51. BREAKING NEWS - MATT FINISHES SOMETHING HE STARTED....

I was going to be so detailed with the whole bike build thing. Here's the nut going into the thread from 6 views and download the video HERE! kind of thing but really - it all just got away from me a bit.

But here's the abbreviated version in pictures...

It's hard to come back from hacksawing your steerer post if you f**k it up. Happily it all went swimmingly (once I'd done some judicious filing). Straight as a die it was. 

That's the rear brake disc skillfully bolted in place on the back hub. The bleeding finger on the right is what happens when you don't pay attention whilst spinning the front disc around and around trying to fit the pads properly. You could slice ham with one of those babies. I really hope human juice doesn't contaminate brake pads like just about every other f**king thing apparently does.

Whilst it is very handy indeed being able to buy brakes with all the cables and levers already attached and fully bled, it was pretty clear once I had bolted them on that the cable was too long.....by quite a bit really. I suppose I could have looped it around my leg to keep me on the bike or something.....I chose to cut it shorter instead.

Totally didn't screw it up thanks again to the sterling educational resource that is the internet. Swear to God you could find clear and concise instructions on sewing your own freaking arm back on if you knew where to look....and could type with your non severed arm.

That red thing attached to my seatpost is a quick release clamp. It allows you to quickly adjust the seat height for maximum effectiveness in the rapid descending of hills (down low) or peddling efficiency (up high). Well it does if you put it on around the right way.

If on the other hand you put it on backwards like I did, it allows the seatpost to slowly slide down underneath you while you ride no matter how loudly you swear at it or how tight you screw the little bolt up. Only did it for week though and I fully managed to pick up on my error BEFORE spending more cash on another clamp that would have been just as useless if applied in the same way. Moron.

COMING UP NEXT: The finished item. Pictures. Lessons learned. I am a genius.

50. 2013 WOLLOMBI WILD RIDE 'RACE' REPORT

Last Saturday at 0915 I lined up for the start of the 2013 Wollombi Wild Ride (30 km version).

It was my very first bicycle race - not counting several impromptu sprint events between me and the State Rail timetable in the days when making it to Berowra station by 0800 was the difference between attendance at my first 2 lectures or an hour and a half spent in Berowra's less then stimulating central 'business' district.

I should point out here that the race was not so much against the very many quite fit and outstandingly well equipped riders that made up the 500 strong field, but more against the triple threat of my own fitness, the ability of the Mongoose to continue changing into a useful gear once wet and of course the need for my body to lie down and go to sleep after the night shift I had worked immediately prior to the event.

While I know for a fact I wasn't the oldest rider on the course by a long way, I'm pretty sure the Mongoose was close to the oldest ride, evidenced by numerous comments along the lines of 'You did the ride on that bike. Hey well done man' (and thank you SO MUCH for your pity). 

Couldn't really be helped though due to the late arrival of the final component I needed to finish the new bike. Honestly - I reckon I would of done it on the Mongoose regardless, just to give it an honourable and well deserved last hurrah for it's loyal service.

UPSIDES
I did indeed finish, in 1 hour 35 minutes and 57 seconds according to the little timing tag I had velcroed to my left ankle, and I was pretty happy with that. Plenty of people in front of me of course, but more than a few behind and I even overtook a couple of people on the run home.

Also - I totally didn't die while pushing my bike up the really quite absurdly steep hills.

DOWNSIDES
Aside from the photographers on the course whose photos of me made it pretty clear I have a fair amount of work left to do in the protruding gut department (I unfortunately can't post any of these photos as I 'accidentally' deleted the link to them from my inbox....and unleashed a virus into the web that should by now have deleted them and all websites on which they reside....and had the photographer and all his minions quietly disposed of...), none that I can think of.

All in all it was a thoroughly worthwhile way to spend a couple of hours on a Saturday morning.

Two things I reckon I'd address if I did it again:

1. I might consider not working the night before, not so much for the race (the effort of propelling a bike all over the place focusses the mind quite nicely indeed) but I suspect my conversational ability come Saturday afternoon was somewhat deficient.

2. The weight of my bike could do with some adjustment. And here I am at an advantage - because while all those carbon equipped lunatics that finished the 60km race in 20 to 30 minutes more than it took me to ride half that distance have to shell out hundreds of dollars to save 3 grams by switching to kevlar shoelaces, I reckon I can dump 20 kilos by drinking slightly less beer and leaving that brownie on the Trading Post's counter next time I'm in getting 'milk'......

