eleanor j jackson
  • Eleanor Jackson is a Filipino Australian poet,
    performer, arts producer, cyclist, writer, gal
    about town, feminist, freewheeler, and
    friend. One day, she is going to be an
    ideas curator. Which basically
    means, she will tell you
    exactly what she thinks.
    Until then, you’ll have
    to read between
    the lines.

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round the bay – what the hey?

  • October 20, 2009
  • by Eleanor Jackson
  • · brisbane

I’m lying on the couch feeling sick and pathetic on the most beautiful day in forever so I figure, better make myself useful.

I haven’t posted in a few days and I’m a touch ashamed, since I’ve accosted the odd person in the last week and not yet uploaded their photo (honest folks, sometimes it’s not because you’re not smokin‘, but because I’ve taken a crap shot of you and half your face is out of the frame, or the cord’s in the way, or some sign is growing out of your head and no one wants to see that).

Anyways. I did the 100km Round the Bay on the weekend and was really looking forward to it. 100km is absolutely the longest distance I’ve ever ridden and if you knew me in high school you’d agree that the idea of me even attempting the RTB – even the shortened distance – is a psychological stretch for a woman who deliberately scheduled oboe lessons to coincide with P.E. for more than three years. I didn’t even enjoy playing the oboe and I was really crap at it, but at least I hated it less than sport.

I was raised in a household where it was stated that there were only two fundamentally stupid sports and one of them was cycling. My dad used rev the car behind cyclists track standing at the lights to try and scare them into falling off. So I’ve come a long way considering.

And I was not disappointed. The weather was light and cool, with a bit of breeze mid-morning and some sun in the afternoon. We had a good crew, some taking it seriously, some less so. Though the last 30kms were definitely less fun than the first, there’s no getting around the fact that I Really Enjoyed An Organised Sporting Activity.

Having clocked Sabrina at over 45km/h spinning down the hill on her fixed gear, legs moving in a freakish cartoon blur, I appreciated doing it freewheel. With two brakes. I’ve come a long way. But not that far. Then I watched her smash it at Roller Derby. Nuts.

The only downside for me in an otherwise top rocking day was that there were hardly any attractive helmets.

I don’t mean this in a mean way, because people were obviously tired and sweaty and wearing crazy fashion abominations designed to keep them warm at four in the morning waiting for the bus and still going strong in the afternoon with the sun shining and Eye of the Tiger playing in their heads as they pulled into Alexandra Gardens.

For a crowd of some 15,000 people there were an astonishingly large number of magpie cable tie lids and even some completely wrong arrangements with toy dinosaurs and dumb palm trees glued onto helmets. I’m probably going to find out later that Team Mega-Sore-Arse raised heaps of money for the good people at the Smith Family and feel really bad about this, but they were frugly helmets. And why anyone would want to wear those rainbow novelty wigs for a really long bike ride, I’ll never know.

Just when I was about to give up hope, amongst the total traffic debacle of the last 5km, I spy with my little:

(photocredit: ms sabrina s)

A hand decorated skate helmet.

Melt.

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