Monthly Archives: September 2008

Big weekend this weekend. No riding at all, too much food and I’m absolutely wasted right now after going through a bottle of good stuff solo (too drunk to sleep lol).

Suga and I ate at Kelly’s Grill at Bondi Junction on Friday night. I only wanted to eat ribs as I’d been craving Hurricanes lately but to our surprise Kelly’s ribs were jucier and tastier that any ribs I’d ever eaten. w00t! For the first few minutes I felt a bit guilty for eating the meat with my hands as the ladies on the table to the left of me were daintily cutting their steaks with their knives and forks, and the romantic couple on the table right of me were trying to look good whilst chewing their food, but after a while I just bogged in hard. Felt great, man, meat, monster, animal. Good. We watched Tropic Thunder at the cinema after the meal, and whilst I was balling for the first 5 minutes, the rest of the movie just failed to surpass the ribs.

Saturday night was nuts. We were invited over to Nanami and Shaun’s place for dinner and we also had a burlesque party to go to afterwards (Janice, one of Christina’s work friends B’day party). It had been raing hard all day, it was fucking freezing as we waited for over 15 minutes for a bus into the city (would be easier if they just let us drink and drive?).

Thanks God then that Nanami’s place was warm, funnily enough it’s the same apartment that I used to live in a fair few years ago. In the picture L2R: Shaun, Richie, Christina, Kellie, Christian (my brother from another mother) and Nanami.

Nanami’s studio.

Nanami skate deck (I so want).

As great as the conversation and Arthurs Pizza was, not to mention a tempting invite to stay and watch The Karate Kid again on DVD (Sweep the Leg Johnny!) Suga and I bailed out to go to Janice’s party.

Janice’s party at Tatlers.

Suga and Janice.

Flavio, Tom + Suga.

Sugaaaaaaah.

Sunday: Fathers day is now split (same goes for Xmas, or any other family occassion) between Suga’s family + my family. I spent lunch with Suga’s family today. Suga’s mum founded the Chinese Parents Association (CPA). The CPA’s a non-profit, charitable incorporated organisation which aims to help children and adults with disabilities especially those of Chinese origin to realise their full potential as well as to promote the needs, rights and well-being of people with disabilities and their families.

I had no idea Christina’s mum was the brainchild of such a massive project. The CPA had it’s 20th anniverary in Bankstown (at a wedding reception building in Bankstown, lol so hardcore) and she was literally greeted with tears and lots of love upon entry. She was praised in speeches and even invited to make a speech. I’m so proud of her!

Christina’s family.

CPA.

The directors + the kids who performed dances (to Brittney Spears no less) and played music (funny but super cool).

Christina’s younger sister Jess with a bit of JDM yo in the background.

Then it was off to visit my Dad and have dinner at mums.

Dad.

Richie (my sister’s husband), Suga and Jamie (my sister).

Wasted lol.

I’d only just got back in from eating that massive beast of a brekfast to have Zi contact me to go out for brekky again as two of his old school friends are here from Malaysia and he wanted them to be treated to the best eggs benny on the east.

Cute couple, they just got engaged on the Gold Coast.

The little potato rosti hidden in between the 2 slices of bread makes for a special surprise. Coogee Bite’s eggs benny are the best eggs benny in the east (they make a great soy flat white too).

This gold Kronos top cap was in the mailbox upon my return home. GOLD FEVER!

2 new pieces (I call them Tennis Balls) I aquired today from my Uncle John’s shop. They’re already opening up bigger than they were in his tank! I’ll take a picture in a few days when they open up even more (hopefully).

My Coral Bandit loves the new blue lights and he’s coming out by day again now. He’s as big as they get, full adult size.

I thought I’d give a local shop a plug today. I’ve been going to A Fish Called Coogee, a little fish and chip store in Coogee Beach for a while now. They spend all morning preparing their herbs and sauces (shallots, aoili in a blender with mustard… too good), then marinating their fresh fish delivery in various different marinades. I picked up some John Dory fillets in sweet chilli sauce and we cooked them up for dinner. Makes cooking easy, fresh and super healthy.

This morning I dropped in to visit my Uncle John at Bondi Beach, he wasn’t open yet so I ducked into one of the many great cafe’s around the Beach and got served this thing:

Eggs, tomatoes, spinach, crispy bacon, garlic aoli on fresh sourdough YUM! (I have to put weight back on right?!).

And this is my Uncle John’s shop on Glenayre Avenue. My Dad passed this store on to him over 20 years ago and my Uncle John hasn’t done one single thing to it, as you can see. It’s got to be THE most ghetto Aquarium store in the whole of Sydney.

