Imwit wrote: ↑Tue Sep 29, 2020 10:06 am
GaryF wrote: ↑Fri Jan 26, 2018 3:44 pm
Ocean Grove to Broadmeadows - a bike or bike and train excursion daily. Looking back, it was such great fun.
Plus I can’t let this slip by...
Ocean Grove to Broadmeadows????!!!
That is one massive commute.
I have so many questions. Like how? & how long did it take & did you have any energy left for work & did you win the Warny that year? etc..
If you want to know; If you really want to know.....read on.
It was a big commute. This was back in 1984 and 1985. I usually only rode the whole journey one day per week but I would have to leave home at 3:30am and arrive around 8:30am or a little earlier if I could. Going home I'd leave around 4:00pm and arrive into the evening somewhere past 9:00pm. This full return trip I only did every couple of weeks. My best travel time was around 5 hours. This journey took me through Geelong and along the Geelong-Melbourne road to a little past Laverton where I would turn off to go through Sunshine and head towards the back of Broadmeadows West and on to my school where I was a teacher. Today, my approximate route sort of followed the new Western Ring Road route only a little further west. There are a couple of really steep climbs that way but it is shorter. I'm no climber so I found (the painful way) that I had to be careful of my knees on these climbs and I tackled them in my low gears such as 42 - 18.
Strangely enough, I never measured the actual distance of the commute and, to this day, I've no idea just how far it was.
My bike at the time was a red 1979 Daccordi SL with a 5 speed corncob block ranging from 12 to 18 (from memory) and either a 52 - 42 or 53 - 42 front rings. I remember wanting a 53 ring for the Geelong - Melbourne road as there was no bike shoulder back then and you were with the trucks and cars on the edge of the left lane - scary but very fast. I'd get sucked along by the traffic at a really fast pace hence the need for a slightly bigger chain ring.
The Daccordi was equipped with a Campagnolo Nuovo Record groupset with a Turbo saddle and Cinelli 1A stem and Cinelli Giro d'Italia bars. The wheels were smooth rolling with Mavic GP4 with Campy Record hubs and a 5 speed block as mentioned and pretty narrow tubulars. I learnt to repair tubular tyres pretty quickly but I liked the low rolling resistance of a high pressure and tight tubular tyre. I bought the Daccordi secondhand from Ken Evans in Geelong and he told me it was originally imported into South Australia. My first Italian bike and where my love of Campagnolo and Italian bikes began.
The scariest part of either ride was riding home from Geelong to Ocean Grove after dark and in the rain. The road was mostly a single lane (each way) with no bike lane. I was convinced that I would be hit by a car but luckily it never happened.
I did have lots of near misses and the occasional hit (usually a LH rear view mirror) or graze really and occasionally being ridden off the road. I remember once I was minding my own business on the ride from Geelong to Laverton when I was passed quite closely by a big semi. His 'wash' (like Maverick in Top Gun) picked me and the bike up and lifted me sideways off the road about 6 feet. I remained upright but was in the scrub on the edge of the side of the road but luckily I managed to ride back to the road surface without falling. The rest of that ride was interesting and luckily I had a change of underwear.
I had a Sanyo dynamo lighting system as well as a rear battery lamp (which went through D cells quite quickly. I also had my bike and backpack littered with reflective tape I was able to source from marine stores back then. I found the Sanyo dynamo system was the brightest and most economical but it did drag on the back wheel and often the roller needed road crud to be scraped from the surface.
I remember one particular guy in a dump truck and trailer with a bob cat occasionally encroaching in on me and running me off the road, over the course of the two years, on the Geelong - Ocean Grove road. I did manage to track him down but the 'hero' wouldn't come to the door so I told his wife that my next move would be the police. He didn't do it again. Poor woman having a gutless wonder for a husband.
I was always very conscious of my road demeanour. I stopped at every red light and pedestrian crossing. Always give hand-signals and endeavoured remain in my lane and to be predictable. I thought it was good publicity to follow road rules and to show car drivers courtesy. I always tried to give car drivers a wave it they went out of their way to let me through, etc.
My usual commute was to leave home at 4:00am to ride into Geelong and catch the train to Spencer Street, Melbourne. From there I would ride to Broadmeadows (The old Broady Tech school) and arrive at somewhere around 8:00am. Most of these days I would go to the Broady pool for a swim before work. I had to leave early just incase I got a puncture or a mechanical problem. I carried a big backpack with my clothes for work and wet weather plus tools, some food and spares. On my 'big' ride, I did very rarely hit a food-flat where I just couldn't go any further without a bite to eat. Strangely this was around Laverton for some reason - but it only happened to me about 3 times over the two years.
Time-wise there wasn't a great deal of difference between the full ride and the ride-train-ride, rides. I'd just leave home about a half hour earlier on the 'big' ride days. Waiting for the train did take a little time as I had to factor in a stop for a mechanical problem so I couldn't arrive just as the train was getting to the station.
Only once was it raining too hard to continue past Geelong I reported to a Geelong school for work that day. On wet days I was lucky enough to store my bike in a small heater room. The bike and my clothes would dry out. Usually shorts and undies, socks and shoes and my tee shirt. No bike nicks back then, just a pair of footy shorts. On top I had a great gortex jacket that did breath a bit so I stayed basically dry on top except for sweat of course.
In 1986 I was posted to Hoppers Crossing Secondary College and the commute was much shorter. I did measure that distance which was pretty close to 80Km. I could ride that on a good day in pretty well 2 hours exactly. I moved to Werribee the following year where my long distance commuting came to an end. I was now only 15km from work - a mere sprint. I did go for the 100km ride on Saturday or Sunday just for the fun of it. I did this commute for a number of years until the in the last 3 years sciatic hip pain saw me relegate the commuter bikes to the growing collection where I could sit back and admire them as an art form. One night I road home in pain after work and thought to myself, "I can't do this anymore." so I parked the bike and never commuted again - this was in the early 2000's.
As you asked about the 'Warny' I never really had the time to compete with a club but I did have my 'Kilometre' measured out on my way to work. On my road bike with my backpack and going to work I occasionally did a track stand at the start of my kilometre and time myself over the kilometre. At an age of around 40 I could still manage a 1min 8 1/2 second time. I don't really know how this compares with anyone but that's the only indication of my racing ability. It may be fast or slow but that was just me comparing myself to me.
I was a little older and I now had the means to be able to get a 'new' (secondhand) bike when I got a little weary of riding one particular bike after about a year. I had always commuted to work by bike for 10 years prior to the big commute to Broady and for a good 15 years after Broady and my favourite bike choice was a track bike. I've still got a couple of track bikes that I really love.
I have always commuted by bike and I did have 10 or so years of commuting by bike before my big commute period. I think I had one year off when I worked in Mildura. Mildura as just a little far for a bike commute, haha. Mildura did spell the beginning of the end for my old car though. The year prior to this big commute period of my life I did ride 25km to work and 25 km home in the evenings. This was probably the groundwork needed to step up to the next level.
Anyway, I fondly look back on my commuting years as I suppose you do as well. Bikes are so ingrained in many of us and it's they are a wonderful highlight in anyone's life. Thanks for the interest Imwit and I bet you have a similar story to tell.
