Her Name is Always Sarah

Posted on April 29, 2026 by freestateofjen

Recently I rode the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail (BVRT) on my fat bike (carbon framed Canyon Dude, which i have named The Can’t Bike because apparentley “you can’t”)

I’ve wanted to do the BVRT for ages and when one of my buddies invited me to a catch up in Toowoomba it was the perfect reason to tack on an epic adventure.

The thoughts of Sarah began early in the ride. I’ve written a lot of short stories and am part way through writing a novel. A while ago I noticed that my female protagonists in these stories and drafts are always named Sarah. I got to thinking about his while I rode out the k’s and in Linville I discovered that my name is not only Jen, but also Sarah.

Can’t Bike at Linville station. A man rode past me in an expensive lycra outfit on an expensive high-end bike as I was taking this photo. He covered one nostril with a finger pressed against it and blew snot straight out of the other nostril. What a fucking pig! His riding companion made a disparaging comment about Can’t, something to do with how big the tyres are and how hard it is to ride as a result. I did wonder why that was a problem for him considering I’m the one riding it. I’ve personally never had a problem riding it. In fact, I fucking love it! 30km/hr on sections of the trail under my own steam (it’s not an e-bike) and almost impossible to fall off due to the huge footprint offered by the fat tyres, which run at 10 psi.

In Linville I stayed at a place called The Rail Trail Refuge. It’s a pretty neat place, set up specifically for cyclists doing the rail trail. I met some awesome dudes here and they kept calling me Sarah. It wasn’t until dinner at the pub that night that I realised they had my name wrong and I said, “my name’s Jen, not Sarah.” But, I did start to wonder. Maybe I am Sarah? I am afterall the hero of my own story.

My mates at Linville: Ceya, Wayne, Brett and Nick. I went out for dinner with them all at Linville pub. I told them it was my 50th birthday in a few days and unbeknownst to me Ceya organised birthday cake with a candle and for the pub singer to sing me happy birthday as the cake arrived, and everyone at the pub joined in the song. It was really cool.

I saw these guys a couple of days later in Esk and as I was about to ride past them at the Brisbane Valley Roasters cafe they all called out, “Sarah-Jen-Sarah.” I stopped in to say hi and they showed me Nick’s handlebar, which had been scraped off on the road. His bike fell off the bike rack on the back of the car and dragged along the road until a passing motorist alerted them.

Nick’s handlebar after getting dragged along the road

I had a really great time on this trip. It was 160km and I took six days to do it because I didn’t want to feel like I was in a rush to GET THERE. I wanted to spend time checking out the cool little towns along the way and I’m glad I did because I met so many cool AF people and also some very, very nice dogs.

Keeper: A nice dog I met in Toogoolawah. He’s a rescued greyhound.

I talked to a man in Blackbutt about Yowies, I talked to a woman I met in a park when I stopped for lunch about naturism. A lady walking down the street helped me find accomodation in Toogoolawah. In Fernvale I met a man who had recently had open heart surgery and I found my Air bnb accomodation because I was able to get help from 3 random Fernvale pedestrians. In Esk I met a lovely man from NZ who camped nearby in the caravan park. Just as the boys in Linville thought I was Sarah, I thought this guy was Andy and I called him that until I discovered the next morning as we caught up for brekky that his name was actually Arny.

I got to tell a lot of people about the greatness of The Can’t Bike. People were really curious about it because mostly people haven’t seen this type of bike anywhere. I had to keep reiterating that it wasn’t an ebike. It looks like it should be because the frame is so large and for some reason it appears to others that my frame bag is a battery, which I don’t get, but whatever. Poeple were most curious about my Steerstopper (it’s a device that locks your handlebars in place, which is great for when you stop the bike and lean it or stand it, or when you have to push it) It was really the first time I’d been able to put it to good use. There were two big hills I couldn’t pedal up, so I locked it in and pushed the bike up the hill, much like you’d push a stalled car. It was so much easier than trying to fight with the steering while avoiding having your right leg chewed out by the pedal.

Rustic hut accomodation on the last night at Fernvale.

