Feeling deflated

My Neoair lasted all of 12 hours of use before I put a hole in it. I babied it, it was in a stuff suck, wrapped in a beanie and it only touched the inside of the bivvy bag. I cleaned the ground before picking my bivvy site to make sure there were no sticks or sharp objects. Ultimatey the result was the same – me lying on the ground in the morning. Not optimal.

Now I’m just waiting on a specialised patch kit to arrive and I am currently heading off to the bath tub to submerge the matress to find the problem area. This is what you get for being a weight weenie – people sleeping on a ghetto silver windscreen sunshade don’t have problems with punctures…..

A single track guide to the galaxy

What a fantastic weekend to be out on a bike. Cold morning air, cloudless blue skies, no fixed destinations and a GPS trail of some of the most fun single track in the Hunter Valley begging you to go explore.

In order to prepare for my Trans Oz shennanigans, I decided to head out on the bike on Friday night for a weekend of bikepacking. Flogger has steadily been accumulating his own gear upon the reasoning that he likes riding and likes camping so surely the two could only be a good thing. He came along on the first night to whet his appetite for riding adventures and was all smiles when I saw him on sunday which can only be a good thing.

There were numerous highlights to the trip but those that spring foremost to mind include:

1. Having the forethought to pack a long neck stubbie holder (thanks Jurdy) which enabled me to arrive at the top of sugarloaf and enjoy an ice cold Coopers overlooking the city lights.

2 Rolling into Killingworth and discovering a veritable ‘sausage fest’ of teenagers in 4×4’s gathering beneath a freeway overpass. Now I’m sorry, but when your life is so devoid of meaning that your idea of a good time is to hang out under an overpass in the middle of no-where then it is time to discover some aspirations

3. Suffering temporary nerve damage in my thumb. Not from an epic over the bars or similarly impressive crash, but from a rubber band that I idly slipped over my wrist while setting up my bivvy that I awoke in the early hours of the moring to shooting pain in my hand and numbness/tingling in the lateral portion on of my right thumb. Of all the stupid things to do….

4. A breafast pie at West Wallsend on Sat morning in the sunshine. Oh yeah!

5. Pushing up something that could loosely be described as a road which has seen horrendous water damage in sugarloaf conservation area. It hurt.

6. My best crash of the whole trip. Rolling across a wide smooth creek bed I quickly discovered it was actually made out of quicksand as my front wheel sunk to the hub and ejected me over the bars where my arms sunk up past the elbows and my helmet left an impression in the bank. Freaking hillarious.

7. Re-navigating a section of the upcoming ‘HuRT’ off the GPS with barely an error or cause for consternation. What I had feared would be a virtual impossibility given the maze of trail and low sample rate from my device was actually really easy. Hallaleujah

8. Arriving at Darby’s Pies at Abermain and enjoying a Pie and 2 of the best Vanilla Slices I have ever had thanks to the lovely Nelly.

9. Getting to the end of the single track section and feeling completely smashed and knowing that I had at least 50 k’s with some BFO hills to go before I would make the camp site for the night. I wasn’t sure it was going to happen.

10. The look on the guys faces at Ellalong pub as I restocked on water when I said I was heading to the pines (actually, I was planning on riding well past the pines). I’m pretty sure they thought they were going to be the last person to see me alive. They started to tell me the distances involved thinking I was a muppet who had never been through anything like this before and I politely thanked them and set off into the night.

11. Stopping to put on chain lube half way up Heaton Rd when I couldn’t take the squeaking as I grovelled along in a hypoglycaemic stupor. This was accompanied by the best damn brownie I have ever eaten brought to you by Abermain Darby’s Pies.

12. Arriving at the Pines and discovering 600 camping Motorbike riders, a full on rock concert and general mayhem. It would have been fascinating to stop and watch for a while but I had a date with a camp site and the bike wasn’t going to pedal itself there. Besides, I suspect I would have been the odd one out wearing Lycra in Flanno and Ugg boot heartland.

13. Skipping the single track sections through to my camp site. With a bar light that failed to illuminate the 2m in front of my wheel due to cut off by the bar bags, a front brake that was no longer working, flying solo and feeling tired, it was an act of self restraint/preservation that was unusual wise for yours truly.

14. Setting up camp on Sat night, eating noodles, rice, chocolate and anything else that I could find.

15. Leaving the bivvy unizipped overnight to better vent and prevent condensation only to wake at 4am and discover an engorged leech on the back of my hand. The Watagans, near a watersource with an open Bivvy. What the hell was I thinking?

16. Awaking at 6am to the alarm and packing up camp in the dark to make sure I arrived at Awaba in time for timing duties at the XC race. Early morning single track is the best. Espeially when it comes with a superb sunrise view.

17. Planning my day so that the first riding of the morning in cold wet cycling gear is a climb rather than a descent. Thank you Marshal Bird for that nugget of TD wisdom.

