Newest
Topics:
For the latest news, see the NEWEST TOPICS page.
Google is too dumb to let me put the list of news in this column and falsely claims that all my pages are self-duplicates.
Google-NONSENSE
Google's so-called "Artificial Intelligence" is an abuse of the concept of intelligence!
Lightweight cycle touring for geologists!
I use my folding bike to go on long distance cycle tours to relieve
the mental stress of dealing with minuscule fluid inclusions in
mineral deposit studies. Cycle touring is a great way to see the
geology as you ride. Well, you can see the geology going uphill, but
the screaming downhills are so much fun that you have no time to see
the geology!
Now most cycle tourists are actually into heavy duty endurance. They
have a 20 Kg bike with 50 Kg of baggage - plus their own weight.
This is absolutely heroic, but it isn't necessarily fun. My solution
is to eliminate all the camping gear and rations and rely instead on
finding a hotel of some sort each night, although this can be
slightly challenging in a strange country where you cannot speak the
language or even read the signs! For this lightweight touring
I use my nice "Pacific" REACH folding bike which weighs just 10 Kg.
Together with 15 Kg of baggage and tools I can enjoy touring rather
than pretending to be an endurance elephant.
The big advantage of this bike is that it folds up for packing and
transport as normal baggage on airlines. With the possible exception
of the USA where airlines have a strong aversion to
transporting bicycles and discourage it by charging exorbitant
baggage fees! But in more rational parts of the world it is easy to
transport this bike - even on super-budget airlines! When packed
into its carry-bag, this bike travels with me as one standard
airline luggage item weighing about 22kg at check-in for no excess
charge. (I take the single pannier of clothes as carry-on
luggage.) Folding and packing (or re-assembling) the bike
takes 45 to 60 minutes.
Despite folding, the model of bike I use has almost identical
dimensions to a normal road-race bike so it is fun to ride, rather
than merely being a necessary inconvenience in order to enjoy the
freedom of having your own transport!
And here is my bike, modified with a rear rack and bags for touring.
Shown here at the start of a tour of Taiwan in 2011.
Note that I only ever use one pannier on the rear, as well as the
bag on the top of the rack. Although this would appear to be
unbalanced, it is not at all difficult to ride like this. This is
the entire luggage for my 3 weeks of self supported touring in
Taiwan. No support vehicles required! Sure, the small (20") wheels
look odd at first, but they do not negatively affect the ride at
all! I still travel just as fast as on a conventional 700c wheel
size road bike. And because there is suspension on both the front
and rear wheels, it is also a very comfortable bike for long tours!
On a day trip up to the Taiwan mountains, I left off the pannier.
But you still need your toolkit and somewhere to carry some spare
food! This is looking over a reservoir just east of Chiayi in
southern Taiwan. Chiayi is a convenient town near the mountains with
many interesting routes to cycle nearby.
You could stay on the western plains of Taiwan which are completely
flat - but that is so boring. The real fun cycling is in the
mountains - but don't underestimate these mountains - they are even
more serious than the European alps, though they rarely have snow
because Taiwan is in the tropics!
In August 2011 I found an excuse to return to Taiwan again and rode
another 1900 Km around the mountains, including an amazing "traffic
jam" event with 7000 cyclists riding up to the high pass at 3250m
altitude from a start altitude of 500m just 55 Km away. It was
another chance to enjoy many more rides in the mountains. This is my route map of the second visit.
(opens in a new window) Here is a story of my second visit.
During the climb eastwards to Wuling summit, the road was often
jammed with cyclists walking their bikes because of the steep
gradient. And at the end of the day I relaxed with 4 new cycling
friends in Tianxiang village within the rugged and beautiful Taroko
gorge, before I rode back west over the summit again the next day.
I have also toured across Europe from Spain to Switzerland. But it
rains cold rain in summer in europe! (2007) (Route map)
And another tour around eastern europe (map) (2010) starting from
Switzerland to Austria and Hungary, then Slovakia, Poland, Czechia,
Germany and back to Zurich. My
story about this tour is here.
My tour from Boston to Fredericton (Canada) and back (2009) was
nice, although the weather was surprisingly lousy. Yet more rain! (My tour story is here)
For great weather, the tour from Brisbane to Cairns (map) (2009) on the
Australian east coast was by far the best. Guaranteed sunshine every
day!
And the South Island of New Zealand (map) (2009)
was scenic although the wind was often ferocious. (Tour story)
Just head off up the road to an unknown destination and enjoy the
ride!
In January 2012, I rode the coastal route 1000
Km from Adelaide to Melbourne, which was an endurance trial with
much headwind. But the Great Ocean Road near Apollo Bay is a sublime
scenic route that is great for cycling, as seen here. My story and route maps about this adventure
is here.
In August 2012 I ran a tour for 3 geologists
after the IGC meeting in brisbane. Here, Anastasiya, myself and Hong
Rui have arrived at Caloundra on the Sunshine coast, north of
Brisbane and also Hong Rui, Fangfang and Anastasiya celebrate their
successful cycle ride. This is one of my favourite areas to ride,
with many backroads, small towns, beaches and mountains also.
In january 2013 I commenced a ride from Melbourne to Brisbane, but
terminated the tour at Canberra due to weather and mechanical
problems.
Here is my story about the ride and
the route map.
The route covered 1000 Km in 6 days of touring.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In June 2013 I rode 3500 Km around western turkey. An Amazing
destination. The story is here.
In August 2013 I rode 1800Km around south-central Sweden
(Bergslagen). The story is here.
After about 40,000 Km the frame of my bike broke in Japan in August
2014 and I had to replace it with a new bike, shown here:
I have had to change to flat handlebars. But after 2000 Km of bad
roads in China I find that these bars are not as comfortable as the
drop bars of my previous bike. (I have subsequently changed to drop handlebars, explained here).
But this bike does have a built in rack which folds easily, a great
improvement over the add-on rack of the previous bike and folding
the bike for transport is now much easier.
Applied Mineral Exploration
Discussion and research relevant to mineral
exploration. 
