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In attendance: Matt, Jing, Kevin, Trieu, Norman, Clifton, Timmy, Ryan, Felix, Alex, and Jarod.

My Reign, stripped.

Pizza time!

We stayed true to the tradition of riding to the beach, this time around we hit the skate park. That’s Norman who’s stacked it on the right haha.

Kevin on his 6.5kg roadie (ridiculously light!). I doubt this skate park has ever seen so many road bikes!

Matt on his 29’er.

Since Christina’s no longer living with me (she’s back at her parent’s place) I thought it was time to re-introduce BMU bike nights. I had 11 guys over, tinkering with bikes, eating pizza, drinking beers, we made a mess, good times!

Last night on my way out the door to go to Mothers Day dinner I saw a huge stream of email messages in my inbox from the BMU members. I was cc’ed in a little late and couldn’t quite make out what they were talking about except I read the words: Jing, accident, hospital.

I had to duck out so I didn’t have time to make sense of any of it. I grabbed my phone and saw a message from Clifton which explained that Jing was riding his road bike out at the royal national park and had a bad accident. Both his arms were broken, internal bleeding and he was in hospital. I called Shirley, Jing’s fiancee, and she filled me in on everything whilst I was in the back seat of Mum’s car on the way out to the restaurant (I was meant to be driving!).

Today I thought I’d visit Jing at St George hospital. Hospitals are scary haunted places. Getting past the entrance is hard enough for me, getting into a lift even worse. I tracked down Jing’s room, saw a bed with his name on it, but he wasn’t there (freaky!). I then found out he had been moved. After going into another room full of strangers (I went into the wrong room) I was directed into the right room by a nurse but again, Jing wasn’t in there! The nurse said he could be getting an assessment, but it turns out he was in the bathroom.

It was amazing to see Jing up on his feet. Both his arms were in casts and his face was pale and sweaty from the drugs (he’s been loaded up on morphine and other pain killers). He told me how the accident took place, that he wasn’t even doing anything but rolling down a straight bit of road, he was riding one handed, hit a bump and flew into a metal guard rail stomach first. When he got up he realised his arm made an “S” shape, then a pain like he’d never felt before came over him and he soon found himself screaming.

His surgery went for over 6 hours. He has broken both arms, one in 3 places. He has broken some of his pelvis, fractured his hip. He’s got internal bleeding and initially the doctors were afraid he had a hole in his bowel, but whilst I was visiting a young doctor surrounded by his junior minions explained to Jing that the impact was so hard that his lungs ‘popped’ and that created the pocket of air in his back (which they previously thought was an intestinal gas pocket of air). So surreal.

The poor guy has had a lot of time to think everything through, the incident, his future of riding and his doubts about the later. If you know Jing, you’ll know he thinks a LOT (his blog is even called Thoughts…), and with this accident being so fresh its only natural for him to go through mental wars right now.

On my way out I ran into Timmy, who was on his way up to see Jing. He’s got a lot of support and I’m sure with a bit of time and healing he’ll be feeling more alive than ever.

Up in lights.

Cool art = culture.

Ash and Matt.

Ash’s toys.

Ash was working on Rockstar Racing’s/World 24hr Solo Champion Gordo’s bike.

A lot of the boys made a b-line directly to the helmet display to try on some funky new Lazer helmets.

What’s a BMU bike night without beers?! Thanks Grant for the cold bevvies :)

Perhaps the only tool that’s allowed to leave Ash’s workshop.

Grant and Tom from Hell on Wheels.

‘Master of Ceremonies Cycling’ Grant busy MCing.

Jing’s BMC at Menya.

Being my first time at Menya I went for the Menya ramen with miso base and damn it was awesome. Best Ramen I’ve had in Sydney to date.

Trieu ordered the dragon, which was so hot it blew his face off. :loling:

Grant’s dream of opening the ultimate bike shop is now a reality. Last night he invited BMU for our own private bike night at his new shop on Clarence Street in the city. Having spent a good part of 6 months working on the plans for this business (the plan was to be a major shareholder but things fell through at crunch time) I’ve got to say it was sweet sweet. Not bitter sweet, just super sweet. I’m so happy for Grant and I’m wishing him the very best.

