Saturday, March 20, 2010

Yarra Boulevard

This afternoon Linc introduced me to cycling Yarra Boulevard. It's a quiet, scenic, twisty stretch of road that follows the Yarra River past such sights as:

  • The Bats; and








(bats by Elizabeth Donoghue)


  • The Kew Asylum








When you stop and consider it both are actually quite odd to see 10minutes from the middle of such a large city.
Edit: Isabelle wisely pointed out that Kew used to be quite a way out of the city. However, the fact that it is still there and not a reception centre or luxury housing estate is surprising. The bats are even better as they only moved there a few years ago. Melbourne is a flourishing hive of bats and nutters.

The crescent performed as expected for a bike that has been assembled by an absolute amateur. I managed to start the ride confident I would have access to all 10 gears. Three minutes later I was confident that I had learned my lesson and wouldn't drop the chain again. Two minutes after that I was confident that I could ride with an unsecured seat stabbing me in the thigh. During the next downhill I noticed that my left crank was loose. As I'm 90% certain I don't have the correct tool for that bolt I was left wondering just how long it had been loose. Oh, after that I pulled the front derailleur cable from its screw. In summary I was left with 4 or so gears, a fear of pedalling vigorously, a bruised thigh and a wonderfully feathered gear cable.

However, the bike actually felt terrific. When the cranks were connected it was smooth, I felt safe on the descents (the brakes have improved since last year's post) and, as Linc pointed out, the simple fact that I remembered the circumstances in which I bought it made me enjoy pedalling.