This post is dedicated to a real life Sarah

Her name always was and always will be Sarah

Bike Hire Antichrist

Posted on July 12, 2025 by freestateofjen

A while ago I decided to take a new direction in my life and not get another job after I finished up my last entomology contract. That approach sounds like fun, right? But, there are a couple of problems: I like money. I like doing something meaningful with my time. I like being around other people working towards an outcome and sharing in achievements. With this in mind I thought I could perhaps start a very small business. I live at the beach and love riding my fat bike on the beach and on the sand tracks. I’m sure other people would love this too, so the idea of starting up a fat bike hire business arose in my mind.

This is Chow. On an extremely hard ride through the sand to Bundaberg. The seven circles of pedalling hell.

I don’t have a massive amount of capital to invest, so I thought I’d probably start with two or three bikes. I reckon I can do this, I thought. I don’t know a great deal about how to do any of this, so like any other reasonable person I thought I’d start my market research to find out whatever I could. I put a post on the local community fakebook page. This is what I asked, “Do people think a fat bike (pushbike, not electric) hire would work here? They’re bikes for riding on the beach and on the sand tracks. The tyres are from 3.8″ to 5.5″ wide. You can still ride them like a normal bike on roads and gravel too. Thoughts?”

Holy shit balls! It went south pretty fast. The first six responses were level-headed responses with people giving honest and useful feedback about whether they thought it would work or not work, but it was all downhill after that. People started attacking each other’s characters, pasts and motivations. I didn’t get involved in any of the arguments because what’s the point? But I guess it was pretty entertaining if nothing else. It was also really amazing to see how total strangers could formulate opinions of me (and of each other) based on me asking about a bike hire business. Why do people even care about this stuff, I wondered outloud as I watched the comments roll in:

First it’s bikes then it’s scooters, then mini bikes dirt bikes [sic], quads and jeeps and full blown 4X4 The same contributor went on to write, Interpreting from your own words that you clearly don’t get enough of a high from just sitting and enjoying the beach you feel the need to add the “high” of riding a bike along it to make it a better experience for you and now you want to market that artificial high for others to also enjoy because you can make the experience “better” than what nature provides. This person seemed to think that somehow I was going to turn Woodgate into another Gold Coast. Man, I’d love to have that power (I probably would use it for something else other than making a second Gold Coast, maybe equality? Hmm?), but I just don’t, I really don’t have that power. I’m just one person who wants to live a meaningful life. Asking too much? Maybe in this town it is. I just don’t know.

See, the thing is, nature doesn’t belong to us, we belong to nature and we all like to experience our connection with the natural world in different ways. I don’t like to go fishing. Does that mean I’m a bad person or that I think people who fish are bad? No. It just means I don’t like to go fishing, so I don’t do it and then I get on with my life. Problem solved, if there even was a problem to begin with, which there wasn’t because I can’t see the point of catrastophising about unrealistic futures that will never eventuate, like theme parks in Woodgate. Although, I did wonder how the group might react if I put up a post asking their thoughts on a waterslide activity park. That was really tempting, but because I’m not an arsehole I didn’t do it.

There is an interesting peer reviewed article here about how tourism operators can create experiences that result in conservation outcomes. I have a Bachelor of Environmental Science majoring in Ecotourism and understand that if more people are given a way to interact with the natural world it improves outcomes for sustainability and conservation because the more people know about something, the more they can care about it.

I’m not a social researcher or anything, but it does seem to me that people who live here are in a constant state of fear. They all seem to hate anything new, any new business, any new building, any new people moving here. I think they don’t like this stuff because they’re worried that if stuff changes that means there will be less for them. It’s like the equality thing where people who are against equality freak out because they think it’s pie: more for other poeple means less for them, but the thing is, there is no pie. Having more equality and more non-destructive ways to experience nature will only ever mean we get to live better lives.

That is if we can get past this sort of shit:

Clearly nature is not enough for you. You have no foresight [sic] or business planning. Old pricks. Sad old people. Go to a nursing home. Get fixed wombat.

