Site icon Ramble Out Yonder

New Day Rising – Introduction

E Sharp

What do I most enjoy on a bicycle tour?

What is it I miss the most when the tour concludes and I find myself back at work once again?

I love that every day is different. I love that there are so many external factors like weather, road conditions, steepness of terrrain and water supply points that dictate how a day will go.

I love waking up not knowing where I’m going to sleep that night. I love waking up in the tent in the early AM as the sun is just about to poke over the horizon when the day is still and quiet and full of potential. I love getting everything packed up and then riding away from the campsite while shadows are still long. I love those early hours before the traffic, the flies and the wind wake up.

I love the feeling of accomplishment when you summit a big climb after many hours of pedalling and pushing the bike. I love the sketchy downhills with moments where you have little contact with the earth and the front and rear tyres are not necessarily in alignment. I love just floating over the loose gravel and picking just the right moment to brake and lean for the corner.

Yes, I love that every day is new and every road unfolds before you like a string unraveling from a ball of thread. You never know what the day and the road will bring.

So that is the title for this trip – New Day Rising.

The title also refers to this ride being a prelude. It’s not the real thing. It’ll be around a 5-week ride – a taste of future, longer rides in the High Country of Victoria.

It was meant to be a proper, 6-month ride from September to March while I waited on the new contract to commence. But a fractured proximal humerus, two shoulder tendon tears and a complicated recovery put paid to that.

This was one week after the fracture and tendon tears. It turns out broken bones bleed. I did not know the significance of the injury for another two months.
This was the x-ray 10 weeks after the injury. It’s a fracture of the base of the greater tuberosity of the proximal humerus. You can still see the dark line through the white of the bone (above red arrow) which is the base of the fracture. The rest just shows as a ‘corticoid irregularity’ where it has already healed.

So my shoulder ROM is still shit. My doctor said, when discussing my recent MRI results which confirms frozen shoulder, “Oh, Emily! That’s still terrible! How do you not find that debilitating?”, when I showed her my flexion and abduction range.

However, my shoulder pain is much diminished. It’s there when I wake and at the top of the ‘chicken wing’ movement, but not the constant pain I had for about 4 months.

So, I think the shoulder is decent enough to push the bike up 30% grades on rough, loose 4WD tracks in the mountains. And that is my main requirement for being able to undertake this ride. I meet that bar now, so let’s go!

There was a night in January where I felt confident that my arm was going to be okay enough to go for a tour. I spent several hours that night starting to look at maps. Then, the very next day, the universe spoke and confirmed my thoughts. Check out what the Wordle was the following day!!

Atlas has been in for a big overhaul service, plus replacement of the bottom bracket and rear rim. So Atlas is ready to go, too. Verne and Kermit need some new head coverings to protect their fraying fabric. Then they will be ready to go, as well.

Atlas is home after a week at the bike shop being fixed up and serviced.
Nope, you don’t EVER want a receipt from a bike shop to be this long. I think I paid their rent for the month. It went from a Level 2 Service to a Level 3. They also said the bottom bracket was close to toast (fair enough, it was submerged quite a few times on the 2022-23 tour and then constantly covered in dust in the last 3 months of the tour). The rear rim had a developing crack, also. While I’m proud to have worn out my third rim in life, I wasn’t really planning on that expense!

Now, the other reason for the title of this journal….

It’s the title of my favourite Husker Du album. It’s also the title of the lead track… it’s a prelude to the rest of the album. I love the anticipation that builds in this song. It is a demonstration of ‘the roar’ that runs through me ALL THE TIME. It’s ‘the roar’ that propels me up the hills. It’s ‘the roar’ that gives me the resilience to endure the rough conditions on a bike ride of this nature where you have to be completely self-sufficient out there on those remote tracks. It’s ‘the roar’ that I feel when I bomb down a hill with that shit-eating grin on my face. ‘The roar’ is not just anger and angst – it is every emotion and how I feel those.

So what you hear below is what I feel inside when I’m angry, sad, happy and determined, etc. It’s a constant feeling rumbling through me, and I love when it flows out through the bike. We become one, and every curve and every climb is an expression of the vitality of my life.

I love this version of this song because Dave Grohl (from Foo Fighters and Nirvana) is on drums at a tribute concert to Bob Mould. He is playing so hard that Bob looks back at him and smiles. It’s this high-speed pounding that runs through my veins all the time.

So where are we going? I’m not quite sure. That’s one of the things I love about touring- just figuring it out as you go! But here’s an idea I’ve been playing with. It WILL change, but it picks up a bunch of tracks I didn’t do in 2023, and it involves over 70 water crossings. It’s the best time of year (generally, lowest water levels) for river crossing tracks, so I honed in on a few of those sorts of tracks. How many will we end up doing? Stay tuned in April when I write up the ride.

Exit mobile version