Monday, 25 March 2019

A Long Bike Ride

I regularly ride my bike around town for recreation, fitness improvement, and simply out of interest to know about where I live and how it works. My trips often are around 10 to 15  km in length and last up to about 50 minutes time-wise. However, they rarely venture far into the countryside as I'm worried about travelling into places where traffic is thin and, if anything happened to me - like another cardiac arrest, I'd not be rescued in time to survive!

Sometimes major accidents can also happen unexpectedly, like last Thursday. I was riding my bike along our city's E-W bike path, which links town to the university, at about 5.30 pm. I came across a young couple walking their dogs, as many locals do along the creeklands at that time of day. And like many wog dalkers, their animals were off leash. Anything wrong? Well, yes. Armidale Regional Council has a rule that dogs should be on-leash the whole time and about 50% of dog-owners observe that rule. Council also has fenced-off reserves where residents can meet up and let lose their dogs  to play together.

Well on this occasion the two dogs were off-leash, but just on nearby grass as I approached. Alas, as I reached them one wretched dog suddenly leaped off the grass right in front  me giving me no time to stop. I collided with the animal and crashed to the ground. Dazed, I slowly found I had a heap of minor cuts and scratches on arms, legs, shoulder and even above one eye, together with bruises on both hands. Some of the tares to my skin were oozing blood and others were 'weeping'. Fortunately, as I was wondering what to do, a police car came tearing up the path (which is not built for cars). It was on a patrol because of some other issue, but one officer called for an ambulance and phoned Dot for her to come and collect the bike in our RAV4, which they helped her to load into the car. I was whisked to the nearby hospital and told by the helpful ambulance staff I'd be seen immediately and would be home shortly. 'Shortly' turned out to be 4 hours later because of a huge range of emergency cases that evening, but I was patched up quickly, given a tetanus injection, and put on a course of antibiotics. Nothing was broken and I had no concussion. Today, 4 days later, I had the band-aids removed, and my local GP, Dr Marcia Whelan, pronounced me to be in good shape. Lucky, eh? She, by the way, is an American from Los Angeles. I asked her if she approved of Donald Drumpf and she groaned. I mention Drumpf because that was apparently the name of his forebears when they arrived in the USA. Pity it wasn't Dump. If they'd kept that, it would have been entirely appropriate.

Well, as a member of Armidale Rotary North, I attended the usual dinner at the Bowling Club a week ago and our guest speaker, Jeremy Scott, was hot on cycling. As baby, he was dangerously ill with a hole in his heart and he underwent revolutionary surgery at the age of 4, which he survived. Later in life, at age 28, he moved to London and stayed / worked there for 10 years. And then, (a) he wanted to something more exceptional and (b) he wanted to repay the medicos who had saved him. Instead of flying home to Auckland - yes, he's a New Zealander - he decided to something grander. He decided to ride a bike home though Europe, Asia and Australia, a distance of 52,000 km!

He spent an amazing 30 months, day 1 being the first time he had ever sat on a fully laden touring bike. Early on, Jeremy confessed to be terrified at the prospect of his journey but decided to break it down into one day at a time, then one country at a time until his confidence grew, knowing that the challenges could be faced and overcome. What followed were some of the most amazing experiences – both terrifying and exhilarating – too numerous to recount here. Just some of the extremes were temperatures from 40 degrees below to over 50 degrees; iced in and facing 300 metre sandstorms; dealing with heavily armed drug dealers and encountering amazing hospitality on the road. Crossing national borders was a unique experience on each different occasion.

On his final ride from Darwin to Melbourne, Jeremy was accompanied through to Cairns by his 70 year-old uncle and 63 year-old aunt. He said this experience again showed him that each day is just about starting out, taking the first step. As he said several times “you just need the courage to walk
out your front door”. He actually traveled through Northern Iran ... through territory I know quite well! He was following part of the old Silk Road which connects Istanbul with China. Here he is making his presentation. Alas, I'm probably too old to spend 30 months on a bike ride!!




I wonder how I would go dodging wandering camels, preying big cats, elephants, and so on. They might do more damage than a dog!

AS

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