Sunshine Coast

[Cormanus]

Sweet pics Cormanus! Never seen the Pacific Ocean ( been to the Atlantic many times), but the Pacific is a couple thousand miles from here..however..I plan to ride to it and swim ( or at least dip a toe) in it this summer. Got close last fall when my wife and I toured Montana, Idaho, eastern Washington, Oregon and Wyoming, but fell a couple hundred miles short of actually seeing the Pacific.

One thing I notice in your pics is the road surfaces always seem nice. Do you guys get potholes?

The road surfaces around here are, generally, pretty good. We do get pot holes, but they seem to get filled pretty quickly. We get a lot more of them when it rains, because, when it does, we get a lot of it. For example, one day in January 2013 we had just under 9 inches of rain. The monthly total was 21.6 inches which is nearly the annual average from Hobart in Tasmania. Sounds more dramatic in millimeters—550 mls for the month with 220 in one day.

My cage is a VW Jetta 2.0L diesel. In my ignorance when I bought it (second hand) I didn't do enough due diligence on the wheels. They're alloy and look good; they're a decent size, so the car handles pretty well. But the tyres are low profile. Actually, I probably would have bought it anyway; some lessons you have to learn the hard way.

One dark night in the pouring rain, heading down the road at around 60 kph, I hit a pot hole, blew out the front tyre and totaled the rim. I cracked the back rim as well, but that was repairable. Cost me the best part of $1,500 to replace the rim and get a couple of new tyres.

So, yes, we get potholes. We also get roads washing away when the rain gets serious. But generally speaking our roads are well maintained.

Finally, we have dirt roads too. I was on one today. Pretty enough, but they make me a bit nervous.





Turned into dirt ...

Great pictures , Cormanus - after 5" of snow today but will will warm to almost 33F today I will have to go out to the garge and make
vroom vroom sounds.

Thanks CA200. I fell about laughing when I read this. But it's helpful. When (if) the rains come, I'll know what to do: stand in the garage making vroom vroom sounds. Maybe I'll lightly clench my right fist and twist it clockwise at the same time.