The hour before dawn carries a stillness like no other part of the day. Something fresh is happening. A new day is beginning. And its sights, scents and sounds spill gently into this quietness. Today, I was pedalling my bike pre-dawn to fit in around work commitments.
Stepping outside into the cool air, my sleepy head soon woke. ‘There’s the saucepan’ I said pointing at the three stars that form Orion’s belt. They sparkled and blinked as the breaking day chased them across the eastern sky.
Cycling along suburban streets in the darkness, cars with commuters flash by. Bicycles with lights as big as cars pedal past, some carry voices, some simply whoosh by. Everyone leaves silence behind them.
The scent of somebody’s first cigarette seeps from a house, wafting past our drift.
In a driveway, a man walks silently with heavy shoulders, opens the boot of his car, slings a backpack into it and closes the boot quietly. 5.52am. The air is still. I feel the quietness of this early hour as I pedal.
Then the veil lifts gently. Darkness fades. Light seeps in. I can see where I’m riding.
And I love it. Sights of the Coral Sea tickled by a fading swell. Salty air and sands that have changed since I last saw them. Surfboards tucked under arms. Wetsuits being pulled on. An outrigger crew returning to shore. Paddlers stroking the water on their stand up paddle boards. Cyclists in twos and fours and mores pedalling somewhere exchanging cheery good mornings. I see Hugh on his daily commute, a recumbent rider like Barry and fishermen waiting to net the mullet.
Over the past two weeks, I’ve been away travelling. We packed the campervan, loaded the bicycles on the back and went on a road trip. As you can imagine, I’ve collected some stories. During the trip, I posted some photos on my @abike4allseasons Facebook page but over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting a series of stories from our road trip.
In the meantime, it’s great to be back in the neighbourhood.
This is another guest post from Jen Cooper. In her previous post, Big Bikes Little Bikes, it was decision time. Now let’s see how these Bromptons ride. Here is the second of Jen’s bicycle stories…
We had been searching for a solution to taking bikes on our camping and kayaking trips, and being able to carry and store them easily. After research done at intervals over a period of eighteen months, we found and purchased Brompton bikes.
Bromptons are a lot of fun. They sit in the foot well of the Subie and take thirty seconds to assemble. They are as comfy as our old hybrid bikes – except for very bumpy surfaces. They are really designed for relatively smooth paved paths. I’m not sure how our European friends manage the cobbled streets on them.
In November last year we were in Hervey Bay for a night before heading offshore to Lady Elliot Island. So the morning in Hervey Bay began with a cycle tour along the Esplanade.
They say vibration is good for the bones and for balance. Riding Bromptons with the little wheels and practical firm suspension across every board on the Urangan Pier did that. My bones should be supercharged with calcium, and I’m ready for the high wire act. Riding into the wind completed my physical activity program for the morning.
These bikes hook you – they are really well made.
These bikes hook you – they are really well made. They are strong, compact, neat, and ‘sick’. This was the observation of a young teen in Ocean Shores when we rode past. He wanted one of those.
Interestingly the new bikes have reinvigorated our interest in cycling – we go out once a weekend in winter. In summer when the mornings are light, we generally get out on another day during the week. We haven’t tried it yet, but we worked out that if we rode into the city and didn’t feel able to get home again, we could fold them and take them on the bus. We could also put them into the boot of a taxi. No special racks required!
We rode with some friends along Brisbane’s Southbank one weekend, and although one friend observed ‘those bikes really do look quite strange’, our Bromptons carried us comfortably and safely for a 20 km round trip.
Although there are only six gears on our models, we have managed some decent hills. Noel’s top speed downhill is 40 kph, while I baulk at much more than 30 kph – that top heavy feeling at speed makes me nervous.
A few weeks ago we dusted off the old bikes because our neighbours invited us to come with them to a local park with dirt track cycling. The Brompton’s tyres, apart from making the ride a bit hard and bumpy, dig in to softer surfaces. This ride was a trial to see how we managed our hybrid bikes after eight months on the Bromptons. We managed well enough, I thought the big bike felt more stable and manoeuvrable because the handlebars are wider. Noel thought it was because of the larger front wheel.
