The things I see

Sexy new RE30's in formula silver finish at JDMyard.


Stewart lah!


Pole 16


PIGBUM

Frank Paino back from Peter at Star Enamellers

My baby is back and she's looking better than ever.





















Peter did a great job, the little black marks are from the sweater I had wrapped around her whilst she was in the car. Peter confirmed the frame is made of Columbus SLX as well as the forks. Nice. What a super nice guy. He charged me $215. If he ever needed a web site, or cards done I'd do it for free but he said he's so damn busy. Looks like word of mouth does him just fine.

Peter - Star Enamellers
24 Exceller Ave, Bankstown, NSW 2200
p: (02) 9790 1025

Crazy Dave bike night!

We had another crazy bike night last night. Zi brought ribs over from Hurricanes and David brought the Asahi (JDM yo!). Present was: David, Zi, Andy (official photographer for the night), Jing, Timmy and Clifton.

Dave's new bike is a base model Giant Yukon worth $999. It's the cheapest dual suspension bike you can buy from Giant and it's great as it is. He's only ridden it once on a trail, the rest of the time he's been riding it on bike paths. Funny then that he's just bought some Juicy Carbon brakes worth more than half his bike, Easton carbon bars and a Fox rear shock. Despite us telling him that he should have just bought a new Trance for the price of the upgrades, he's determined to upgrade his Yukon to the top of the line spec and likens it to a Hyundai Excel with Rays TE37's. We tried to fit my Fox forks on it but I'd cut the steerer too short so he's now on the hunt for some Fox Talas forks ($1800RRP!). He's also bought a Mavic crossride wheelset and Schwalbe Nobby Nic tyres which he'll be picking up tomorrow. He's now officially "Crazy Dave".

Ribs and beer were awesome (I can't have a bike night without beer!). Many laughs were had, both Dave's Yukon and that Farkin thread on the lappy.


When women are not around we are men and eat like animals.


Crispy goodness FTW!


Dave's new brakes and carbon skewers.


Funny how all of us oldies were wearing shorts and T's but the kiddies Cliffy and Timmy were wearing shirts and pants.


LOL at Jing (even funnier that they're fake crocs!).


We installed a Fox rear shock. LOL.


Aspirations.

Loftus non-stop

On the way: Nice and noisy VR4 with a Cervelo on the roof.


Young Clifton setting the pace.


Dark in the car park.


Sizzler! Sizzler is awesome. LOL.

Last night Jing, Clifton, Zi and I hit Loftus late. At 6.30PM and Jing wanted to do it without stopping at bits (which we usually do, to have some fun). Clifton set a pretty fast pace and I had trouble keeping up on the gradual climbs. I had a good go at Jing's Cannondale and it's just so damn fast on the flatter stuff. It almost feels like a road bike. It accelerates like a hardtail whether you're in the saddle or out.

Basically it's 100% black and white to me now. That the Reign is just not a great XC bike and I'll always struggle to keep up with hardtails and XC duallies. My choice. I know. But it's got me thinking of a short travel dual suspension XC machine for XC trails like Loftus and Yellowmundee.

On another note. This young little cock head 'Ross has contributed to my threads again on the Farkin forums. I've got a new skin now and instead of playing it nice and keeping the peace I'm finding it very fun attacking the little shit. Read up here.

I like your old stuff better than your new stuff

I got pretty excited when they started re-releasing some of the classic skate decks a few years ago (some of which have made thieir way to my wall as art) but the other day I came across a re-release of a Powel T which I bought in the late 80's. It was my fave T-Shirt back then and I loved it so much that I kept it, and even wear it every now and then despite it being super ratty!

Anyways the new T came in the mail today and I was pretty dissapointed with it. The print size is a LOT smaller on the back of the T (it's repeated small on the front, same as the old T).

Crap!

PS: Yes the original T on the right was as black as the new T on the left once upon a time (you know you're getting old when they re-release T's you still own and wear!).

It's not about the bike

My sister Jamie had mentioned Lance Armstrong's book a while ago but I only just bought it this last weekend. I had a slow day at work yesterday so I started reading and I stayed up untill 1am last night because I couldn't put the book down.

I laughed and cried. I feel different today because of this book.

