Trish & Phill's Tandem TransAmerican

Tour 2003 

May 15th Camp Baffle - Christiansburg 60mi

This morning started off wet again, within an hour or so the sky had cleared but the sun was late getting up.

Our ride descended from the mountain side onto highway 11. The roadway was constructed to deal with a lot of rain it was almost a spoon drain at the t junction.

We had to stop to wait for the road traffic to clear. The way we stop with a tandem is for Trish to leave her feet clipped into the peddles and I just put one or both legs on the ground and support her and the bike. Normally there's no problems doing that but at this intersection the hollowed out road was a lot lower than I had expected and guess what? down we went, no body hurt other than my ear drums Trish threatening to never get on the @%#ing bike ever again.

Then it started raining and boy did it rain, we took shelter in some ones garden and later in a shop. The rain started to ease so we moved on. Going down a hill at speed in the rain brings something to my attention very quickly WE CANT STOP !!

We have Hydraulic caliper brakes on the bike with an additional Drum brake as a drag brake. This might seem odd to read but we had never ridden the bike fully loaded, down a hill in the rain. We live in Perth Western Australia where decent hills are in short supply and rainy days not much rarer, therefore we had never experienced these conditions before.

We descended into Christiansburg along a fairly busy road (down hill) at 15 miles an hour unable to go slower, I was seriously concerned.

Tonight we are at the St Paul's Church in down town Christiansburg. We all decided to eat out at a local place to lift spirits after a hard wet day. We got the use of a nice soft lounge chair to stretch out and sleep on but I didn't sleep much. I had to make a serious decision in the morning, If we cant stop the bike when we need to then we don't go on far too dangerous. The blow out the other hay due to heat on a decent and then not being able to stop is just too much for us.

Page owned & maintained by Trish Collins email to  trishphill@aapt.net.au.  Last Updated 28/07/2003