2010 Ride Previews
- Snowy Mountains Brilliant Summer Bike Ride – 9th to 15th January 2010
- Weekend Challenge Ride – Lithgow to Bathurst and return – 13th and 14th March 2010
- Central Coast – Hunter Valley Ride – Fantastic – 10th to 16th April 2010
- Mulga Bill Bicycle Festival Weekend Ride – Great Fun – 24th & 25th July 2010
- The Fabulous Top End Ride – Townsville : Darwin : Broome – 6th July to 12th August 2010. Please note we currently have a waiting list for this ride.
- The Annual Blue Lizard Cycling Premier Ride – September/October school holidays 2010.
For more information contact:
Jim Blaxland, Bike For Bibles Ride Organiser NSW
Phone : 02 9525 8158
Mobile : 0429 663 966
Email : J.BX@bigpond.com, jblaxland@biblesocietynsw.com.au
Cairns to Melbourne when you are blind
Lindy Hou & Rosemary rode their green and gold tandem from Cairns to Melbourne in the recent Bike for Bibles ride (picture from Grahame Keast).
Here are some comments from a recent blog posting from Lindy ;
Bike for Bibles – Cairns to Melbourne Inland Ride
Rosemary and I rode a tandem bike, along with 12 other single bikes, from Cairns to Melbourne & covered a distance of 3,242 km. The ride took us exactly 4 weeks, with 4 rest days during this period. 4 vehicles, 10 road crews and many churches supported us along the way & during the month-long ride, the temperatures ranged from 1 to 44 degree C!!
The longest day was 207 km taking 7 hours 59 minutes on the saddle, while the biggest day for climbing was 2,086 meters, when we rode out of Cairns on the first day.
The total time spent on the saddle for the month was 124 hours and 30 minutes, with an overall average speed for the whole ride of 26.3 km/hr.
See her blog posting for more comments about her memorable moments on a Guided outer reef tour, Getting Lost in Roma and Behind the scenes in the Dubbo Zoo.
When I rode with Bike for Bibles from Perth to Hobart in 2003, we rode an average speed of 28.4km/h over the 4284 km. So I know how much effort it takes to make it that far that fast. Well done guys and girls !
See Also:
Reminder: Perth to Sydney closing
This is your last opportunity to Join the Perth to Sydney ride from Monday 17th August to Saturday 19th September 2009.
This is a fabulous opportunity to ride and experience the Nullarbor. Just a brilliant ride ! Contact Jim Blaxland now (02) 9525 8158, jblaxland@biblesocietynsw.com.au
Reminder: Mulga Bill Bicycle Festival Weekend
For a great fun weekend, join us for the Mulga Bill Bicycle Festival Weekend at Yeoval in the NSW Central West.
Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th July 2009. For great riding and for great fun country hospitality. Contact Jim Blaxland for all details. (02) 9525 8158, jblaxland@biblesocietynsw.com.au
Reminder: Hunter Valley One Day Vintage Classic Ride
This is the last week to get the Early Bird price of only $35.00 (includes morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea) for a great day of riding in the Hunter Valley One Day Vintage Classic Ride on Saturday 23rd May, 2009. The distance for this ride is around 85k.
You need to register before Saturday 16th May for the Early Bird price, after that the price will be $40.00 ( that’s still cheap)
Contact Diana or Ken Green for all details. Phone: (02) 4934 8021.
Ladies Ride Reminder: 15th – 17th May
Just a reminder about the Ladies Only Ride, W.A. Wheatbelt, 15th-17th May 2009 also some information on this event on the event: Ladies Bike Ride- Bike for Bibles on Facebook.
Perth to Albany – if its Saturday its Albany!
Our last long haul (over 100km) to Albany. We take some of Albany Hwy so extra care is needed – although we were moving along very nicely, must have been a tail wind. We take a couple of back roads. On one, where we are taking photos of the group on the road, the traffic seems to be heavier than Albany Hwy. Maybe they heard that a cameraman was out.
Coffee stop at Mt Barker. Vicki, Martha, Ruby and Chris go off to the markets and come back with some veggies plus donations for B4B! Wonderful.
Back on the road again and another 20+km on Albany Hwy before we take another side road. The Highway does not have too many trucks on and the drivers are being kind to us. So is the wind, so the trip is good.