If you have an interest in the spirit and resiliency of the human mind, read it. You'll learn something. If you have (or have had) a friend or a loved one who is touched by cancer, read it. There is comfort here and hope.

Enduro

Seen it before, worth watching again. Nice video.

Yellowmundeeeee

Twisties!


L to R: Ross, Nick (who was riding a Yeti 575 test bike!), me, MWG, Brad.


Me on Jing's Cannondale.


And again (PS: the Fox Sargeant shorts are the best shorts I've owned so far).


Group shot out in the open.


Mad skids!


Honda crew packing for home.


Young Cliffy made to do the dirty work.

Had an early night and met up with Zi, Jing, Clifton, Andy and 1st timer David at 7.30AM. We hit the M5 to M7 and got the Yellowmundee at 9AM. MWG rocked up as soon as we arrived (the Soap guys: Matt, Ross, Nick and Brad had just finished half a lap) and Felix soon after. David forgot to bring water, freaked out and drove to get some, this kinda slowed us all down as we had to wait for him to get back, once he pulled into the driveway the Soap guys were itching to hit the trail (some of them had other committments booked for later in the day) and once we did hit the trail we soon realised that David's off road bike skills were pretty much non-existant. We lost him 10 minutes in and at that stage no one was willing to go back for him so we forged on (all the while feeling really bad about it!).

David was back at the carpark (we thought he would be) and wanted to go home. Perhaps it was the pressure of having too many people, a lot of it was nerves too poor guy, but we kinda forced him to stay to at least have another go, and we did another lap minus the Soap guys (the hardcore crew!) who all had to go home. Zi was sure to keep him company this time around.

Yellowmundee: It's all single trail and it's quite pretty and the trail flows really well too. I'd watched a few videos of the trail, and read a thread on Farkin where people were discussing 2 hard parts which they walk up (I saw a lot of people walking it in the videos too). I have to admit after seeing the vids I had a giggle as it all looked too easy, but having said that I know that things ALWAYS look easier on a picture, or video than in real life, so I tried my best to bite my tounge and not say a thing until I gave it a go first hand. Fair enough I didn't make it up the 2 technical climbs 1st go, but I got them both the 2nd go and they're both easy for me in comparisson to some parts of Manly Dam.

I also had a good go at Jing's Cannondale. The gearing (no granny gear and a road cassette on the back) is definitely not great for technical stuff. I failed to get up either tech climb with his bike. On the other hand I had a go at Andy's heavy Giant Yukon (Giant's entry level dually) and got up it no worries (perhaps a combination of plushness, easy gears and weight for traction?).

Highlight of the day was just chilling out at the tech climb after the bridge and just egging everyone on to have a good go at it. We made a lot of noise and had a lot of laughs. Good times. I feel bad for David, he would have been much better of going to Lady Carrington Drive for his 1st trail experience. I only hope he's not freaked out by the whole thing. I also managed to snap my chain (that felt strange!) and have to praise SRAM's powerlink as it got me going again in a matter of minutes.

PS: All pics by Jing. I left my camera at home doh.

PPS: The Yeti Nick was riding didn't look as porn as I thought it would look, maybe because the componentry was a lot lower spec than what I've got on my Reign. Whilst I didn't have a go on it we did talk about the bike at different times during the ride and I've come to the concusion that it's a very similar bike to the Reign. It can make it up climbs, just not as fast as the hardtail guys. It's slow and painful on gradual uphills but it leaves you grinning ear to ear on the downhill stuff. At this stage I can't justify buying one when my Reign does the job as is.

PPPS: Fuck MWG is fast!

Appin

It's been raining all week and Zi and I couldn't stand it anymore (he says he's feeling fat lol) so we went for a ride despite the on and off rain and thunderstorm forecast. We thought we'd check out Appin as Jing, Clifton and Timmy checked it out last week and said it was awesome.

Appin's a very quick 30min drive from JDMyard just off the M5. Somehow Zi and I got quite severely lost in there and ended up on a lot of 4WD fire trails. The ground was really mushy from all the rain which made it really hard to pedal on (great training I say!) and 2 hours in we knew we had to back track as we were in amongst frightened kangaroos and rabbits! We did so and found the trail again (which is market by hazzard ribbons and pink arrows) but the skies opened up on us and it started pouring down. Still, we're glad we found the juicy single trail bits, which were marked quite clearly with an "A Line" and an easier "B Line". Of-course we took the A line!


