Surfing clouds home from work

Cycling through a rolling corkscrew vortex below the vaporous swell of cloud. Waves in the air rolling not yet breaking. 

Riding home from Parap on Monday night. 7:00pm The sky was darker than usual, no sunlight poking through just a dim glow reflecting off the rolling head of another trough. A few drops of rain touch my skin and I wonder how far I'll get before the rain bursts free from the sky.
After a couple of minutes chatting with friends the time has come to ride. The early evening and morning are my favorite times to ride.

I was keen to start peddling but an old fella was gesturing me to the auto teller. I wanted to ignore him but without my glasses I stared too long to see what he was doing and he knew he had me! This happens a fair bit in Darwin. He's got his card and knows his pin but he can't operate the machine, he just needs someone to access his account and withdraw his money for him. It's a weird situation to have a stranger give you their bank card and pin number anywhere else it probably would never happen but in Darwin life is a bit different. I kind of doubted he knew the pin but sure enough I entered the number he told me and we were in.
"How much do you want to withdraw?"
"One Hundred Dollah"
I try one hundred and surprize surprize the machine refuses to pay. Not enough funds. OK, I thinks, No money, great now I can go home!
"You've got no money, sorry, it didn't work."
I waited to be dismissed but no, we're going to try again. Damn it! It's going to rain and I'm stuck at the auto teller with some old bloke who could probably do without another $100 of drinking money but he wasn't ready to let me go just yet.

"OK try forty!"
"There is no forty. Only twenty or fifty..."
"OK fifty!"

I try fifty and miraculously the money comes out. I leave it for him to grab from the machine, thankfully he had no trouble doing that, not that I would be tempted to take his money, even though I've rarely got more than a dollar to spend. It just seems weird and I want to get on my bike! The old fella says thanks, he's genuinely grateful, now I feel like an asshole for not wanting to help him. Argh get over it!

Back to the ride. Off we go. The sky is dark but I can see the clouds moving quickly with the wind licking at it's heels as the front rolls across the inky black sky. I roll down the familiar back streets and onto Bagot Rd. I love this time of night! It's the fruit bat hour, cooler, the sun is not frying my skin or broiling my brains the air is heavy and soft. I can feel the weight of the clouds above me and wonder when they will burst and bombard me with rain. I naturally start to peddle faster, It's amazing how much energy I have for cycling when it's cloudy or dark.
The sky is growing darker and darker up ahead... I'm sure I'll get wet but I don't care, the atmosphere is electric... (Only a few flashes of lightning fortunately!) I start to peddle faster. The air pressure drops considerably as I get closer to the storm I feel an incredible sense of lightness. The fruit bat hour is the time of night when 100s of fruit bats fill the sky headed for their evening roosts, It's quite surreal to see... The sensation is magical!
As I ride I am engulfed by the darkness of the storm cloud, I can feel drops of rain falling and wonder if I'll make it home without being drenched. I peddle faster and the bike just glides along. It's like there's no resistance! I am being sucked through a vortex! Moving faster and faster the street is quite empty, all peripheral sights and images disappear into a blur I feel an intoxicating euphoria. I am high! Now I feel like a surfer riding a 5 mile long tube of the perfect wave! The sky is getting darker, I glide the path, drops of rain gather on my skin but only enough to urge me on faster! As I head down Mc Millans road the wind of a storm front bowls it's way through the trees, the temperature drops dramatically but no rain. I am flying! Rolling up hill now I feel like I'm exerting no energy at all! I am in a state of bliss!
The bike trembles slightly as I cross Lee Point Rd, finally I begin to slow down as I approach home. Now I'm just cruising the final leg, my bike and this strange wave just pulls me home. I open the gate and dismount, roll the bike into its stable and enter the house... Home.
Oh give me my bike on any night like this.

Ride

Contents of this post deleted....


Something very strange has happened

Storm water drain... to cross or not to cross?

It had been raining all day and the sky was Dark when I left work. The women in the office I work were all concerned that it might be dangerous out there, I'd get soaked, the roads are flooded! etc... etc... "Yes I know! Isn't it great!"
It was pouring rain! I mounted my bike and rolled out onto the highway which was swamped with a river of water two feet deep. Cars splashed torrents of dirty water from the road as they passed me, lights were on people had pulled over, emergency vehicles were all over the place. It was pandemonium. Peak hour traffic and all the major roads looked more like streams.  There was a hint of apocalypse in the air, the Imperial arches of Gold on Bagot Rd had even taken a battering, red and yellow perspex had crashed to the ground! 
There was flooding on the Stuart Highway, Bagot Rd and Mc Millans Rd. Rapid Creek had completely engulfed McMillans and I was forced to double back and cross a fast flowing open drain to get home. What a joy! There's nothing quite like a monsoonal downpour to wake you up!

Shed water

Crumbling empire

Rapid Creek... where's the bank?

On days like this I love to Ride!

Smiling Cyclists

Today as I peddled home beneath Thor's Mighty Mountains of vaporous silver light and dense black thunderheads, I felt an odd euphoria. With all that weather up above there must have been a lot of negative ions in the air. I slowed my pace and sat back on my saddle with arms outstretched just feeling the air flowing across my arms, as the breeze blew through my fingers my hands caught enough to pull my arms slightly back behind me, up above clouds expanding shining and full of power. 

