Our Rides in Words, Photos & Videos

Quite Excited Because...

I'm planning the last group ride of this Summer for Sunday. There will be 4 e-bikes, 2 trad bikes, and the people will be of both sexes in equal number :) Four participants will be newbies (including two e-bikers). Something like 60 km over the most beautiful roads of the West Kampinos National Park. It's going be dry, windy, and pretty cold!

A friend of mine "Howard" is to ride my commuter hub-drive e-bike, the Czech Lovelec. For this reason, I collected that e-bike from the storage, prepared for ride, and tested it thoroughly on Friday afternoon. Important to mention, I took no tools or spares for the test ride! (If anything were to break, it would break; nothing did; no flat, either).

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I intentionally set the e-bike's speed limiter to 25 km/h. I was again surprised how effortless pedalling of that commuter e-bike was, and how it was maintaining the 25 km/h for almost all the time. (I have to agree to the opinion hub-drive e-bikes form perfect commuters!) Here, a traditional pączek at the Jaktorów bakery/cake shop.

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The boring Mazovian landscape, and one of very few gravel roads to be found there. You may be laughing but the stream seen here is classified as a river. River Pisia-Tuczna. (According to the map, it is some stream, not the river though....)

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I bought that small Samsonite backpack during our Copenhagen vacation a year before. Now, I got shocked to find out that small backpack could fit a big e-bike battery!

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My short test travel was nice and painless. I mainly rode along roads 719 and A2.
 
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A spring outing on the rail trail …

Judging by the length of the zip ties attached to his helmet, I guess the rider on the left must have had some bad experiences with magpies in the past. It's that time of year again!

Brisbane Valley Rail Trail – Esk, Queensland

Brisbane Valley Rail Trail
Near Esk, Queensland

Our TOP Cyclists group wore Da Brims and/or bird scarer tape to keep the magpies in their place. They ignored our pathetic attempts. If it's spring, magpies attack cyclists: that's the way things are!

Brisbane Valley Rail Trail – Toogoolawah, Queensland

Brisbane Valley Rail Trail
Near Toogoolawah, Queensland

Brisbane Valley Rail Trail – Queensland


The Brisbane Valley Rail Trail runs 161 km north from Wulkuraka (close to where we live) to Yarraman. Today ten Tyred Old People rode the 20-km section (both ways, of course!) between the little towns of Esk and Toogoolawah, with refreshment breaks punctuating our exertions before, after and during the ride.
 
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A spring outing on the rail trail …

Judging by the length of the zip-ties attached to his helmet, I guess the rider on the left must have had some bad experiences with magpies in the past. It's that time of year again!

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Brisbane Valley Rail Trail
Near Esk, Queensland

Our TOP Cyclists group wore Da Brims and/or bird scarer tape to keep the magpies in their place. They ignored our pathetic attempts. If it's spring, magpies attack cyclists: that's the way things are!


Brisbane Valley Rail Trail
Near Toogoolawah, Queensland



The Brisbane Valley Rail Trail runs 161 km north from Wulkuraka (close to where we live) to Yarraman. Today ten Tyred Old People rode the 20-km section (both ways, of course!) between the little towns of Esk and Toogoolawah, with refreshment breaks punctuating our exertions before, after and during the ride.

Love the magpie deflectors. Beam me up, Scottie!!!

 
Canada gets their bears. We're lucky to live on such a safe continent, aren't we ;)
And in a local incident, well, maybe 20 miles away, a bike rider was taken out by a cougar-mountain lion-puma about two years ago.

Actually, there have been two cougars captured (different years) in the local park where I walk a few times a week and bike ride once a week. Rare but it has happened. They speculate that it followed the railroad tracks not far from the park. Initially, no one believed the sitings - it is a big park but in an urban area. Now, I've seen coyotes on my street a few times. Bears, black, not grizzly, are a nuisance in our suburbs, raiding garbage cans.
 
(Five bikes inside two cars: a station wagon and a large sedan. The morning will be complicated. Unpack and reassemble five bikes... and then there will be the afternoon and evening...)
 
Needed a snorkel today...

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Went slow because I cowered from the rain in Bryant and Rexville (good burgers!)
I had no idea that causeway was rideable up by Anacortes. Looks like it cleared up for the end of your ride - still socked in down here.

We always stop for waffle cones at the vegetable stand there by the end of Best Road when we drive up that way! Always been curious about the general store/deli/gas station further up the road...
 
I had no idea that causeway was rideable up by Anacortes. Looks like it cleared up for the end of your ride - still socked in down here.

We always stop for waffle cones at the vegetable stand there by the end of Best Road when we drive up that way! Always been curious about the general store/deli/gas station further up the road...
That would be the Tommy Thompson Trail.

Snow Goose Produce is awesome, but I like The Rex (I think that is what you are talking about) more because there is an enormous covered outdoor dining area.
 
Good to know the Rex has decent food. Speaking of burgers I stopped at XXX for a bite on the way back from doing Thorp to Hyak on the PTC a few weeks ago. ;)

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In all the years I've lived here, I've never been to that place. What the hell was that sandwich? I might just have to make a special trip. I'm trying to convince myself that even with very little hiking this year that I can make it to Ingalls Pass to see the Larch trees. Was just looking over the specs earlier this evening. But there's also delays on eastbound I-90 which could make for a rather long day.
 
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