Got to JDMyard to meet Zi and found that he'd bought a little skate ramp. What better a way to get warmed up pre-ride!


EG Civic - JDM YO!


We found this sexy rock which I really wanted to huck off, but balls were not big enough on the day so we just rolled down it instead.


Zi rolling down.


Me rolling down.


Zi crossing.


Bike wash time. Zi's pimp hose reel at JDMyard.

On a bad note: Last week I felt a pain in my left calf muscle and thought nothing much of it. It's been a week since I last rode and half way through this ride the pain came back. It forced me to push a little harder with my right leg, which could be a good thing. I've had some advice to rest it for at least 2 weeks. I'll do just that after tomorrows epic ride at Yellowmundee (which I'm so looking forward to!).

House rennovations begin... almost.

Council has almost approved the plans to rennovate the house (it's only taken them a good part of the year) and so Mum and I went to order tiles for the 2 new bathrooms, as well as paving for the paths outside the house.

We dropped in to see a friend of Mums Michael at Stoneworld, all the way out at Girraween. Their warehouse is ridiculously massive (I dream of owning one of those hangers to store collector cars in!).


Choosing tiles was super hard. Initially I felt like giving up before even trying but with a bit of persistance I managed to find stuff I was happy with.


The showers will not have glass boxes around them, instead they will be open walk in showers with mosaic feature walls.


I tried to avoid all the creams. Grey floor tiles and white wall tiles are a little cold but these little mosaic tiles add that tiny bit of warmth I was looking for. Chrome fittings, towel rails, charcoal basin drawers and doors, wooden bench, red towels. It's all in my head.


Inspired by watching Road to Roubaix I've ended up deciding to pave the outside paths in cobble stone!

85% OF

Didn't get to ride today due to crappy weather, so instead Zi and went for a bowl of Ramen at Ichi-ban Boshi (Tan tan men FTW!), we dropped in to a small cake cafe called 85 Degrees Coffee in Kingsford on the way home. A few months ago Charles and Zi had a hankering for this shit after an exxy meal at Prime. We walked all the way from Prime to Chinatown for it. No seats, just a tiny shop selling cakes and Coffee served at an apparently perfect 85 degree tempterature. I'd seen crowds of people in front of this new shop in Kingsford on my way through for the past week and now I know why.


People were stopping to see what other people were looking at (the cake display) and then reading the signs people were reading out loud "85% off!". Zi lined up and ordered away, even saying to the lady "and um, one more surprise cake, choose whatever!" thinking hey at 85% off that's only cost me $4 all up, to his shock then it was $15 all up and when asked what about the 85% off discount she said "85% OF"! Now that's great marketing lol!


Cakes in the window facing the street.


Rumour has it the cake's are imported (is that a good thing?!).

I smell chain store explosion. Like any other trend food store (Easyway anyone?) it'll explode, then most likely dissapear just as fast. OK I'm off to have 85% of my Chocolate Valentine slice... it better be good.

Top One

Jazz get's a 20,000km service. Deddy's the man at Top One and he's looked after my daily drivers for a while now. He's fast, very thorough and just an excellent guy.


Top One.


Deddy using an air compressor to dry off the Jazz's engine bay after a degrease and wash.


Advan RS rims = yum.


Flush Aerocatch bonnet pins on Eddy's Jazz.


Stack dash unit + cage in Eddy's Jazz (hardcore much?!).

NOS!

I scored this amazing NOS (new old stock) set of Dia-Compe Aero Gran Compe brake levers off eBay for my whiteout Paino road bike for $50. What a steal! They even come with plastic cable guides (which go under your bar tape) which will allow the brake cable outters under the bar tape to move (ie: smoother braking). I couldn't resist buying a pair of matching old skool Adidas Samba's too, only to be worn when riding the Paino of-course!

Giant Talon sold on eBay

Bye bye Talon.

