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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.

Back to Wagaya again! It’s loud, and young… but I love the touch screen ordered system, food and beers.

We made a booking for Richie and the Japanese lady at the counter had troubles spelling his name :)

Breakfast Pizza at the Pool Cafe (my local).

Our decals are in! Buy one for your bike and/or car today!!!

I took delivery of my Strida last night and I’ve already started to tinker with it. All the pics are up here.

Not so much a huge revelation, but worth mentioning.

When I got into cycling again (in March last year) it was straight into tinkering with the bike I found under the house. Instead of simply riding it I stripped it apart and built it up from frame up to be a work of art. In the process I got really into bikes, and learnt a lot about how they work, as well as modern bike culture, terminology and trends.

Skills wise I pretty much picked up from where I left off as a 16/17/18 year old, and felt like I hadn’t really lost any of my bike riding abilities, but one thing was really missing for the first few months, and that was the actual love of riding.

Sure. I was into doing up bicycles, buying and trying new bicycle parts, tooling with them and doing countless hours of research on the internet, as well as reading magazines and watching movies, all in relation to bicycles, but I actually did a whole lot more of this than actual riding.

I’m not sure exactly when things changed for me but all of the modifying and the researching has taken second seat now to my love of riding. If I don’t ride I feel fat even though I’m far from fat. I feel bad when I don’t ride and I’m always feeling “itchy to ride”. When I’m riding I’m happy and sometimes I even feel naughty… it feels like a treat! (like dropping the clutch and doing a burnout, knowing that you’re not meant to be doing them!).

Having said all that, there’s nothing at all wrong with being into bicycles for whatever other reasons apart from just riding, it’s normal. Any which way to get into it I say. But I hope this transformation happens over time to you guys and gals who are just simply starting out riding for fitness, or for the fun of something new.

I caught up with 2 close uni (BA Design) friends last night. Kellie Bates and Simon McIntyre. We’d messaged each other on facebook a couple of weeks ago (hey facebook works!) and we hadn’t caught up with each other in a long while so it was high time.

Trinity Bar in Surry Hills.

Kellie and Simon are both 34 and kidless so far (I find that almost unusual as most of the friends I’ve got my age have kids). To be honest, the fact that both of them haven’t yet had kids made me feel less silly about my situation but having said that, both Simon and Kellie are married (not to each other!) and that’s something I’ve yet to do (one day?!).

The catch-up was great.

Kellie’s always been a full time worker bee but she’s quit and she’s starting her own business where she digitally paints portraits (nice!). Simon’s lecturing at UNSW College of Fine Arts (the university we graduated from), but on our way home to the cars he mentioned money was a little tight at the moment. That usually means one thing. I sniffed out his passion: planes! Yes every proper guy out there is obsessed with “something”, that something is usually what drains the wallet too. You can check out his insanely amazing plane obsession here.

Just some imagery I’ve been working on for MC Cyclery.

Quite a few things fell on today’s date. Australia day, Chinese New Years, My mothers B’day and it’s the year of the cow too which is my mums Chinese horoscope sign.

As usual, a lot of eating and being lazy too. The day was grey, unusual as Australia Day’s usually sunny. The tennis is on TV (beats being there live, been there, done that, didn’t really like it).

Strangely I’m looking forward to getting stuck into work tomorrow!

Here’s a few pics from the past few days:

Knog much? Rebel Sports were giving away these Knogs for $10 each. I assume people just didn’t know what they were, so they failed to sell at all and so they decided to get rid of them. I pretty much bought the lot!

Black SLR saddle is on the Paino. Looks great huh?!

My sisters bike with new rack and bag which I got her for Christmas :)

Her new Kitten Jasper! He’s a gorgeous Abysinian. His so tiny but his paws are massive.

Kung Hei!

Great beer this one. I’m a fan of crispy beers.

I cleaned up the Apollo I found on the side of the road and she’s now on eBay.

I had all intentions to rest up on my ankle which I hurt ages ago on the huck at Manly, but couldn’t resist the BMU ride at Appin today so I went.

And what an awesome ride it was.

The sand on corners was so bad the 1st lap around, but better the 2nd time around. My ankle felt so good until the very end of the 1st lap, after a rest it was 100% again for the 2nd lap.

1st lap I had pro-pedal on, and I was bouncing around everywhere, so sketchy I had a hard time staying on the trail in parts. 2nd lap was a lot better with propedal off and a bit more air in my rear shock. Perfection! The thin and fast Kenda small block 8 on the rear was just perfect. I loved it and it never slipped even on the tech uphill stuff.

Tai and Cliffy pushed me to the limit for the 2nd half of the 2nd lap where we didn’t stop at all. I was seriously spent by the end of that lap, felt so bad, but so good at the same time.

All in all, great ride! So glad I made it. All the pics and running commentary are up here.