The daytime rider

This week has seen me relearn something I first learnt exactly this time last year……. I HATE EARLY MORNING RIDES.  Actually, that doesn’t begin to describe the depths of despise that I feel towards early morning starts. I actually think if there was no other option than to ride bikes early in the morning, I would just give the sport away entirely and eat pies in front of the TV. It leaves me feeling, tired, cranky and frustrated all day if the ride has gone well and like a moldy sack of potatoes if things go badly.  I spent half of last week setting the alarm for early in the AM and then re-setting it and going back to bed for some broken, fitful, guild ridden sleep.

When I actually do manage to drag my sorry carcass out for an early ride, there is little joy. Especially in the rain and cold of a miserable winter. Just a grim resolove to get through it with the hope of catching a nap afterwards. Hanging out with Cogheads does little to ease this problem, for some inexplicabe reason, the cogheads seem to try to one-up each other with how early in the morning they can meet. At one point, there was a discussion of meeting at 0455hrs for a saturday morning ride. 0455hrs on a weekend for f*cks sake. Needless to say, the alarm went off this morning for the cogheads second ride of the day to meet at 0700hrs. I dutifully ignored it, slept in and headed out on the roadie alone around 1030hrs. You know what? I had a great time! There was a head wind strong enough to blow a dog off its chain, patchy rain and a puncture, and I still had a fantastic days riding.

So today, I resolved that I am not going to even try to make early morning rides. More sleep = more fun and my aim is to log training miles that I actually enjoy.

NoMoJo

Have you ever had one of those days? The legs just don’t want to play along and as you will yourself to dig deeper up a solid climb, you look up to see your riding companions slowly pulling away into the looming darkness until all you can see is a red blinking light off in the distance.

Today was one of those rides for me. I haven’t had a bad ride for quite sometime since every time I have thrown a leg over a bike of late, everything has been coming up orange blossoms, fresh morning air and cowbells (that is a good thing). Well, today it came up lactate, salty water and punctures (not a good thing).

It was just an early morning ride with Dawnbot, Steve and Tristan but it hurt…. a lot.

I can’t figure out why I was so under-gunned today. Last week, I was feeling a little under the weather after the Pie Eater and we did a similar ride and I was feeling strong. Today, the alarm went off and I knew straight away it was going to be a tough day at the office. Have I just not recovered from the weekends club race? Did I not get enough sleep the night before? Have I not eaten enough pies in the last  7 months? (It has been 209 days since I last ate a pie and leaves me with 74 days to go until I can eat my own body weight in savory pastries).

At the moment, I am going to go with the insufficient sleep option since I fell asleep on the lounge for 3.5 hours after the ride and still feel tired.

Never the less, big rides are beckoning. I am trying to figure out a 100 mile gravel grinder to do with Danbot as a world champs training ride if it ever stops raining here. There are whispers of Pie Eater 4, I have the JetBlack 12 hour race in a little over a week and then the Vestal 10 hour at awaba a fortnight later. Then there is the oxfam trail walker which I am doing again this year in the middle of it all. I had better keep adding to the sleep bank I think!

Photos

After my impromptu photography at the rocky trail GP, I was contacted by a well known photography company and offered some freelance work. Unfortunately, I asked lots of hard questions about what it would involve and haven’t heard a thing since. Me and my big mouth.

I was pleased however, to be browsing enduro magazine’s website and stumble across a couple of my photos in use.

In other news, I got up at 5am for a roadie hill session this morning. Heard the rain on the roof, received a text from Danbot indicating he was going back to bed and so I proceeded to do the same. Will it ever stop raining?

HMBA July XC round up.

Oh my god! I actually finished on the podium today (not that there actually is a podium…. maybe I will have to go build one so I can stand on it). It didn’t hurt my cause that Trenton Day suffered a mechanical early on, without which, there as no way I was going to be amongst the top riders.

My race went more or less to plan. There was the now seemingly obligatory shoulder-tree interface on the first lap when I found a wet tree root in the forrest and washed my front wheel at the most inopportune time. I hit directly ontop of the injury site from last club round, but other than some missing skin, all was OK.

I was comprehensively spanked on the first lap and watched as everyone disappeared into the distance, so I settled into a pace I thought I could hold for 2 hours and amused myself as there was very little lapped traffic to chat to. Every now and again, I could catch a glimpse of Timmy Doman off in the distance, but I wasn’t making any inroads. By lap 4 however, I got to the climb and realized Pungy and Tim were only just up the road and I was gaining. Rather than pushing too hard, I held my pace and eventually caught Pungy towards the end of the 4th lap and caught Timmy at Mawkes Creek on my 5th lap.

Amazingly, I was still feeling quite strong and I churned out a fairly quick 5th lap. In every other race I can remember, I have suffered my way to the finish with flagging lap times and lots of self bargaining to prevent myself quitting. Today, I could have gone back out for another lap or two quite comfortably. It seems that riding 25 kg single speeds for days on end is an effective training tool.

