IN WHICH I PLAY CRICKET

So now I own a pair of cricket gloves. I haven’t used them yet of course on account of being a less good batsmen than most of the people currently occupying the roster of the local team (and a tendency for it to rain all the fuck over any game I am scheduled to be participating in) but let’s be honest, any opportunity to indulge my obsession with gloves of any type is a welcome one.

I’ve always been a bit wary of cricket as a sport. The participation to drinking ratio in Rugby is frankly far more favourable than cricket, even if you do end up backing up most weekends due to Union’s chronic shortage of large men stupid enough to stick their head in a scrum for kicks. And while I recognise that the two are played at different times of the year, it is nice, on occasion, to be able to respond in the affirmative to suggestions that you do something other than run around on a big patch of grass every single Saturday of the year.

Sadly Laguna is currently entirely devoid of a Rugby Team so I’ve cunningly allowed myself to be signed up to an extremely exclusive ‘Star Player’ contract with the  somewhat dubiously named, Laguna Village People Cricket Club (though at least our branding doesn’t feature a giant duck like some other local teams I could mention).

By ‘Star Player’, I mean – when all the ‘Star Players’ are unavailable due to holidays, sickness, geographical inconvenience or natural disaster, I slot in effortlessly at around 12 or 13 on the 11 man team sheet and get to stand in the God awfully scorching sun while clumsily pursuing any cricket balls that come my way.

Very occasionally I get to make a spectacular goose of myself by falling down for no apparent reason. Which I’m sure happens to everyone at some point so why are all you bastards laughing so loudly. Stupid long grass.

It’s fun though and my stats are undeniably impressive. 0-0-1-2-1-1. Or in English – Zero wickets, zero runs, one (dropped) catch, two wins, one loss and one game called off due to a hail storm of Speilbergian magnitude. It boggles my mind that Darren Lehmann has not yet been in touch.

To be fair (to me), all of my cricket so far, like the last two seasons of Rugby I was involved in, has been played immediately following 10 hour night shifts at an inpatient psychiatric unit. So I’m of the opinion that slack should possibly be cut.

Think I might wander around the house for a bit with my gloves on.

AND NOW TOTALLY IGNORING MY APPALLING LACK OF BIKE RELATED POSTS....

I broke a spoke the other day.
 
Best case scenario 2 years ago, that would have meant dragging the bike into the nearest shop to get it fixed, almost certainly on the second attempt on account of the mechanic not being in till next week, 'can you bring it back then mate', $60 and at least a week off the bike.

More likely of course, I would have faffed about for several months while the bike rusted on the deck and I entirely forgot how to make the wheels go round and round without causing me severe respiratory distress. Before I knew it I'd be 140 kilos (*cough* again) and digging around in my drawers for those XXXXL t-shirts I used to wear but now use to polish my 9 year old's shoes with.

I identified the broken spoke on Tuesday. Purchased a spoke wrench (what the hell is a spoke wrench my 2012 self says cluelessly) on Wednesday, whipped off the casette, rear disc and broken spoke by lunch on Thursday and had it all back together and rotating with barely a wobble by Thursday afternoon.

See, this what you get when you build yourself a bike instead of buying one off the (bike) rack. Best bit is, I never even touched a spoke when I was putting it all together. I mean I touched them obviously, being part of the wheels and all that, but not in the sense of building an entire wheel out of them or anything along those ludicrous lines. Thing is though - because I had put just about everything else together, I now know where all the fiddly bits are, what they are called, what I need to pull apart to get at them and what the tool looks like that is required to do all that and then put it back together again without it resembling some kind Church sanctioned, heretic torturing, confession machine from Inquisitorial Spain.

2012 Matt wouldn't even have been able to get all the crap off the hub to get anywhere near the actual spoke.

It's all been very good for my morale.

Think I might pull our car apart.

CAN'T PAY? WON'T PAY! - MATCH REPORT

Just to make clear the political orientation of this play – on more than one occasion, it pointedly accuses the Communist Party, yes that Communist Party, of being not really left wing enough. So not likely to be on Andrew Bolt’s list of things to see and almost definitely absent from the National Curriculum being currently prepared by our duly elected Minister for Education.

Not that I was overly aware of this until I was half way home on account of the layer of unapologetically slapstick hilarity laid down over the rhetoric with enthusiastic abandon and consummate skill by Director Bob Phillippe and his very able cast of five (…..or eight, if you count all of Tim Williams’ near identical twin brothers, none of which I had the slightest idea existed until last night).

