Search Results for: jing

Twisties!

L to R: Ross, Nick (who was riding a Yeti 575 test bike!), me, MWG, Brad.

Me on Jing’s Cannondale.

And again (PS: the Fox Sargeant shorts are the best shorts I’ve owned so far).

Group shot out in the open.

Mad skids!

Honda crew packing for home.

Young Cliffy made to do the dirty work.

Had an early night and met up with Zi, Jing, Clifton, Andy and 1st timer David at 7.30AM. We hit the M5 to M7 and got the Yellowmundee at 9AM. MWG rocked up as soon as we arrived (the Soap guys: Matt, Ross, Nick and Brad had just finished half a lap) and Felix soon after. David forgot to bring water, freaked out and drove to get some, this kinda slowed us all down as we had to wait for him to get back, once he pulled into the driveway the Soap guys were itching to hit the trail (some of them had other committments booked for later in the day) and once we did hit the trail we soon realised that David’s off road bike skills were pretty much non-existant. We lost him 10 minutes in and at that stage no one was willing to go back for him so we forged on (all the while feeling really bad about it!).

David was back at the carpark (we thought he would be) and wanted to go home. Perhaps it was the pressure of having too many people, a lot of it was nerves too poor guy, but we kinda forced him to stay to at least have another go, and we did another lap minus the Soap guys (the hardcore crew!) who all had to go home. Zi was sure to keep him company this time around.

Yellowmundee: It’s all single trail and it’s quite pretty and the trail flows really well too. I’d watched a few videos of the trail, and read a thread on Farkin where people were discussing 2 hard parts which they walk up (I saw a lot of people walking it in the videos too). I have to admit after seeing the vids I had a giggle as it all looked too easy, but having said that I know that things ALWAYS look easier on a picture, or video than in real life, so I tried my best to bite my tounge and not say a thing until I gave it a go first hand. Fair enough I didn’t make it up the 2 technical climbs 1st go, but I got them both the 2nd go and they’re both easy for me in comparisson to some parts of Manly Dam.

I also had a good go at Jing’s Cannondale. The gearing (no granny gear and a road cassette on the back) is definitely not great for technical stuff. I failed to get up either tech climb with his bike. On the other hand I had a go at Andy’s heavy Giant Yukon (Giant’s entry level dually) and got up it no worries (perhaps a combination of plushness, easy gears and weight for traction?).

Highlight of the day was just chilling out at the tech climb after the bridge and just egging everyone on to have a good go at it. We made a lot of noise and had a lot of laughs. Good times. I feel bad for David, he would have been much better of going to Lady Carrington Drive for his 1st trail experience. I only hope he’s not freaked out by the whole thing. I also managed to snap my chain (that felt strange!) and have to praise SRAM’s powerlink as it got me going again in a matter of minutes.

PS: All pics by Jing. I left my camera at home doh.

PPS: The Yeti Nick was riding didn’t look as porn as I thought it would look, maybe because the componentry was a lot lower spec than what I’ve got on my Reign. Whilst I didn’t have a go on it we did talk about the bike at different times during the ride and I’ve come to the concusion that it’s a very similar bike to the Reign. It can make it up climbs, just not as fast as the hardtail guys. It’s slow and painful on gradual uphills but it leaves you grinning ear to ear on the downhill stuff. At this stage I can’t justify buying one when my Reign does the job as is.

PPPS: Fuck MWG is fast!

It’s been raining all week and Zi and I couldn’t stand it anymore (he says he’s feeling fat lol) so we went for a ride despite the on and off rain and thunderstorm forecast. We thought we’d check out Appin as Jing, Clifton and Timmy checked it out last week and said it was awesome.

Appin’s a very quick 30min drive from JDMyard just off the M5. Somehow Zi and I got quite severely lost in there and ended up on a lot of 4WD fire trails. The ground was really mushy from all the rain which made it really hard to pedal on (great training I say!) and 2 hours in we knew we had to back track as we were in amongst frightened kangaroos and rabbits! We did so and found the trail again (which is market by hazzard ribbons and pink arrows) but the skies opened up on us and it started pouring down. Still, we’re glad we found the juicy single trail bits, which were marked quite clearly with an “A Line” and an easier “B Line”. Of-course we took the A line!

Got to JDMyard to meet Zi and found that he’d bought a little skate ramp. What better a way to get warmed up pre-ride!

EG Civic – JDM YO!

We found this sexy rock which I really wanted to huck off, but balls were not big enough on the day so we just rolled down it instead.

Zi rolling down.

Me rolling down.

Zi crossing.

Bike wash time. Zi’s pimp hose reel at JDMyard.

On a bad note: Last week I felt a pain in my left calf muscle and thought nothing much of it. It’s been a week since I last rode and half way through this ride the pain came back. It forced me to push a little harder with my right leg, which could be a good thing. I’ve had some advice to rest it for at least 2 weeks. I’ll do just that after tomorrows epic ride at Yellowmundee (which I’m so looking forward to!).

