Of Cycling Interest

Pumpkin Festival MTB Race - Results & Photos

Presented by the Goulburn Mountain Bike Club, the race will be held at Collector NSW on the 4th MAY, 2008.
Click here for results & photos...

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Bob Muntz - Riding your bike to work

We may believe that the high cost of fuel is due to the rapacious appetite of oil companies for profits. While there could be an element of truth in that scenario the fact is that since 2004 the cost to produce a barrel of crude oil has more than doubled. As the price ascends Australia is going to require major infrastructure initiatives to accommodate public and alternative transport forms that shall become relatively cheaper as we are forced into a new technological era.

That era will undoubtedly include the humble bicycle, an extremely cheap alternative that has advanced greatly with new technology. No longer do we need to push heavy machines around whether it be for leisure or everyday transport. We can now make easy work of it on light well geared machines that are becoming cheaper to purchase.

Cycling can be as easy or as hard as you like. You can issue yourself challenges and gain great personal satisfaction when you meet them. As your goals grow larger you realize the cycling addiction has taken hold. You can socialize with the growing cycling fraternity and participate in competitive or fun events.

The day is foreseeable when people will query whether .all the car trips made are really necessary, not only for economic reasons but also as they become fully aware of their contributions to atmospheric pollution. They will opt for cleaner options such as a bike, maybe you have already noticed increasing numbers of cyclists as the contagion begins. But most importantly of all there is the fitness factor, in an overweight nation, that is moving rapidly to obesity. The bicycle has to be the king of exercise machines, it beats the boredom of stationary devices while serving as a transport mode. It also serves as an entertainment source providing scenes often much more exhilarating than what the plasma screen power guzzling television can provide.

If you are concerned about global warming, cycling is a way that families can reduce its carbon emissions, considering that a petrol driven car produces 0.3 kg of carbon dioxide every kilometre driven. Statistics show that in urban areas more than half of car journeys travel less than 5 km's, that is when the vehicle is least efficient and giving off its maximum emissions. Many of these trips could be made on a bike and as fuel prices inevitably rise the alternative will become more attractive and subsequently reduce traffic congestion.

Did you know that it takes approximately 633 times as much energy to produce a car as it does a bicycle and that the construction cost for 500 metres of freeway would pay for all the desired cycleways in NSW! Car free city centres, as is is being adopted in Europe should also be fostered here, providing a more livable and sociable environment with more land allocated to people as opposed to space required for the tyranny of two tonne polluting fossil fueled metal boxes usually carrying one person.

A startling fact uncovered by a European Commission study is that exercise assists in resisting the effects of air pollution. The study determined that a car and a cyclist on a one hour simultaneous journey, the cyclist consumed between two to three times as much air as the motorist, but alas the car driver consumed sixty percent more carbon dioxide than the cyclist. Also cycling does as all physical exercise does, been proven to be mentally beneficial in the treatment of depression for people with sedentary life styles, as well as contributing to lowering the persons cholesterol and therefore benefiting heart operation and lowering blood pressure ! Of course everyone should take their doctor's advice.

From a personal perspective after years of lower back problems I found cycling preferable to walking. This led to increasingly long absences from home which occasionally provoked on my return the question 'Where have you been'? Answer 'seeing what's over the hill'.

I participated in the 2005 Masters Games, held in Adelaide and was warned that some riders are very serious. I came last in the 35k road race (well, two didn't finish). But what the heck, I had a great time, met great people and drooled over the exotic array of bikes!

On your bike.