Wednesday photos

Sunset photos. Left late again this morning, so there were no good sunrise shots to be had.

I did my best to photograph cyclists going past in the opposite direction in the low light - all I captured was a few bits of ghost.

Here's the ghostly cyclist entering the frame.

Same goes for ghostly pedestrians. Quickly decided that riding one handed in low light with lots of pedestrians and cyclists dodging around each other was not the best idea.

Back to the morning - that thing on the back of the bike is a child seat. I think a few parents drop their kids off at daycare locally and then ride into town.

Lots of female cyclists around this morning. Don't ask me why.

Very trendy bike - love the pastel mudguard with the old fashioned reflector.

Mrs Sensible.

One thing I take for granted is that almost every cyclist that I meet every day is fairly competent on their bike. They might not be quick, but they know how to handle their machine. Then there was the woman in blue at the front here on the BMX bike - she had her handbag dangling from the handlebars, and she was barely in control. This is not an easy bridge to get over - it's narrow, steep and atrociously designed, but just about everyone gets over it without crashing. Not this woman - I was just waiting for her to go down, and to take me and the bloke in front down with her. Don't know how we all got over this bridge without a scratch.

I've been leaving work a bit later than usual, which means I'm riding in peak hour traffic. By that I mean peak hour car traffic and peak hour bike traffic. There are now so many bikes on the Lilyfield route that at peak hour, it's just not worth overtaking a lot of the time as there are just too many bikes in the way. When that happens, it's a totally different commute for me. Normally, I have the road largely to myself, so I just put my head down and go as hard as I can for the entire distance. When the traffic is heavy, you just have to go with the flow - and that means trundling along at 50% of normal effort at times. I've arrived home the last two nights without a drop of sweat anywhere on me, whereas I normally need to soak in an ice bath for half an hour to cool down. It's really different - I don't mind it; the ride home relaxes me totally whether I am going hell for leather or cruising. The thing is, I can't cruise on my own - I just don't have it within me to proceed at an easy pace.

Is that weird?

Tuesday photos

Slept in a bit this morning - normally, this starts happening at the end of the week when I'm absolutely toasted after 4 days of back and forth. Must be the cold & flu tablets I took before  hitting the sack. The sun had been up for too long to get a properly spectacular morning shot.

Lots of rowers out this morning though, and as the tide was right up, they were closer to the banks than usual - I even managed to get a half descent photo of a couple of crews.

It was cold enough this morning to require a jacket and leg warmers - although I shed the jacket after a few miles. I won't be wearing the leg warmers in the morning - left the bloody things hanging up at work. After 6 months of not wearing them, I'm not in the habit of packing them for the trip home. I needed the leg warmers - even though I got up late, it was still only 12 degrees when I left home.

I worked a bit later than usual today, so I got a few dusky photos on the way home.

But here's a morning shot, just to mix things up. The skinny bugger on the right is blasting past us two hubbards.

Chasing the tram on the way home.

A recumbent - haven't seen one of these in ages. A very rare sight on the commute. More come out on the weekends though.

For some reason, the camera went all macro on me for this shot - although it's a wipe out of a photo, it does have some artistic merit.

Night time riding - the chip on the camera is so good as sucking in light, it makes almost complete darkness look like the sun is still partly up.

Another macro photo - my fingers must be wandering all over the camera when I turn it on. Must do better tomorrow.

Monday photos

Far out, it was frosty this morning - a brisk 13 degrees. OK, compared to winter, that's warm - but it's the shock of the drop from 20 degrees a few weeks ago that's getting to me. Rather than a gentle decline of a degree every few days, the mercury just seems to have plummeted overnight. I'll be searching for the leg warmers if this keeps up. It was total luck that I got the sign in the above photo. The water was really still this morning - what caught my eye was that patch of reflected light way out in the Bay (looks better when blown up).

A couple of blokes making a meal of the last hill coming out of Lilyfield. There's two types of cyclists on this rise - those that are puffing and panting and grinding away like it's Everest, and those that blast up it like it's actually a downslope. I flip flop between the two - legs were fresh this morning, so I snapped these two and whisked past without stopping to draw breath. By Friday, I'll be plodding in a much lower gear.

Someone been shopping from Vogue magazine? That carry bag on the back was quite a piece of work. And check out the basket on the front.

This bloke had a triathlon tag on the back of his bike - wonder if he did the event on the weekend? If so, he backed up really well; he was flying on the trip home. And he looked about 15 years older than me!

The emptiness of this scene caught my eye - until the weekend, HMAS Adelaide was parked at this dock. You can read more about the delays in scuttling it as a dive wreck here.  Alternatively, if you prefer the ABC version, you can read about Aboriginal whale callers here.

Friday photos

For starters, the mystery of the car in the Bay has been solved. By the time I got there yesterday, it had already been removed. Wasn't even a mark on the road or footpath. He's bloody lucky he didn't clean someone up as he tore across the bike/pedestrian path.

It was a perfect day for photographing shadows.

Thursday photos

I was actually trying to take another photo of the Bay, and somehow managed to zoom in on some clouds. I'm sure there's a flying saucer in the photo somewhere.

A series of photos exploring shadows.

I even managed to get the shadow of a jogger exactly in between the two of us. Complete arse.

Wednesday photos

I think my bike-photographing days might be numbered - at least until the spring. There's just not enough light around when I'm riding to and from work to get a clear shot when moving. Today's morning photo is almost pastel - someone help me out with an artist who painted this sort of stuff. Preferably French.

This bloke wore a shirt that said "crap" in at least 100 languages. ie, it had a big FORD logo on the back of it. He rode the way Ford's handle - like a barge wallowing in a light surf.

J's Wednesday photos

Something a bit different - J was driving around the Bay this morning (a few hours after I rode around it) and she spotted something in the water. A big something. My habit of taking photos of everything has obviously rubbed off on her. Well spotted!

And it's not the cormorant in the background that's popped up for a look. I haven't bothered googling any news sites to see what this is all about. The car isn't that far from the water's edge. Someone going to fast perhaps?

Tuesday photos

I thought the weather forecast said something about being sunny this week. Obviously, my comprehension skills leave something to be desired. Today was the first day the spray jacket came out of the cupboard for the year - I'm still in two minds about whether I needed it. It was almost fully open for the last part of the ride, even though that was when it was raining the heaviest. When I got to work, it was as wet on the inside from sweat as it was on the outside from rain.

I don't get people who ride in the gloomy overcast when you can hardly see a thing, and they dress in black from head to foot and don't have any lights. Bloody ninjas.

Not a good place to try and take a photo. As I quickly discovered, I needed both hands on the brakes to slow down in the rain at the bottom of this curving bridge. Almost ended in disaster.

Crossing the ANZAC Bridge for some people is hard work - this guy was out of the saddle, pumping like a maniac, whilst I was idling along behind him, sitting down comfortably with one hand on the bars and the other on the camera. Then it was time to slip the camera away, change up a cog and leave him sucking down my wheel spray.

Monday photos

It's certainly getting cooler and wetter - although I am tempted to put on another layer in the morning, I'm avoiding it because I'm still sweating like a navvy when I get over the ANZAC Bridge. A few hills taken at speed will do that to you. Obviously, not everyone else feels the same way about it.

Things you don't often see in bike lanes - a street sweeper. Nice to know all the broken glass and other crap that ends up in these lanes gets cleaned up occasionally.

I bet she reads Vogue. A lot.

It's too dark to take photos in the morning, so an afternoon shot will have to do.