The crucial test. Would we give up the Bromptons and go back to the big bikes?
I don’t think so.
Jen Cooper is a part time writer with an interest in all things outdoors, and indoors she is researching and writing a narrative non-fiction based on family history.
The Brompton folded for easy storage and transporting.
Unfolding the Brompton has three stages and, in case you forget, these stages are printed on the bike’s frame.
Green bike is at stage one and blue bike is at stage two of unfolding.
This is a guest post written by Jen Cooper. I met Jen a few years ago on a writing course at the Queensland Writers Centre and since then we’ve shared many good conversations about writing as well as bicycles. This is the first of two bicycle stories from Jen…
For years we had tried to find a solution to the problem of how to carry all our toys when we went travelling. We had the van (a fold-down camper), the kayaks on the roof of the car, and the snorkelling gear and body boards inside.
Where could we fit the bikes? There were so many great places where we could cycle. North Queensland country towns, the Eurobodalla coast of New South Wales, the rail trails of Victoria. If we hadn’t been there, we certainly wanted to go to these places – and further!
The tyre rack on the back of the van could be converted and the tyre stored in the back of the Subaru – but that would displace the snorkelling gear and the body boards. Perhaps bikes on the bed in the van? Ah, but imagine the challenge of brief overnight stays and the hassle, especially if it was pouring with rain. The front towing frame for the van? No, too short. The roof of the van? That would interfere with the folding mechanism.
We just left it alone for six months.
Folding bikes! It’s difficult to remember from where the idea first came. It didn’t stick initially – I found an internet article comparing folding bikes and how they handled. The concept was alien – think of how many more times you would have to turn the pedals to go the same distance. They all seemed to have tiny little wheels. They weren’t real bikes! How strange they looked.
We left it alone for another six to twelve months.
There came a tipping point, that critical moment when the desire to find a solution outweighed the inertia of doing something about it. I researched a couple of names – Brompton, Tern, Dyson, Dahon. Then there was an article by a Brompton enthusiast. He wrote in such an appealing way about the function and the charm of a Brompton, and all the extra things you can do with them, like stowing in the overhead locker on a flight from New York to London and then cycling into the city instead of having to wait in the taxi queue. Did he really do that?
In our partnership, things happen like this: I get the good idea and enthuse for long enough that my partner Noel has to do some research. He is very good at research. I’ve never worked out whether it is to show me that my great idea is not so great and stop me carrying on, or whether he is taken with the idea but doesn’t want to make a hasty and potentially expensive decision.
The research in this case led us to Epic Cycles in Paddington (Brisbane). It wasn’t clear on their website at the time, but they might have Bromptons and Terns.
Do you know, sometimes these things are meant to be. The team at Epic know the Bromptons well – one rides a Brompton, they all know how to open and fold them in quick time, and another has actually been to the Brompton factory outside London.
We rode the Bromptons on that first day – they felt strange. With the long seat stem and the little wheels, I felt top heavy. The handle bars were narrow, and steering seemed awkward. The ones we borrowed had three gears, and that seemed too basic to have a comfortable ride over variable terrain. They felt bumpy rolling over sticks on sidewalks with no apparent shock absorption to match the hybrid bikes that we already had.
What really attracted us was how small they folded. Amazing! They would fit in the foot well of the Subaru’s back seat. Even better than we had hoped. We went away, constructed our ideal using the Brompton website and adjusted to the idea. After further discussions by email and another visit to the store, we found there was a special release model that had most of the features we wanted, so we bought them.
Now it was time to learn to ride them.
Jen Cooper is a part time writer with an interest in all things outdoors, and indoors she is researching and writing a narrative non-fiction based on family history.
Narrow handlebars
Bromptons are cleverly designed. With the back wheel folded, the bicycle stands on its own.
Two Bromptons folded for travelling.
One Brompton in footwell behind each seat in the Subaru.
a bike for all seasons 