Australia, the land of sloth and turpitude

. . . always liked the word ‘turpitude’ – it has a ring of illicit and dangerous methyl alcohol consumption and lying under a bridge out of it.

“depravity, infamy,” 1490, from M.Fr. turpitude (1417), from L.turpitudinem (nom. turpitudo) “baseness,” from turpis ”vile, ugly, base, shameful,” used in both the moral and the physical senses; of unknown origin. Perhaps originally “what one turns away from” (cf. L. trepit ”he turns”).

Ok, so maybe a bit harsh. Anyway, we won’t be open today – we as a nation will be celebrating the great colonial nicking of the land from its original inhabitants by a bunch of scurvy-ridden gaolbirds. Hooray. What a basis for national pride.

Come down to Anthony’s bike polo tournament at the Footscray Fish Market at midday. It should make for an interesting diversion from the land of bikefix.

Of taking sweeties off babies, the mindset

Hello Mr. Criminal (because that’s what you are – definitely a he, and definitely a low-life),

Nice of you to have such concern for our comfort on those hot days that you decided to do some freelance weekend renovation work on the BAC shed and put a great big ventilation hole in our back door, nice of you to sort through our tools and make an assumption about the ones we didn’t need anymore, in particular the DAG-1 and my workshop apron with tools I’ve owned for 20 years and got quite attached to. I was meaning to lose those in as casual a manner as possible, so thanks for pushing that forward. Nice of you also to take my friend’s wheelset for a test ride, the ones which he spent weeks sourcing the parts for and getting them built to a painstaking degree of accuracy, then entrusted them to me to look after. Thanks, I feel really good that someone would take that much interest – tell me what you think of them when we bump into each other (oops, so sorry, I seem to have dislodged some of your teeth) next. I hope you don’t crash them, but they’re not fixed gear compatible, so maybe you’ll end up dumping them. Rest assured that when the police catch up with you, I’ll be grinning from ear to ear, even tho’ schadenfreude isn’t really my thing. Hey, you like a practical joke, and so do we. I reckon 5 years in Port Phillip is a fine jokey way to spend your free time. Because that’s where you belong. Do you rob grannies too? It’s the organisational equivalent of knocking over a not-for-profit social service operation. Anyway, we’ve got motion sensors and CCTV now, and the doors are all reinforced with welded-on concrete reo, so you next practical joke might not go as well as the last two.

It’s a shame your childhood was shithouse, but some of us managed to cope with that and didn’t turn into card-carrying members of  the Scumbag Internationale. I suppose that’s what’s made you weak and vicious. Better that you picked on us and not somebody with a baseball bat or gun, I suppose, or you might be dead by now.

And just remember, like the Velocity sticker says, which you would undoubtedly seen stuck to the inside of the door as you made your little  exit through your tastefully manufactured ventilation aperture: “The best things in life aren’t things”.

SO how much do you love us? Really?

It’s getting to the stage of our organizational life where we are being asked to justify our existence, and our taking sustenance from the collective purse. We are asking volunteers, both present and past, and past purchasers or service customers (users of our service) to fill out a form to report on their experience with BAC Bikes when we see them next. We will collect them at Dorcas St. and submit the results in an anonymous format to the Board of South/Port UnitingCare at the end of January at their annual meeting (no personal details will be shared). We would like to present a picture of an agency that is helping the local community in a unique way, and one which does something that no other bike business does, which we do.

So, if you like what we do, or if you have been happy with what we have done for you in the past, would you send a short email to <Anne.Garrow@southportuniting.org.au> and cc it to <Ross.Carter@southportuniting.org.au> telling them of your experiences with us? It will help us to convince some wavering members of the board that we are a valuable community asset worth funding. I and all volunteers would greatly appreciate it, and thus be able to continue supplying affordable, reliable bikes to all of you who need and want them.