After the usual lunch stop (didn’t we just have a morning tea stop?) plus apple stops and water bottle refills we are going up and down some hilly back roads that will take us to Lower King. Martha and David (the rider) are racing down the roads like they are on Le Tour.
We stop a few kms from Alex’s place and join together again as a group. Alex leads the way to his place. We arrive safe and sound to Daphne’s afternoon tea with Rev. Bill and his wife Helen to meet us.
All in all a fantastic 6 day ride with lots of negatives though, if you know what I mean … no accidents, no injuries, no flat tyres, no bike maintenance, no bad weather. We did well over 3,000 kms between us with no flat tyres. We rode somewhere between 550km to 630km (depending on how many of the optional rides we did). We raised somewhere between $4,000-$6,000 for Literacy Projects in Cambodia (a big thank you to all our sponsors) and we were really blessed.
We go out to dinner to celebrate.
Perth to Albany – Friday, Day 5
Katanning to Cranbrook – 77km with an optional 16km
We wake to find David cooking bacon and fresh farm eggs for us (oh and fried bread too) – yum! David, as always, the servant hearted.
We cruise 20+km down to Broomehill where we stop at Henry’s Winery and Cafe for coffee and snacks. Very nice coffee and surrounds. The weather is a bit like the old Queensland ad, “beautiful one day, perfect the next”. And it was a perfect day, ideal temperature and little or no wind.
We ride down to Tambellup (”Town of Friendship” says the sign). As we ride in a little yappy dog races from a house straight towards us. It heads for Ruby’s wheels. This is not going to be pretty… she screams and at the last second the dog runs back. We are a bit shaken but unhurt (even the dog).
We head to the Telecentre where Tracey and Colleen have organised the ladies at the Uniting Church to put a lunch spread on for us – so good! I thought I was going to lose weight on this ride, apparently not. There were people to greet us, feed us, donate to B4B and even open up the museum to show us around. The town really does live up to its “Town of Friendship” title.
A little bloated we ride down to Cranbrook where Ps Henry (no relation to Henry’s Wine bar) and his wife Helen are there to meet us with homemade scones, homemade jam and cream… 
Martha, David (the biker not the roadie) and Alex went for an additional 16km ride – think they were making room for dinner.
Ps Henry had organised somewhere for us to shower, some ladies from the church to bring us a three course meal and then we watched a DVD “Fireproof” – very moving and few dry eyes. People are being so kind to us.
506km to date, and Chris did not find any mice today.
Perth to Albany – Thursday, Day 4
Wagin to Katanning, 95km
Still a beautiful day, but with a bit of head/cross wind. Tim, Joanna and Hannah stayed with overnight (was good so that I could look after Hannah more David went and got bedding and a mattress for them. He also got us a dozen fresh farm eggs!
Joanna drove at the front of the riders and a couple of us were pacing behind the car for a good part of the journey. Felt like being in the Tour de France. Tim rode with us for 50km, up to lunch time, then after lunch T, J & H drive home.
David is still providing us morning tea, lunch, apple stops (he cuts the apples up for us) and fills our water bottles up.
We stay at Kobeelya in Katanning for the night – on real beds! Chris finds another mouse in his bedding. He yells for Ruby but David comes to the rescue and disposes of the mouse. Chris is now officially "the Mouse Hunter" and has a mouse emblem on his bike.
We met Robert from Burma, had roast chicken dinner and ended up playing Presidents and Buttholes (polite name for it). Was a lot of fun.
Perth to Albany – Day 3
Narrogin to Wagin 77km with an optional 20km.
Today we were blessed with cloud cover (kept the heat of the sun off), lovely temperature and tail winds! What more could a bike rider ask for? We had the usual lovely morning tea.
Then it was lunch at Barbara & Ian’s 7km out of Wagin (seem to be doing a lot of eating, don’t we?). Barbara made us some yummy scones which we had with jam and cream. Whilst we were eating that one of their dogs got into our bus and finished off our banana cake and started on the chocolate cake!
Onto Wagin Baptist Church for the night. The boys (mostly) enjoyed themselves by playing basketball, footy, table tennis and shuffle board.
Tim and Joanna and their delightful 13 month old daughter Hannah drove down from Perth to see us.
Oh, we had lamb cutlets, roast veg, peas and corn for mains and apple crumble, custard and cream for dessert. Got to keep the energy levels up. T, J & H stayed overnight with us.
Chris managed to catch two mice in 10 mins (is he going for a record or bringing his mice with him?).
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