Ooops.

Now, 18 months and two freehub bodies later, I’m down a rear hub. The all powerful ‘force transfer system’, which is really just two tiny ratchet pawls mounted on stainless steel rods in an alloy hub body, failed catastrophically. One of the pawls was forced through the hub body!

I found this a bit surprising, since I’m not the strongest rider the universe has seen. Surely not in the same league as pro road racers who endorse these things [or maybe get given them for free and only use them for a month or so].

Anyway, I’m sobered. And looking for a Better Freehub. Its going to come down to Shimano vs Industry 9 vs Hope vs Fulcrum vs Chris King. Whoever can offer a steel cassette carrier, bearings that don’t need tweaking every ride [old shimano days - maybe things have changed..], and more than two puny engagement points to transfer mavic-crushing power [haha!] to the rear wheel…

I’d better start saving, and find something before Bel wants her rear wheel back…

Its been an intense weekend, dominated by word of a devastating bushfire for our close neighbours to the north – and potential actual physical neighbours in the near future. This stuff always makes me think about how we would react, what we would do faced with a similar situation. The armchair emergency responder comes out, as it does all over the world, no doubt. Most likely, we’d end up in the same basket.

Next, we await the great blame game – just like we did after the Canberra fires in 2002. Not much justice for the folks who watched their world burn down – the money that the lawyers will suck up would be better spent on staving off some mortgage repayments, or helping replace homes, or something. Anyway, thats my same old rant. Its Australia, there will be bushfires.

And finally, the world of fun and rock and biking. Sounds like it was wise to skip the tahune marathon this year – tales of woe and fused brakes abound! And rock.. glorious rock. The pipes have been good this past month, with a couple of fine ascents and a notable grovel up the classic Arthurs Circus – body chimney insanity! but sooo much fun…

Luckily, I’m OK and Rosie the bike seems only minorly damaged. She’s going for a post-trauma checkup as soon as the bike mechanics have time. It was a great reminder that the legal minimum of bike lighting is probably not enough… I was riding with a single LED flasher on the front, since my usual six watts of LED brightness lights are in need of repair.

So, I’ll be making sure I’m better lit from here, thats for sure.

The woman who pulled out was also quite shaken – I hit the car pretty hard, and went for a short flight. Onlookers were happy to see me get up and walk away…

The moral of this story?

Bike riders: legal minimum lights are not enough, you need to light up bigtime!

Car drivers: look, look again and make sure that little flash you see isn’t your imagination. Remember that bikes sometimes travel at 30+ km/hr – we’re not all nannas on the road.

All of us: share, and share alike. One road for all!

That, and I’ve been busy working and lacking a home internet connection. So – what’s going on? A bit more marathon mountain biking – Pete and I entered the Kellevie 24 hour race as a team of two, and managed to come second by a lap and a half! Not bad, since we were racing a gun shop team. Needless to say, Rosie the bike is now in need of a new drivetrain after all that long distance racing. Every second lap in the 24 hr race, I stopped to repair my chain. I guess it comes with the territory.

I’ve managed a bit of climbing, and even got Bel up to the organ pipes – massive dolerite cliffs up above Hobart – for a play. Its been good. And I built a chin up bar to make up for lack of going to climbing gyms.

So life is full, and its autumn, the best season of all. Actually, all the seasons are the best season of all – so there’s no losing out there, huh?

I don’t have any political comments to make at the moment – I’m really not sure what is going on! I better go read the news…

Happy trails!

I digress. Yesterday I rode my mountain bike 100km, along with around 200 other complete nutcases in the Tahune mountain bike marathon. I crashed twice, and considering there was a broken collarbone and a few stitches, I feel pretty lucky to have escaped with a few bruises, broken sunglasses and a wrist that feels OK but not quite right.

Lukcily, I’m off to Melbourne tomorrow for a week of R&R with Bel. No climbing, no riding, just lots of stretching, good food, relaxation. Ahhhh….

In other news? The organ pipes assault continued for some time, leading to the ticking off of a few more classics on the north buttress, the latest involving my hardest lead for some time, with an epic run to the top since we forgot where the climb finishes. We turned it into a 55m epic pitch, finishing up the classic pulpit chimney – actually it was cool! Every style of climbing was represented. Face, then hand, fist and finger crack, chimney, and a little offwidth. Ha!

Sorry, no new photos or anything yet. Soon… I’m going to Frenchmans cap straight after Melbourne. I’ll take the camera, it’ll be ace!

ciao for now!

