Around The Bay in a Day 100km Sorrento-Melbourne

Well what a day that was !

We spent the night at Rye and rose promptly this morning for the short ride to the start at Sorrento. Kevin was over from Hobart for another ride and was back on the Raceline, Chris was aboard his relatively new Cannondale CAAD 8 and I was on the trusty CAADX 105 - I even remembered to bring the Garmin this time !!

Merri Creek Trail and Plenty River Trail Ride

Bike Bits For Sale ...

I have some surplus Tiagra and older parts to get rid of. See pics here...

9 1/2 Weeks - And Making Progress .... to Smith's Gully, at least !

Maybe I could have had an affair with Kim Basinger in the same tiem, but .... well I fell off on May 26 and today was finally a decent climbing ride and a fair distance. Longest, climby-est ride for 4 months in fact. And it was a cracker of a day for it !! Went out via Koonung Trail, Wonga Park, and Kangaroo Ground to Smith's Gully. 

Main Yarra Trail - my rehab ride zone ...

Looking NW back down the fire trail.

Today I rode the MYT again and threw in some single-track exploration, always a little dicey on the CX bike but fun anyway. I rode up a fire-trail hoping in the Yarra Valley Parklands just east of Fitzsimmon's Lane, hoping to see some kangaroos. I didn't spot them today but took a few pictures at the top of the trail.

Bike parking, bike festival, bike share ... bike, bike, bike !!

I haven't been riding much lately due to a prang 2 weeks ago and the generally miserable recent weather in good ol' Melbourne but hopefully that will change soon !

Meanwhile I've been doing a lot of time on the internet and here  a a few things that have caught my eye. Cheers ...

Old Observatory - Melbourne

After a slight change of plans I rode into the Old Melbourne Observatory today. Perfect day for a ride, although a bit windy.

Didn't stop at the Observatory Cafe this time but yummy stuff is available .... !!

Tightening Bidon Mounts or Rivnuts

Today I finally got around to tightening the loose bidon mounts on the old Raceline road bike. I've been meaning to do it for ages since J explained to me how to go about it. It's pretty simple ....

Behold - The BSA Airborne Bicycle !!

We visited the Darwin Military Museum on the last day of our trip to Darwin and discovered this unique bicycle used by glider pilots in WWII.

The BSA Aiborne Bicycle is often called a "parabike" by collectors, but it seems that this is an erroneous term. This appears to be a post-war nickname applied to a commercial variant. The only war time manual references found so far clearly call it the "airborne bicycle".

The bike was designed to be folded in half and carried on board an aircraft. It could be landed by glider, thrown out of the aircraft with its own small parachute, or carried by a paratrooper as he jumped out of his aircraft.

The Moon Occults Jupiter over Melbourne Tonight

Tonight over Melbourne the moon occults Jupiter. That is the planet passes behind the moon for a short period, about an hour, and you can see it easily with the naked eye.

Pretty neat, & I took this photo with a simple digital camera and then framed it up a bit for clarity.

More info online at NightSkyOnline.