jules.com.au

John (UK dude I bought some luggage off via eBay) sent this one through
to me, it’s the Silvrettan Pass between Bludenz and Landeck, Austria.
Note the little wisps of tarmac you can spot all the way down. Imagine
that on a sunny day by bike. I wonder if it’s as challenging as it
looks. So many things to wonder about…

I’ve never been able to capture this kind of scenery with a camera – I
suppose the vistas we see in Australian alps isn’t so concentrated which
makes it very difficult to fit into a 4:3 frame. Either that or I’m a
crap photographer.

Imagine what it will look like when I get there.

An impending winter in Melbourne looks docile enough. I wonder what’s happening in Bangkok…

They give me free beer, I post photos of their product. I think that’s fair.

Seriously, though, it was a wicked little setup they had at The Public House. Surplus quantities of beer, duck soup, unidentifiable little meatball things and even appropriately attired Asian girls. All very lovely and conducive to getting a little drunk.

Jess and I posed for photos a couple of times, each apparently to go into a local rag. How cute.

The question for tonight is of course: Will I be able to sleep? Last time I did this I couldn’t, though that might well have been due to the excitable girls who were staying down at the house on Phillip Island with me. I guess they’ll be there tomorrow, too.

I felt that I hadn’t really done the job properly in crashing the Aprilia on Tuesday, so I rounded off an unco-ordinated week by crashing my bicycle last night.

As per the protocol, it happened a couple of streets away from home, replete with witnesses to my expletives whilst still sliding along the road. Textbook lowside this one, so nice to see I’ve rehearsed front and rear-end losses this week.

Aiming to avoid a 3rd incident at the racetrack on Wednesday…

“Yeah just be careful scrubbing that tyre in as you go” says the tyre-fitting guy.

Yeah I’m careful. Always.

Brain completely in neutral I turn right into Langridge St, see the green light to get over Hoddle and think “yep”. Twist the throttle and ***scrape***. The bike is on it’s right hand side 180 degrees around from where I actually wanted to go.

Fuck.

Dead in the middle of the road, so not too much of a traffic hazard, though probably rather amusing. Some nice chaps came over to help me pick her up .. which I’d failed to do on the first attempt. Heavy, tall bastard that bike.

I roll it over to the side of the road to let the overflowed fuel dry and examine my nicely bloodied knee. My jeans weren’t torn at all.. must be tough buggers.

Somehow, there is not a scratch on any of the fairings. Guess I broke the fall rather cleverly with my knee. Scraped peg, bar end, probably pannier rack, and some bent handlebars. A mallet should probably sort that out, being steel and all. All in all the Peg crashes quite well!

Never had any trouble with new tyres in the past – and it wasn’t even wet today. Oh well. Hope my knee is fixed in time for Phillip Island in a bit over a week!