Zi’s been hardcore this week riding with myself, Jing (in the dark!) and again last night with Andy and I.

We met up at 5.30PM at Loftus and finished up just before it got dark. Was a great ride, cool air and since there’s nothing difficult at Loftus we just pushed ourselves to go faster through the bits we already know, as well as stopping at a certain area and just going over the same part again and again trying to clear a harder line (which we saw an XC guy try to clear on his Yeti but failed, fell and hit his head on the ground!). Zi’s already starting to get cocky. He’s flying down the downhill parts, so much so that he’s almost crashing into me (makes for some funny moments). Andy’s pushing too, he did the log for the 1st time, that’s a great thing as I’m sure he’ll do it every time from now on.

Andy lah.

Reign supreme – I fucking love this bike.

Rolling down, still have yet to huck it at speed, will do next time.

Going up. This was once a but tricky for us (4 months ago), but now I can do it without even trying.

Zi got up this time too.

Zi thought the orange line around was too easy so we tried the green line. Once you’re up the 1st step you lose a lot of momentum so you really have to hammer to get up the next step. I got up to the top but failed to turn left and keep going. A few more tries didn’t get me as far as the 1st attempt. Will get it next time I’m sure.

Andy’s loving it.

Some super sketchy ghetto jump someone built next to the train tracks.

The gong ride was great. It was definitely a different experience to how I remembered it in 1990 and 1991, there were so many more people (11,000), so much so that we couldn’t even ride for a while, and had to walk the first kilometre before finding some space to actually get rolling. The officials stopped us (for great lengths of time too) so many times, in the end it really was a cruise more than anything else.

We started as a group. Richie, Jing, Felix and Eric and I rode together and there was hardly any pedalling at all for the first 30km’s (coasting and stopping!). We stopped off at Loftus to take a pee break (thank God we managed to skip the lines to piss on trees) and then headed for the crazy downhill twisties through the national park. My brakes were on as hard as I could grab them at times, the bike’s fantastic but the brakes are so poor I just had to do a brake burner all the way down. I stuck to my game plan though, which was to take it easy on the downhills and absolutely hammer on the uphills, and that I did.

On the 1st big hill I got out of the saddle and just attacked it and never looked back. I must have overtaken over 100 people through the national park and I didn’t let up until I got the finish line (I only counted 7 people overtaking me in the last 35km’s). Going solo was super fun and I got to have the best of both worlds (riding in a group for the 1st half and alone for the 2nd half).

I finished the ride in 4hrs 8minutes with an average speed of 20kms/hr. All in all it was a great ride despite not being able to pass most of the time (apart from the uphills) and to top it all off Richie and I were picked up by the girls at the finish line, that was an absolute life saver! Onto the pics:

6AM rise and shine. Bowl of cereal, coffee and a bananna and I was off.

Richie managed to borrow this lovely old steelie off a mate. Reynolds tubing and old school dura ace gear on it too.

Start line.

Guy doing it on a BMX. I even saw a guy on a unicycle!

Was so packed that it took a while to actually find some space to get rolling! (photo by Jing).

Richie, Eric and Jing at Loftus.

The paino did so well. It’s so damn fast going up hills. I got used to, and now love the friction gear shifting, the saddle/bars set-up was perfect and I only felt a bit of tightness in my shoulders and neck but not on my hands. The brake levers being so far away from my bars are complete rubbish and I’m very tempted to do something about them as they’re the only thing that let me down.

Spectacular views at the end-ish. (photo by Jing).

Me – Jing – Beers – Finish (thanks Andy and Miki for the beers and food! MUCH appreciated!).

I have a little sticky note on my desktop where I paste in funny MSN conversations which literally make me laugh out loud. Here’s a few recent ones:

matthew willis says:
we would love a girl to balance things out but not going to take the chance of having another boy. shit man – 3 boys… that would be nuts!
justin says:
many little nuts
matthew willis says:
haljdljaljfkla

Christina says:
what was on oprah
justin says:
Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts new film
justin says:
They were both on the couch sucking Oprahs cock

Jing says:
59kg for me depending if i crapped
justin says:
1kg crap?
justin says:
You must be full of shit
Jing says:
HAHAHHA

www.matthewmead.net says:
just went for a bike ride
justin says:
And theeeeeeeeennnnn?
www.matthewmead.net says:
lol
www.matthewmead.net says:
haha

Day after Zi’s 1st ever mountain bike ride:
z10@JDMyard says:
legs are ok ass is fucked..

Jing wanted to do a lap of the Dam before work this morning so we met up at 8am for a quick burl. Clifton and Timmy (the lads?) came along too, it was Timmy’s 1st time at the Dam and he just mashed the last part (the most fun part and the kid led the way too!). Awesome considering he’s never ridden the Dam before.

I got up the techy rocky bit again, getting better at it every time. I had a go at Jing’s Cannondale which has no granny ring and a road cassette on the back and made it up too first go, in fact I thought it was easier to ride his Cannondale up it than my bike, not because of the gearing but more because the bike’s so damn light and rigid. I also finally got up a section just after the techy climb where a wooden path leads to some nasty rocks. I was pretty much smiling after that until the carpark.