Thanks, Mark

More stinky hot weather; policy implentation

So, thanks to centuries of an overindulgent fossil fuel orgy, we’re finally seeing the fruits of our stupidity. I think that it’s ironic: firstly; that I’m writing this on a little device with a high embedded energy cost; and secondly; that the BAC Bikes workshop is unable to be used on days of over 37-38 degrees to do anything at all productive except sit in the shade of the peppercorn tree and drink cordial, waiting for a southerly breeze. 40 degrees is the cutoff point for us: until we get insulation for our tin shed, that is all the average person can stand, when it regularly climbs to another 10 degrees hotter inside. If we’d stuck to trains and bicycles, and gone all out to develop passive solar and renewables 30 years ago, this wouldn’t be necessary. Sorry about that.

Pre-Chrissie wrap-up – wot’s goin’ on . . .

We at the BAC base of operations are all day-to-day bike riders, commuters in fluoro-yellow attire (sometimes even rain pants, but only when visiting the Pacific NorthWest) some days, tootlers down the beach others, muddy MTBrs and bepanniered touring cyclists as well. However, of late at BAC HQ there has been a bit of subcultural spread. (However, we still don’t and never will build fixies, even to order over Mark’s mouldy and deceased remains, so please don’t ask, as contemptuous expectorated phlegm in one’s eye often offends. Just kidding, really, but only about the spittle). BAC, it seems,  is on the cusp of turning into a pernicious nest of bike fetishists – 3 or 4 of us are wearing lycra on a regular basis and attempting not to get car-doored on our road bikes as we revolve ever more rapidly (! some days – some days we’re just men with physical inadequacy problems playing dress-ups) round Port Phillip Bay in both directions. We also pay exorbitant amounts of money to the Footscray (and other) Cycling Club(s) who allow us to go round and round in circles for an hour, who then give it to Johnno so he can buy us all coffee. Mine’s a latte, Johnno – see you at the cafe.

We are currently blessed with regular visits from an American compadre from ElvisLand – Anthony Siracusa, late of Revolutions Community Bicycles in Memphis, Tennessee (uncannily similar to BAC Bikes in what it does) on a worldwide bike-culture junket (a form of dessert indigenous to Eastern Transylvania) Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. He plays bike polo, which is yet another subset of fetishism. I think that their mallet construction workshops are merely a thinly disguised form of frottage – admittedly I am on the outside looking in, and who am I to talk, practicing voluntary legular depilatory activities on thin pretexts? It’s good to have him along to help and exchange bike culture, in a completely sanitary and low-risk fashion.

Bike paradise, but it’s not in Copenhagen . . .

You might have heard of a little group ride, happens every so often out in the wilds of country Victoria: the Great Victorian Bike Ride. Well, I put my hand up (yet again – I’ve lost count how many times I’ve done it, a-fixin’ and a-mendin’) and signed up to Bicycle Superstore’s take on the retail and maintenance operation. All in all, first(ish) time up, they did a creditable job of “a week in another world”. Maybe after the shock’s worn off they’ll be back to do it again next year. After 16-hour days a-fixin’ and a-mendin’, and a-packin’ and unpackin’ (repeat 9 times) I was a wee bit fatigued, as were we all. So much so that I didn’t ride my bike for a week. Shame.

Well, it’s a sort of a smile – maybe more of a smirk.

As you can see, we had our fair share of inclement weather, not only wind (although this was a recurring feature – one morning we fled from it to the safety of the local footy clubrooms – a big ta to the Apollo Bay Footy Club for their magnificently sweaty country hospitality) but also a month’s worth of rain in two days in Portland. Soggy at the time – 6″ of water on a workshop floor usually means a burst water main somewhere, but romantic and heroic in retrospect. When I opened my toolbox a couple of days after getting home, some of my tools were still rusted in the last position I used them, like victims of Mt Vesuvius from Pompeii – WD 40 is a charm against rust, but probably doesn’t work against hot ash and lava. Thanks a heap to Nigel, Kris C., JP (“you ain’t no dirty ol’ man”) and the rest of the Sunshine Gang (KC and the ~, get it? Huh? Huh? AW, C’MON!) for the opportunity to paddle in the sea. Once. I did get to ride up Lavers Hill and along the Great Ocean Road tho’, so that was all good. (Best memory – starting my ride at 10am after helping with the camp packup at Port Campbell, rolling into town for a leisurely coffee and a read of the paper, then rolling out towards Apollo Bay and the hills, and having the road all to myself for the first hour, and then mostly to myself for the next one after that). Hurt a bit at the time (esp. later in the day when Cam Letty was doing his Andy Schleck impressions – you little upstart! ) but it’s stopped now.

