Been a long time since I’ve ridden with the boys (very long time) but once I heard they were hooking up for dinner I was in without hesitation!
The Crew.
So Pho So good. Pho Tai at Pho An in Bankstown.
Jing, Clifton and Andy.
Kevins minter S15. So nice.
Cliffy playing with Kevin’s new bike.
Great night, lots of laughs, highly recommend.
Kirkey drag seat spotted at the airport on the way to Shanghai! It got a lot of looks from people who were confused as to what it was.
The long flight to Shanghai (10hrs?) was the worst flight I’ve ever been on to date. This baby was crying, no… SCREAMING it’s lungs off for the entire flight. I assume the guy in the pink shirt is her daddy and mummy was not on the flight. Some women in desperation tried to help the guy out throughout the flight but she just kept on wailing (so hard that she was choking every 10 minutes). I felt most sorry for the people in the business class cabin directly in front as they paid big bucks for comfort (but got none of it!). We also had a family with 2 kids sitting in the row behind us and the little runt behind me was kicking the back of my seat throughout the flight. Awesome times.
At the airport earlier I was approached by Australian champion Sam Betten who’s on Triathlon Australia’s annual Young Guns Tour (they were going to compete in Beijing). He recognised me from my blog (Hey Sam!) which took me by surprise. It looks like he killed it too, you can check out the race results here.
Christina and Jess. We got in late and had dinner across the road from our hotel (lovely restaurant too, think Asian Moulin Rouge). The humidity was high (reminded me of Singapore) and we were super tired (I was still very mentally disturbed by the crying baby). That night I had a deeper sleep than I’ve had in ages. Day 2 coming up soon!
Felix’s new King Headset.
Andy’s Mash with Phil Hubs.
La Perouse.
Felix had a new bling King headset to install on his fixie so we had a small bike night last night, haven’t had one in aaaaages.
Andy, Jing and Timmy rode all the way over to my place from out Rockdale way, we got to work on Felix’s bike, cracked a few beers and then hit the road to La Perouse. La Pa was all fenced off so the hoons couldn’t hang out there, some of them still did though and they found us quite amusing: “Long way to France” they were yelling out. Har har har.
By the time I got back I was feeling pretty sick and getting up the stairs was hard work as my legs were jelly. I used parts of my lungs I hadn’t used in a long time. That felt pretty good. I’m unfit but I was still able to keep up with the boys (they’re machines!) so I’m pretty sure I’ll bounce back to form pretty quickly (IF I keep this up!).
I noticed my internal hard drive not showing up on my list of drives a few times last week. Bells started to ring. “Backup your content man!”. I’ve heard it from so many people, especially PC users but I’ve never actually bothered until this time. I backed everything up last Friday and the drive completely died last weekend. Saved by the bell?!
I dropped in to see Jing today at PC Express (his PC Shop). He’s nursing a broken elbow from a fall at Loftus, perhaps one of the easiest mountain bikes trails around. Jing knows this place like the back of his hand (he could even do it blind folded!) but It just goes to show that anything can happen.
He took the faulty drive out and replaced it with a new one and he’s going to see if he can get the old drive working again for me but since I’ve backed everything up, it’s all good!
Photo by Jing Li.
This would have to be one of the most epic & intriguing cars I’ve ever driven. Read the spec sheet & it sounds like a monster, but drive it & you could be convinced this is a factory effort by Honda to create one of the most thrilling small cars of all time.
I just came across a test drive review of my own K20A Honda Jazz (which I’ve lent to David for a week, he’s the new owner now). I was confused as I thought it might have been an old review when Eddie owned it, then I saw the date on the posts! This is a recent review of the yellow monster, read and enjoy:
I snuck out of the JDMST EOMM on Saturday night early so that I could go home and hit the sack. 5am on Sunday I was up, packed the car and headed of to Richie’s. From there we rode to Newtown for the start. My hands were killing me from the ride in so I made a little adjustment to the bars (I tilted them back) and that made a HUGE difference.
We met up with Jing and after sitting in the line for 10 minutes we decided to jump the start (we would have been sitting there for at least half an hour otherwise). Like last year there was a major blockage for the first 10km but we were rolling soon enough and that Gong vibe kicked in.
Seeing so many different types of people, of all ages, so many different kinds of bikes and the volunteers yelling out “Thank you so much! Thanks for the support!” brought a massive smile to my face. I’ve always treated the Gong ride more like a race (which it isn’t) and gone solo every time. Richie, Jing and I stuck together as a group all the way until the finish line, which was great fun.
The event raised over 2.6 million dollars for MS and I managed to raise $410 so a huge thanks to everyone who sponsored me.
More pictures and discussion can be found here.
Ever since the Ti build was finished the Hardrock has been hanging there without parts (the fork went onto the Ti). Inspired by Jarods new wheels + Jings new VOODOO I thought I’d put a bit of love into the old Hardrock to get it back on the road.
More images here.
Pics from last nights great Loftus night ride. Great weather yesterday made for a dry trail. At 7.30PM (our usual meet up time) there was still light.
The MCC boys (David, Sam and Ash).
Sam.
Jings new Voodoo SS.
David.
Felix.
David, freak face off picture!
It’s warming up and Monday night Loftus rides are on again.
I sold my niterider lights before winter kicked in as they weren’t bright enough for the pace we were starting to go at, not to mention that as it got colder and darker earlier we all failed to keep up night riding so it was a good time to sell them. Another reason for selling them was that I heard that the new Ayups were going to be on sale soon (they’re Australian made lights which everyone else is using, not cheap but they’re damn bright).
Tonight I borrowed one of Jing’s lights but the good news is that the new Ayups are now on sale, bit more expensive than last time but they’re more refined (brighter and more waterproof kit). I was still way off the pace but at least I didn’t feel sick like I did last ride. The weather was perfect too, not too cold, just right, no mozzies, perfect.
I had planned to come back home to a roast chook but the boys wanted to hit up McDonalds so I did the social thing and tagged along. After reading Charles’s review of the new Angus Burger I gave it a go and too right it was juicy and wasn’t as bad as some of the crap burgers I’ve had at pricey cafe’s. Can’t say I’d recommend them though, that would be bad Kharma right?
