There seems to be a widely held belief that, when using rim brakes on long descents, the heat from the braking can heat the air inside the tire, increasing the pressure to the point of blowing the tire off the rim. As we will see below, this explanation for how such blowouts occur is very implausible; and the advice of releasing air from your tires prior to a descent actually increases the risk of bursting a tire.
Continue reading Myth: Heat from rim brakes increases tire pressureAll posts by Matthew Signorini
Summer 2008/09 – Edge of the World tour
Photography by Peter Signorini
For many years there has been an informal tradition of doing a longer tour of two or three weeks over the period after Christmas and spanning the new year. The timing is convenient for many people, as it is covered by school holidays and many other people have time off work, so most people are able to go on a longer tour. The only drawback is the hot weather in much of Victoria at that time of year (and interstate tours to New South Wales or South Australia will not evade the summer heat either).
So, for this particular year, Peter Sig decided to try to escape the summer heat by going to Tasmania. As you will see, this strategy proved to be stunningly effective. Continue reading Summer 2008/09 – Edge of the World tour
Post-Easter 2015 – Railway Ballast Tour
The coronavirus lockdown means that I have more time to look through photos from past rides. This particular ride was done in April 2015, in the week after Easter (and I believe there wasn’t any other club Easter trip that year).
According to Edmund, we didn’t start on Good Friday because my Dad was expressing some interest in coming along, but he wasn’t able to start on Good Friday (I think he had to mark assignments). As it happened, he didn’t end up coming at all. Unfortunately, the result was that only 3 of us were able to go (Edmund, John Harland, and myself); for us, unlike many other club members, we didn’t have any inconvenient commitments like work over the week after Easter (it was a University holiday, lucky me).
The plan that I’d come up with was to start at Euroa, spend the first night at Ruffy, then go to Yea, Molesworth, and Alexandra. After that, the planned route became a tad more adventurous, going via a dot on the map called Rubicon, and across the mountain range via forest roads to get to Warburton. From there it would be an easy run into Lilydale. All up I planned that it would take 5 days.
In many ways, this ride did not go according to plan, although we did at least manage to complete the whole distance, and didn’t run out of time. Edmund has since remarked how sometimes cycle tours can feel like living in a badly written comedy. This was such a tour, and I hope readers appreciate the comedy. Continue reading Post-Easter 2015 – Railway Ballast Tour
Easter 2016 – Melville Caves
During the coronavirus lockdown, I am taking the opportunity to look back through the archives of photos from past club tours. This one was a four day ride we did over the Easter long weekend in 2016.