All hail the mightly Mongoose. Official race number in place. Disc brakes. Clipless pedals. More than 60mm of suspension - These are for the WEAK (I'm talking to you Arthur).

49. WELL. THAT WAS LAZY.

Oops. Where does the time go. 

I have been lazy. I have some excuses. I let this blog lapse terribly while I was finishing off the 100 Drawings in 100 Days on account of the terrible burden that little act of craziness placed on my normally unquenchable creativity.....My car broke (see previous entry for a full(ish) account of my mechanical ineptitude)....I had to.....do the washing? And paint stuff....

So. Not good excuses to be sure. But still.

At least I have been actually riding. And the other day I pulled the rear cassette on the Mongoose apart and scrubbed off all the crap that had built up on it over the last 15 years. While I'm not totally sure it rides any quieter or more smoothly for that, it at least looks better.

I even lugged that heavy bastard up over the hill behind the house and rode out to my daughter's school down some really quite steep hills before the heavens let loose and drenched me and her in the middle of soccer training so that was pretty hardcore and dedicated. 

Didn't even mind getting wet for the handy excuse it provided to consume a hot chocolate at the very hospitable Great Northern Trading Post while we waited for Sandy to come and pick us up. I find the deliciousness of hot chocolate is directly related to how cold and uncomfortable you are when you drink it and frankly, that's about as close as I'm going to get to feeling like I'm at the snow for a while so it was all good. 

Right now it's really quite early in the morning and I'm looking at a shopping cart (an electronic shopping cart of course...a real one would be silly) full of the last bits I need for the Slackline. Brakes, discs, shifter, rear derailleur (more or less all the bits with cables attached to them) and a chain. And I'm finding it very hard to pull the trigger on it. Which is just bizarre considering some of the things I've ordered from the internet at 3 in the morning. 

I guess it might have something to do with the fact that this comparatively small package of bits costs more than I would pay for the bike I was checking out for my 7 year old the other day (I have an idea that I would like to use our sudden lack of vehicle as an excuse to start riding to school with her. And that's not going to happen on her pink chunk of iron with 16 inch wheels, 2cm cranks and a basket attached to it).

Screw it. 

I'm pressing the buy button......

Crap.

Maybe tomorrow.

48. DEATH BY NEGLECT.

I killed our car. The second car that is. The one we used to do little things like take our child to be educated, shop for food to continue living and take the occasional holiday.

Don't need to worry about that last one anymore since we won't be taking any holidays in the near future on account of I killed our car and replacing dead cars is shockingly expensive.

How did I kill our car?

By completely failing to replace the oil that has been leaking out of it for the last 6 months is how. I'm not even going to try and defend myself. As I said to my wife after meeting her on the side of the road where she had been sitting for 3 hours after the engine seized up - 'I don't know what I was thinking....'

On the bright side - I'm not going to be short of opportunities to exercise for a while since a whole lot of the things we used to do in the now deceased car will have to be done on foot or bike.

In fact I have no doubt when my daughter is climbing the steps to receive her Olympic Gold medal in whatever it is she will be looking back to this time as the start of her long rise to athletic excellence.

See. Bright side.

I would now like to take the opportunity to warn readers of an approaching expletive. 

I am. 

A fucking. 

Idiot.

47. JUST GOING FOR A RIDE........maybe not.

So it's been two weeks now since I've ridden my bike in anger thanks entirely to the great hijacker of personal time that is the 7 year old's school holidays. 

I did manage a couple of hours at daughter speed along the Newcastle waterfront last week and while a year ago that would have had me sucking in oxygen like a stranded whale, now that I am a finely tuned athlete it's hardly the kind of pace that's going to get my heart rate above resting unless I did the whole thing with my brakes on while peddling with one leg and bunny hopping every 5 metres. And I'm shit at bunny hopping.

We did see a pod of dolphins off the breakwater which was pretty excellent. 

This country is awesome.

It has made me think though. How the hell is anyone supposed to get the time to exercise these days. I'm not so much complaining for me - I don't get to complain given my current situation work wise (in fact if you catch me complaining you should well and truly deliver a swift kick to whatever part of me is available and most likely to cause me maximum discomfort) - but seriously. 

When I was working morning shifts I listened to a lot of radio in the car during the 0530 - 0630 bracket so I got to hear the daily litany of traffic chaos on Sydney's main roads. Putting aside the sense of smug satisfaction it gave me (it's a long way to anything from our house but at least there's no traffic), it clearly demonstrated the sheer number of people that start work at that ridiculous hour of the day who presumably don't return home until after 5 or 6pm at night no doubt entirely shagged.

