.~r~wheeling FREE • NE CAIALIGIE BICYCLE HELMETS 11amar1111 SllfflJ SNRT Coumdown1o Seoul FATTYRES Ra•1o1he Rodi colour pho1os TRAVEL ~,... Cycltn1tn En1land IONADI Compu1tn1 across Amenca Registered by Australia Post Publication No NBH2266 July 1988 esigned 1011ne senous ott- 1oode1, 1ne new eignleen Dspeed 1-\igl"I Sie!!O'S on\V nrnilolion is 1ne 1ide1 .1ne norne. toll<.. siern and nondle-bO! oie rnode ot p1erniutn cn10-rnolV. o pertecl balance ot ligl"IIWeigl"II and du1obililV, Md 10 lnis cornPonenls sucn as Snirnono oeoie SIS indexing svsiern , Snirnono Sio-Poce cionK sel. NOVO o\\OV nrns will"I QR sealed beefing nubs and you nO\/e on ,t>.1S 1nol will loKe you onywneie you wonl 10 go. and bocK. (08'~ ~~~~, REPCOCYC 25 HAMILTON S}ES HUNTINGDALE, 3166 Available from leading Repco Cycle dea lers. Freewheelina Columns Number SO July/Auaust 1188 Travel and touring 82 CALENDAR 34 ENGLISH HISTORY • CLASSIFIEDS Contents RECYCLED I JOHN DRUNNOND Features Peaceful touring in old 3 DON HATCHER 16 WEIRDAND England 15 PRO DEALERS WONDERFUL 38 THE GREAT BRITISH 5 WARREN SALOMON Your future hike is readv BINERIDE 76 PHIL SONERYILLE - well, almost · It's not a ride, it's an event! 43 AROUND IRELAND II WORLD AWHEEL 20 HOWTONEEP IN LOW GEAR Freewhee ling is published seven times a year in the AHEAD months of January, March, May, July, September, October A guide to bicycle helmets Eric Newby 's latest hook and November. ISSN No: 0 156 4579. Edito rial and Advertising Offices: Room 57 Trades Hall, cnr Dixon 21 COMPUTING 56 WHEN ONE LAP IS & Goulburn Sts., Sydney NSW Australia. Address all correspondence to: Fre e wheeling PO Box K26, ACROSS AMERICA ENOUGH! Haymarket NSW 2000 Australia. Telephone (02) 264 8544. A high tech nomad cycles Riding around Australia Publi sher/Editor: Warren Salomon. Administratio n for a lil'ing! · and circulatio n: Marilyn Stivey. Nat ional Advertis­ 63 SYDNEY TO THE ing Sales: DavidTurnerTelephone (02) 913 1266 or (02) 264 8544. GONG Typesetting:Everysize Typeart Service (02) 982 1163 Mountain bikes NEWS OF THIS YEAR'S Print ing: Offset Alpine Pty Ltd Derby & Wetherill Sts, Silverwater NSW (02) 647 1000. Dist ribution - 46 RACE TO THE ROCH BIG RIDE Ne wsagents: Gordon & Gotch Pty Ltd (02) 667 0466 Rough riding in the Red or offices in your state. Subscri ptions and bicycle Bicycle sport dea ler distribution: Freewheeling Australia Publica­ Centre tions (02) 264 8544. Material in this publication may not be stored or repro­ 68 FAT TRACKS 52 OUR FIRST GOLDEN duced in any form with out permission. Requests for ,, CYCLIST permission should be directed to the Publisher. Ed itorial Mountain bike new,;; contributions including black and white/colour prints or The stOJJ' ofDune Gray colour transparencies on all aspects of cycling are welcomed. Send an enquiry or write for guidelines. Bicycle faci lities and safety 11 CYCLING'S NAIi Copyright © 1988 Freewheeling Austral ia Publications 78 WHO RIDES TO EVENT Cover design and photography by Warren SCHOOL1 A history ~f the Tour de Salomon . Cartoon this page by Don Hatcher. the latest infonnation France Freewheeling J Australian Bicentennial Caltex Bike Ride ~,Australia . 1788 -1988 SPORT88 MELBOURNE-SYDNEY It's the Australian Bicentennial Caltex Bike Ride. Join cyclists from all over Australia and overseas for one of the world's biggest leisure bicycle tours. We even arrange transport to Melbourne for Canberra and Sydney entrants. INFORMATION LINE: (02)2814554 I November 26th to Dece.mber 10th, fl:."" 1988. Cost: $398 ~ 4:!t''o/"Vv ~~ The l,lQO km route takes you through the l½li:'1 :'I:: ,:~ beautiful La Trob~ Valley, Cooma and -=-_ _ =- ~ r5}~~ 1 Canberra. We provide all meals, back up, ~ 4~- - _,,.._.. ___. .....,· ' luggage shuttle, mechanical and medical :-_[J~~'N.[.'\k:l.l- services and even entertainment. Numbers~--a are limited so act now. a a _:::: Details ,~ . · : · : · ~~'- From Graham Rebbeck at ·~ · · · Australian Bicycle Events on (059) 786 000, P.O. Box 200 Pearcedale, 3912. Can You Help? We need homestays for American cyclists on December 10th and 11th. Register with Australian Bicycle Events . • 2GBBl87 4 Freewheeling Warren Salomon A way co end che cyranny of che car Increased car traffic is killing off our cities. Can the humble bicycle come to .the rescue? these days. Public transport is a manage­ never would have believed it if I and maybe get the hint. If only it were hadn't seen it with my own eyes. A possible in this day and age. ment 'problem' and the massive public motoring columnist for a major daily Unfortunately public transport has transport departments have become lit­ ! tle more than holding