January, 2011:

No … we’re not full

I felt quite angry while I was out on the road this morning. I pulled up at a set of lights behind a car with a couple of blatantly racist stickers on the back window. It wasn’t really the best way to start my ride to work.

They were the worst kind of anti-immigration stickers, fuelled by ignorance rather than a considered opinion on a workable immigration policy. They made out that it was un-Australian to let people from other nations live in ‘our’ country. (Which is always an odd idea considering that ‘white Australians’ didn’t arrive here until the late 1700s.)

Just as my anger at such an attitude started to build up I found myself starting to smile. The stickers that displayed such a nasty attitude to anything foreign were proudly displayed on the back window of a Korean built car.

I wonder if the owner of the car would understand the meaning of the word irony.

I’m an Australian and I’d rather immigrants living here than racists.

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Snake Produces Human Adrenaline

Jan 5th, 2011

by Rodney Olsen.

2 comments

After yesterday’s exploding rim episode, I thought that today’s bike ride would be a lot less eventful …. and it was …. until about 7 or 8 kilometres from home.

I don’t know too much about how the human body works but in my case I know that my eyes see stuff, tell my brain about it, and then my brain sorts out what to do with the information before telling any other body parts whether they need to get involved.

Today was different. Today as I was cycling home along a bike path my eyes saw a snake laying across the other side of the pathway. Instead of telling my brain what they’d just seen, my eyes communicated directly with my legs. My legs suddenly went into hyper-speed while my mind was left asking, “What’s going on? Why the rush?” It was at that point that my eyes informed my brain of what was laying on the ground. My brain responded by saying, “Fine. Good idea to tell the legs about this one. And now I’ll help out by contributing a little extra adrenaline.”

I’m not the world’s greatest sprinter but at that very moment, I could have challenged any of cycling’s elite and given them a run for their money.

I should point out that I’m not terrified of all snakes. I have held snakes and enjoyed the experience. The difference is that I knew that those snakes weren’t capable of causing me a nasty injury or death. As for the snake on the path, I have no idea what his story might be. He may well have been harmless but I wasn’t hanging around to ask him.

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BOOM!!

Jan 5th, 2011

by Rodney Olsen.

2 comments

Click the photo for a closer look

It started like most other days. I was up early yesterday and on my bike enjoying my daily cycle to work.

Things changed dramatically when I was about 20 kilometres into my ride. I was cycling at around 35 kilometres an hour alongside the river on the freeway dual use path when I heard a massive BANG!! My bike went wildly out of control but I managed to bring it to a halt without coming off.

I was expecting to have to change my inner tube. That would have added some extra time to the ride but that wouldn’t have been an issues. What I found was something quite different. As you can see from the photo the rim had blown itself apart. Part of the rim’s sidewall had headed sideways, totally destroying the wheel. There was no way that this would be a quick, roadside repair. I was about to mix cycling with walking to get to work.

Off came my shoes, gloves, and helmet. I stuffed them all into my backpack and started the walk to work. I needed to remove my shoes as they’re cycling shoes with cleats. Not great for walking.

So, 45 minutes later I arrived at work with slightly blistered feet and a bike that needed some urgent attention. Thankfully Pauline came to the rescue by bringing a spare wheel to work from an old bike of mine. The replacement wheel is doing the job for the moment and I’ve now ordered a replacement wheelset.

The wheel had done around 23 000 or 24 000 kilometres so it probably should have been replaced already. Over time and kilometres the brakes wear down the side of the rim little by little. I guess the side of the rim had just got a little too thin and holding back the pressure of a tyre pumped up to 120 psi was eventually too much.

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A Golden Voice

Jan 5th, 2011

by Rodney Olsen.

1 comment

I’ve been working in radio for almost 23 years. I have an OK voice. It does what I need it to most of the time, yet I’d swap it with this homeless guy’s voice in a heartbeat.

I’m sure that as this video continues to gather thousands of viewers around the world, Ted Williams will very soon find that he has more work than he can handle.