Horst Tietze, Ocean Shores.
With the cooler weather upon us I took a bike ride from Brunswick to Mullumbimby today. Nothing like climbing to Saddle Road and enjoying the majestic view of shrouded Mt Chincogan and the Main Arm Valley with a backdrop of Koonyum Range and Wollumbin.
As on earlier trips I was riding along with a sense of trepidation while cars with caravans shot past me at full speed. I’m always counting my blessings when I get past Kings bridge without a scratch – still fresh in my mind young Milli O’Nair’s death while riding her bike on a narrow bridge near Tyagarah a few years ago.
There are currently many great initiatives to move Byron to a zero emissions shire. Our council needs also to be commended for building a bicycle track from Ewingsdale to Byron some years ago. Wouldn’t it be great to have a fully operational bike track from Bruns to Mullum within a couple of years?
In many places the road shoulders are reasonably wide and could easily get extended. Dave from True Wheel Cycles in Mullum says that the sales of e-bikes (range 90km) are picking up and many customers are considering swapping their second car for a $3,000 e-bike (speed 25km/h) instead of investing in another petrol clunker.
I’m living in Ocean Shores with a business in the Mullum Industrial Estate. On an e-bike with a safe bike track I would love to do away with our ageing second car and take a 25-minute ride to work while enjoying the scenery, fighting the bulge and saving on emissions. Stopping for lunch or coffee at refurbished Tom’s Pies would also help supporting local employment.
May I call on the local brain trust of surveyors/civil engineers to give us an idea how much we are looking at (I know there are a few retired ones in the north of the shire).
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
