Monday 20 July 2009

Day nine: Cootamundra to Harden: Disaster strikes

Monday July 13, 2009, 38 km (24 miles) - Total so far: 762 km (474 miles)

Much refreshed after the rest day, I felt ready to have a big day and was looking forward to getting all the way to Yass. I obviously wasn't fully recovered though because as usual I found it hard to keep up at the start. Things did seem to improve after we hit the hills though, and the descents which followed made for a fun ride at a decent pace.

I couldn't help noticing though that my chain was squeaking quite a lot. It had rained the previous night and the little lube that was on my chain to start off with (hadn't lubed it in about 500k) had obviously been washed off. I wasn't too concerned though, so it came as quite a surprise when I switched down a chain ring to go up a hill and my derailleur had what I will euphemistically call a 'hissy fit'..Things went crunch in a very, very unpleasing way. Close inspection revealed that my derailleur had managed to force its way into my spokes, bending a few in the process and snapping the derailleur hanger in half. In short, my bike wasn't going anywhere fast. We might possibly have been able to turn it into a single speed and fix the pannier rack on with wire (it had been attached to the derailleur hanger but I'm not 100% sure that this contributed to the problem), but I didn't really trust anyone to do this correctly; didn't think I'd be able to ride all the way to Goulburn (150k with hills) which is where the next bike shop was; and in any case didn't want to hold up the group again after the protracted delay in Benella when my pannier rack broke for the first time.

So with the help of the guys who still had working bikes, I packed my bike into a box and booked myself a seat on the train to Goulburn. An old guy by the name of Nick Rawlin (a christian name passed down for generations in his family for some reason) had come over earlier to see what had happened, and he turned out to be both very helpful and a rather interesting fellow. While he drove up to the station with my stuff; helped me drag it up to the platform and then waited with me until the train came, I learnt a bit about his rather amazing cycling career.

He'd been riding all his life (79 years old now) and was still racing until 8 years ago when he broke his collarbone in a nasty crash. He still rides about 50km every day and is incredibly fit. Over the years, he's cycled all over Australia, having crossed the Nullarbor plain five times (and he was talking about doing it again at the end of the year). I was astonished to hear that he'd often forego sleep completely in order to get home faster. On one occasion, he raced another man back from somewhere in Qld, 1030km away. He did it in three days and did not get a wink the whole time (the other guy finished 12 hours behind and he cheated! drafting off his support vehicles for a good 600km). A great many age group records are in his name, including the record for the most distance travelled in 24hr: 560km!

Off the bike as well, he excelled at feats of endurance. He used to work at a flour mill before the days of conveyor belts, and one day managed to haul 4552 bags of wheat, each weighing 87kg. This was and still is (they don't lift the bags by hand anymore for good reason!) a record and let me tell you that Nick is not a big man by any standards - probably 1.60m.

I was deeply impressed by his achievements and ended up in a much lighter mood than I had been after the catastrophic failure of my bike. He helped me lift the stuff on to the train (I didn't feel so concerned about stressing his apparently frail body after hearing the wheat hauling story), and then I bade him goodbye, promising to write him a letter when I got home.

It was a pleasant train ride to Goulburn. The tracks passed through some really beautiful scenery that really changed my perspective of Australia as a place to visit. In the past, I hadn't really regarded the Australian landscape as a particularly aesthetically pleasing one, but on that afternoon, with the sun dipped at just the right angle to illuminate those rolling hills, brooks and gum trees in the most favourable way possible, I had to admit that it really was a gorgeous part of the world. As the other guys cycled along, they later reported to me that they were having a similar experience. It is definitely a place I'd like to visit again.

I felt a bit disconcerted when I got off in Goulburn, having no way to move my voluminous gear around and no idea where I was going to stay that night. A quick scouting trip revealed two supermarket trolleys, and thus my first problem was solved, and a quick conversation with the station master revealed that there were a number of motels just across the road. I managed to convince the manager of the closest motel to give me a $15 discount on the room (the pub next door was advertising $50 rooms and I told him I couldn't afford any more), so I was all set for the night.

[not for the squeamish]
The two Matts and I were planning on running in the Hunter Valley half marathon when we got to Sydney, so I decided to go for a long run that night. It turned out to be a very bad idea. I had obviously eaten far too much in the previous 24hrs and hadn't cleared it out of my system, because I had to make a bee line for the public toilets twice. By the end of the run, I could hardly walk from the pain in my abdomen and when I finally got back to my motel room I was in severe pain and had some kind of fever, which had me wearing all of my jumpers and jackets, sleeping with the heavy bed covers over my sleeping bag with the heater on full blast. It was a very unpleasant night.
[/not for the squeamish]

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