Alan's Munda Biddi Ride - Sep 06
Submitted by Alan M - Alan rode the Munda Biddi trail around September 2006. He kindly supplied this journal of his trip.
A brief intro of myself. My name is Alan Melville, I've been riding bikes since I was a young boy, mainly touring, but also a bit of racing. I did my first "long distance" tour, a ride from Bruce Rock to Northam, at the age of 13. My brother accompanied me - he was 11. I caught the bug and by the age of 15 I had saved up enough to go to Tassie.
I did this with my mate Steve Collings, also 15, spent 10 weeks there with $120, a long time ago. I'm now nearly 46. Since then I've ridden around Australia, (the road wasn't completely bituminized, I pushed my bike, a track racer, 600 odd Km.) the North Island of NZ and through the north of India. There have been numerous small rides in between.
Alan's Specialized Epic and a BOB Ibex trailer
For the Munda Biddi ride I used a Specialized Epic and a BOB Ibex trailer. The bike is fitted with a Rohloff 14 speed hub (www.rohloff.com.au) geared for the trailer. I used tyres called "Specialized Armadillo" a very strong tyre.
I also have a Bluetooth GPS that links to a PDA (Imate PDA 2K EVDO) running OziExplorer (www.oziexplorer.com.au ) and 1:50000 maps of the South West (produced by Greg Harewood.) I also have a Garmin GPS. I carry a cdma phone (the PDA) and for better reception in remote areas I have an "ugly stick" car antennae fitted to the trailer. I also have a satellite phone and an EPIRB.
To power all this stuff I have a 20 Watt solar panel coupled to a 14AH lead acid battery. (Somewhere in there I fit food and a spare pair of jocks) Trailer weight was 45 Kg, and the bike also had 10 Kg of water in the front panniers. This ride was a shake down for a remote area ride later in the year. (Sep)
I had heard this ride was very pleasant and was looking forward to it.
I spoke to Ian at the Munda Biddi foundation who had said he'd done it a couple of months prior and found it very hard. He had used panniers. I must confess I thought "oops" (a thought I often have when I suspect things are going a bit pear shaped. . .) I hadn't been on the bike for 6 odd weeks so I set out to do some training, that consisted of a ride from the Witches Hat in Northbridge to the East Perth station, piling bike and trailer on the train to Midland and then riding to Mundaring via the Southern Bridal trail. (Got overtaken by some dude with no gear, but I didn't have the necessary breath reserves to curse him!!) It was a two hour ride from Midland. Training ride over.
Next morning I started the ride, according to the info sign in Sculpture Park, this was going to be a nice ride, bit of "doddle" really.
