touring incidents

**Savanahkelpy** · 26th November 2009, 05:15 PM

After the Cape ride, i discovered such things as multi layered rims and bought several books on wheel building as i wanted to know, why i broke 14 spokes in the back wheel, yet none in the front, nor any in the trailer.
Despite doing it solo, with no other riders or support vehicles, i did have a life line in place,," ET, phone home",, family members would go to the local bike shop and purchase what i needed and post it to a destination arranged by me, while i was enroute, as i only took 6 spare spokes, thinking that would be sufficiant!

,,,So if you are ever interested in cycle touring in remote areas,, get to know, and be on VERY friendly terms with your local bike mechanic,, as he will ultimately, be the guy who saves your bacon.
Laurie.

**Savanahkelpy** · 26th November 2009, 06:59 PM

Originally Posted by wovenrovings

Interesting stories Savanahkelpy, I have considered doing bicycle touring before but the landy has proved to tempting. I have a question, how do you deal with corrugations. Anytime i have had to ride over them when out mountain biking it hasn't been much fun.

I can't believe someone would sell the hub on the poor people, thats low.

Now england to australia in '63-'66, thats a trip. He would have a few stories to tell.

Have you read any of Francis birtles stories. He did a lot of long distance cycling in the 1920's. And then was the first to drive from england to australia in the 1930's. (The first overland guys with the series 1 landrovers hadn't heard of him).

Dan.

After looking at corrogations for days on end, i began to notice a pattern emerge, and that corrogations are like radio waves,, they come in different wave lengths,,short, medium, and long. Medium and long are the best to ride, as the lack of speed when touring fully loaded meant the bike rode like a rocking horse, but the short wave ones made for a very jittery, stutter ride. If 2 different wave lengths were side by side, there is a strip of smooth ground between them, about 2 to 3 inchs wide, just nice for a bike.
Laurie.

**Scouse** · 27th November 2009, 10:41 AM

Laurie has kindly sent me some of his trip photos so I've added them to his original post in this thread

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**gone bush** · 1st December 2009, 10:09 PM

great stories. cheers JP

**Savanahkelpy** · 6th April 2010, 04:31 PM

One of the great aspects of cycle touring, particularly if you are on a dirt road and are an early riser is the chance to see what wildlife has been active in your vacinity and crossed the road during the night. If you are on your bike well before the motorists, you should be going slow enough to identify animal, bird and reptile tracks in the soft dust before they are filled and obliterated by passing traffic.
Horses, cattle, wild pigs, emu,s, snakes, kangaroos and wallabys, and numerous small birds, all left their sign for me to see, as plain as day.
I did have 5 daylight encounters with individuals and small groups of wild pigs, the only thing you can do is quietly cycle up, as close as possible, hold out your arm, fore finger extended, thumb up, and yell,,,,BANG!.

The fright effect usualy works very well.
I did get bailed up by a scrub bull on the cape yor peninsular ride, south of the Dulhunty river, just on sunset. A race between me, trying to gather fire wood,,the bull trying to decide what to do,,head down pawing the dust and bellowing,,,and the fading light. I ended up ducking into a small dry creek with steep banks and just peering over the top, so he couldn,t see all of me, and collected my fire wood in the dark, by the light of my head torch.
Laurie

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