Dave's ride.

I had the pleasure this morning to meet Dave Dowdle as he passed through Ballarat.

Dave is one day away from finishing his own epic bike ride across the southern part of Australia.
He has been riding solo from Perth on Australia's West coast to Melbourne after setting out on the 25th of September 2011, A total of around 4160km with an average of 150km per day.

Along the way Dave has been raising money for Mental Health Research, in particular the Mental health Research Institute (MHRI)

Dave and myself (Jason) in Ballarat.

If you are interested in reading more about Dave's ride and his experiences on the road you can visit his blog page at the link bellow.
http://davesride.bigblog.com.au/index.do

Although his ride is nearing it's end, If you would like to support Dave by making a donation you can do so at this link: http://www.onlinegiving.com.au/pages/DavesRide.aspx

Custom bike fit, Part 2: Garry's bike fit or was it more spin class

When it comes to fitting yourself to stuff most of the time you just walk into the shop, make a selection, try it on, if its close enough then purchase and take it home. The same can be said for fitting yourself to a bike. Go into shop, find the one that takes your fancy, get it in your size, make some small changes to seat and handle bar position, purchase and ride out of the shop. Easy. So when Jason said it was my turn to get sized for our custom Baum tourer frames I was sure it would be the same as the above. Little did I know...

First step was to jump into my nic's (bike shorts) and shoes while Nick (My Baum fitter on the day) installed the handle bars, seat and pedals we were going to use. From what I was told all these things need to be taken into account as it can make a huge difference to the sizing and then the comfort of the bike. Comfort is a big thing for me considering the number of Km's Jason wants me to do on a daily basis.

Second step was to remove the shoes I just put on and have Nick play around with the position of the cleats. Seriously, what kind of a difference could that make..... Oh My God! What a difference that made! My calves didn't feel as much pressure as they normally would.

Then it was onto the other factors of the bike itself. Top tube length, Seat height, handle bar height, reach etc. Each change, which required me to pedal for about 5 minutes while Nick and Darren cast an expert eye over me, made the bike feel better and better.

Things were looking easy until Nick decided it was a spin class and not a bike fit. See the rider doesn't control the gearing of the bike during the fit. This is up to the fitter. At this time Nick decided to crack up the gearing and make me work for it. Not for a short burst to see how it all looks but for what seemed like hours. The legs were burning by the end. Apparently it was to make sure that the fit still worked when pushing. I think it was to make me suffer and prepare for the pain to come.

The experts decided that everything was in order and it was now time to take the measurements and put them all into the bikeCAD system to make a bike come to life which is what you see below.

We've had so many people recommend the Brooks B17 for touring that we had to give it a go.

What did I expect from the experience? Not sure really, but what I can say is that a properly fitted bike is key to enjoyable riding. I wonder if Baum would do a custom BMX? Hmmmmm.....

Jason's frame is now nearing the production stage with all the Ti parts and tubes nearly ready to be made into another beautiful handcrafted Baum frame.

Leg 3: Europe & the United Kingdom

5342km

3 Sections

10 Countries
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The Colosseum, Gondolas, The Alps, Cuckoo clocks, Frites, Mont Saint-Michel, Guinness, Zoute drops & Tulips, just a few of the sights and tastes of what is to come as we continue to promote our charities on the final leg of the tour after leaving the USA and heading across the Atlantic to Europe.

As with our other legs of the tour the planning stage has caused many late nights as I (Jason) chopped and changed potential routes. Our original plans had us looping back and forth across Northern Europe similar to an ampersand (the “&” symbol above the 7 on your keyboard). This really didn’t seem right so it was back to the drawing board to make a more direct route or at least take out some of the kinks. In the end we settled on three individual sections covering Continental Europe, Ireland & the United Kingdom and finally the Netherlands. We hope our changes will allow us to reach a greater variety of people and allow us to promote our causes better.

Our first taste of Europe is in “The Eternal City” (Rome) then its heading north through the Italian countryside, passing through Modena, the land of the “Prancing Horse,” Yeah we’re cyclists, but everyone has their own forms of porn and one car brand in particular is ours. From there we head to Venice before moving on from Italy as we head north through Europe to Germany. After what will no doubt be a hard but rewarding slog through the Austrian Alps we intend to have a stop over for a few days to rest the legs in Stuttgart.

From Stuttgart we head to Luxemburg. But first a little stopover in Nürburg before leaving Germany. I blame Garry for this inclusion, not that I'm complaining. Garry couldn’t bring himself to go past the place without stopping in for a look at the scenery…. around the Nürburgring …. While doing a hot lap in some kind of high performance hire car. Things could get quite interesting.

From Luxemburg we head through Belgium to the Flanders region and into northern France before heading across to Paris via Roubaix and the Arenburg forest made famous for its cobbled road used in the Paris-Roubaix cycle race.
From Paris we then head to Normandy and follow the French coastline to Brittany, before leaving Roscoff on the ferry to Ireland.

After our overnight ferry ride (hope someone brings the TravelCalm – don’t enjoy being sea sick) we disembark at Cork in Ireland, the start of section two. From Cork we will head north to Limerick where I intend to drop into one of the local pubs I share a name with “Nestor’s Pub & Restaurant”.

From Cork we will then head east to the other side of Ireland to spend a few days in Dublin before boarding another ferry to Holyhead and the UK.

For the next week we will ride our way east through Wales and England to Sheffield before heading south through Nottingham to London for a few days, it is here that we hope to host the third and final official fundraiser of the tour before heading off again this time towards the east coast where our next ferry awaits us.

The final section of our tour is a loop around the Netherlands. After arriving in Rotterdam from the UK we will head south of the Markermeer then head across the Houtribdijk to North Holland before doing a clockwise loop of the country to finally end in Eindhoven, and then take the opportunity to rest, recover and celebrate finishing our journey with relatives.

Many people have asked our reason for finishing our tour in the Netherlands thinking it an odd choice and why Eindhoven in particular as the final destination. Well I have a very personal reason for this choice that also ties our whole trip together. My Oma and Opa (Grandparents) both came to Australia from Eindhoven with my mother in the 1950’s, eventually settling in Ballarat (our start point & where I grew up). Throughout my childhood I had heard many stories about the Netherlands but never had the chance to visit, in more recent years I have felt that a greater connection to my Oma & Opa’s home country and my original plans to tour the Netherlands eventually grew into the Long Road Tour.

My personal reasons for choosing this particular tour route for our charity tour comes from having had both my Oma and Opa fight and eventually succumbed to different forms of Cancer (Bowel Cancer and Leukaemia) and choosing these specific start and end destinations is my way of dedicating this trip and what Garry and I hope to achieve for our Cancer charities to their memory.