Monthly Archives: February 2009

Christina’s moving in soon (finally!) and my bins have been full for a few weeks in a row (yes I’m throwing a lot of my shit out!).

This weekend we did the couples thing (along with the rest of Sydney it seems as it was a shitfight) and went to a few furniture shops for some ideas. First of all we went to SPACE just so I could drool over the same B&B Italia couch I’ve lusted after for over 10 years. The price is still insane at $34,000. We then came back down to earth and went to Ikea (where $34k could almost buy you one of everything in the entire store!).

I’ve always felt shit about buying stuff at Ikea (I like to think I’m too good for their shit), but the hard fact is that their stuff is cheap(er), and some of it works quite well. For example, I love their massive Expedit bookshelves, they’re almost iconic!(maybe the best thing they’ve ever sold?) and so we bought another one of them for my man cave and also a table for Christina’s new office.

Christina’s new office. What the photo doesn’t show was clearing out the room, which was a nightmare as I had constructed a sound proof wall in there as that room was meant to be a recording room. The bay window was completely covered in vines on the outside, ripping them down was mighty fun!

Expedit workbench and tool storage in my man cave.

I was getting bicycle goods deliveries a few times a week at some stage. Now it’s only every now and then, but hearing the courier rock up outside and the rear door sliding gets me excited every time. I love the mail man!

In the box today was:

Thomson stem for Suga’s road bike. It’s shorter because she’s shorter!

White gear cabling for the Paino!

Grippiest shoes in the world but I ruined my plain black pair (washed them, failed to dry them and they grew mould) so I bought the same shoe but the Sam Hill model. I knew they had his name on the heel, which is damn embarassing if you ask me, but in real life these have to be the ugliest shoes I’ve ever owned. Snake skin pattern and check that naff Australia detail!!! GAH!

Same grippy sole from 5.10 but in a more comfy casual shoe for busting around the block duties.

Ardent tyre for the Reign.

Ardent tyre on the front. FAT!

Fixed gear goodness.

Andy dropped in just then to show off his new Surly Steamroller. It’s got a flip flop hub on it but the boys at MC Cyclery forced him to ride it fixed! It’s nuts. I had a little go outside and damn it’s a freaky experience.

1) I found it hard to even get my 2nd foot into the toe clips as they couldn’t stop spinning!

2) Cornering with a toe clip out meant scraping Andy’s lovely new MKS toeclips into the ground.

3) Even with brakes I found it hard to stop. I tried to stop without the brakes (just using my legs) and it was impossible!!!

Excitement!

Caryn sent me photos of this little guy this morning, how cute!!!

Out of control, huh? Click here for a bigger pic.

Here’s a pic (one of many) that Christina took of me riding the Strida down the road to Mums place (yes she was laughing at me). We were lounging out watching the tennis when the wine ran out, the thought of riding up the big hill to see if the bottle shop was open or not made me feel instantly lazy but then I had an epiphany, picked up the phone and called Mum, asked her if she’d mind if I stole a bottle from her (lol) and quite impulsively I rode over to go fetch it!

On the way I had quite a few stares and one girl even yelled out “nice bike!”. Even mum was curious about it, she was outside watching me ride down the road but didn’t know if it was me (or a bike?) or not! I’ve got so many bikes but none of them get any sort of attention at all. Good times!

Woke up, coffee, PC… BOOM. Black screen. Restart, browse net, boom, black screen. Call Jing and he says it’s the video card. Took it out, put it back in, and then it started animating and blinking and doing all sorts of wild shit (made working today quite fun!).

Yummy Triumph goodness spotted at JDMyard today. Is life cyclic?! Is it reall y all just a little bit of history repeating? I’m getting more and more into motor bikes again. Doesn’t help that I still have my riding license too.

Redback! Found this little beauty at Buddy Club today. It’s only the third one I’ve ever seen in real life. Not as huge as the one I saw a long time ago, but still adult sized.

We rode Loftus late this afternoon because Jing and Clifton got pulled over by the cops (literally a minute away from the trail too). The bikes on the rack were obstructing his license plate and Jing copped a chunky fine (didn’t help that he didn’t have his license on him either?!). Let that be a lesson to anyone who does the same, spend the $30 to get a bike rack plate made up at the RTA, it’s only $30 and could save you from a $300 fine.

SPOKE! Thanks to Paul these great looking NZ MTB mags were in my mailbox! They’ll make a B-line straight for my bedside table for pre-sleep reading (and gawking lol). Can’t wait to put a care package together for Paul too, will be doing so ASAP.