We sold Christina's Giant Talon on eBay this weekend. It went for $1025 which is great and it'll help to fund her road bike (which is on order and will be here in Feb 09), and potentially also this bike. :)

A Birthday Trifecta

Suga and I were invited to our next door neighbors party (3 birthdays under the one roof). I'm not usually a fan of dress up parties but this one was literally next door so Suga and I went to town with it!


We dropped into the Costume Shop on Cleveland Street (check the speed racer helmet!).


Pretty funny.


This is next door's back yard from our lounge room.


All dressed up and ready to go lol.


This is a shot of our wild jungle of a yard from next door's party. So strange to see our house from this perspective. I couldn't stop staring at my own place for a while. Great people (some who haved lived on this street for over 20 years), great conversations, never ending champagne, great party!

Deus Ex Machina swap meet

It was raining Saturday morning, huge shame as the Deus Ex Machina bicycle swap meet was on. They started at 7AM, super early for a weekend but I love the spirit of it, getting in there before everybody else to pick up the best stuff is what great markets are all about. Shame then that Suga and I got there at 10.30 (lol), but even so we spotted some beautiful metallic blue alloy mudguards on the ground at one of the stalls, and upon closer inspection we just had to have them. The stall owner said they're from the 70's and let us have the set for a mere $20. They're so pretty we're going to build a ladies bike around them!

Obligatory name dropping: I ran into Tom who runs Hell on Wheels (be sure to check out the store, it's killer) and Carby who runs Deus (I'm sure I've mentioned it before but I used to work along side Carby when I was a design junior, he's just one of those guys that has "it" and has only gone from strength to strength).


Rained out, and we were late, but it was still such a cool place to be. I can confirm that there will be more future bike swap meets in 09!


Stalls were free. I have to admit I was tempted to set up and sell/swap the shitload of gear I've got lying around.


See those shiny blue things?


They're mine!!!


Lovely aren't they?


Can't go wrong with baby blue + white.


Fang it!


God Speed.


So many nice bikes in such a small space.


Surfboard carrier (so cool).

Sydney Bicycle Film Festival

For sale in Broadway.


Crumpler shopfront.


Suga and I dropped into the ZanziBar for a drink before heading across the road to the Bank Hotel for Thai. Both venues were haunts of mine in the early to mid 90's but back then they were the seediest, grungiest rock'n'roll punk venues around. How things have changed! (PS: the Thai food was awesome despite being 3 times the price).


Valet bike parking!


What a sight.


Newtown RPRSNT!


Win a Surly!


Grant from MC Cyclery on the mic.

The Sydney Bicycle Film Festival started last week. Christina and I checked out the opening session on Friday night with a mate Ben who I hadn't caught up with in 9 months (he's a running and cycling nutter!). Grant from MC Cyclery was sponsoring the first session, and giving away a Surly bicycle to one lucky punter.

There were 3 films: Standing start was an arty (tried a bit too hard I thought) short film on Olympian and World Champion Track Sprinter Craig MacLean. Millar's Tale was a short film on a Tour de France cyclist's confession (and thoughts) on doping and the feature film was Road to Roubaix which was great (if a little long).

What was cooler was just being there, in Newtown and seeing how many people that live there ride bicycles as transport. BMX riders, fixies, commuters on junk bikes... ALL of them taking ownership of the road in peak hour traffic. The valet bicycle parking outside the Dendy was a nice touch too :)

Made in Asia

I was a little hurt to find out the other day that my dream bike, the Yeti 575 (worth about $7500 with the pro-spec build) was made in Taiwan.

I know that 90% (if not more) of the world's bicycles are made in Asia. Giant are the world's largest bicycle manufacturer and their mega factories in Taiwan and China produces bikes for Specialized, Avanti, Trek, Scott USA and Iron Horse. I also found out after reading this article, that Italian dream road bike brands such as Colnago and Bianchi also make some of their frames in Asia.

I suppose when you're paying a premium (in this case, the most you could possibly ever want to pay for a bicycle) you'd want to excpect the very best, with absolutely no compromise, but I consider that making something in Asia because it's cheaper to make it there as a massive compromise, one which I find hard very hard to swallow.

I can't be sure, but I doubt $20,000 Hermes handbags are made in Asia. If Hermes started making their goods in Asia, would they expect their brand to uphold their prices?