So, what have I been up to? Well, where to start. I got back and couldn’t walk right for a day, which was quite funny. Then I went back to work for almost a week before heading off to the north island for a ‘holiday’. Intending to visit some mates in Canberra and Sydney I accidentally did a 24 hr mountain bike race. So, I spent quite a while on the bike, and almost an entire day in bed recovering. Not really the most social thing to do, but I think I’m forgiven! Many thanks to Murray for helping heaps in preparing Rosie the DMR for the next part of riding epic…

So after my day in bed I jumped on Rosie and pedalled off to see my uncle, aunt and cousin, then pedalled back, loaded Rosie up and embarked on a ride to somewhere near Sydney! I made it to a random creek about 110 km away from Canberra on day one, tired, sore and in the dark. I had a great sleep in possibly one of the worst campsites ever – I didn’t care. Eatsleep. The next day I woke up early, ate a fine brekkie and pedalled along through Nerriga, then Sassafras [cool name for a place], flies dust and heat, all the way to Nowra. And there I stopped, camping at the traditional spot in the animal park, eating an Andys burger for dinner and washing it down with cold beer, a hot shower, and an awesome sunset!

The next morning I gave up on more biking and went for a climb in the morning, then caught the train to Sydney. It looked like a nice ride, but I was too stuffed. Ah well. Sydney came with all its craziness – after finding Harriets house [and another hot shower] I headed out to a swanky wine bar where Amelia works [an old classmate from honours days] and enjoyed an awesome dinner. I love dirtbagging in swanky places. Its fun. Met my bro Ben briefly before he was sucked back into corporate dinnerland, then cruised home for another round of long sleeping. I didn’t actually see Harriet until Friday, when we went for a beer and dinner. I crashed before Sydney even gets started, and had another good long sleep. The rest of Sydney involved lots of urban biking, a walk in the blue mountains, a play, some sculptures and loads of good, glorious sleeping. Ahhh.

…and now I’m home! And even better, I have a home, complete with the beautiful Bel, who hasn’t quite forgiven me yet for running off to Antarctica and the north island in quick succession. Anyway, I’ll find a way to make it up, I’m sure. We’re off to Cradle Mountain this weekend… Bel is working, I’m gonna have a little adventure.

Ohyeah I nearly forgot. I did a 6hr solo race last weekend and didn’t come last. yay! Rosie is grumbling though, she needs some lovin’ after all that hard work…

Also, a new camera arrived so I’ve been trying to figure out how to use it… its smarter than I am for sure. So in the next few months I’ll be sorting out my photo stuff and making a nice, CSS based, simple gallery. I;m a bit over the feature-bloated monsters you can just download. Nice, but I’m trying to make my site all CSS/XHTML niceness…. which means… what about wordpress? Anyway – I digress.

On the close-to-home front, Bel and I have un parted ways, which is really cool. yay!

No adventures this weekend – just getting stuff done, blowing out about being only two weeks away from heading south. Crazy indeed… and making plans for working in New Zealand next winter. Hrrrm.

Hope life is fun out there! Off to make some deeeeeeelicious vegie pasties and await the arrival of hard-studying Bel. Yum. two times.

Mt Mawson was a fun scramble, reminiscent of Temple Basin adventures – and a short but rewarding punch through the late arvo goo. Finally, we cruised all the way down the road to the carpark, exhausted but smiling. We made it back in time to finally catch the Celtic Dawn café open – yay! Strong coffee got us home.

Bel and I had parted ways the night before, so the distraction was welcome. I’m still reeling a little, but we’ve been hanging out a bit, which is nice. Had a great yoga class this morning… ahhhh.

Ohyeah – bike MKIII is 80 percent here… just the forks to go – will post a pic once it is built!

Yes, its tax time, so toy shopping for the year. A new bike, in thousands of bits, is also underway. Finally, you’ll say – he’ll shut up!

And by no means least – there’s another adventure well worth watching, and possibly even cooler than Antarctica! My mate Duncan is heading off in a few days to ride the silk route on a motorbike, with his mate Ben. Its an awesome mission – follow it at http://silktrailies.com. They plan to take about a year – it’ll be amazing even to hear the stories…

I’ll be keen to catch up after that.

So, enough for now – off for a climb, after a long day and my first yoga class ever…

ciao!

I started paddling this morning, training for a 12km race next week. I am going to die….