18. Arriving home and having the fist shower in 2.5 days.

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HuRT

B-rad and I started mapping the ‘HuRT’ unofficial bikepacking race today. It is going to be some of the most amazing trail ever however there is going to be some serious navigation through the single track sections needed to stay on route. I think we are going to need a combination of cue sheets, GPS and trail markers to get the job done.

We did nearly 75 k ‘s by the time I commuted back to the car and it was hard going. Great miles in the legs however.

Anyway: Todays route is here

 

A ride to Ken’s

I received an email from Chris (aka ‘Fezi’) and Grant (aka ‘Skinny man’) mid week offering a ride on some fire trails in the Watagans. Foolishly I thought it sounded like a good idea as I didn’t realize just what sort of legs these boys are packing of late (or how little legs I have for that matter).

We left Awaba and climbed Mt Faulk Rd and I knew I was in trouble when Grant mentioned he had set a PB last week of 18 minutes to the top! For those that don’t know it, it averages approximatey 10% and climbs somewhere around 400 meters vertical and 18 minutes is a smoking hot time.

It pretty much continued in this manner for the next 60 kms. I would get dropped like a warm apple pie on a cold concrete floor on every hill and the Ti Lynskey brothers would patiently wait for me to grovel my way to the top. The light at the end of the tunnel however was Ken’s bakery in Wyong. Sausage roll, coke and sweet sugar laden non descript slice.

Of course, this meant it was time to turn around and ride back again. I rode as hard as I could muster however the legs were pretty hollow and I pleaded for the boys to ride off and I would noodle my own way home. To their credit, they hung in there and set a few rendezvous points along the way so they could go off an smash each other for 20k’s at a time.

Of note: The Alfine fresh off the back of a service at Gateshead cycles performed flawlessly. There were a few clunks which were due to operator error (read: desperation) as I shifted under load to climb yet more hills. The situation which sees me currently using a front and rear ardent however will soon change. It was more like plowing a fire trail than riding today and a set of small block mistakes will soon be in situ.

All up, I think I struggled through 7ish hours of pedal time, around 120k’s and 2000ish Meters of climbing. Interestingly, as smoked as I was at the end, I could have continued riding for hours all be it slowly. Not a bad Saturday however a rest day beckons tomorrow. I have a feeling this will become a regular weekend ride over the next 2 months as it exercises every one of my flaws as a cyclist. The ability to deftly flick through tight single track is of little benefit on a 4000km cross continent road ride.

Good times, Good company, Good food, Good weather, Good trails. What more does one need?

Edit: Oooooh, I figured out how to do one of those fancy Garmin Connect thingos. NFI what happened to the track at the top of Mt Faulk Rd. Did I get lost and not even know it?

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/93110146

Fun stuff in the post

The post man brought me fun stuff today. A Neoair and a my Spot. Rad

The problem with foul weather…

….is that I only have 82 days until I start riding across Australia. I can’t afford any down time in my search for juggernaut legs. I’m resigned to the fact that I won’t be anywhere near peak fitness for the ride (it is amazing how fat and slow I have become in the months off for the Pato) but every ride I squeeze in now is like K’s in the bank while out on the Nullarbor.

I waited most of the day for the weather to improve but the sideways rain refused to go away and so I ignored the voices in my head reminding me how warm and cosy it is inside and set out to do a couple of laps of the Fernleigh. After witnessing the maniacs cutting each other off while driving around earlier in the day, I didn’t feel any need to go and play with cars today. So I clocked up 60k’s and felt pretty good while doing it. Granted it is only 1.5% of the ride distance across Oz however I’ll take any victory no matter how small.

In other news, I ordered a set of Fred Bars from Grip Sport today. Jon sounded positively bemused at the prospect of someone actually wanting to bolt such a strange contraption to a bike, however we ran through some specs to get it to fit on the tiny amount of stack height remaining on my steerer tube and it should be here next week. Now all I need are some actual aerobars to bolt onto it. hmmmm

I also picked up the secret speed from Gateshead where I had left it in AK’s capable hands to be loved, polished and have sweet nothings whispered to it. It turns out that there was a considerable amount of missing oil from a crappy seal which was probably a major contributor to the poor performance. The fact that I had allowed so much shite to build up around the shift mechanism is probably the other problem. It certainly helped to disguise the oil leak. I’ll keep an eye on it now that I know that is the main problem area.

AK and Brad both tried to get the lower gears to misbehave under load and couldn’t do it after the oil bath and oil top up. If this means it will hold lower gears without skipping, then all my problems will be solved and I will postpone my thoughts of dropping it off a bridge into a river. I don’t mind that it feels a bit rubbery to pedal, or that it shifts poorly under load or that it weights a tonne. I do mind that it won’t hold a gear and if we fix that, all will be forgiven. I still love the idea of the simplified chain line in sandy, muddy, stick and stump strewn trail. I may yet fall in love with it. I guess I will have to take it out for a test this weekend and see how it behaves. Crossing my fingers and toes 🙂

 

One way ticket

I just booked a one way ticket to Perth for Sept 4. I sure hope the sun is shinning for this trip.

