Leaving Perth

It happened last week. I didn’t send a Monday posting. Monday was sandwiched into 35 hours of travel between Minneapolis and Perth. By the time I was putting my disassembled bike back together in the Perth Airport, it was already Tuesday night.

Two days before I arrived here, I was lucky enough to get a message from one of my internet connections named Zoltan. He sent me a DM offering his spare bedroom for as long as I need. He has hosted me for 6 nights now, with an invitation to stay even longer if needed. Zoltan is a pillar of the Perth cycling community. He has shown me his city from our bike seats — as only someone born and raised here could do.

When I’m not with Zoltan I’ve been spending time with my mate Jono. Jono and I crossed tracks in La Paz, Bolivia. He was cycling north while I was headed South. Since Bolivia, I hadn’t seen him in almost 7 years, but it’s one of those friendships where it feels like we picked up where we left off.

Jono taught me how to forge my very own blacksmith’s knife, which I’ll use in the outback. I started with a 3 inch piece of Toyota Hilux coil spring, hammered it into the shape that I wanted, then quenched it in cooking oil. The next day we tempered the steel and sharpened it on a whet wheel. It now easily slices through thin paper. Here is the steel right after the first few strikes, and the same steel as it was being sharpened the next day:

Additional learnings from Jono and Zoltan about Australia:

• It was extremely hot and dry this past summer in Western Australia - a record breaking hot spell and drought that killed many of the native trees, trees that are specially evolved for hot, dry climate.

• The bike infrastructure is equal parts Vancouver and Fairbanks. The areas with dedicated paths are great, but many areas don’t have infrastructure, or even a shoulder. Safest to ride on the sidewalk in these cases.

• Climate-wise, Perth reminds me of San Diego.

• Beer and cigarettes are unbelievably expensive. $60 for a case of light beer, $60 for a pack of cigarettes. Has generally considered to be an effective deterrent. But for those that don’t have sufficient willpower—generally lower class folks—it is an obscene tax on poor people.

• You can make 160K at an entry level mining job. Not terribly physical work but odd hours, in some cases working 8 days on and 6 days off in remote locations in the bush.

Earlier today I pushed off to pedal out of Perth. Though in yesterday’s video I introduced a new twist, promising to pedal only as far as you guys take me each day. One meter for each new Instagram follower, compounding day by day. This morning I had 44 new followers. So 44 meters took me about 1/4 of a block down the street to a small pocket park. Now I’m back at Zoltan’s house as I type up this article.

I’m back to my campsite in a few hours, then onwards tomorrow morning. My thinking was that it would start out slowly, tongue in cheek. Then if it takes off, it could get quite difficult. Maybe 14+ hours of biking in one day. We will find out whether the concept works or not in the coming days.

Thank you for reading, and if you like the concept, please consider sharing this post with a friend, this will help more people find the project, and help us cover more distance each day. On Instagram and YouTube, I’m @ridewithian.

Have a great week,

Ian