ODO 2031km :)
(From my mobile phone) ... posted immediately after taking the pic.
ANZAC day, 2010. My electric bike is for months old and I have taken the opportunity to take in ANZAC day events down at Currumbin and also finally prove that I can cruise from Labrador down to the NSW border and back. I set out somewhat rugged up at 6am, too late for the dawn services, but I shall do better next year. As I passed Surfers Paradise the attendees were heading away from the service there. At Palm Beach, I switched off the electric power and cruised slowly down the beachside tracks via peddle power only.
Apart from a minor detour to cruise down beside the Coolangatta airport sideroad to watch aircraft, I kept to the beachside, as per my usual preference.
By 8:30 I had cruised the Snapper Rocks headland, and then crossed the border to spend an hour cruising the sleepy backstreets and inlets.
By 10am it was time to start moving back north. I returned to Palm beach, mainly via peddle power at a leisurely 10 to 15km/hr, with an occasional help from e-power on uphill or stronger upwind sections.
On the way I stopped to watch the 11pm ANZAC march at Currumbin. It was a really great little march, just about 400m from Thrower Park to the RSL. A good contingent of marchers and equally good crowd of onlookers materialised 20 minutes before the start of the parade. The march proceeded. The onlookers clapped. It was very dignified, almost casual, yet formal and quite moving in its simplicity. You need to be there ...
One gentleman marched to represent World War One servicemen. I shall guess that he might be an officer of the RSL, as all WWI servicemen have now passed away. The ranks of the WWII servicemen are of course thinning out these days too. The final contingent were from the latest Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. This now represents almost 100 years of warfare involving Australian servicemen.
I have put
more pics up on Google Groups, covering almost the entire parade.
The idea was to keep e-power to a minimum for all riding south of Palm Beach, as I have e-cruised to there and back before, so I knew I had sufficient battery to journey there and back by e-power alone. This is about 44km by my fairly direct route. I ran the battery out recently in 52km hard powering, so I have a fair idea of how far I can go when I use some peddle power.
(Of course, if I peddle entirely I can go any distance, but the objective is to have an easy day without too much effort, and have some e-power to get the last 5 kms home, rather than have to peddle entirely the last bit home.)
Total distance today: over 80km and out for about 9 hours, mostly in sun or light cloud. I wear good head cover, but can feel mild burn on arms tonight as I write the text of this blog.
