CM 30/6/06: Lizzie flies flag for pedal power

On the front page of todays Courier Mail:

After circumnavigating Australia I wouldn't have thought the bar ends
would still point skyward and the tyres still knobbies, but good on
her.

http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/s...99-952,00.html

Text:
----
Lizzie flies flag for pedal power

June 29, 2006

LIZZIE Ferstl is on a mission, on a red mountain bike pedalling steady,
to join up the last dots on her map of Australia.

"Some might think I'm a nutcase," grins the 67-year-old Victorian
grandmother. "But I'm on a mission."

Lizzie discovered the joys of long-distance biking some six years ago.
Her doctor recommended cycling to help combat arthritis but may not
have meant three-month cycle expeditions each year, including one tough
run from Cairns to the tip of Cape York.

"Now that was hard yakka," she said.

This time around Lizzie is again cycling north, heading out of Ayr
yesterday morning on her heart-worn highway from Brisbane to Cairns.
She will return to Townsville on the bus, then get back on her bike for
the haul from Townsville to Darwin, maybe making 70km a day.

"When I get to the Three Ways (on the Northern Territory's Stuart
Highway) I'll have circumnavigated Australia, joined the dots this
trip," Lizzie says.

"But anyone can do this, once you do get your mind around the idea."

Lizzie tows around 30kg of gear, and bush camps rough from time to
time. Top speed is about 50km/h - downhill.

Back home, on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, husband Josef waits with
patience. "He doesn't worry anymore. I get back and he says 'how was
it' and I say 'good' and that's the end of it.

"But you would not believe the things I see. People haven't got a clue
what they're passing every day," she says.
----

Andrew Wrote:
On the front page of todays Courier Mail:

After circumnavigating Australia I wouldn't have thought the bar ends
would still point skyward and the tyres still knobbies, but good on
her.

http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/s...99-952,00.html


Damn good story, especially after that 'Hinchcliffe palavar'
(http://www.woj.com.au/HinchcliffeTorqueFeb06.pdf) from a few months
ago.

Onya Lizzie!


--
cfsmtb

Andrew Wrote:
On the front page of todays Courier Mail:

After circumnavigating Australia I wouldn't have thought the bar ends
would still point skyward and the tyres still knobbies, but good on
her.

http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/s...99-952,00.html

Text:
----
Lizzie flies flag for pedal power

June 29, 2006

LIZZIE Ferstl is on a mission, on a red mountain bike pedalling
steady,
to join up the last dots on her map of Australia.

"Some might think I'm a nutcase," grins the 67-year-old Victorian
grandmother. "But I'm on a mission."

Lizzie discovered the joys of long-distance biking some six years ago.
Her doctor recommended cycling to help combat arthritis but may not
have meant three-month cycle expeditions each year, including one
tough
run from Cairns to the tip of Cape York.

"Now that was hard yakka," she said.

This time around Lizzie is again cycling north, heading out of Ayr
yesterday morning on her heart-worn highway from Brisbane to Cairns.
She will return to Townsville on the bus, then get back on her bike
for
the haul from Townsville to Darwin, maybe making 70km a day.

"When I get to the Three Ways (on the Northern Territory's Stuart
Highway) I'll have circumnavigated Australia, joined the dots this
trip," Lizzie says.

"But anyone can do this, once you do get your mind around the idea."

Lizzie tows around 30kg of gear, and bush camps rough from time to
time. Top speed is about 50km/h - downhill.

Back home, on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, husband Josef waits
with
patience. "He doesn't worry anymore. I get back and he says 'how was
it' and I say 'good' and that's the end of it.

"But you would not believe the things I see. People haven't got a clue
what they're passing every day," she says.
----


eat your heart out Jeannie Longo - Lizzie is my new role model!!
Fantastic stuff -go girl!


--
warrwych

warrwych Wrote:
eat your heart out Jeannie Longo - Lizzie is my new role model!!
Fantastic stuff -go girl!

Staying on the topic of amazing cycling ladies, we just might be up for
'07 'Salute to Irene Plowman' (http://www.audax.org.au/melbourne.htm),
early days yet, but who's interested?


--
cfsmtb

cfsmtb wrote:
warrwych Wrote:
eat your heart out Jeannie Longo - Lizzie is my new role model!!
Fantastic stuff -go girl!

Staying on the topic of amazing cycling ladies, we just might be up for
'07 'Salute to Irene Plowman' (http://www.audax.org.au/melbourne.htm),
early days yet, but who's interested?


--
cfsmtb

Staying on the effect of cyling women. This is an interesting article!

http://www.hyperhistory.org/index.ph...id=742&op=page

With great quotes like this

"On both counts - mobility and fashion - there was a lot of
resistance. Women on bikes were said to be frivolous types who had
abandoned feminine dignity. Critics expressed their doubts about a
woman's capacity to control a bicycle. They expressed their horror at
the idea of a woman moving so fast in a busy street.

Conservative moralists worried that bicycles allowed women,
unchaperoned and vulnerable, to have chance encounters with men. The
bicycle, said the wowsers, was both physically and morally too
dangerous for women."

And this, doesn;t seem like we have come too far given some of cfsmtb's
stories!

"The nastiest of the Bulletin's attacks appeared in the letters
columns. One letter asked: 'Should that breeched abstraction,
chivalry, hold good when a scraggy she-male in baggy knickers astride
an uncertain bike violently collides with your person?' The answer
was NO. Women in such circumstances did not deserve chivalry.
Presumably they deserved to be treated badly. "

PiledHigher Wrote:

And this, doesn;t seem like we have come too far given some of
cfsmtb's
stories!

"The nastiest of the Bulletin's attacks appeared in the letters
columns. One letter asked: 'Should that breeched abstraction,
chivalry, hold good when a scraggy she-male in baggy knickers astride
an uncertain bike violently collides with your person?' The answer
was NO. Women in such circumstances did not deserve chivalry.
Presumably they deserved to be treated badly. "

Meh! I hope this letterwriters descendants aren't living in SEQ!


--
cfsmtb