operations; pris­ newspaper condemning the takeover of deteriorated greatly since the tram oners of their own bureaucratic inertia. our cities by (gasp!) the automobile. tracks were removed from the Harbour A few weeks before that, a story ap­ Bridge and the space given over to the I shouldn't be too tough on the NSW peared on the front page of the Saturday cars. Transport ministers everywhere Government. Admittedly they have features section of the same newspaper are considered more as deficit managers tried (sort of) in the past to encourage documenting how General Motors and a North Shore commuters to abandon group of US rubber and oil companies One of my favourite Ph il Somerville cartoons and their cars and use the trains. Con­ banded together in the fifties to buy up a one of his earliest. The 'OHR' stands for sequently they have tied up millions of number of US tramway companies to Department of Main Roads - every state has one dollars in car parking space to benefit a convert them to busses. GM was caught and they all think alike. relatively small number of rail users. in the act by the US Federal govern­ ment, taken to court and made to pay the maximum penalty- $US5,000. Now they are talking about bringing the trams back to Los Angeles. That's right , the car capital of the world has finally had enough . Its freeways are clogged up, air polluted, quality of life shattered and finally the decision mak­ ers are turning back to public transport systems as the only possible solution to the nightmare problems caused by the unrestrained use of the private au­ tomobile. Any wonder that Alan Kennedy, the Sydney Morning Herald's motoring wri­ ter has reached the conclusion that un­ less we want the heart of our cities rip­ ped out then the car has to be repelled at all costs. A quick look around the country gives little hope that this might easily happen at least in the short term. In Sydney the most expensive engineering project ever undertaken in the country is currently underway. It's the Sydney Harbour tun­ nel and when it's finished it will add a measly four lanes of capacity to the Bridge and encourage even more cars into the city centre. The tunnel was commissioned by a state government convinced of the need to unquestioningly provide for a pro­ jected increase of cross harbour traffic. The thought that it might not be good for the city to allow even more cars in never even crossed their minds. The saddest thing about the whole ha rbour crossing fiasco is that once again public transport doesn't even get a look in. Alan Kennedy says that trans­ port planners should be saying: "To hell with the traffic jams; if people want to sit in them, so be it ". At the same time money should be spent on improving rail and bus services. Indeed, a bus lane should be established on the bridge so drivers can watch them rocketing past Freewheeling S HAND-CRAFTED CUSTOM-BUILT MOUNTAIN BIKES PLUS THE MOST IMPRESSIVE RANGE THIS SIDE OF THE GREAT DIVIDE. ALL••LS FROM: 82 OXFORD STREET PADDINGTON NSW 'E: (02) 331 2671 6 Freewheeling If twelve bikes can be parked in the and north and the other to increase the them as they went a nd initiating new space allotted for a car ( even more can bus carryi ng capacity of the UTA ones if the need is evident. be fitted in if driveways and access roads through to the Northern Beaches. The The legacy of such a scheme would be are utilised) wouldn't it be a better use Scheme would have set goals and targets a n im proved transportation syste m fo r of resources if commuters were encour­ and could begin to improve the capacity everybody. The North Shore would get a aged to ride bikes to the station instead of the Bridge almost immediately in­ vastly improved public transport system of driving. stead of next decade when the Tunnel that could be taken as a model and im­ This is the most significant contribu­ would finally be completed. plemented in other parts of Sydney. The tion the bicycle can make to quality of The rail group could begin at North remaining motorists not ad eq uately life in our cities. The bicycle is essen­ Sydney and work its way up the line. At served by either trains or busses would tially a short haul vehicle. Only a few each station it would need to study and experience less delays though, given the people live within cycling distance of meet the rail transport needs of com­ nature of the road network s which con­ their workplace but a huge number lives muters as well as encourage them to use verge o n it , the bridge would always within cycling distance of a railway sta­ bicycles and pooled cars to get to the sta­ have it's moments of frustration.