Off Topic With Ashley

It’s not really mine, but it’s defaulted to me it in much the same way you end up owning a certain couch, or taking over a frequented lunch spot.

The bike in question is actually Dad’s, and though I’d been the only one riding it for something like two years, he’s finally started expressing an interest in claiming it back from my thieving fingers. So with a little reluctance I stopped riding it.

A few weeks ago, Dad took a day for bicycle maintenance. After finding two broken spokes on the rear wheel of his bike which I’ve vehemently denied responsibility for, he sent it in to be serviced by people who actually know what they’re doing.

After nothing else happening in the interim, I finally took the bike out for a ride again on Wednesday.

It was awesome.

It literally hummed down Merideth Street, generally reviled for it’s abhorrent surface. It zipped up hills, inspired me to discover a new suburban cycling route, pelted through Boondall Wetlands, and generally sliced the air like a very sharp sieve.

I actually planned to take a cruisy day trip out to Bracken Ridge and see if I could find a cycleway route. It was a noble intention, but unfortunately I missed the critical noun “Ridge,” which apparently means “massive great collection of hills that are near on impossible to climb, even on a well oiled bike.”

After getting stuck on a footpath for 200 metres for trying to cross Sandgate road in the wrong spot, I took an interesting route out an around the back of any evident hills. True to my intentions, I found a cycleway which took me out to Bald Hills — another ominously named suburb — where I grabbed a bite to eat from a really expensive bakery whose only redeeming factor was a functioning FETPOS machine.

After a few hours of urban exploration, I figured it might be a good idea to turn myself around and head home. Consulting the map, I plotted a somewhat direct route through the suburbs which would take me directly back. Unfortunately for me, the map was flat, and had neither contours or any indication as to what kind of terrain I was trying to route over.

After about ten minutes  I realised my folly, and was half way up the biggest hill you’ve probably ever seen in your life. It was also, about the same time I heard the psychotic warbling of a rapidly approaching magpie. Regular readers will know I don’t much care for them, after one of the little flying crocodiles tried to tear out my eye in 2007, so to encounter one of the little shits on a fiercely uphill section of some insignificant residential street in the middle of absolutely nowhere of mention was stressful to say the least.

With a demented shriek, the stupid creature smacked into my helmet which really only encouraged me to pedal faster. Adrenaline and lactic acid mixed into a flighty cocktail of panic and desire to go to the toilet.

Through an idiotic twist of fate, I actually managed to get swooped three times that day, and this was also the second time this particular bird had got me. I found out later that people stick zip ties in their helmets to deter the Magpies from swooping in the first place. I’ve seen it done in the past, but never known what was going on. I hear it’s the new fashion this spring though.

I got home safe and sound about forty-five minutes later, and even managed to find another less stressful route (all in all, that’s two new routes I found in the one day.) I got home, sat down for about ten minutes, and then proceeded to undo the day’s hard work with three packets of instant noodles and an unhealthy helping of fried chicken. I’m a picture of good health, right here.