Karen Jones as Antonia, gets through an absolute mountain of dialogue as she first ropes her less than enthusiastic friend Margherita, played with excellent comic timing by first time actor Karen Toohey, into accepting the proceeds of an ever so casual major shoplifting incident, then spends the rest of the play more or less successfully convincing their two less than perceptive husbands (Ross Fletcher and Peter Firminger)and one similarly clueless Police Inspector (Tim Williams) that the large bag of stolen goods Margherita has stuck up her overcoat  is in fact something else entirely.

 See the play if you want to find out what.

Ross’s Giovanni is a perpetually active study of comically conflicted chaos and Peter’s Luigi plays off him nicely as his rather more politically pragmatic friend (though still sadly lacking in knowledge vis a vis the female reproductive system). Both were perfectly suited to the roles, even if I was initially confused by Peter’s complete lack of facial hair and the fact that Karen and Karen seemed to have stolen his signature long black coat look.

Tim Williams as, well, about 50 different characters, demonstrates a level of verbal and physical fitness that boggles the mind, as he effortlessly plays half the play’s cast entirely by himself. I for one am quite happy he never went into law enforcement.

Technically of course the whole thing went off with the practiced efficiency that is a hallmark of all Valley Artists productions. So, well done to the team of creative lunatics that yet again put together such an awesome set and to all those running about in the shadows wearing nothing but black skivvies and presumably really cool night vision goggles.

Bob Phillippe has once again presented the valley with a production well worth stumping up $25 for and I recommend doing just that  as soon as you absolutely can …….even if he does seem to be suggesting we should all pop into Cessnock and clean out Woolworths.

2014 LAGUNA PUBLIC NATIONAL CAPITAL TOUR - PART 3

Did I mention the bolognese from Tuesday night? How long do you have to boil mince to get all the little bits of meat so bloody small. A day? Two? Flavorless, devoid of identifiable tomato and slapped on top of over cooked penne - the kids loved it. Philistines.

Another 0530 wake up call from the Bush Capital Lodge Kitchen Percussion Band ably accompanied by 40 odd kids from another school who were up early to get to the snow for the day. Nice for them given they were heading into day 3 of a blizzard that had already dumped 1.5 metres of snow on their destination.

ATTRACTION No.8 - CSIRO.
Giant model bugs, turtles, hands on experiments and a 3D space film. What's not to like if you're a primary school kid. No fatalities despite attempts by some of our more......um, investigative kids to fashion a super virus from two connected coke bottles full of spiraling water, pea DNA and a cog and wheel construction kit. Stick some of these kids in a lab coat and they may as well be stroking a hairless cat while seated in a big revolving chair and laughing maniacally.

The kids entirely emptied the gift shop of slime related products (SRP's), necessitating a quick ban on the opening of said items in the bus that worked for at least 32 minutes. The Thomas family tally was only 2 SRP's so we got off lightly I suspect.

ATTRACTION No.9 - Questacon (Hail the Mother Of All Gift Shops).
To give it it's due, Questacon seems to send human beings under the age of 12 (which I assume to be it's target audience) into a near frothing frenzy of enthusiasm. All that pressing, pulling, prodding and sliding. For myself I'm thinking - meh.

I was assigned the same group of girls to herd up and then down the spiraling series of rooms until they reached the 7 metre slippery dip ride thingy at the bottom. This required them to put on a pair of overalls and then go from sitting on a step to hanging by a bar over what, from the bottom at least, seemed like a completely doable vertical drop to stainless steel slippery dip. As someone who once spent 30 minutes at Cubs holding onto a steel bar up a tree and most determinedly not sliding down the flying fox the bar was attached to I say - 'Well done to them that did it' (and to those who didn't - welcome to the Club).

The gift shop at Questacon was both massive and so packed with various school groups that I could have gone to sleep in there and totally not fallen over I swear. Very similar to the CSIRO gift shop in many respects (slime was again available for example) just 3 to 5 dollars more expensive.

Once extracted from Questacon's gaping maw, we lunched in the park opposite before climbing onto the bus for the long trip home. A lot less in the way of nausea and toilet stench which was nice. Did have to sit through the movie Frozen however. Vocal opposition from all the boys at this selection didn't stop them all watching the whole thing in attentive silence I noted (and singing along quietly - Let it go. Let it go. Let it go, let it goooooooo....)

Toilet breaks x3, pizza at West Pennant Hills and we pulled into the School car park at around 7.30pm without the loss of a single child. A totally awesome performance by us. Awesome (though in retrospect we might have been more assertive in the 'get into those bloody showers children before your underwear dissolves' area).

I give this excursion 4.5 stars out of 5.

Repeat whenever possible.