What was my race highlight? Without a doubt, it was receiving the full tour de France treatment by the Ronnster who ran alongside me up camel back climbing screaming encouragement and waving his gorgeous pink pom pom.

What was my race low-light? Without a doubt, it was receiving the full tour de France treatment by the Ronnster who outran me up the hill and had to wait for me to catch up so that he could continue his chants.

After the race I went out to do a little flagging for a proposed climb that I am going to call ’23. Why? Well,  that is the number of switchbacks it takes to get to the level of the downhill Road Gap. It is going to make cardiac climb at Mt Stromlo look like a nanna line. Of course, this will be the A-line option and I have found a more forgiving route for mere mortals (myself included). I think I might call that bit ‘minus twelve’ since it cuts out around 12 switchbacks.

I had made around 120 flags from old spokes which were pushed into the ground to make trail marking on open terrain a piece of cake. The only problem is, 120 flags is no-where near enough and I can’t rummage up enough spokes to keep up with demand. I need 10-20 times that many.  Has anyone out there in the land of the interwebs have any ideas for a spoke substitute?  Essentially, I am looking for a length of narrow gauge metal about 20-30 cm in length that is free and available in large quantities. Anyone?

When is a Chub Hub not a bicycle component?

When it is a fat gay porn forum…. be very careful which links you click on if you start looking for oversized hubs to build 29er wheels with. Some of the top google results will leave you very, very scared.

You have been warned!

The stumps where my feet used to be….

Early morning ride this morn. 0520hrs meeting with the Danbot and a roll around to meet some of his work mates before attacking some hills.

I don’t do early mornings too well and wasn’t exactly loving life as I chased one of Dan’s workmates who may well have been Alberto Contador. Then the heavens opened.

In my rush to get ready in the morning, I hadn’t managed to find some gloves or glasses. That is generally ok on the way up hills, but on the way downhill, the spray and air speed cut right through me.

As I got colder and colder, my energy levels tapered and I slowly chugged home at the end of the ride. Taking my shoes off was exquisitely painful as I no longer had any feeling in my feet and as the feeling came back, so did the pain. It wasn’t pretty.

What lessons did I take from all of this? Ummmm, I need more cycling kit. But with money hemorrhaging to finance pie eating equipment, race entry fees and a steady suppy of 29er tubes, I don’t think I will resolve this problem any time soon.

Roll on spring time warmth (except the magpies though).

Happy Trails!

le tour de pie

Well, I finished my abridged version of the Pie Eater v3 and it was one of the most fantastic rides I have ever done. The trails were brilliant, the company was fantastic and the weather was superb.

I won’t subject you all to another multi page monologue and convey every single goings on from the ride, but will give some of the interesting parts.

1. Epic tyre fail at the start line – The bike was fine as I rode to the train station in the dark at 0515hrs. It was fine as I rode from the train station to the start point. It felt funny as we rolled up to the ATM to get some money out and was decidedly herniated when we got off to figure out what was going on. The rubber around the bead had completely let go and the tyre was on the point of bursting. No shops were open and I was considering getting back on the train when Chad announced he had a 29er ignitor at his house and swiftly jumped in the car and picked it up while the guys pocked fun at me for needed to pump up a tyre right on the start line.

2. I hate tubes…. Three flats during this trip and I was running nearly 60 psi in the rear tyre. Yes, by busting air off every lump that presented itself I was probably asking for it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

3. The plumbers line – a term coined to describe an interesting shortcut to a course. Taken to the literal extreme on the third day when the guys got a lift home with a real plumber following epic brake failure by one of the bearded riders. I don’t know whether this means they get a finishers pie or not?

4. I need to learn the lyrics to more songs. I read with amusement many times the stories of Tour Divide riders singing to the bears so that they didn’t sneak up on them and surprise them. I realized as I smashed down a hill at 60kph in the dark that I didn’t know the words to any songs and was left singing ‘The Mighty Boosh” crimps to fend off the wallabys. I had a very close call with one that thankfully ran away from the light rather than straight into my path.

5. Alex Campbell smashed us around the central coast on an additional sneaky night time ride after we made camp on the fist night. We went  through sneaky suburban single track, big arse hills, paddocks, fire roads, main roads and his own backyard trail “the land of the million switchbacks”. It was amazing, particularly the little slice of heaven he has carved into his own backyard.

6. Riding you bike with no bags after a full days laden touring is like growing a pair of “Fabian Cancellara” legs. I recall the first hill we got to as we set out with our lightweight bikes and how insanely easy it was to climb now that we weren’t carrying 14 kilos of gear.

7. There was a magical descent off a trig point near Woy Woy somewhere that went through and epic boulder field. It was in the heart of sandstone country and every rock was loose, the size of a baby head and covering the entire trail. There were steep pitches, giant sandstone slabs, technical drops and a fair share of plumbers lines. It was magic stuff but scary as hell with all the gear on the bike. I can’t wait to do it again!

