Another perfect Friday morning here in the place they once dubbed the 'State of Excitement' around thirty years ago - Western Australia. It's 23*C again at 10:00am (GMT+8). Autumn has begun and Autumn is arguably the most heavenly season of all in Perth. There was some light rain overnight and early this morning, and the roads were still damp enough to corner with caution. The slightest zephyr of wind from the north-east - 11km/h according to Google. Perfect!
This morning's was The Long Ride (<10km) into town and back. I can feel the penance in my lungs for not having ridden anywhere further than the shop across the road since last Friday. The Big Hill was more painful on the lungs and calf muscles getting up it this morning than the comfortable rides I've enjoyed in the past month, and that was because I was riding two or three times a week, to The Beach for medicinal purposes, over the summer. That has been put on hold now, and the decline in aerobic fitness was noticable this morning.
It seems from this that exercise once a week is not enough to maintain aerobic fitness for your correspondent. He needs to ride The Big Hill at least twice a week to gain more strength and fitness.
The traffic was all quite friendly and uneventful heading into town this morning. One thing that occurred to me on the way up behind a bus stopped at a red light was that if I filter past the bus to get to the front of the queue at the lights, then that bus is only going to have to go past me again somewhere down the road, providing nobody wants to board or get off at the next stop or two, (and this morning no one did). Hence it seems more sensible for all concerned to hang back behind the bus in some circumstances at some red lights, so that the bus driver is not frustrated by having to pass the same cyclist repeatedly. It is not always advisable because buses will tend to stop unexpectedly at random bus stops, so sometimes it is necessary to pass the bus and just pedal as hard as possible to keep ahead of it when it resumes its route. There was good harmony between bus drivers and cyclists this morning and I hope to maintain that harmony. Think nice thoughts to bus drivers and hope that they think nice thoughts to cyclists back.
The top-front bracket on my carry box / rack snapped off the frame this morning, as I discovered on returning to the bike outside the supermarket. By the angle it was bent at, it makes me wonder if there was some malicious tampering whilst I was inside, but that is probably being a bit paranoid. It was more likely just that my own design was not robust enough to a carry 20kg load on a rack designed for a 5kg school bag with M5 screws and nuts.
I rode gently on the way home, slowing for bumps to reduce stress on the remaining bits of rack that were not snapped, because a broken rear rack flying apart down a hill could likely do some nasty tricks to costly stainless-steel spokes, not to mention the rider. The last stage, down The Big Hill, I opted for caution and rolled down the footpath until I got to my street and we made it home in one piece, so I am alive and well enough to spend the coming weekend thinking of a good way to fix the top-front bracket on the rear rack.
On the main road through town and back, there are 'interesting' speed humps. They are interesting to me because they are narrow enough so that a large sedan or truck has a wide enough track to pass over these speed humps with wheels either side, and not feel the jolt at all, but little cars don't have the width, so they have to ride at least one wheel over the humps. This is quite a fun game to play, because the little cars seem to have some vital need to race past me, only to then brake for the speed hump, so I then go past them again. They rarely try to pass me a second time, it seems.
On the road with those speed humps, there are large bicycle diagrams painted every few hundred metres, and I do not think that these are painted there to signify TO CYCLISTS that bicycles are permitted to ride on the road. No indeed, methinks that these bicycle signs are there to signify TO CAR DRIVERS to be respectful of cyclists and slow down to 30km between the speed humps, and not run over cyclists just trying to do the same thing as them without blowing toxic smog up into the sky; get from point A to point B. It was another little black one that stood out as the greatest offender this morning, passing me with 6" to spare, and then stamping on the brakes at the speed-hump, so I just cruised straight on by at a steady 30km/h as if they were just a bad dream. I am not having much luck with little black cars this year, it seems. The last three bad cars were all little black ones. Still, no arms nor legs broken in over six months. I guess I should be thankful.
Have a Great Weekend!
I took it pretty easy this morning but still got to work within normal range of time. 
My right quad and left ham both say "lol, nope" on staircases ... and the lift in my building is out, hoo-rah ...