It's all a bit shocking to me at the moment, shattered dreams and a hard hit of reality. Maybe I'll end up making my own frames? (I need a new dream afterall).

Loftus at sunset

Andy, Zi and I did loftus again this afternoon. The traffic was pretty shocking on the way there, must have been an accident somewhere. We started at about 6.30 I think, and it got dark just as we were finishing up. Great ride as always, we just push ourselves harder every single time we go out there which makes me super happy!


Zi pulling a face. We're just getting silly now going up and down these rocks like they were gutters.


Eyes Wide Shut Andy was strong today.


Get in there! Andy's poor Type R.


The Thule rack has been awesome but I've got to do something about my plates.


Home time always feels great after a good ride.

Columbus

Greg Softley from Cyclomondo is the man when it comes to retro bicycle frame decals and I just received some COLUMBUS frame decals for my Paino frame. At the bottom of Greg's instruction sheet is a big plug for Peter Fleming from Star Enamellers. I figured that these guys worked together!


My old Columbus decal.


My new ones (and Greg chucked in a couple of free Campagnolo decals in too!) which will go onto the frame once Peter gets it back to me with fresh paint!

It's a small world

What a trip. I was just at the mall doing errands (sending out JDMST posters, stickers, T's... as usual) and I ran into an old Uni friend Anthony which I hadn't seen since 1996, strange thing was the guy next to him was a mate of mine from High School who I hadn't seen since 1992!!! Turns out both Anthony and James are long time friends that grew up together on the same street, and hadn't seen each other in over 20 years, and had a chance running into with each other today. We sat down for a coffee, took us a while to get over how small the world is, and had a great catch-up. Anthony lives in Maroubra beach also, literally a cross street of my own street and James is moving back to Sydney from London and he's staying at his brothers house which is 2 streets away from my street!!!

I'm not a religious person but it's moments like these where you know you're not in control of your own life!

Weekend wrapup

Had a super active weekend this weekend. Definitely a far cry from this time last year's drinking, smoking and general laziness.

On Saturday Suga and I spent about $1k on stuff for the house. Bed linen, bathroom towels, kitchen glassware, food shopping... it's scary how it all adds up and it hurts so bad (yeah I was thinking fuck... I could get a nice bike for that kinda money!) but it's a good thing... I think?!


Suga on the Reign.

On Sunday we headed over to Lady Carrington for a ride. Christina made it up the hill at the end this time and had a case of exercise induced nausea (ie: she really pushed herself!). She also had a good go on my Reign and loves how comfortable the dual suspension is, especially on the bumpier downhill bits (not that you'd technically call any of it bumpy, or dh at Lady).

I have to admit, despite wanting to hold on to the romance of the old school, I've truly become a fan of moedrn dual suspension bikes. It's black and white, apples and oranges, between hardtails and dual suspension bikes. Riding her Talon hardtail was definitely bumpier, but also more fun in some ways as it's more challenging than the Reign over rougher terrain (the Reign mows over anything where the Talon has trouble tracking over rougher stuff).

In the end of the day a dual suspension bike is a far better bike for beginners than a hardtail. Full stop. I can't see how anyone could possibly argue that.

We also managed to sneak in a session at St. Michael's driving range. I was in shit form but by the end of her bucket of balls Christina got the hang of it!


This weekend's physical exertion has given sporty spice a sore ass and shoulders.


Jamie and Richie synchronised golf.

The MC Cyclery web site is now live!

The MC Cyclery web site is now live! I've been adding content to it, and also setting up the forum (which will help to organise future group rides!). Exciting times!

Loftus at Dusk

Zi's been hardcore this week riding with myself, Jing (in the dark!) and again last night with Andy and I.

We met up at 5.30PM at Loftus and finished up just before it got dark. Was a great ride, cool air and since there's nothing difficult at Loftus we just pushed ourselves to go faster through the bits we already know, as well as stopping at a certain area and just going over the same part again and again trying to clear a harder line (which we saw an XC guy try to clear on his Yeti but failed, fell and hit his head on the ground!). Zi's already starting to get cocky. He's flying down the downhill parts, so much so that he's almost crashing into me (makes for some funny moments). Andy's pushing too, he did the log for the 1st time, that's a great thing as I'm sure he'll do it every time from now on.


