Riding a bicycle evokes something quite youthful in people. In some primal way, it reconnects us with being young and knowing little of the world’s cares. This is the lifelong legacy of riding a bicycle as a child.
So these past few weeks, with Australian school children on holidays, it’s delightful to see so many little people pedalling around the bike paths. Some riding with their parents, others riding with grandparents. Some riding their bikes to holiday programs at the local community drop-in house, some carrying fishing rods across their handlebars to fish in the creek, some with skateboards on their way to the skate bowl and others improvising their own bike and skate ramp combo. Lots of kids on bikes and lots of fun being made!
But bikes, kids and fun isn’t reserved just for when it’s holiday time. When we swapped seasons for April and visited Oslo, Norway, we enjoyed a Sunday bicycle ride with our friends and their two children aged ten and eight. To my amazement and admiration, our young pedalling friends showed great endurance and resilience in riding throughout the day. By the end of our circuit, their little wheels had ridden 28 kilometres! We peppered it with plenty of stops for photos, chats and treats to make the journey fun. Finding Maridalen with its beautiful lake and forests was a new adventure for all of us. So together we pedalled and explored and discovered, and made picnics and memories that will live long with us.
For one of my grandnieces having fun on a bike is an every-weekend adventure. She rides with her Grandma each weekend to a cafe for breakfast or coffee. Her Mum runs, her Grandma pedals and she sits perched in a bike seat attached to the back of Grandma’s bike. Snug, safe and loving her weekend bicycle ride… at one and a half years old!
Little bike big bike at Kirra Beach
Family bike ride with Fluffy the dog running along too. Photo: TL Coker.
Style rider with cool coordinates – purple bike, purple shoes, purple helmet. (Photo: TL Coker)
Safely in the basket, Rose rides too, complete with helmet! (Photo: TL Coker)
Pedalling out of Oslo to find Maridalen.
Pedalling towards an adventure. We rode 28 kilometres that day!
Finding Maridalen with its beautiful lake Maridalsvannet.
Riding the forest trails around the lake at Maridalen.
Snug, safe and enjoying her weekend bicycle ride… at one and a half 🙂
And finally, I want to share with you a video from the JJJJ family who love surfing, live on Australia’s Sunshine Coast and make a natural zinc for surfers called SurfMud. Their whole family surfs…
So, with surfing over for the day, brother and sister teamed up. If you want to see what kids can do with a bicycle and a skateboard… click on the link below, then click the photo to watch the 15 second video… Kids on bikes have great F U N 🙂A video posted by Jase – Jel – Jarv – Jess (@thejjjjfamily) on Jul 7, 2015 at 9:16pm PDT
By now, I thought I’d be writing about bicycle riding during the cooler months. Not so. June, our first month of winter, is over and the weather has been quite unusual. In fact, it’s been record setting.
Across every state in Australia, averages for the month of June were warmer than long-term averages. In particular, Perth on the west coast experienced its warmest average daytime temperature for June in over 100 years of recording.
On the east coast, in the state of Queensland where I live, the month of June saw record-breaking rainfall. At the Cairns International airport, a gateway to Queensland’s tropical north and the Great Barrier Reef, rainfall was three times the June average. Usually in Queensland, we live with dry winters where the sky spans clear blue for days and weeks. Rain is not expected to fall so regularly in our winter; it’s supposed to fall in summer. That’s typical for our tropical and sub-tropical climate.
Summer is also when tropical cyclones form, whipping up the seas and delivering heavy rains. The official season for cyclones is November 1 through to April 30. This week as July began, the Bureau of Meteorology announced a cyclone has formed in the Coral Sea near the Solomon Islands. Even though it’s not expected to impact our coastline, this is unusual. There is no record of a cyclone appearing in the month of July. Until now.
Times are changing. Must be time to change.
The satellite image from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) shows Cyclone Raquel in the top right hand corner. This is Queensland’s first ever recorded cyclone in July. Photo: BoM
On the eve of the winter solstice, the sky cleared to a brilliant azure and stayed that way. All day for the shortest day, the sun shone without a blink. The wind rushed in from the south-west, cooling the air and relaxing the ocean into small waves, clean and clear. It was a beautiful day to be outside, in the sunlight, by the beach and riding my bike.
Well actually, ON the beach ON my bike. It was the perfect day for a bit of beach riding.
Riding a bicycle on the beach always feels like a treat. The conditions have to be just right. The tide has to be low and the sand must be firm enough to avoid being bogged. Plus, you have to be prepared to risk the rust that might happen if you don’t wash your bicycle well enough afterwards.
I hadn’t ridden my Vivente tourer on the beach before; it was too new. Until now. Over three years old and sporting some surface rust just from living by the beach, it was time to break out for a long overdue beach ride. I was interested to see how it went. The tide would be dropping over the afternoon so we rode south via the street and cycle ways to Kirra Point. By the time we’d reach there, the tide would be low enough and we could enjoy a tailwind on our return trip north along the beach.
Arriving at Kirra Point and walking our bikes through the soft sand track towards the water’s edge, we see boats and trucks and a gaggle of people humming around. It’s the time of the year when the mullet men take to the beach. By that I don’t mean a bunch of guys wearing strange haircuts! No, it’s the men who fish, commercial fishermen, who catch schools of Sea Mullet (Mugil cephalic). Annually, the sea mullet emerge from the estuaries and head to the open sea to spawn. When they do, the fishermen who wait patiently day after day, hope to be in the right place at the right time to net them. This day they were. We watched for awhile, took some photos and then started our ride north along the sand.
When I owned a mountain bike, I used to ride often on the beach. Their tyres, wide with raised knobs, are designed to grip in rough or loose terrain and make beach riding quite easy. Even though the Vivente’s tyres are not as wide and bear a less vigorous tread, they still rode well. The main difference is the bike’s weight which being steel, weighs 17kg, heavier than many. Plus I had a pannier filled with a spare jacket, a beach towel and wet swimmers (yes, it was a great day for a swim too!)
So riding the Vivente on the beach was a little different from what I was used to, but it was very enjoyable.
From Kirra Point, we rode past Bilinga, Tugun and finished beside Elephant Rock at Currumbin. There was a shallow creek crossing through brackish water near North Kirra. It was shallow and rideable. At Tugun, the rocky outcrop known as Flat Rock meant we had to carry our bikes over some rocks to finish our ride at Currumbin. Along the way there were people sunning on the sand, others walking on the beach, young boys playing beach cricket, and as we rode past a small family sitting together in a cosy huddle on a patchwork of towels, a little boy’s voice emerged: “we should bring our bikes to the beach”.
To which I thought with a smile, yes you should!
With smooth sand, a tailwind and a spectacular view of the Coral Sea, it’s a beautiful way to enjoy the beach.
Oh and we also had a healthy dose of sunshine on the eve of the shortest day of the year.
Looking north from Kirra Point with our beach ride about to begin. In the distance, you can see the skyline of Surfers Paradise.
Kirra Point with fishing boat waiting for the next netting run.
Fishing boat for netting Sea Mullet.
Nets in fishing boat used to catch Sea Mullet.
Beach scene with trucks and people and plastic crates for carting fish.
Scene of the catch.
Truckloads of fish-filled crates.
Plenty of firm sand to ride on.
Brackish water from creek near North Kirra.
Creek crossing no worries.
Plenty of sunshine.
A sandy ride on a short day.
a bike for all seasons 