Friday 22 August 2008

To the Harbour Bridge - and beyond!

I'm trying to ride 100 miles a week. To stave off boredom, I try to head for a different point of the compass every day. Yesterday was North Sydney day.

Here's a panoramic shot from the Sydney Observatory, looking west. Click for bigger view. This is where all the fitness fanatics hang out at lunch time - there must have been 50 trim people running around, doing situps, boxing etc etc.


Here is the view looking east. Not so attractive. But when I see all those RTA breakdown trucks parked there, it makes me wonder how many idiots run out of petrol on the bridge. Must be a lot. Is it getting worse with higher petrol prices - ie, people running their tank emptier and emptier as their wallets get lighter and lighter?


Here is the observatory itself (this one's for you, Ross). If I had bothered to take my bike lock, I might have popped in for a decko.


Clover Moore is spending big on building bike lanes, which I like. But the construction work is a bit hard to get around - here is a lane under construction near the Slip Inn (don't ask me about street names in Sydney - I navigate from pub to pub). This is a bastard of a hill to get up with two lanes missing, being squashed into traffic and having agro drivers behind you fuming at the road works.


Another bastard of a hill - you have to ride up this to get onto the bike lane on the bridge. When people walk down this hill, they hang onto the rail and lean back about 20 degrees.


There and back was almost 2 hours exactly on the road (including stops to take photos). Not a bad bit of exercise.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

G'day Mate,

Those road works are on the corner of Sussex and King Streets. I feel your pain, I ride up their every morning and nearly get taken out by some half wit each time.

Boy on a bike said...

I normally avoid that spot like the plague. I only did it out of interest. I normally go around the back of Darling Harbour and follow the tram tracks up to George or Pitt St - I find that a much safer route, and the added length does my fitness the power of good.