That’s just about right in terms of where I’ve placed my values between cars and bikes :)

When I first took the Ti project out for a spin (initially around Centennial Park) I did feel a slight click in the crank, it was so small I thought nothing of it. I didn’t feel it so much out on the trails around Loftus, mainly because I was having problems with my 2nd hand Pace fork (I did the whole ride with the fork bottomed out!). Upon close inspection of the bottom bracket the last time I rode (again at Centennial Park) I noticed the non-drive side bottom bracket (BB) cup to be slightly angled/not straight.

Here’s a picture:

The guys at Maroubra Cycles don’t see it as a major problem as the drive side screws in fine, and the non-drive side only exists to support the drive side which is flush and perfect. The cups screw in easily by hand but on revolution of the BB spindle it touches the sides of the BB cup on the non-drive side. That could be the slight ‘click’ that I’m feeling.

In the picture above I’ve installed 2 extra spacers on the non-drive side and this stops the spindle from touching the BB cup but it’s pretty dodgey. Fact is that there’s something wrong with the thread on the non-drive side of the titanium frame. Maybe it’s why I picked trhe frame up for $500 (you get what you pay for).

I’ve contacted Cheeky Transport in Newtown as they have a machine that can re-face my frame. Depending on the cost I’ll do it, otherwise I think this frame had more praise when it was up on my wall and when I passed it around whenever guests come over to the house (hey check out how light this thing is!!!).

I just found this old pic of me riding my GT through a very flooded Centennial Park in the 80’s!

PS: Check out my very strange handlbars.

I liked them when I saw them at Tokyo Auto Salon in January and then I went off them when I view images of them online but today I saw some at the show room and had a sit inside too. I like the new steering wheel + controls all over it. I also like the dash + centre console. All in all it very much feels like the old Jazz inside. I like it! It’s cute and I’m contemplating upgrading to one.

Cute like a Koala!

Interior.

I also dropped in to the LBS to pick up my wheels, but they were’nt ready. Grant’s got a few new 2009 Giant roadies in store though.

New TCR.

New Defy.

CF top tube.

Got to get me a roadie… soon?

My marine tank has been running smooth for almost 2 years now. I’ve very much adopted my Uncle John’s (he runs ‘Beach Aquariums’, my Dad’s old aquarium at Bondi Beach) way of keeping fish, which is to basically don’t worry about anything at all! When I was first getting into the hobby I was hanging out at fish forums day and night and I was so into keeping the salt water paramters as close as I possibly could to the ocean. Control your nitrates, or was that nitrites! Keep the calcium up, dose with a billion chemical additives… keep it perfect! In doing so I think I only stressed the fish, corals and myself out even more. Ultimately I have employed a fantastic system, it’s relatively low tech but highly automated (a sensor activates a pump which tops up evaporated water and I have a deep sand bed, protein skimmer and a sump and under the tank .

Aquaria is no longer a crazy hobby for me (bikes are at the moment as you might have guessed lol) and it’s very much just become a part of my every day life (gotta love that).

Today I treated the fishies to some new lighting (as my tubes are almost 2 years old!). I dropped in to see George and Michella from Slippery Little Suckers in Kingsford (they’re such nice people) and picked up some nice 100% actinic + 50/50 actinic tubes which are slightly more blue than what I had before.

On the bike front: I dropped in to Maroubra Cycles and left my wheels with Ash who is going to true them for me. They’ll be back to me by tomorrow (I love those guys for squeezing me in).

My aluminium bars (which are replacing my barely used carbon bars) have finally come in the mail. These Easton EA70 25.4mm Low Rise 685mm bars are advertised as 250g, WRONG! Ripped off once again. They are 276g on my scale (oooh lol).

Difference between the CF bars + the new Eastons.

Pretty bad this side.

Other side.

New bars are on.

Looking forward to the wider bars as I’ve found myself holding onto the very edge of the bars a lot since getting the shorter CF bars (they were not as wide as the original Raceface Evolve XC bars on the bike).

One thing that’s been lurking around in my forebrain is rolling resistance. I’ve always thought that the Reign “feels” slow and I’ve done a lot of research into tyres (perhaps one of, if not the most important aspect to bicycle performance?). My 2.35 Nevegals seem to be a slow rolling tyre, many people world wide, including magazine tests, conclude that the 2.35 wide tyre is a slow tyre, but apparently the 2.1 is fairly fast whilst still offering a lot of grip. I’ve been hesitant to put thinner tyres on the Reign to this date but after seeing a Yeti 575 at the Yeti stall over last weekend’s World Cup, and talking to the sponsored rider who gave the 2.1’s a thumbs up for trail riding I thought I’d at least give it a go.

I’ve put the 2.1 Nobby Nic’s off my Titanium project over to the Reign and I’ll see how they go out on the trails. The bike now weighs in at 12.6kg’s, should roll a lot faster, looking forward to testing them out.