Sealant was in the air as Clifton’s tubeless set-up gave way when he landed a bunny hop a little sideways.

Traffic on Military Road on the way back home.

How’s that for fuel efficiency?!

E10 FTMFW!

$60 for 600km’s.

Well I finally caved in and bought myself a BMX bike. Jing’s been pushing me to do so for the past week and I’ve been doing hours of research since (going out of my mind).

Initially I thought I’d be able to walk into a shop with $500 and buy a decent “complete” BMX (“complete’s” are ready to ride bikes) but on checking a few completes out I felt that all of them looked a bit try hard. It’s almost like they were trying to look custom.

As a skater back in the day (lol) there wasn’t any such thing as a “complete” skateboard (unless you bought one from Kmart). You bought a deck you liked, then the trucks you liked, wheels and basically personalised your own board. Skate culture rocks and BMX culture is pretty similar so I really wanted to do it right an go custom.

I had a play with adding things to a basket on an online BMX store. Frame $400, cranks $350… that’s already $750!!! By the time I had finished my build it came to $1700+. That quickly put an end to the idea of going custom. I had a little look at some 2nd hand bikes, rattled off a few private messages to sellers on forums and on eBay (to waste their time of-course) but decided I couldn’t trust buying a BMX bike off some 12yr old kid who’s thrashed it harder than I ever would.

So today I went for a drive out to Belrose cycles to check out their 2009 range of We The People (WTP) bikes. When I finally got to the store I saw a few lower end WTP bikes and again, all that paint, colours, skulls… they were just trying way too hard.

I eyed off a simple black BMX in the corner, turns out it the top of the line 2009 model Kink Apex. Kink Bike Co. are a brand that hails from NYC and I got thinking that the black was a good base to start with if I wanted to add some colour to it in future. The bike’s RRP was a whopping $1300 but I walked away with it for $899.00 (thanks Adrian!) so despite being a lot of cash for such a little and simple bike. I’m happy. Now for some pics (the bike will be de-stickered tonight of-course lol!).

A while back Jing posted images of himself wearing his new full face in his bathroom.

Jing 1 – this is the shot that started it all.

Just when I thought Jing couldn’t out do the shot above.

I couldn’t resist. And now my own contribution to join Jing in the poseur hall of fame LOL.

MWG pointed me to Bikeradar which has a little interview with Gary Fisher who is practically THE MAN that INVENTED the mountain bike. Gary was in Sydney and where did the Australian mountain bike fraternity take him for a ride? M A N L Y D A M ! My fave trail! I’ve always felt like it was an absolute privilege to ride the Dam. If it’s good enough for Gary, it’s good enough for me! :)

Full article here.

In other news, a few hours ago Jing just went out and bought the Fit BMX bike I was drooling over a couple of blog posts below. LOL. He’s too fast (too furious?). He’s just uploaded images of it to his Flickr.

Had a chat with the boys last night over msn about their ride at Lucas Heights/Menai earlier that Sunday. Andy, who only just bought his new bike a few weeks ago, did his first ever trail ride at Manly Dam last Saturday with Felix. That’s doing it tough as the Dam is fairly technical, and definitely not a great place for a beginner, but how’s this… Andy tagged along with the boys (Jing, Clifton and Timmy) to Lucas Heights/Menai yesterday! Brand new bike, never been on a trail, the Dam on Sat, Menai on Sun. That takes the cake!

Menai’s definitely harder than the Dam. I called Clifton pre-ride to make sure he looked after Andy (funny how I asked an 18yr old to take care of Andy, and not Jing, who’s 25 but has the state of mind of a 16yr old lol). I had Andy on my msn last night and he was absolutely buzzing from the weekend, especially going over the handlebars on a rocky section!

Speaking of rocky sections. I thought the boys would be all over this section I did last week, especially since little Timmy had the nerve to comment on my video (he told me to ‘get of the brakes you pussy’) but apparently no one even tried it! LOL! Bahahaha! I heard all sort of excuses (talk). Timmy was sick (awwwww poor timtims), Clifton was casting some negative scary voodoo and apparently is was a hot day and they were tired yadda yadda). I’m a bit dissapointed in them for not even trying it, but at the same time I’m happy that I’m still one up!

In other news: Zi just pointed me out to this eBay auction for a Giant Reign. The eBayer has stolen 2 of my images for his auction listing.

Also: Jing’s got me thinking BMX again (the guy is insane, one week it’s obsessing about dirt jump bikes, the next it’s freeride/slopestyle bikes, the next it’s downhill bikes, this week it’s going to be BMX!). He pointed me out to a store in Newtown called Hell on Wheels which I already had bookmarked a while back for their awesome skate gear. I trawled through the site last night, what a mad shop! I’m sure I could blow thousands in there on T’s and more decks for the wall. Must. Steer. Clear.