Betten On Bike: DAY 108 - 26TH JULY 2013

Day 108 – 26th July 2013 – Nimmitabel to Canberra

Cycling Stats: 70 kms

Cycling Average: unknown as computer failure

Walter left at 8.15am. It was bitterly cold – Canberra had minus 4 that morning and Nimmitabel is a lot higher and we estimate maybe it was as cold as minus 7 or 8 as the ground was thickly covered with frost and all the dams and ponds are frozen over. It was a bare brown landscape – undulating and largely treeless. A sign indicated that we were 1,110 metres above sea level and travelling across the Great Dividing Range. 37 kms from Nimmitabel to Cooma where we would meet for a coffee break – I hadn’t prepared our usual thermos as we thought it would be too cold to stop by the roadside.

At Cooma I parked the van on the road heading to Canberra and went for a walk into town – to the Information Centre to get a few detailed maps for Canberra. Walter arrived and we headed back to where the van was parked – opposite Maccas so in there for coffee & muffins.

Walter was concerned about the continual noise coming from his bike so asked me to stay close. So I stopped once after around 18 km and although he was concerned he wanted to continue. Then another 15 kms or so I stopped again to wait. I waited, it seemed to me, for quite a while. I was parked and there was a herd of cows and they continued to stare at me and were also very interested in the passing traffic – riveted on it actually. One cow was in a field all by itself and headed up to the fence quite close to where I was parked, full of curiousity and there was lots of calling and mooing to each other and maybe to me. Walter arrived and gave me a thumbs down – he couldn’t continue as the problem with his bike was getting worse.

I rang Samuel, our son to find out where we could find a Specialized bike shop in Canberra. Walter was forced to jump in the campervan which he wasn’t happy about for the 80 kms to Canberra and we went straight to the bike shop in Lonsdale Street Bradden (an inner city suburb).

Looking at the options – to wait until Wednesday and new cranks had to be ordered and shipped from Melbourne or go with what was in stock in the shop. The work could be done that very afternoon so Walter, being a man of action, wanted to have the repairs done as soon as possible so decided to go with Scram crank set and the bottom bracket had to be replaced too.

We headed to my niece’s house where we had arranged to stay for the weekend. Dianna had been on the road with us from Katherine to Broome and we were very much looking forward to catching up with her again as last time we had seen her was in Broome. The bike shop rang and the chain & cluster needed to be replaced as well. Walter had thought that this might be the case as he had done over 11,000 kms and parts just start to wear out with this amount of kms and constant cycling and especially the last weeks where such huge amounts of climbing had possibly put more stress on the bike’s components. So now everything being replaced means virtually a new bike !! Good as we still have around 1200 kms and it has to be right as not every town has a good bike shop. Thanks to The Cyclery bike shop for jumping in and getting the work done that very day.

Lovely to see Dianna and unfortunately she is suffering from a bad flu so I offered to cook and we agreed that she should not be worried about entertaining us or playing host. Walter was keen for spaghetti and so we did some shopping when we went out to collect the bike. Walter also got the Garmin (bike computer) re-set so now he can once again get all the stats for each day’s ride.

Lovely to be able to stay in a house again and spend some time with Di.