Greenpoint Friday

Friday saw the usual roadie commute to work although it had the addition of a strong wind which seemed to be a headwind no matter which way the road pointed. I had arranged for an afterwork ride with Gaz at Greenpoint to see some of his local stuff so I pushed hard on the roadie to ensure I wasn’t late arriving.

It was the most surreal experience transitioning off the roadie and onto the mountainbike. The MTB felt like I was riding a recumbent in comparison and the suspension felt like a wet noodle. My legs didn’t want to work either. They fully resented the change of riding position and took about 10k’s before they felt even remotely useable.

Gaz has obviously spent a little bit of time in Greenpoint and showed me a host of new spots that I hadn’t come across during coghead rides in the past. The highlight was a small section of trail that he had unearthed which formed a 1-1.5k loop with a fast swooping descent and a fantastic switchback climb to get out of the valley again. I was so impressed, that I did a couple of extra laps to really get the feel for it. The cogheads are going to love this one!

About 20ish k’s into our little wanderings, my legs screamed enough and we headed for home down the long fast descent that exits the reserve to the south side. Some ‘wise’ local had taken it upon themselves to cover the trail in logs which brought me unstuck. The first couple just looked like tree fall until I popped around a blind corner and went over the bars into the scrub. Not happy. It was pretty dangerous and I hope no-one else has problems there.

I groveled home, eating food and thinking about warm showers.

In happier news, the tour divide grand depart has kicked off and now there are whole heap of little blue dots on a google map to obsess over for the weeks to come.

rest day

Several years ago I developed tendonitis in my left hip from running. It has never been the same since and it gets extremely painful if I don’t stretch and try to walk any great distances. It hasn’t been a problem for the last couple of years on the bike however I have been riding pretty consistently and always kept a reasonable base fitness.

With all the track work for the PK24, that base fitness reached an all time low and now that I am starting to ride again, the hip is really acting up. While I would dearly love to ride 9 hours every time I get on the bike, I am having to reign in my enthusiasm at the moment as the hip is simply not going to cope.

Today was beautiful and I had dozens of places I thought about riding and in the end did none of them. The hip told me to have another day off the bike and I couldn’t decided where I wanted to ride anyway so I played with GPS instead.

It turns out that GPS is a massive pain in the arse to create tracks with. One of the biggest problems I am finding is that GPS devices seem to come from the stone ages. They have ridiculous limits to the number of waypoints they can deal with in a track file. While mobile phones seem to be leaping ahead in storage capacity and processing power, GPS units limit track files to 500 way points which is the computer equivalent of an abacus missing with 11 missing beads.

To put this into persepctive, I played with the BFO route file that danbot created last year using his Garmin edge 500. It was a big ride and the track file he posted has over 17,000 waypoints in it. Trying to load that on my Vista HCx results in a truncated file about 1.5 k’ms long. It is possible to edit the file using some Garmin software and manually remove waypoints, but lets be honest, who wants to sit there and manually remove 16500 waypoints. Its not practical.

Of course, this probably wouldn’t be a problem if you were running an edge 800 as it would allow you to upload the whole file and happily follow along. For about 14 hours that is. Then you are out of battery which is why the AA powered Vista HCX is the go to GPS for bike packers. Then there is the pice tag for the edge 800 – also prohibitive.

I am now pinning my hopes on the windows only Topofusion software and its ‘simplify’ algorithm that shortens a track file to a specified number of waypoints. SInce I don’t have bootcamp on my mac, all hopes now rest on the shoulders of a semi functional laptop that was discarded at work. Heres hoping!

 

HMBA social ride.

The day started at Adamstown train station at 0730. Due to the weather, we skipped some of the single track in town and rode the road out towards Awaba. We picked up some dirt trails near Teralba and then AK showed me a new link which allowed us to get all the way through to Awaba rd via dirt. It was sweet!

At the rendezvous point, we picked up the rest of the riders and followed some amazing motorbike trail all the way through to Freemans Drive just past Becks Rd. The moto trail was pretty uppity to start with however it soon flattened out and while it was greasy and full of puddles in places, I still rate it extremely highly.

The whole way, I was struggling for food and since I knew we were headed towards Freemans Waterhole, all I could think about was Chicko rolls. When we finally made it, I was shattered to find they didn’t have any and had to settle for a pie and a coke instead. It was like instant legs, all of a sudden the pedals were easier to turn again. We rolled home via a neat little link which passed under the Freeway and several hills made out of teflon which were amusing to ride up.

After dropping the group back at the cars, we continued on and explored some fire trails near Ryhope before riding Wakefield Rd home. Our bikes were making unholy noises as the accumulated mud and grit left our drive train bone dry and creaking in complaint. We finished with Beers at Tim’s house and it was a sensational adventure. I sure have missed heading out on big rides to who knows where. Time for a few more of them.