Andy lah.


Reign supreme - I fucking love this bike.


Rolling down, still have yet to huck it at speed, will do next time.


Going up. This was once a but tricky for us (4 months ago), but now I can do it without even trying.


Zi got up this time too.


Zi thought the orange line around was too easy so we tried the green line. Once you're up the 1st step you lose a lot of momentum so you really have to hammer to get up the next step. I got up to the top but failed to turn left and keep going. A few more tries didn't get me as far as the 1st attempt. Will get it next time I'm sure.


Andy's loving it.


Some super sketchy ghetto jump someone built next to the train tracks.

Dad and his cars

If I've ever wondered where I got my car addiction from, old photo albums at Mum's house reveal all.

These are photos of my Dad, and his cars from the 70's alone (he also changed cars a lot in the 80's-90's).


Kharmann Ghia.


Torana.


Cortina.


BMW.


Toyota Crown?


Honda 1300 Coupe Deluxe.


Mazda ? (yes that's me!).


Datsun "?" SX.

Polish like it's hot

After checking out Ray Dobbin's amazing site, and his page on polishing I thought I had to at least give polishing the vintage Campagnolo parts on the Paino a good go.

I dropped into Bunnings and picked up a $59 grinder (damn power tools are cheap these days). I also bought the right cutting and polishing wheels and compounds, some masks and clear specs too (might also come in hand for raining/muddy rides in future lol).

Another one bikes the dust!

Well in the span of just a few months I've managed to inspire quite a few people to run out and buy a bike (I count 6!). The latest enlistee is my sister Jamie who's 29 and never ridden a bicycle before!!! She's pretty nervous, and wanted to buy a Kmart bike but of-course friends (let alone family!) don't let friends buy crap bikes. So with some help from the guys at MC Cyclery we picked up a little Giant Upland, lovely little bike, nothing fancy, very much like the simple and functional old school ladies bikes from the past.


Happy happy!


One of the staffers Nick putting together a brand new 09 TCR Advanced 1 (so hot).


Nick's (highly disturbing) tan lines.


Richie and a TCR Advanced 2. So nice.


Hot staff bike up for grabs.


All that bike buying and hot weather prompted us to check out Clovelly for a spontaneous snorkel before lunch.


Gearing up for summer! I've had this mis-matched flipper set for over 5 years now lol.


Unfortunately the water was murky, but there's something about the water, and swimming that makes me want to eat a cow every time I hop out so we had a feast at Clovelly pub. OK enough bludging, back to work!

Star Enamellers

MWG suggested Star Enamellers for painting frames ages ago. I called them in regards to the Reign but they spray, not powdercoat and I believe mountain bikes need a stronger finish that powdercoating gives. Since then I've had frames powdercoated on the cheap by Mr. Clean, and on the not so cheap by Grip Sports but the Paino is a roadie and doesn't need to be powder coated, she's getting the Royal Treatment (as Matt puts it).

The guys at MCC helped me take off the headset and bottom bracket (I didn't have the tools). Grant at MCC also said that I had no say in the matter at all, and that powdercoating it would be sacrilegious! He said I had to take it to Peter of Star Enamellers if I wanted to do it right (Grant has his own paint guy but still suggested Peter from Star Enamellers do the job).

I drove out to see Peter in Blacktown and was greeted by perhaps the nicest guy I've ever met. He instantly recognised the Paino, and said he knew Frank Paino but hadn't seen or heard of him in a long time. He also commented on how Frank Paino made amazing frames but the best bit of news after a bit of an inspection was that Peter thinks he was the guy who painted this very frame back in the 80's as he did a lot of work for Frank Paino back then!

I couldn't be happier, the frame is in great hands. It won't be cheap, or quick but I'm happy to pay and wait.

Loftus + MC Cyclery

Yesterday Zi and I hit Loftus and did a bit of discovering instead of doing the same old route. We got lost, we found a couple of dead ends, it was heaps of fun.


Zi's sporting a new bling polished Thomson stem.


Me - what a view.

