Meet The Blade

I have begun to check off things on my Sydney to-do list.

Get lost lost in the city. Check!

I went to pick up a road bike on Wednesday. I found it on 'gumtree' which is the Australian version of 'craigslist.' So my plan was to take two buses up to Castlecrag just on the north side of the Harbour Bridge. I would then pick up my new wheels and ride home like the wind.

Before I took off, I mapped out the route I would take back home after picking up the bike. It turned out to be a short 10 km ride (a little over 6 miles).

On my way out I missed my connecting bus by a mere 30 seconds. I came up out of the transfer station to a mob of people and a maze of bus stands. With my luck I came out next to stand 'S' and, unbeknown to me, my bus was picking up at stand 'F'. So I caught the next bus 30 minutes later, which meant that I would be riding home in the dark. Bummer.

I luckily was able to get off the bus at the right spot and picked up my bike. By this time it was quite dark and I had a vague idea of how to get home so I set off down the road (read: up the hill).

It is still a little strange to ride in a car on the left side of the road, but it doesn't bother me too much because I am not the one doing the driving. On the other hand, it is very disconcerting to be the one in charge of where you are going in a city you are not familiar with while forcing yourself to stay on the wrong side of the road. So I retraced the bus route back to...to...I don't know where. Did we turn here, did we come from that direction. I got fairly uncertain of my position in the city (read: lost) after only about 10 minutes of riding. The streets of Sydney are not all thought-out like the wonderful street grids of home that I have come to know and love. They are maze-like and tricky. I would aim myself in a southerly direction and after a few blocks find out that the road and wound around and was now heading north.

After backtracking and literally going in circles I asked a fellow bicyclist, who turned out to be a fellow American, to direct me to the bridge. He was going the same direction so I followed him through the park and down the road (read: up the hill) to the bike path on the bridge. I packed my new ride up the 6 flights of stairs to the bridge bike path and took off across the harbour. Too bad I didn't have a camera, the view was spectacular.

I got across the bridge and back into main Sydney where the traffic was still obnoxious and there were pedestrians everywhere. There was, surprisingly, a bike path that took me through the city. By this time I had a little bit better idea about where I was (read: still lost). So I continued through the city, and up the hills, toward Bondi and eventually to our apartment in Coogee nearly two hours after I had set off on the bike.

The good news is that the bike functioned very well and I was very happy with my purchase. I am unfortunately no longer in cycling shape and my 'sitting bones' reminded me of that when I sat down for breakfast this morning.

Oh yeah, and although I thought I had mapped my ride in the newfangled unit called the "kilometre" my mapped ride was actually in miles. And with my round-a-bout way of getting home I ended up clocking about 15 miles. HA.