Newbie Questions from a madman

On 16 Oct 2006 17:07:48 -0700, "Bleve"
wrote:


The Real Andy wrote:
On 16 Oct 2006 04:20:14 -0700, "Bleve"
wrote:


The Real Andy wrote:
snip

BTW, I started training today on an old $50 road bike (temporary till
I know what I want) and it just about killed me! I did 35kms at a
reasonable pace, but not quick by any means. This stuff is much much
harder than walking 30kms/day through the mountains!!

It's not much harder, it's just different. Remember to spin, not grind
(turn the pedals fast, rather than slowly and pushing hard) and
gradually increase the workload, and have rest days.

Ahh, nice tip. I shall keep that in mind. My initial plan is to ride
every second day, with the day inbetween for my typcial 2 hours of up
and down hill walking + weights with Sunday reserved for beer
drinking!

Hopefully a few months in and I should be able to ride to work every
day (about 12km each way).


That won't take months, 12km is only a 30 min ride. You'll be doing
that in a week.

This is all up and down hills. And I did it in 40 mins yesterday!!

I've gone half the distance...Gold Coast/Rocky
Did it on a $350 Giant/Boulder SE. Semi slick tyres for a mixture of
dirt/bitumen. Went up the "back" way with a mixture of farm roads and
quiet rural roads. Worked out great with a few pubs/towns every couple
of days and wild camping. If you have a meal in the pub they generally
let you camp free in the backyard or $2 for a shower.
GC/Toowoomba/Kulpi/Bunya Mt/Wondai/Ban Ban Springs/Mingo Crossing/Mt
Perry/Ceartodus/Monto/Jambin/Dululu/Mt Morgan/Rocky

The Real Andy wrote:
SO I decided that the best way to acheive this would be to buy a
mountain bike and stick non-knobbly tyres on it. Of course i need to
strap on some carrying device so I can put my camping gear in. The
thought of spending 2 weeks riding with the trusty MacPac hiking pack
probably wont cut it. But thats another story.

ANyhow, I have seen in anaconda a range of bikes ranging from $200
upto $5000 dollars and have no idea what to get. The first question is
are the Anaconda bikes any good? The brands are fluid and Kona (i
think)?

The second question is how much do I spend on a bike that will do very
little (if none) off road work? I really dont want to spend more than
$1000, but if there are serious benefits then I will probably stretch
that figure.

A few years ago, about 300km East of Broome, I met a couple of
cyclists.

One was a young American lass who had grown tired of backpacking on
buses, so whilst in Katherine she'd up and bought a mountain bike and
hit the road. It was a reasonable-quality but still inexpensive
($500) machine.

Along the way she'd met up with a Japanese bloke who'd come to
Australia with the express intention of riding the perimeter - and had
his $3000 bike stolen within the first couple of weeks. He was riding
a "top of the K-Mart range" mountain bike that he'd found in a
secondhand store (all he could afford after taking such a loss).

They were each carrying 20kg of water, resting between noon and 3pm
(this was in August, it was still getting up to 35-40C), and still
managing about 70km per day.

A bit further along on the same day, about 75km from Broome (I was
motorcycling), I came across the toughest bloke I've ever met. He was
a young Englishman who had a withered arm and leg on one side of his
body (polio?) He was riding a tricycle, towing a trailer carrying 40
litres of water, and STILL making 40km per day *pedalling with one
leg*. He'd started in Sydney some months before, travelling
counter-clockwise.

That's a hard man, in my book.


BTH