I also dropped in to see Grant and the boys at MC Cyclery. As of now I'll be running their new web site (which was designed by my mate/fellow INfront member Damien Aistrope who did a cracking job on it!). I'm already filling it up with content, she'll be live in the next few days!


MCC has this nice wall at the rear of their shop and it's probably the wall we're going to use for all the bike photos for the site. MCC are giving this Surly fixie away at the Sydney Bicycle Film Festival.

And in other news: SUGA has officially been reincarnated! The plates have come off the MX-5 and are now on the R32.


Zoom zoom?


I got a white bottle cage for the Paino, the white-out continues.


Off topic: I saw Jess (Chirstina's little sister) doing her homework and the sight of it made me feel sick in the tummy. WTF is all this complicated for complications sake shit good for? I never did math in high school. I failed every single exam, never learnt my times tables and I completely ditched it in year 12 (I didn't even do maths in space, or maths in the beer garden).


Peppa's legs. The most artistic shot I've taken all year lol.

The feel of steel makes it real

The feel of steel makes it real - Ex-frame builder Dave Moulton (who has made bikes that have been ridden in the Tour de France, Olympics and World Champs) wrote this little insight in 2006. "He told you so".

Sadly Dave's stopped blogging (after an amazing 3 years/286 posts). You can check out his amazing site here.

Chewy

Christina asked if I wanted to adopt Chewy, who keeps her company at work. Of-course I said yes! He now keeps me company whilst I'm on the PC. I think he loves me too, maybe he's bi?

PS: I slept early last night and I'm feeling fine today!

Sydney to Wollongong 2008

The gong ride was great. It was definitely a different experience to how I remembered it in 1990 and 1991, there were so many more people (11,000), so much so that we couldn't even ride for a while, and had to walk the first kilometre before finding some space to actually get rolling. The officials stopped us (for great lengths of time too) so many times, in the end it really was a cruise more than anything else.

We started as a group. Richie, Jing, Felix and Eric and I rode together and there was hardly any pedalling at all for the first 30km's (coasting and stopping!). We stopped off at Loftus to take a pee break (thank God we managed to skip the lines to piss on trees) and then headed for the crazy downhill twisties through the national park. My brakes were on as hard as I could grab them at times, the bike's fantastic but the brakes are so poor I just had to do a brake burner all the way down. I stuck to my game plan though, which was to take it easy on the downhills and absolutely hammer on the uphills, and that I did.

On the 1st big hill I got out of the saddle and just attacked it and never looked back. I must have overtaken over 100 people through the national park and I didn't let up until I got the finish line (I only counted 7 people overtaking me in the last 35km's). Going solo was super fun and I got to have the best of both worlds (riding in a group for the 1st half and alone for the 2nd half).

I finished the ride in 4hrs 8minutes with an average speed of 20kms/hr. All in all it was a great ride despite not being able to pass most of the time (apart from the uphills) and to top it all off Richie and I were picked up by the girls at the finish line, that was an absolute life saver! Onto the pics:


6AM rise and shine. Bowl of cereal, coffee and a bananna and I was off.


Richie managed to borrow this lovely old steelie off a mate. Reynolds tubing and old school dura ace gear on it too.


Start line.


Guy doing it on a BMX. I even saw a guy on a unicycle!


Was so packed that it took a while to actually find some space to get rolling! (photo by Jing).


Richie, Eric and Jing at Loftus.


The paino did so well. It's so damn fast going up hills. I got used to, and now love the friction gear shifting, the saddle/bars set-up was perfect and I only felt a bit of tightness in my shoulders and neck but not on my hands. The brake levers being so far away from my bars are complete rubbish and I'm very tempted to do something about them as they're the only thing that let me down.


Spectacular views at the end-ish. (photo by Jing).


Me - Jing - Beers - Finish (thanks Andy and Miki for the beers and food! MUCH appreciated!).

JDMST EOMM

Some amazing cars turned up to the JDMST EOMM as usual. I always feel good coming home from one of our meets, getting people who share a common interest is always a good thing.


Amazing carbon fibre blended into grey paint on this S15.


Chesta's amazing FD.


Clean Supra's are hard to come by these days.


RX7 - timeless shape.


Puddy in my hoodie :)