Christmas logistics at BAC (ho ho ho) : we’re closing on 22nd of December (with a lunchtime barbeque – come along if you’re interested and hungry {vegetarians included}) and will re-open on the 4th of January (in a limited capacity for the first week or so, due to the volunteer diaspora that occurs round about then). More bikes please! We’re running low on wheels (700c and 27″ in particular) so good round examples of these, and bikes with them in, would be gratefully received. Volunteers also – this coming year will be The Year of the Bike, no matter what those supposedly ‘best and brightest minds of a generation’-elected-official-doofus-nincompoop-corrupt-nuffies are doing in Copenhagen. So come on! We can fix anything with two wheels! and frequently do – you can learn to as well. Huffys (Huffies?) included, but only when we’re in an exceptionally good mood.

Cheers, and have a good celebratory interlude connected to a religious faith of your choice – from all at BAC Bikes: Mark, Mike, Johnno, Dylan, Drew, Vadim, Anthony, Spike, Jeremy, Lex and everyone else.

It’s not about the bike, it’s about the big four-legged things and the little guys with squeaky voices

The race that stops a nation has stopped us, and tomorrow I need the time off more than I need the money, so BAC Bikes will succumb to the pressure of the venality of the track and not be open. Be closed, in fact. We’ll be back on Friday arvo for bikes – that urban-friendly form of transport that doesn’t leave smelly piles of poop scattered around the street (when it’s dry it goes really well on the garden – can you see that happening in our city streets? Maybe when the oil runs out and just before we choke on 400ppm of CO2).

I’m just wondering – now that horses are consigned to the fringes of transport (sadly, maybe), why the heck is there so much attention focussed on the racing thing? There’s not much to be gained by breeding them to go faster anymore, apart from making a few corrupt men even more wealthy. What about bike racing – something that would actually help make our cycling population safer by teaching them advanced riding skills and helping to stop them from wobbling hazardously through motor traffic on poorly controlled and maintained bikes? Keirin racing in Japan is much better regulated than horse racing here.

So, cycling season commences . . .

. . . for those of us who haven’t been riding through winter (for whatever reason – just to get around, to keep on with the racing thing, et c.). There’s been Ride to Work day, Round the Bay in a Day (both BV efforts) some interesting races (Herald Sun Tour and its finale in Lygon St.) and very soon the Melbourne to Warrnambool. So no excuse – all the examples in the world to draw from, and the weather is getting better. The last two weekends have been great (ok, yesterday was a bit damp in the morning), the magpies have bred and are no longer defending their territories (which is nice, for them) and the mornings and evenings are both light enough not to feel like you are doing something slightly nefarious by going for a ride before or after your daily tasks.

There’s a bit of a shake-out going on down at BAC Bikes (even Mel Cranenbergh from The Big Issue has noticed it in her latest ‘Ointment’ piece) and we are seeing more and more bike servicing going on in the shed,  from returning customers, on either bikes we have sold them, or their own – recommended by family and friends. We get this because we are competent and accountable in what we do, and we do not hide behind the workshop door when bikes are booked in or given back (we don’t really have one – except to keep the wind and leaves out). I think there is a move towards this amongst a newer type of bike shop – Humanpowered and Commuter Cycles do the same thing. The mechanic has to be able (and most of us are) to communicate in language that is understandable to you the customer – and not just land a large, incomprehensible and poorly explained repair bill in your lap with little consultation. When you bring the bike in, we will attempt to examine, discuss and explain clearly to you the faults your bike has, and organise them in order of seriousness and necessity of fixing with you while you’re there. Our rule of thumb is that anything over $20 more than we have estimated and agreed with you on when booking it in we will call you and confirm that this is ok before proceeding. This saves hassle and embarrassment on all parts when you pick up your bike. We also offer an informal guarantee for BAC Bikes and bikes we service – if what we have done doesn’t work, we will fix it for you, or if it’s a BAC Bike, give you a new one if it’s unfixable. We can lend you a bike if we have to keep yours for longer than a day or two.

