Monthly Archives: November 2008

I feel fat for not riding this weekend. Great weekend though! Here’s the wrap-up.

On Saturday Suga got dropped off at Top One to get her tinting done.

We dropped into ISMR to pay off some debts (doh!). R34’s are slipping away from me. My once dream car has lost it’s sparkle.

We dropped in to Hell On Wheels in Newtown. How amazing is this bike? It’ll be featured in their next advertisement in 20/20 magazine, all photoshopped up.

I’ve been thinking about motor bikes lately too.

I saw this deck on their site and had to have it. I’d met Tom a couple of times but I got to meet Rob this time around. He said he couldn’t believe it hadn’t sold, and that he wanted it for wall art but his girl said no (why?! Christina loooves this deck!).

Up on the wall it goes. HAHA.

On Sunday I’d woken up on dreaming about bikes (sad I know) and even before I had my morning coffee I was in the car off to Kingsford markets. Not sure why, just was. I crossed the road and was greeted by this sight:

Holy fucking shit I thought! I asked the old Russian guy “How much do you want for this?” and he says “Nice bike, it’s perfect for you, $45″. “45?” “Yes $45″. I didn’t have the heart to bargain him down some more. I just took it!

Then I saw this beauty. Clamont racer with Tange 900 tubing and a beautiful brown suede Turbo saddle. $100, so tempted but I let her go.

This old GT was awesome too, check the frame, it’s hot.

I even wanted this, used to have one as a kid. They last forever unlike new belt driven onces which die in the ass.

It’s a bit of a ritual getting an egg and bacon roll from these guys at the markets. Best bacon and egg roll in Sydney no bull.

Scorage!

JDM goodness.

Tange tubing.

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

Stewart lah!

Pole 16

PIGBUM

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

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.

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 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!).

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.

Seen it before, worth watching again. Nice video.

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!

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!).