Glowworm's ride out of Perth! August 3rd, 2013

jonescg

jonescg

100 MW
Joined
Aug 7, 2009
Messages
4,224
Location
Perth, Western Australia
As Abraham (Voicecoils), Maurice and Wei Won Ching (eZeebikes) are setting off on a big transcontinental ride, the Perth crew are going to see them out of town by organising a ride of support.

I say we meet at the Bell Tower at 10 am and ride alongside them down the freeway bike path for a bit. We can stop and dawdle along the way since they have plenty of time allocated for the trip :)

For the northern hemispherians, this ride is not just a crossing on sealed main roads, but a true circumnavigation of the south coast of Australia. The stretch across the south of WA and up to Balladonia Roadhouse is not an easy ride. No water, no signs of human presence (even the blackfellas avoided the place) few trees capable of casting a shadow and lots of long, rough unsealed roads. The relative civilisation of Balladonia Roadhouse will be a welcome respite!

The stars will be nice out there though.

Let's show them some Perth hospitality!
 
Thanks Chris!

Here's our preliminary route plan, for anyone interested to see what 5000 km + of crossing the continent by ebike will look like:

Sydney to Perth route 2013.jpg

Can't wait to share a cold one with the west coast ebikers :D
 
Thanks heavens you decided to go straight to Noresman from Esperance. Unfortunately, you will have to stay in Norseman :lol:
 
jonescg said:
Thanks heavens you decided to go straight to Noresman from Esperance. Unfortunately, you will have to stay in Norseman :lol:
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Ha! The markers were just to force Google Maps to plot our intended route. Originally I tried adding every town we plan to end each day in (~40ish) but Google Maps has a limit to how many places you can 'travel via' so I ended up deleting a lot of markers where the route was straight...eg the Nullarbor

I'm really dreaming of a fast charge setup that would allow us to avoid having to try to sleep next to a powerpoint each night, but it's quite difficult unless you can get charging down to about an hour.
 
What an awesome adventure!

Is there a thread somewhere detailing what bike you will be using tech spec etc?

Kudos
 
Thanks Rodney.......
 
Thanks Chris for organising this!

And yeah, the map is a bit screwy, we're still planning on going straight from Esperance to Balladonia, weather permitting. Apparently it can get soggy on that track!

So looking forward to it all, currently getting food ready to post to certain places. Next need to contact some campgrounds on the Nullarbor and check that they have power all night. Nothing like showing up an hour before the generator is switched off for the night (happened on my Cape York ride!)
 
Just watch out for the time zone change. You can go looking for service and get nowhere cause you're an hour and a half late.

That Condingup-Balladonia stretch is epic. Take all the water you can manage!
 
Look forward to catching up :wink: ....fantastic adventure you boys are on...

KiM
 
Thanks for the heads up in the Role Call thread Kim, and nice of you to give us at least one weekend to sort out our e-bikes =D

Funny aside, I'm excited to be picking up my first petrol bike Sunday morning, pretty cool brand name motor with a brand name 7 speed gearbox, jackshaft for one final drive chain, shame they make noise expel fumes and are outlawed and hated by society in general.
 
full-throttle said:
Are you avoiding Melbourne on purpose? :mrgreen:
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The downhill to Melbourne is fine but it's the big uphill to Sydney that is a killer even with electric assistance. ;)
 
Hey Chris,

where exactly is this Bell tower thing :)

I think a 10am meet up is fine, though we probably won't start rolling out until a bit later than that as some people might show up to meet and greet, check out our e-bikes etc but not want or have the wheels to ride out with us. I'm hoping to get some interest from local bike shops there to stock our e-bikes so any suitable shops you know of please share details.

Another random one - do you know where to get Shellite fuel in Perth? I'll need a litre and I'll also need a can of Jetboil gas fuel!

Maurice
 
I'm heading to a local ebike shop in Burswood today shall let them know about the ride

The bell tower is in Perth AND right on the Swan river foreshore on Riverside drive
It's big fugly looking thing...

KiM
 
Movement Systems? That place is awesome. His throttles suck balls though. I burned through 3 of them before buying a Magura from... Glowworm :lol:

glowwormbicycles said:
Hey Chris,

where exactly is this Bell tower thing :)
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That's Perth for ya. No-one knows where it is. Its right in front of the city by the river. You can miss it :)
glowwormbicycles said:
I think a 10am meet up is fine, though we probably won't start rolling out until a bit later than that as some people might show up to meet and greet, check out our e-bikes etc but not want or have the wheels to ride out with us. I'm hoping to get some interest from local bike shops there to stock our e-bikes so any suitable shops you know of please share details.
Click to expand...
Lots of lycras here. More Lycras than any other place I know. You'd struggle to sell a regular bike here, let alone an e-bike. There's a big cultural divide between the hardcore lycras and the rest of us. That said, Matt Timmins has been selling e-bike parts out of a few shops. They're around, but don't expect an immediate positive reaction. It's a Perth thing.
glowwormbicycles said:
Another random one - do you know where to get Shellite fuel in Perth? I'll need a litre and I'll also need a can of Jetboil gas fuel!
Maurice
Click to expand...
Shellite can be bought from hardware stores and camping supplies places. It's pretty common stuff.
 
Wellington Surplus is a CBD army surplus (for Perth I think that's pretty awesome... there were guns there too once ;)
May be handy for any last minute items, and know where to get Shellite nearby.
http://www.wellingtonsurplus.com.au/

There's a thread here for alternative names and suppliers to it:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1452381
 
I went to Movement Systems, mentioned he ride to one of the fellas
he was very interested in coming to the Bell Tower for the ride and
to checkout the local lads e-bikes, unfortunately the shop
is open Saturday but is happy to close it to attend the ride for a few hours!
I will be emailing the details along with this thread and Endless Sphere in general
as he was not familiar with the forum. They have a nice range of e-bikes there since i last
called in, both frock and non frock setups! Its a wicked
shop lots of BiG Boys Toys fo sho!

KiM
 
Maurice & I fly out to Perth tomorrow with our bikes which we're currently scrambling like mad to finish working on and get boxed up for the flight. There's a bit more we'll be doing on arrival too before we pedal off into the sunset on the 3rd. :lol:

Getting exciting!

Here's the food we sent off yesterday to be held at post offices along the route:
 
This trip looks awesome! I like the aussie comradery. We need more events like this!

and the post office food is a good idea :)
 
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