It's funny the joys of cycling. 

I remember how as a motorcyclist I had joined a fraternity of Riders. We were set apart from the drones who sit dumb behind the wheels of their automobiles! Trapped in steel cages! We lived closer to the road, closer to the trees and rocky verge. We were with the sky, in the rain and the sun and closer to danger and life. On a motorbike you get to contemplate the fragility of life, instant by instant and you get to really appreciate the beauty of movement and those times when it's all flowing in perfect time! I can remember that once out of the town riders would usually acknowledge each other on the open road.

Cycling is sometimes like that! Just like AB Patterson's Drover, 'The cyclists life has pleasures that the car-slaves never know.'

Rolling up to that set of lights that usually catches 3 or 4 of us like a fishing net, holding us for a while while the cars roar past and we catch our breath before the next push headed for home. Sometimes I see familiar faces and sometimes there's people I haven't seen caught there before. We wait for the lights to change. Some riders won't make eye contact, they're on a mission and possibly take no pleasure in their ride home. Maybe they're concerned about their fitness level, or something. But mostly the riders waiting will glance at each other and give a smile or a nod. Today was kind of magic like that. For some reason everyone I came across gave a great grin! As if we could all feel the awesome energy that surrounded us! Or maybe some of us were just glad that the ominous thunderhead wasn't quite ready to dump on us. It the path home was abuzz though. As I crossed that road a bloke on an old postie bike came shuffling up to the lights... he was dragging his feet up to the white line and beaming at me happily! I chuckled and then I laughed! Sometimes it's like that On The Road!

As I got closer to home I felt that amazing coolness of the dark thunderclouds that were now all around me. Not the rush of cold air that comes flooding in with a thunder storm, just the coolness on the skin, a reprieve from the heat. The cloud didn't open up on us, it just slowed on it's path across a bitumen patchwork shimmering heat and combustion engines. Enough to remind all riders, we are blessed!

Riding in the rain

Tonight I rode home from a meeting in the rain! It was a beautiful experience.
Somehow everything seemed to be timed to perfection. We were sitting outside and at about 9:00pm a cool breeze came through... Then came the gust. Everyone who's lived in Darwin (or any other tropical place I imagine) knows exactly what to expect soon after that blast of cool air arrives! About 5 minutes later it hit! A beautiful tropical shower complete with the most amazing display of sheet lightening.

It came down pretty hard but by the time I was ready to leave the rain had petered out to a light drizzle and the sky was bright with a constant display of sheet lightening behind the clouds. It really is a wonderful experience to be in this kind of weather.

digression - a rant about my bike (and Biopace Chain rings)
I was riding a fairly old Giant Perigee road bike. It was a bike I got cheep from the tip and ended up giving to my mate Martin. Martin fixed the bike up and a friend of his was riding it a couple of years ago but it has since been returned to me and has been sitting in the yard for most of the past year . It was a pretty slick little bike to ride and I was glad that I'd lent/given it to someone who could be bothered to get it into reasonable shape. I hadn't really ridden it much since Martin gave it back so tonight I had an unexpected treat. The bike is quite smooth and fast too. Although it's a much smaller frame size than would normally suit me I felt very comfortable on it... with a good set of tires I didn't feel at all unsafe riding in the rain... Actually I felt like I was just gliding along. The biopace chainrings probably added to this feeling. Biopace is a kind of elliptical cog system that was introduced back in the 80s and lasted only until the early 90s. There are forums full of arguments about their merit, a lot of people don't like them, but as my knees seem to be getting worse, I am finding the biopace more and more appealing, based on comfort. It's funny because I've read the exact opposite in forums but generally the people who discredit biopace rarely seem to have ridden with it and then I keep coming across people who say that they've ridden 1,000s of miles on them and find them to be very good. I can only judge by my own experience and I'm quite happy. Even to the point where I'm contemplating fitting biopace to my Xtracycle.

(The Giant Perigee with Biopace... I know it looks rough and needs oil)

I have several bikes and only ride with biopace occasionally, however I often feel much more comfortable on the biopace bikes, my knees are much happier too. Everything I've read suggests that they had little effect on efficiency or in overcoming any particular problems... People say biopace offered nothing special to the world of cycling and they eventually disappeared from the stores. It seems that the cycling world is quite fashion oriented and often quite fickle so it seems that by 1993 biopace went out of production.

Well I don't care what other people think of them! I like biopace I have two bikes with biopace chain rings and both are far more comfortable to peddle than any of my other bikes. That's good enough for me!

It's evenings like this that make me feel really grateful that I live in Darwin. It's the warm moist air, a mist of light rain as the storm passes, the smell of wet frogs (maybe Cane Toads) , wet vegetation and the amazing light displays! To ride in the rain wearing just a Tshirt and shorts is a very pleasant experience. My ride home brought me past what are usually pretty dark streets. However on this night I could see perfectly well just from the amount of lightening around. With each flash I saw the drops of rain glistening on my skin and glancing down the frame of my bike was beaded with rain drops. A fine rooster tail of water arched from the wheel in front of me as it picked up water from the black shining road. I wish I could describe the euphoric feelings that can be produced on a night like this. It's electric!