I had a wonderful time at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival last week with Emma Ayres, Tom Doig and Greg Foyster, notably all long distance touring aficionados. Coincidentally, so is the MWF’s director, Lisa Dempster, who rode across the Nullarbor on her Surly. Whilst I’ve done long rides, I’ve never done so without ending back at… Continue reading By Bread Alone by Ernie Old
Month: August 2014
A Quick Note on ‘Moron to Moron’.
I’ll be in Melbourne next week for the Melbourne Writers’ Festival, where I’m sitting on a panel on cycling at Footscray Community Arts Centre, along with Greg Foyster, Emma Ayres and Tom Doig. We’ll be riding from the Henry Turner Memorial Reserve near Victoria University’s Footscray Park Campus (leaving about 1:30) to Footscray Community Arts… Continue reading A Quick Note on ‘Moron to Moron’.
Wonder Wheels by Eileen Sheridan
Eileen Sheridan’s Wonder Wheels is one of my favourite books on cycling, originally published in 1956 when she was thirty-two. She’d turned professional a three years earlier with sponsorship from Hercules. In that time, she’d broken all of the twenty-one records kept by the Women’s Road Records Association. She still holds five of them. Now… Continue reading Wonder Wheels by Eileen Sheridan
Personal Best by Beryl Burton
When I was in London I picked up a copy of The Independent with this article on the ‘unknown’ cycling legend Beryl Burton. Unknown is probably the wrong word. Within a particular subculture of British club cycling, Burton’s legend is on par with Eddy Merckx. The two are certainly quite comparable in that both won… Continue reading Personal Best by Beryl Burton
Fear, Loathing and Community Engagement
On the plane from Paris back to Kuala Lumpur, I read Jacques Ranciere’s response to Gorgias, On The Shores of Politics. He raises a wonderful question: “…perhaps philosophy’s most intimate business: how to deal with hate and fear.” It reminded me of one of my favourite books, Graeme Gibson’s Beyond Fear and Loathing: Local Politics… Continue reading Fear, Loathing and Community Engagement
A Book Review: Gorgias, by Plato, Penguin Classics, 2004.
Travelling by airliner is deeply emblematic of the modern age. All that steel and heat inexplicably hurtling through the atmosphere would be unthinkable in any age other than our own. Naturally, I find it a pretty gruelling affair. For the first few hours, I’m thrilled at the idea. Then I realise I’m stuck in a… Continue reading A Book Review: Gorgias, by Plato, Penguin Classics, 2004.