My wife is in the same boat. Out at 0530 and back at 5pm arse busted.

The way we work these days seems almost deliberately designed to ensure we don't have the energy to escape the grasp of our corporate overlords even if we didn't all have 30 year mortgages to ensure our ongoing compliance.

When I finally made the effort to be slightly less morbidly obese last year, I at least had the advantage of shift work which gave me a significant number of daylight hours in which to walk or ride or carry big logs up and down hills. 

Here's a thought. Instead of attempting to eliminate all physical activity from the work place lest the employer get sued because I hurt my back or sprained my dainty wrist, maybe it should become accepted that making it possible to get more physically fit (possibly, dare I say it, even during work hours) is an actual priority in the workplace. And maybe that should cut both ways. 

If, just say, I was employed in a job that required me to occasionally restrain a person and then hold that person for a period while one of my workmates went to draw up the injections, MAYBE my employer should devote more time to my readiness for this than to tell me how to lift boxes during the annual mandatory manual handling workshop. And MAYBE I shouldn't be able to work in this area if I wasn't willing to utilise whatever time my employer gave me to prepare myself properly.

I'm game if they are.

46. LOOKING LIKE AN ACTUAL BIKE.

In large part for my own benefit...

Behold the no speed, chainless, seatless, air in tyreless Thomas Slackline (2013).

Morale was getting low, so last week I put all the bits I have so far collected together, to form a shape that is, apart from being entirely unrideable, not entirely dissimilar to an actual rideable bike. Very attractive I think.

Missing from this picture are the chain, cassette, inner tubes (hence the rather flat appearance of both tyres), brakes and rear shifter (don't need a front shifter as I plan to have nothing to shift up the front - a decision I might live to regret were I not a finely tuned athlete with legs of steel and no need of the lower end gears that are merely a crutch for the weak and powerless), plus of course anything to sit on. Though all the hip and crazy youth don't seem that committed to having usable seats on their hip and crazy bikes anyway so maybe I just don't worry about that.

It's no co-incidence that all the missing bits are the most complicated bits to attach, as these are the parts most likely to expose me as a complete fraud in the bike building stakes. 

You will know when I have ordered and attempted the installation of these mechanisms when this Blog goes offline for about 3 weeks and then returns as a cutting edge political comment Blog (with a slight lean to the left of centre) that doesn't mention cycling at all except to trumpet the professionalism and service of whatever bike mechanic I end up paying to put it all together (once I regather the bits I throw off my balcony and into the surrounding bushland).

An alternative to that option is almost identical, except the break will be 6 weeks and the new Blog will be focused on the shortcomings of the health system of which I will have been a client after horrendously crashing what I THOUGHT was a fully assembled bike when everything I have attached to it becomes DEtached the first time I ride it in anger.

Fingers crossed for option 1.

45. SEE WHAT I'M DEALING WITH HERE...

See what I'm dealing with here? That's the thorn I found sticking through the tyre of my daughter's bike last week. She'd actually ridden around on it for a good couple of days while her tyre slowly deflated because it had so cleanly punctured it that it was sitting through the tyre and into her inner tube neatly enough that the leak was nearly sealed around it.

Not so neatly that it didn't deflate at the time most inconvenient to us of course. 

And it's not a puny tyre. No kevlar or genetically engineered spiders faeces or anything like some of the kit you can get these days but still - very annoying.  

I haven't had a puncture like this since I swapped out my normal inner tubes for thorn resistant ones last year some time, but it does make me reconsider the whole idea of going tubeless on the new bike.

Tubeless tyres are one of the many MANY innovations that seem to have poured into cycling in the 15 or so years since I last purchased a bicycle. It's one of those things that gets referred to in the cycling press in such a way as to make me feel like a total caveman for not having done it years ago (like dual suspension and owning a frame that has been tested thoroughly by NASA on the International Space Station). 

What you do (after making sure your rims and tyres are fully compatible of course) is pour some liquid sealant into your tubes, inflate the tyres rapidly enough so that they seat themselves properly in the rims (requiring of course some kind of motorised pump and special valves) and then slosh the sealant around inside the now inflated tyre until it's filled up all the gaps. 

Assuming all this has gone well, the still liquid sealant then fills any small punctures that arise during use of the bike, theoretically removing the threat of punctures from your world forever. 

Brilliant.

I hate this stuff. 

Why?

Because despite the fact that it sounds like a great idea that has been proven to work pretty well by the aforementioned mountain biking astronauts, I will almost certainly NOT be doing this to my bike and the main reason is embarrassingly obvious...

I am, in fact, a caveman.