Coach Jeff Podcast #640 – Cycling Podcast #022 – Old Bum on a Bike – Pt 3

November 20, 2017·44 min·3 clips

Ian Stapleton recounts riding through 48-degree heat and a storm dash on a loaded bike, questioning if he'd make it.

Podcast number 640 starts with housekeeping. Coach Jeff dates the episode on 20 November 2017, calls it episode 22 of the Cycling Podcast, and brings Ian Stapleton back as the old bum on a bike. There are plugs, because of course there are. He sends listeners to coachjeff.com.au, iTunes, the Coach Jeff Archives Podcast, and the old shows before number 250. Then the road takes over. Ian and Coach Jeff talk through wet weather, storms, wind, and exposed plateau country closing in on the ride. This is not polished adventure chatter. The useful stuff is small and ordinary: other riders near Armidale have sent winter clothes too far south, kept their down sleeping bags close, and gone hunting for warm clothes in op shops. Ian has not done that yet, but a South Grafton beanie, jumper, and trackie-dacks are starting to make sense. Grafton becomes the weather marker. Ian says he has been putting on a flanno shirt there, even though Grafton still feels close to Brisbane in warmth. Coach Jeff knows that country. He picks up Ian's point and carries it across the Great Dividing Range, where pre-summer heat in Brisbane can still mean two, three, or four degrees up high. That gap matters. The conversation stays with how lonely a populated place can feel once cold wind, lightning, and open country start calling the shots. Ian remains the centre of it. Coach Jeff frames, echoes, and lets the route feel tense without overselling it. The episode closes like a mate passing along a link. He points people to Ian's Old Bum on a Bike videos, Facebook page, maps, and blog, so they can follow the ride across the country themselves. The pull is simple: someone keeps going, and the road keeps asking for small, stubborn answers.

As heard by us

A grounded cycling check-in about weather, gear and the unromantic decisions behind riding across Australia.

Coach Jeff checks in with Ian Stapleton as Old Bum on a Bike rolls through the less glamorous side of a cross-country ride: cold plateaus, wet weather, bitter wind, lightning risk, and the basic question of whether you packed for the conditions you actually got.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a weather-beaten cycling chat with Ian Stapleton as he keeps making his way across Australia.

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