8. My new Bivvy was awesome. it developed a small amount of condensation but seemed to fair much better than Dreggsy’s (of course, I don’t actually know what he got up to in there). It was also extremely warm and I actually got too hot and was removing layers! Simliarly, my inflatable pillow was tremendous. I slept like a baby.

9. Yarramalong general store is a haven and supplied me with the magic tim tams that got me to the finish line on sunday night. I left the guys making a fire and setting up camp in the dark at “the pines campground” and headed for my rendezvous with wifey, only to get 2 or 3 k’s down the road and start to start a cold sweat, while feeling shaky and weak. The only thing left in my bag was a NASTY looking banana that I had been carrying for the last 2 days and was just about to attempt to force it down when I realized there were still four Tim Tams left. Hallelujah!

10. The fix on the single dropout shims worked perfectly. I didn’t have a single problem with the drive train the whole time we were out there despite my sincere reservations. I didn’t soft pedal either. I smashed some amazing and rugged single track and buried myself up some technical climbs and no amount of torque caused problems.

11. My bags worked perfectly, Scotts bright red bags worked intermittently. At times, the seat bag resembled a baboons arse as it gleefully swung around in the breeze. A few revisions with the sewing machine would see a dramatic improvement however I suspect some custom bags will be on order sooner rather than later.

12.  I think we covered every conceivable type of riding during this trip. There are the obvious single track, fire road, asphalt and touring, but there was also a couple of laps of a velodrome and a bmx track for good measure as well.  B-rad regularly showed off his lightweight bar bag by impersonating a unicycle whenever the opportunity arose.

Ebuk’s bike at the start line

My bike at the start line

Ebuk found room for the all important trail divining banana

The tyre bead is no longer part of the tyre… not good

ummmm, my bike near a cliff on the central coast somewhere. Thank god I wasn’t navigating hey?

Regrouping along the sandstone slabs early on the first day

Dr Eggs and Ebuk looking resplendent

Mini sandstone pump track

Dr Eggs getting adventurous on a descent

Re building the Dr’s seat bag

High up on a Trig point

What a view!

Dr Eggs

Ebuk looking quite chuffed with himself

The bearded one speeder and leader extrodinaire

Lunch in the park on the first day….mmmm hamburgers!

Me failing to capture the bunch as we lapped the velodrome

QZ13 enjoying our track cycling detour

Me off the front trying to hold off Dreggsy

Playing cat and mouse

Hills were getting steeper later in the afternoon

Our camp site on night 1

Small campfire

Creek crossing

Ebuk attempting to fall face first while climbing out from the creek

More hike a bike. If you aint hiking, you aint biking

Crossing a fence on day 2

Dreggsy busting some single track

B rad on sniggle

Scott showing some love for the camera

Time for pie

The tyres are pumped, spare tubes packed, sleeping bag and bivvy sorted and alarm set for 0450hrs. I can’t foresee trail side blogging so expect an update on sunday or monday night.

Happy Trails!

Wifey domestique and the Euro cyclist.

Alone in the dark, the euro cyclist slowly trudged along beside the race course pushing his multi thousand dollar cervelo race bike. He had been alone for quite some time, occasionally other Euro cyclists would ride past however words were never exchanged or assistance offered.  The Euro cyclist just continued his slow progress towards his final destination with only the noise of his flat tyre flopping against the road to keep him company.

Then along comes the bubbly wifey resplendent upon her white cannondale CAAD9, sporting SPD pedals, baggy shorts and all importantly an inner tube and a pump. The tube is changed and the tyre re-inflated and the the wifey leads the way home since she was also sporting a headlight.

How typical is this? The first mountain biker on the scene and an offer of assistance is readily given, while the rest of the roadies ride by in their full Euro kit and their noses held high… bah!

Where’s the love roadies?

Repairing the single speed

The engineers at KHS must have been busy with other things when they designed the aluminium framed KHS solo one (probably too busy trying to figure out how to get the steel LE version to stop breaking). You see, these engineers were probably quite chuffed with themselves after designing a rather clever dropout system that allowed the brake caliper to move in conjunction with the wheel. This means adjusting chain tension is a sinch and still allows the rider to use a QR skewer for easy tube changes (I am certainly glad that is well thought out). After the first prototype, they all patted each other on the back and headed off to the pub for a pint and sent the plans off to the production line to be mass produced.

There is one slight problem however. The frame is made of aluminium, the bolts are made of steel and one is significantly harder than the other. After only a few rides, my dropouts are horrendously scored which has made it all but impossible to get adequate chain tension as the bolts always return to the same position regardless of how tight you do them up.

I spent a little time thinking about it, and decided some kind of shim would be needed to try and correct the problem as the bike is currently unrideable as I simply can’t get the chain tight enough so that it doesn’t constantly throw off. I had seen Dr Rob employ this technique on his track bike in the past and figured it might help here.

Ugly..... dropouts scored from steel bolts

Modified steel washer ground to fit inside the dropout

Washers in situ..... Lets hope this works

Unfortunately, I have ZERO time to actually test this out before the PE3, so it is going to be a bit of a gamble. Here’s hoping.