Monthly Archives: May 2009

Pics from this weeks hectic MCC vs Hell on Wheels Heffron Park flat track event!!! We’re still dizzy from the 2-stroke fumes…

Photos by Matt Holmes (the man).

I’ve been watching MasterChef on TV (it’s replaced the fatty show). I’m a shit cook, but I’ve been meaning to give cooking a good go for years now. Last night Christina, Jess and I had a good go at cooking dinner for her parents (scary as her Dad’s Iron Chef). We did alright!!!

Our entre, Linguine, crushed anchovies in garlic, fresh parsley and a stuff mushroom. Our main was lamb and mash MasterChef style (the lamb was undercooked boo hiss).

Nyaw Peppa.

Jess’ yummo choc on choc dessert.

Earlier in the day Suga and I ran all over town to pay and pick up goods for the house:

Our stone tub.

Frikkin door handles, we went for the bottom right.

I love tools. We also managed to drop in to Tiffany’s to resize her ring and pick up the diamond certificate, which is so sexy I want to frame it (I’ll scan it later).

Crazy Penis’ at Mao and More

Zi organised a dinner at Wagaya (my fave) to catch up with mates, celebrate our engagement (suga and I), as well as his B’day drinks but that fell through as we had too many numbers, so he booked JuJu’s at the Cross in stead (I’m just totally in awe that Zi organised something!!!).

Whilst the service was crap (it took forever for the beers to come), the food was crap and the Karaoke was unbearable the company was great which made for a fun night.

Shabu-Shabu!

Suga and Stevey.

Me and my finance.

Sake + Ashahi = laughs all round. Look at how red Willy is.

Steve cracking up.

Singer of the night. Bad singers that write it off are one thing, but I love the ones that actually try, and think that they’re good the most.

The ASM boys are a bunch of gamblers, the poker bug extends to dares. Here’s the chilli oil dare. $100 pot for Papz to drink it.

Down it goes.

Easy money (I’m sure his ass will burn the next morning).

Charles bought Zi a rose from the rose lady.

Shot of the night, for sure.

As soon as we stepped outside Zi and Paul walked into Guzman Y Gomez next door to order burritos. Zi eats a lot when he’s drunk.

Willy and Andy.

Mark bought me this Pedal ID fixie toy when he was in Japan earlier this year. I’ve been so slack in picking it up from him but he brought it along tonight, thanks Mark, you’re a champ. I love it!

I’ve lost my kitchen and I’ve almost lost my mind too. I have to eat out and even making my essential morning coffee is a hard thing to do. It’s getting harder and harder to cope with living in the house as it’s being renovated. The dust is insane, there’s just so much of it, on absolutely every single surface (I’m sneezing a lot!). It’s very much looking like I have to move out (Muum!). Here are some recent pictures:

The new stairs up to the deck, down into the garden are now straight (old ones were at angles) and they’re twice as wide too. Awesome.

The hand railing is on and I’ve designed the slat system which the boys will get onto next (we did consider wire, but wire’s a bit too boat like).

No kitchen!

The guest bathroom, ready for tiling. That little wall in there is the shower wall, it’ll be a feature wall (mosaic tiles) and saves me from cleaning glass (ie: you just walk in to have a shower, no shower doors to close and/or clean).The ground in the shower part slopes towards a drain (which is being custom made at the moment).

The laundry ready for tiling.

The Ti frame, due to a defect, had been up on the wall as art for over a year. A few attempts to get it going again failed, but last night there must have been something in the air as Jing and I managed to revive the thing, and she’s riding beautifully today! So awesome. I don’t know what to think.

She’s back!

1×9 and a road bb solves everything.

Beer of choice.

More info and pics here.

Fuck it’s May already!

The Fuji never made it. A keen guy offered me $650 for it and I couldn’t resist. SOLD! Packed up and ready to go.

Massive milage/tank. Even after a flogging with 3 people in the car to the dirtworks and back. The Jazz continues to impress!

And the SE’s finally finished (yeah right!).

The official Dirtworks results are up!

I did it in 2hours 50 minutes 25seconds

96th out of 203 in veteran class.
253rd overall out of 625 riders in the 50km race (109 people DNF).
233rd overall in Mens.

Today a few of the BMU crew and I did the Dirt Works Classic, 105km North West of Sydney in the St Albans Region. Regarded as one of Australia’s most challenging mountain bike endurance races although we only did the 50km, not the 100km race, having said that, even the 50km race totally destroyed me.

Andy and Clifton got to my place at 5AM. I only got afew hours sleep as last night was Suga and my engagement party with her girl friends. I didn’t drink much though (I tried to only have one glass of champagne, one cocktail and one glass of wine). The girls went out partying afterwards but I managed to sneak off home, and got to bed by 11PM. Christina woke me up when she got home at 4AM though, so I just got up, had a coffee, bananna and started getting ready.

BMU RPRSNT!

The drive there was spectacular. The fog on the highway was awesome, think Speilberg meets Lynch.

The Jazz had a hard time over some of the terrain as it was so low, which made for some giggles.

Andy pre-race. Damn it was chilly.

Registration was super fast. I can’t believe I’m a veteran! :/

Almost ready!

The Start line. The ride from the car to the start line was sooo cold. Warm in the sun, freezing in the shade.

The Finish – Clifton, Ben and crew.

Me at the finish line. 2hrs and 50 minutes later!

Felix, every entrant got a cold beer on crossing the finish line.

Andy.

The beer went straight to my head. I had a Pizza, that didn’t make me feel any better at all. I was destroyed. The last 10km’s really killed me and I had to dig deep. All in all it was a great ride, the Fizik Gobi XM saddle hurt for the 1st kew km’s but it just got so comfy as I went along (or was my ass numb from the pain?!). The SPD’s helped me a lot on the climbs, where I managed to overtake a lot of people. The downhills, which I usually love the most, were super sketchy on my Anthem. I had to use a lot of brake, and just didn’t feel at all confident in the bike when pointed down hill. I bonked at about 30km’s and just generally struggled from there until the finish where a lot of people I overtook earlier got me back (mentally crushing I tell you).

I wish I was better prepared, but ever since the flu I got a month ago, and all that wet weather where I didn’t ride I just neve managed to get back to the state I was in pre-flu. Having said that: I’m not so fussed about my time (for reference young Clifton beat my by 25 minutes and finished 11 in his class! So awesome) and I’m happy I finished.

How those guys do the 100km race is beyond me, way beyond me. Massive respect to every single one of them.

The constant banging doesn’t hurt as much as it did for the first few weeks, but it’s still driving me up the wall. So much so that I find myself going out for longer lunches, and even hanging out at MCC.

It’s all happening though, scary thing is nothing is finished, but more and more stuff gets destroyed!

Kitchen. The whole thing will come down. I’m busy, in Photoshop (hey it’s all I know!), designing what the new kitchen will look like.

The deck!

The guest bathroom.