Day 18-34: Rest & Recovery @ Melbourne

Time to say goodbye to Melbourne again! I had an excellent time in Melbourne, spent half my time on tour-related stuff including preparing for my remaining journey and spent the rest of my time just chilling. Had lots of yummy food and manage to put on 1kg, but wasn’t nearly enough to replace the 4kg I lost during the Sydney-Melbourne leg. In retrospect, I think my fat loss probably contributed to my diminishing ability to cope with the cold condition. Oh, and my muscles soreness disappears after about 9 days!

Here’s a breakdown of things I did while I was in Melbourne:

Review Sydney-Melbourne ride

Spent some time updating the journal entries and organising the photos. I also made a short video to complement all the day-to-day entries. I figured its a lot more fun to do a summary in a video form than writing paragraphs. You are welcomed to watch it:

Trike repair and servicing

My drum brake problem still persist even after I brought my trike for a repair at Canberra. The “sticky” brake doesn’t happen all the time, but is usually present when the surrounding is wet and cold. Scrubbing the brake pad with sandpaper (as what Ian did) only provided a temporary remedy. So I called the Greenspeed factory and asked for a solution. They referred me to a bike repair specialist that also work on Greenspeed trikes, Peter from Cycle Science. He had a look at the brake and immediately said that this is quite a common problem and his solution is to put some lubricant on one of the moving part (the rotating metal piece that sits between the two brake pads). Left my trike there for a few days for the repair work and also a full service (highly recommended for long distance tourers). I had my gear cable changed too, since the old one was in bad shape. When I got back the trike, I didn’t get to test the brake since I can only test it during cold and wet condition, but on a dry condition, I did feel the brake is a lot smoother now. We’ll see how it performs when I leave Melbourne.

Few days after I reached Melbourne, I discovered two new punctures on the left tire. It was a slow leak, hence taking me a few days to take notice. Upon inspection, I found two very fine wires poking through my tire and tube. Must have been one of the thread wires from the many truck tires I ran over. Sealed it along with the previously punctured tube. That’s 3 punctures in total. More than what I’m comfortable with on a 1200km ride. Consequently, I’ll be bringing 5 spare tubes with me from now on.

Trike upgrades

More of minor improvements than actual upgrades. I re-installed the headrest which I think will come in handy, can possibly reduce strain on my neck too when I get to rest my head from time to time. I’ve also made a raincover to wrap around the water-absorbent foam headrest. Another new addition to the trike is an extra bottle cage under my seat. The frame under the seat doesn’t have bidons so I had to use hose clamps to mount the bottle cage. This will be useful when crossing the Nullarbor when I’ll be carrying 9-10 litres of water. I’m using two identical flags now with same height, as opposed to one flag and one streamer (lost in Leg 1). I removed the brake/signal lights since they weren’t incredibly useful, road users can hardly see my light, which was buried between my oversized panniers. Having only the right brake linked to the brake lights poses a problem too, since I usually alternate the use of left and right brake.

Equipments update

In addition to all the stuff I carried from Sydney to Melbourne, I will be bringing a few more items, namely cooking equipments (trangia stove set, spatula, chopping board, billy pot, washing detergent, methylated spirit, and matches), 1-litre hot flask, 4-litre airtight water container (for Nullarbor), winter jacket, small pillow (gives much better sleeping experience compared to using clothing as pillow substitute), nylon undies (hopefully with this I can stop using adhesive bandages), balaclava, shoe warmer, full length socks, winter gloves, 32GB USB stick, SD card reader, dedicated mp3 player (iPod nano), digital alarm/themometer (can’t rely on phone alarm since phone battery may be dead for days), insect repellant (Bushman), mice deterrent (peppermint oil mix with water in a spray bottle), ants deterrent (white vinegar spray), spare prescription glasses, and re-stocking of consumables like cable ties and resealable bags (a must-have for any touring cyclist!). With so many more things to bring, you must be thinking how the hell am I going to fit them all into my panniers. You are absolutely right, I don’t have enough space in my panniers. I got myself two 10-litre dry sacks to store the extra stuff and place them on top of my panniers when riding. I am also swapping my Camps 6 map book with two Hema road map sheets (Melbourne to Adelaide and Perth to Adelaide). Lugging the 1kg map book all the way from Sydney to Melbourne was stupid.

Another significant item swap is my tent. I’ve upgraded to a four season tent! My current tent is useless for cold weather, learnt that the hard way. It’s mainly because of the full mesh inner layer which helps to reduce the overall weight but allows cold air to move through freely. Another issue I had with the current tent was that being a non-free standing tent, I had a hard time securing stakes onto softer grounds and difficult to relocate the tent if the terrain wasn’t right. So when I was researching for a new tent, it must meet the following criteria: 1) four season tent, 2) free-standing, 3) high waterproof rating, 4) quick pitching, 5) roomy two-men size, 6) less than 3kg, 7) able to fit in my panniers, and 8) colours that matches the Australian bushland. There was only one tent that meet these requirements: Exped Venus II Extreme. It wasn’t cheap, but I’m guessing on those nights where its too cold that my current tent couldn’t handle, I’d probably stay in cabins/motels and end up spending even more. I tested the tent today by pitching it in the living room and was truly amazed by the overall quality and also the minor yet significant details such as ceiling shelf, parallel zipping for the inner mesh as opposed to overlapping, poles boot, etc. I reckon it’ll take me a few nights of camping before I fully discover all the features of this tent.

Reading on Nullarbor crossing (Leg 4)

This is a crucial leg for my tour. The 1200km stretch between Norseman and Ceduna is townless and one of the most remote place in Australia apart from the Kimberley Region and Cape York Peninsula. I gather as much information as I can regarding the facilities, weather conditions, presence of wildlife, and other dangers in that area. Many cyclist have crossed the Nullarbor, the majority of which did it from west to east due to the prevailing wind in this direction. Many have noted that the wind direction changes on a daily basis and sometimes within a day. The take home message for me is that if the wind is in my favour on a particular day, I should ride as far as I can, as I am aiming to complete the Nullarbor plains crossing in 10 days. I will be bringing between 9-10 litres of water (2.5 days worth) and hoping that I can refill my water containers at the roadhouses along the road (one roadhouse in every 100-200km). If not, I guess I would have to buy it from them or collect from one of the watertanks (rain water) along the roadside supplied by the state government. Dangers and risk aside, I think crossing the Nullarbor would be an incredible experience!