Adopting a more constructive way of seeing the world would help here. Getting out of the echo chambers would help because then everyone could embrace a larger life. Imagine a world where you aren’t held back by your beliefs or need to feel like you are the one who is right ALL the time. We live in reality, not inside fakebook and the internet. We only get one life and we should be living it, not worrying about stupid shit online.

I read a book recently called Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. He said in the book somewhere that people have used up over 200 000 human lifetimes by spending time on mindless internet bullshit. Arguing about stupid shit online on inconsequential fakebook community groups is a waste of your life. I just can’t understand why people do it. People really need to read Mark Manson’s book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.

As for me, I’m still not sure about the bike hire business and my role as the Bike Hire Antichrist. I’m tossing up a few other ideas as well. I certainly won’t bother putting any more posts on the local community fakebook group, that’s for sure. So, I’ll keep doing my thing (the artificial high stuff) and it’ll look like some of this:

Chow and cows on a rail trail loop near Toowoomba somewhere.

My original fat bike at Woodgate boatramp. This one was called Fatty.

Sign post from when I walked the 30km round trip to the lighthouse at Double Island Point

Me at Cooloola Great Walk trail head. Yeah, as you can see, I’m a real nature hater.

Last bikepacking trip I did. This bike is called The Can’t Bike because everyone told me, *you can’t!*. But I did, so sux to be them. The more people tell me I can’t do something, the more likely it is that I will do it.

From the last ento job I had: Soldier fly pupae.
I’m not doing this job anymore, but I still like flies, which occur in the natural world and are an important part of all ecosystems. This particular species is native to Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inopus

One Bike to Rule Them All

Posted on December 1, 2023 by freestateofjen

I got a new bike: Pivot Les Fat. According to the the dudes who sold it to me, it’s the only one of its kind in Australia. It’s a nice bike, that’s for sure, but it’s heaps different to ride compared to Fatty, my Icon Fat Albert, so it’s going to take a bit of getting used to. For example, it almost got away on me down a massive hill last night! It didn’t help that it was dark and I could only see as far as the headlight beam spread: not far at all. Normally down that hill, I don’t have any problems with Fatty taking off on me because Fatty is slow, heavy, chunky and cheap! The Pivot is none of these things at all, especially the cheap part.

The cool guy I’m married to decided he needed to get himself a new bike X 2 so he could join in on bike adventures. While I waited for the Pivot to arrive from America, Fatty broke (I bent the derailleur and the brakes stopped working. I don’t think these cheap bikes are designed to cope with being ridden the way I’ve been riding poor Fatty), so I rode the Cool Guy’s new Norco Bigfoot 3, which he got upgraded with hydraulic brakes, Renthal bars, and Bluetooth seat dropper. I was able to swap out the shitty brakes on Fatty with the original Norco brakes. I feel a weird attachment to Fatty and feel kind of guilty that I’ve gotten a new bike and have been riding a Norco in the interim. Sorry Fatty, I still love you!

I took the BF on some adventures recently. I’d always wanted to ride along the side of the highway down to the Isis River, which was just a couple of puddles when I was there. This is just south of Childers.

BF at the Isis River, just under the bridge (Bruce Highway)

The same day I found a cool track in the bush and came across this hippy lady living out of her van. She was set up on a bush track in the middle of nowhere. There were plants growing out of the van and her tow vehicle. She was really happy and friendly and gave me permission to take a photo of her rig.

Hippy lady’s van in the middle of nowhere.

The BF and I went on a little trip to Toowoomba together a couple of weekends ago and we rode the trails at Gordonbrook just outside of Kingaroy and Russell Park at the Bunya Mountains.

BF on one of the trails at Russell Park.

I had a good buster at the Bunya Mountains. I didn’t get a corner right at the bottom of a hill and somehow fell off and got trapped in the bike frame because the handle bars had flipped around the wrong way. So, I sat there for about a minute trapped in the frame, trying to work my way out. I wasn’t particularly impressed, but got some awesome bruises that I was able to show off the following week at work. I was very glad that no one else was there to see how ridiculous I must’ve looked!

On the same trip I was able to go exploring and found this secret rail trail: