Monthly Archives: August 2008

Well my TV went down for 2 days due to a heavy storm which zapped my Foxtel box and at the same time my internet went down too (it’s been 5 days sans internet).

I went crazy the first day, went for a ride to Loftus on my own on Tuesday (not sure if I like being out there alone, it’s quiet and there’s no one there to push you… just not my thing I suppose?) and once Foxtel was back up I watched a SHITLOAD of the Olympic Games, on the couch munching junk food, reading MTB mags and dismantling + cleaning my bikes.

I was trying my best to work with clients on the phone, not so good so I had to borrow my Mum’s internet for a day to do some work.

Could I live without the net? Let’s not even go there. I definitely couldn’t work without it and in all honesty I just felt my mind come to a halt. TV definitely turns people into vegetables. The internet might do the same for your body, but it definitely does a lot for the mind (well, mine anyways!).

Apart from the visually spectacular (due to sheer mass + co-ordination) drumming intro. Was I the only one that thought the Olympic Ceremony was totally crap?! BORING!

Jing, Clifton and Timmy invited me out to Lucas Heights today, damn I’m still high from the experience. What an awesome techy trail. I loved every single little bit of it (except for the motorbike riders).

The Reign’s just so well set up.

It’s an absolute goat for climbing techy shit. It has buckets of grip and going down tech stuff is just so plush and confidence inspiring. The front is so easy to lift so it makes hucking small drops easy.

The new forks are great, no worse than the old forks, and no better really but I’m happy. I had pro-pedal off all day (1st time) and I found that there was way too much sag at my recommended weight, so much so that there was pretty much no pedal clearance at all and I wash mashing the pedals on everything. Didn’t really stop me though. Speaking of the pedals, the V12’s + 551 shoes are so damn grippy I felt like I was clipping in and out, and clipping out multiple times as I’d often put my foot wrong on the pedal but there was so much damn grip I couldn’t adjust my foot placement on the pedal unless I lifted my foot right off lol. Perfection. I love the set-up (did I mention I love my set-up?!).

The Met helmet was awesome, so cool. Nice to see a couple of other riders out there with them on too. The TLD XC gloves, whilst suuper comfy for the first hour, are a bit thin. Might look into thicker gloves. The Joplin seatpost is a miracle which I called on a billion times today on the fly. It gives you power when you need it for the climbs and gives you bucket loads of confidence for the tech downhill stuff.

Great place, love the bike. Super happy.

The Chinese love the number “888” (which sounds like rich rich rich in Chinese, or something like that, good fortune, wealth).

Since it was the 8/8/08 (hey 888 lucky day not to mention the Beijing Olympics tonight!!!) I thought I’d treat the Jazz (I just couldn’t help myself).

I dropped in to JDMyard and saw this: A mountain of wheels!

My local Goodyear always look after me (Maroubra). Word of warning: these wheels need thinner wheelnuts ($60 locking and they look nice).

Wheels are Sportmax 501 15×7 4×100/114.3 +38 Gunmetal not a single bit of rubbing and the front wheel clears the caliper.

Funny, but true :)

Got this rack off eBay. My lounge room is so a bike workshop!

Every now and then I copy/paste parts of funny MSN conversations I have with mates on Messenger. Here’s a few recent ones:

Christina says:
what was on oprah
justin@australianinfront.com.au says:
Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts new film
justin@australianinfront.com.au says:
They were both on the couch sucking Oprahs cock

Jing says:
59kg for me depending if i crapped
justin@australianinfront.com.au says:
1kg crap?
justin@australianinfront.com.au says:
You must be full of shit
Jing says:
HAHAHHA

www.matthewmead.net says:
just went for a bike ride
justin@australianinfront.com.au says:
And theeeeeeeeennnnn?
www.matthewmead.net says:
lol
www.matthewmead.net says:
haha

The other day I had the urge to listen to some Queens of the Stone Age, so much so that I downloaded Limewire just to hunt down a few tracks.

3 days later and my internet’s come to a crawl and I was only getting 64kb speeds. I thought to myself: OK, it’s just Telstra having an issue, so I spent a day off the PC (always a good thing to do) but the day after the problem was still at large. I had to do work but the internet was so damn slow. It was just killing me!

I logged onto Telstra and checked out my account usage and it turns out that Limewire was set to share on install and that a billion people had downloaded stuff off my PC and that in turn had blown my 12gig internet limit for the month and I was to be capped at 64kg until next month!!!

On MSN: Mark, a mate of mine said that he had the same problem and he called Telstra up, said he was a web developer with a massive job on this month that blew the limit and he also threatened to leave Telstra. They gave him an extra 2gig to tide him through to the end of the month. He gave me the number and suggested I try the same thing.

Being an honest person I couldn’t lie (completely) so I called, let them know that I had mates over watching a DVD (Seasons! Great soundtrack BTW), I loved one of the songs on it and a mate downloaded uTorrent to get the song for me and in doing so had sharing on which allowed the internet to download the song off my harddrive thus blowing my limit. I also let them know that in all the 10 years I’ve been with them I’ve never blown my limit AND that I was a web developer that needs the internet and that there was no way I was going to be able to hack this slow speed for the rest of the month. I also mentioned that I would move if moving was easy but I couldn’t be fucked moving servers and would rather stay.

So the guy goes, what are you asking for then?! I just said I was after a bit of leeway, that I made a mistake, but I can’t live with these slow speeds for the rest of the month. Even if they gave me half a gig till the end of the month. I’d really appreciate it. He put me on hold whilst he went to ask his superior and when he came back on he told me that they thought I put a pretty honest case through and that they are going to give me an extra 3gig to see me through untill the end of the month. I’m also now upgraded to some crazy ADSL2 speed plan at the same price.

I’m happy :)

So happy to have the beasty back. I replaced the grotty Raceface BB with a brand spanking new Shimano XTR BB + also put on a meaty 185mm rotor + rotor adapptor on the front.

Oh Yeah. My Reign is back.

Funny thing is, on the way to Maroubra Junction Cycles (my LBS) it was sooo sunny, (hell there was even a guy lying down soaking up the rays on the lawn outside) but as soon as I got the Reign home it started raining hard! It’s a sign! Fuck this bike gets me excited.

Maroubra Junction Cycles is under new ownership now and Grant (the new owner) is getting some very cool bikes in. He let me bust this thing around the block today:

I thought it was going to be slow, but damn it’s fast! The gearing is light (that could be it). I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face riding it. I felt like everyone was staring at me (but I’m sure they weren’t but it just felt like I was doing something naughty and rebellious). Going off a gutter the tyres make this funny “FOMP” noise. Giggles all round.

Fixie project on display.

Grant and the boys have been following my progress since the single speed project. Not sure what they think of me exactly, but he offered to put my Ti bike up on display in the store. That’s fucking cool. I might just do it for kicks. :)

Reign final weigh in (slightly heavier with the new Fox forks).

PS: This is the aftermath from last night’s midnight railing session in my backyard (lol).

I couldn’t resist. Since I was having troubles with the Pace forks I’ve decided to put them on the single speed, and put the single speed’s rigid carbon forks on the Ti (helps that they both share King headsets). Weight is down to 8.3kg! Weight Weenie for life yo! :)