Despite not actually working on bikes, or building Frankenstein bikes or going for a drunken ride afterwards, last night’s MC Cyclery/BMU bike night was heaps of fun and I’m hoping Grant will be up for more BMU Bike Nights at MCC in future.

PS: I rode the Zoomer in peak hour traffic to get there last night. Have to admit I was a little scared initially, but once I got rolling I had a blast!

Gah…

A little history: When I was a little kid (before I owned a proper bicycle) I used to haunt Europa Cycles (back then they were on Clarence St. across from Clarence St. Cyclery) as my parents worked in the city and took us in every weekend.

I used to just walk in and stare at all these bicycle frames on the wall, crazy colours, clover shaped tubing and almost all of them featured little stickers with a dove on them (Columbus Tubing!).

Over the years I kept haunting Europa. I eventually bought a road bike off them when I was in high school (it had friction gears and gold plated parts!) and later I ended up working in one of their bike shops in Randwick.

I’ve always had very high regard for Colnago ever since. I suppose it’s the crème de la crème for me.

I’ve been slowly but surely getting back into bikes again thanks to my Paino and yesterday I thought I’d drop into the official Colnago web site. What I saw there was pretty upsetting. Their new bikes look like everybody else’s bikes. Really ugly. We’re talking swoopy chunky carbon fibre frames (all of which are made in Asia now) and ugly sports shoe like graphics…then I saw the Master and it sparked something. They’ve been re-releasing the same old Columbus steel Master frame for a few years now, it’s the same exact design from the 80’s (1983?), with all the glorious details (check the fancy lugs!).

I did more searching around, funny as all of a sudden I’m chatting to Jing on MSN and Googling bikes (again), and not fish tanks… and then I saw the 2011 Master in white (above). I pretty much had a mini heart attack. Love at first sight.

The idea of having a brand new old skool frame with the latest 2011 componentry excites me. Sure it’s not going to be as light or as fast as the new carbon things but this is a matter of the heart, and for me, that always wins. I dropped a few mails to see if I can get one locally at a reduced price in exchange for Bikes Move Us Forum Sponsorship, no go. It turns out there’s not much margin on these bikes. There is no stock held as they’re made by hand, in Italy (yes, very exciting!) and the wait is apparently up to 9months!

Being as broke as I am I’ll just have to chill for a bit. I’m hoping I can still get this 2011 white frame (colours change every year) next year, somehow. I might never own a Ferrari F40, this might just be the next best thing!

The boys at St. Peters Station for a lazy late 7.30AM (we decided to ignore our differing allocated times and start together). Waking up this morning to birds chirping was a good sign, looking out the window I saw that the sun was out. Despite the rain forecast it was a beautiful day!

Seeing Jing in tights took some getting used to (lol).

Brandon and Felix at Loftus Oval. At this point I was completely gone. My groin was very sore, shoulders too and my legs were jelly. In a few past rides I’ve not even stopped here! Considering Loftus is the 1/3 way point. I knew I was in for a hard day.

The view is the reward at Stanwell Tops. I somehow managed to make it up and out of the national park. I knew I was unfit after not being on the bike for a year but I didn’t expect it to be so hard. I relied solely on mental strength and even then I was completely crushed. I thought so many times about hopping off the bike and walking up some the hills. I somehow managed to stay on though and made it up without walking.

The boys at this stage were really starting to wait for me. I was about 10 minutes or more behind them.

In so so so much pain!

I love this bridge so much. Left is the ocean, right is an amazing high cliff face.

The finish just never came. The last 4-5km’s were the hardest and I’m lucky I had the boys urging me on. Brandon especially who really helped me to make it.

Richie had a great ride.

Eddie, Jing, Richie, Felix, Brandon and myself.

This had to be the hardest ride of my entire life.

I’ve never had a cramp before, ever, but I felt my right calf tighten up every time I tried to get out of the saddle and mash it so that forced me to stay seated. At times I had to just look down at the road and take it one pedal at a time. I had my BMU sticker there, it helped in an odd way. I also thought of my mate Sean who was diagnosed with MS this year and I also thought about my generous sponsors and their messages of encouragement. That combined with the BMU guys waiting for me at each main stop saw me through to the finish.

I’ve got to say I’m shocked at how much fitness you can lose in just one year of not exercising. Scary when you really think about it. It’s a tough lesson learnt for me. I’ve got to get fit again and this time stay fit!