With two frustrated riders, one tandem bike and one hour/5km limits we decided to use our snippets of freedom creatively and join the ‘burbing’ movement. We set off a couple of weeks ago, determined to ride every navigable carriageway in Postcode 3103.

One hundred and twenty-eight kilometres and five and a half hours of riding later we had left no street, avenue, bike path or night cart lane unexplored. 

What did we like most?

• exploring the 42 courts/no through roads that we wouldn’t normally drive or walk down – and the way people living in courts leave their garages open so you can see right in
• that people no longer call out “she’s not pedalling on the back” – they call out “that’s not social distancing” instead
• the curious glances of our fellow suburbians as the strange masked couple rode  past once…twice….. then back again trying to cover off every nook and cranny
• planning  the route- I know this sounds strange but when your burb isn’t set on a grid, the route requires careful planning to minimise repetition (hence the 128km)
• seeing who’d put their bins out early so we could sneak out before curfew to dispose of excess rubbish (thanks Boroondara for cutting back to fortnightly collections)
• the total absence of cars – bikes rule during lockdown!
• Keeping our hill conditioning. We always knew we lived on top of a big hill but hadn’t appreciated how many other hills were around it. We climbed over two vertical kilometres in elevation in our 5+ hours riding.

Next steps? Our old stomping ground 3127 where we hope many of our buds will be out the front gardening as we ride by. Unless of course Dan the Man lets us out early tomorrow in which case we might go all the way to 3000!