So, if your bike needs a tweak or an overhaul, we can do it for you. Our labour rates are $45 an hour, which is a little less than many shops – but we have factors in our favour that allow us to charge this. We charge on a time basis, and don’t take the rated $25 that the repair schedule states for a gear adjustment that actually takes 2 minutes. Hmm, that’d be . . . let’s see . . .  a discretionary donation to the biscuit fund. Less than 5 minutes we don’t usually charge for, especially if you are on a benefit or pension.

Pop in on Monday, Tuesday or Friday arvo and ask for an estimate on a nagging clunk or a rattle – it may be a 5 minute job that’ll save you $$$ in a month or so.

Beach Rd.: 4 lane gym or nursery of champions?

So, this Cadel Evans guy. Is he finally glad that he’s won something? Will he stop complaining about the bad luck and ‘not quite thereness’  that seems to have dogged him throughout his professional road racing career? He’s come close quite a few times, and now he can put the silverware in the case. Good on him. The monkey on his back is less of a gorilla, and more macaque-sized now. He won’t have finished his career with no big win to show for it, and may even convince himself  that there’s enough spunk in the tank for a Grand Tour GC win. Or maybe a climber’s jersey. We shall see.

Ah, Magda. No sooner than you have finished being victimised by Mr. Sandilands (is he back in his coffin with a stake through his heart yet?), you are out there advocating the car-dooring of cyclists because they get in the way of your drive to the gym. There’s something wrong with that. I’m glad that you have gone all contrite and decided that you should ride to work on Ride to Work Day to dispel the myth that you are actually an evil, murderous harpy who hates people who do something useful to lose weight and make the world a safer place to get around in. Both Robbie McEwen and Michael Rogers had a go via Twitter – all three champion roadies, including Mr. Evans, have used Beach Rd. as a training route at some stage in their careers. So

The little old ladies with their poodles in the gardens are pollie’s aunts

This is the only reason I can think of for the nonsensical ban on cycling in the gardens, and its current reinforcement by heavy-handed policing – Carlton, Treasury, Flagstaff and Fitzroy. Easily spooked and prone to fits of the vapours, I suspect that they may have only recently stopped referring to these naughty two-wheelers as ’scorchers’ – slang popular in the 1890s to describe and deride cyclists who spooked horses.

Consider:

Each of these gardens have diagonal paths from corner to corner, out of the traffic, and a calm spot in one’s daily commute. Why wouldn’t they be good places to ride through? The paths are at least 3 metres wide in most places – ample passing room for more than one or two bikes and pedestrians at a time. And talking of horses, that is what these paths were designed around, in imitation of Hyde Park in London and Central Park in New York – passing widths for two riders on fat mares,  whilst tipping one’s hat each to the other. Ahh, the good old days, when the hoi polloi knew their place, slaving away in t’mill, and gardens were for the aesthetic appreciation of the moneyed bourgeoisie with money for hacking about on ponies and time on their hands. Nasty upstart cyclists, it’s not the done thing y’know, to frighten the horses. Or the poodles. Good on ya, Popeye Doyle. The last bastion of the good old days (Is it only me finds amusing that the name of the spokesman for the Pedestrian Council of Australia is Harold Scruby? Sounds like a Spike Milligan invention). Who let him back in? Don’t they have an anti-throwback ruling at the AEC? But, the people may yet speak . . .

I wonder how we’d fare in SouthEnd . . .

Interesting take on the problem of waste by local UK authorities . . .

We’d fare badly.

We get our scrap steel and aluminium alloy recycled;

We compost our lunch waste

We recycle our paper, plastic and cardboard

Of course, we get dead bikes from the landfill queue and put them out on the streets again, under people.

And we teach people how to do all this greenie, pinko subversive claptrap themselves.

Ooops.