2023 Glacial Lakes MC Grand Tour

For family reasons, I have decided to limit my 2023 activity to an area within a 650 km (400 mi) radius of my home.  This distance was chosen as it would allow me, if needs be, to make a bee-line dash for my home within 1 day-light ride.   This distance is certainly not in the realm of the Iron Butt Association, but I am a senior citizen ( as in old ), and I know my limits.   My night-time vision is not as good as it used to be, and my knee joints can be troublesome.   As they say, “old age sucks” but then, it is still better than the alternative. I live in the Northern Beaches region of Sydney, and there is nothing East of my home except the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. This meant that I ended up with a half-moon-shaped area of approximately 665,000 sq km  (255,000 sq mi) in which to explore.   This area is a little less than the size of Texas, so I won't be overly restricted, travel-wise. click on the image to enlarge So now that I had my “target area” defined, it was time

If you had asked me 6 months ago how many murals there were in my local area, I would have guessed at 3 or 4, but after a bit of Googling ( is that even a word ? ) I was surprised to find a few more. I developed a route and plotted it into my GPS, and one sunny Sunday morning in early January, I hit the road for the first of 2 local rides. I chose my local area for my first “bonus hunt” for several reasons.  Firstly, January is our Summer and the weather is usually hot with daytime temperatures in the mid to high 30s.   Please note that is 35*C and not 35*F and  I find that my tolerance level of ATGATT at 35~40*C is not very long. Secondly, and more importantly, January is our Summer School Holiday period when many families leave the city for other holiday locations. This results in less city traffic, which I dislike with a vengeance, and easier street parking, which is needed for "up close" mural photos. The actual ride was rather mundane, and I won't go into much detail

They say you should "plan the ride, then ride the plan".  Great advice but sometimes "remaining flexible" with a Plan B comes in very handy. As I mentioned in the previous blog, the GT bonus hunt in my local area is just about complete, so I planned to head off for a multi-day ride in February. A look at our social calendars showed that my wife and I needed to be in Sydney from around 15-February, so an early Feb ride was appropriate, with the week starting Monday, 6-Feb looking perfect, and for some unknown reason the West-Nor-West ride looked the most inviting. This ride would take in Mudgee, Dubbo, up to Coonamble and returning home via the Golden Highway with the Dunedoo & Merriwa grain silo murals. So, in late January, a spreadsheet was pulled together laying out the ride timetable, the route, where the bonus locations were, where suitable accommodation was and where the all-important dinner venues were. A quick phone call to a couple of my riding friends r

 As I  have mentioned a few times in my previous blogs, my preference is for multi-day rides through rural areas and away from city traffic.   So why did I decide to head 150km up the M1 motorway to a Hunter Valley town for a day-ride and spend a few hours riding around in suburban traffic? Simple.  It seems to me that an unintended consequence of the way this year's Grand Tour is constructed, is that the competition draws you towards large population centres, and away from small country towns and villages.   Murals, by definition, are hand-painted images on buildings, walls or structures, and it follows that large towns and cities have far more walls and structures than small country villages.   So, the "low-hanging fruit" in this year's GT are cities & towns.    After all, why would you ride 150km to a village to "bag"   1 mural, when you could ride 150 km to a large town and "bag" 20. I had originally planned this 1-day ride for last Monday,

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I have come to realise that suburban "stop/go" traffic, with crazy city drivers who spend more time on their phone than looking at the road and big city parking hassles are not to my liking. So, I have decided on a change in my Grand Tour strategy to one where I just hunt down the largest murals in physical size, with a sampling of wall murals from the towns I ride through, along the way. While this revised strategy will not provide enough bonus points to achieve a podium finish, it should get me "out & about", away from tedious city traffic and provide enjoyable back-country riding. The largest murals I have found are the painted grain silos, of which there are 36 on the east coast of Oz. click on image to enlarge The next largest murals are the painted water towers and water tanks, of which there are 89 on the east coast. click on image to enlarge Previously, due to family circumstances, I needed to stay within 1 day's ri

Murals are not hard to find once you start looking for them.  Small country towns may only have 1 or 2, while larger towns and cities will have many.     Rumour has it that Philadelphia, PA has over 4,000 murals.  If only 10% of those murals meet the "100 Yard Rule", then there are over 400 murals in just one city. Mind you, riding around a large city is a miserable experience. I know this because I was somewhat disillusioned after my last ride a few weeks ago to the point I considered concluding my Grand Tour there and then, and submitting my bonus photos to the Rally Master for scoring. However, after some more thought, and a glass or two of my favourite PepperJack Shiraz, I decided to change my approach to this year's Grand Tour instead. I will leave it to the riders in the northeast corner of the USA to bag the most points, while I will now focus on just collecting the largest murals in size, which are the Grain Silo Art Murals in the Australian wheat belt. This belt