose to go home. Suffice to say I arrived back with only 19% battery left, and dust on my bike chain.
Next time I'm going to take the spare battery with me...and be late for dinner. I'm sure everyone will understand.
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Chargeride
Well-Known Member
I took the wifes botchmobile along the canal from Botany Bay mill back to Wigan.
Running on street tyres and it turned out to be a mudbog, no mudguards except a little seat guard, even ended with mud in my ears.
I actually got overtaken by a slow jogger..the shame was real.
Nothing interesting , the mill has been a retail outlet for a long time and is now being turned into luxury flats, but its just a closed building site under lockdown,
some interesting railway tunnels under the canal that are now cyclepaths, closed pubs, sunken boats, but a really large community of barge dwellers, some of the moorings went on for miles with all kinds of small canalside living spaces attached to them.
I think I'll ditch canal rides till the summer.
I replaced planetary clutch and gears, but its still got the same problem...might be the controller or maybe the magnets have unglued.
I put a happy tune on the vid to perk it up.
Dank but bracing I'd call it.
Running on street tyres and it turned out to be a mudbog, no mudguards except a little seat guard, even ended with mud in my ears.
I actually got overtaken by a slow jogger..the shame was real.
Nothing interesting , the mill has been a retail outlet for a long time and is now being turned into luxury flats, but its just a closed building site under lockdown,
some interesting railway tunnels under the canal that are now cyclepaths, closed pubs, sunken boats, but a really large community of barge dwellers, some of the moorings went on for miles with all kinds of small canalside living spaces attached to them.
I think I'll ditch canal rides till the summer.
I replaced planetary clutch and gears, but its still got the same problem...might be the controller or maybe the magnets have unglued.
I put a happy tune on the vid to perk it up.
Dank but bracing I'd call it.
Sierratim
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Nevada City, CA & Paradise Valley, AZ
Looks like a McCormick horse drawn thresher. McCormick Harvesting Machine Co became International Harvester in 1902.
reed scott
Well-Known Member
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.
D
Deleted member 18083
Guest
Sunday on the trail …
In the distance is the D'Aguilar Range and Brisbane Forest Park, Sunday paradise for our motorcycling friends.
Brisbane Valley RT, Vernor
8.45 am; 37 km
This couple out for a Sunday morning ride completed the photo for us. Only now, by zooming in, can I see that he is riding a conventional Specialized hybrid and she a step-through ebike.8.45 am; 37 km
In the distance is the D'Aguilar Range and Brisbane Forest Park, Sunday paradise for our motorcycling friends.
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Chargeride
Well-Known Member
Thanks for your likes, its hard trying to big up a boggy canal against the stuff on here
Readytoride
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Virginia
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.
Chargeride
Well-Known Member
Cheers, I'm just under the lockdown blues I guess, going to have a look at this bike tomorrow.
He wants 1100 for it, more importantly he lives in my town and its ready to go.
Ive got a full suspension fatbike frame in the shed, might buy it and swap over, leaving me a frame to build one for the wife.
Readytoride
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Virginia
15 miles with neighbor G before the scheduled rains. Just a quick spin around the block, taking a few moments to drop in on a mutual friend F mid-route. A quick socially distanced visit. F loved our Vados and made us promise to call her next time we planned a ride so that she could come with us riding G's LaFree. F is Irish, a former foxhunters (She and I were in the same hunt years ago, and she was G's neighbor and horse riding companion for the past 5 years), and an absolute hoot! It will be fun adding her to our growing gang of vintage lady ebikers.
Prior to getting on my bike to ride over to G's house, I happened to notice a pretty hitchhiker on my handlebar, all relaxed and ready to go riding with me. I rolled the bike out of the garage so I could take a photo of my little visitor. Here it is:
![IMG_20201115_113042013_HDR[1]_copy_806x605.jpg](https://forums.electricbikereview.com/attachments/img_20201115_113042013_hdr-1-_copy_806x605-jpg.71504/ "IMG_20201115_113042013_HDR[1]_copy_806x605.jpg")
It's an adorable little garter snake. Totally non poisonous. Eats small insects and is generally very very shy. I'm guessing the small reptile slid in under the garage door to seek a warmer place for the winter. It did seem to be somewhat confused when the scenery from its comfortable perch suddenly began to move, but agreeably stayed put for the trip outside the garage and the photo op.
I did feel a touch bad about gently removing it from my handlebar and relocating it down into the lower field near the garden, but taking it for a ride with me would have probably freaked out the tiny creature. I do hope it finds more appropriate lodging in the wild. My bike handlebars, while perfect for the lofty views, just weren't suitable as winter quarters for a snake.
It is pretty, though, isn't it! I also found out it is the official state snake of Virginia! Who knew!
Prior to getting on my bike to ride over to G's house, I happened to notice a pretty hitchhiker on my handlebar, all relaxed and ready to go riding with me. I rolled the bike out of the garage so I could take a photo of my little visitor. Here it is:
It's an adorable little garter snake. Totally non poisonous. Eats small insects and is generally very very shy. I'm guessing the small reptile slid in under the garage door to seek a warmer place for the winter. It did seem to be somewhat confused when the scenery from its comfortable perch suddenly began to move, but agreeably stayed put for the trip outside the garage and the photo op.
I did feel a touch bad about gently removing it from my handlebar and relocating it down into the lower field near the garden, but taking it for a ride with me would have probably freaked out the tiny creature. I do hope it finds more appropriate lodging in the wild. My bike handlebars, while perfect for the lofty views, just weren't suitable as winter quarters for a snake.
It is pretty, though, isn't it! I also found out it is the official state snake of Virginia! Who knew!
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