2014 LAGUNA PUBLIC NATIONAL CAPITAL TOUR - PART 2

As we settled in for Monday night the three of us in the Attending Dads Room A1 (of course) briefly debated how many alarms we should set and at what time we should set them so as to be up early enough to head off any child shenanigans. Entirely unnecessary as it turned out, due to our proximity to the kitchen that kicked off the morning at 0530 with an enthusiastic game of pot and pan soccer. Happily, the sleep we did get was fairly good. Even more happily it appeared that all of the children that had gone to bed the night before were still present and functioning come the morning.

Woo for us.

Breakfast was scrambled eggs (the remains of which I suspect might have formed part of the 'fritata' we had for Wednesday breakfast) and as many coffees as I could jam pods into the machine in the time available. Then into the bus.

ATTRACTION No.4 - The National Film and Sound Archive.
What an excellent institution. The kids loved it of course on account of it involving a screen and moving pictures, but in addition to that, the presenter was engaging and friendly (even when his computer started to screw him over) and the selection of material shown to us was interesting and varied. We even got to see a scene from Skippy.......Jesus that show was terrible.

ATTRACTION No.5 - The National Capital Exhibition.
Did you know that Dalgety was on the ballot as a possible Capital that the people of Australia actually voted on. Neither did I. The purpose of this building on the banks of Lake Burley Griffin is to educate on all things Capitol City related. And it does a good job of it. Not sure how many school groups they pump through it in the average day but I suspect it is a lot judging by the well practiced efficiency with which we were moved from section to section. Wouldn't let us play with the Lego they had lying around though (I mean the kids....they wouldn't let the KIDS play with the Lego) but I did locate the building I lived in when I was a citizen of Canberra in 1987 on a giant model of the city. Which was AWESOME.

It was planned that lunch would be spent in a park with footballs and running about and stuff but as we completely lacked Gortex in sufficent quantities to combat the driving rain and near sub zero temperatures, we set up camp in the Hall of Ainslie Public School (said Hall being bigger and better equipped than our entire school). Thank you Ainslie Public School.

ATTRACTION No.6 - The War Memorial.
Yay. Supervising a group of small girls around the War Memorial. A total waste of my talents. Look at the big Lancaster with all the turrents and history and God no there aren't any horses here. Highlight for my group was an 'experience' that involved standing in a room while the floor vibrated and moved up and down a bit. Never mind that the whole thing was supposed to give an insight into the horrors of night bombing over Nazi Germany (at one point a video screen on the floor showed bomb doors opening so you could see the burning city below). The girls did it twice before I dragged them away.

After a couple of hours including quite a long time in the gift shop (it's all about the gift shop people) we were extracted with aplomb by Ray the Coach driver and returned to the barracks for coffee, dinner.....and more coffee. Some kids even had showers. Not many. But some. Then it was off to what I'm fairly sure many of the kids would rate as the highlight of the trip....

ATTRACTION No.7 - Lazer Tag (Die Parents! DIE!)
I knew we were in trouble when the Lazer Tag attendent asked how many of us had done this before and all (as in ALL) of the kids put their hands up. I still think I acquitted myself well....once I remembered which button was the trigger. I certainly didn't run head first into a wall like one of the parents. If nothing else we'll be in good shape come the day we have to seal up the valley and defend ourselves from the outside world (my plans for this eventuality are available for your persual) because the kids are a bunch of ruthless killers (though lacking in the area of small unit co-operative tactics).

Back in the bus. Chocolate, coffee and parental discussion while we waited for all signs of life to disappear from the kiddy rooms. Sleepy bye byes.

0500 - Round 2 of the Pots and Pan Soccer World Cup.....

Next: Bugs. Turtles. Hanging and Dropping. Frozen!

MATCH REPORT - 2014 LAGUNA PUBLIC NATIONAL CAPITAL TOUR.

DAY ONE.
I'm assuming that the 0530 start time for this 3 day extravaganza was part of Principal Howe's ingenious plan to ensure an only just workable level of exhaustion prevailed throughout the 3 days of our whirlwind tour and/or a cunning maneuver to acclimatise us to the significant difference in temperatures between chilly Laguna and the ball freezingly cold Capital Territory.

A masterstroke either way. Getting the kids off to sleep throughout the trip seemed a lot easier than I had assumed it would be and even my recently jumper averse daughter had no problem with donning multiple layers of warm clothing.

Despite following to the letter the instruction to avoid 'milky breakfasts' I spent much of the first hour staring fixedly out the window breathing deeply, thinking happy thoughts and tossing up which of the 8 year olds sitting up front in the anti-spew rows I could physically remove in my weakened state. Thank Christ the sun came up and we hit the nice straight freeway.

Well placed toilet stops unfortunately did not prevent the bus toilet (around which all the lucky adults were seated) getting just enough use to produce a stench that I can only describe as viscous in nature and led to the deployment of what must have been an entire can of spray deodorant in a nearly, but yet not quite successful, attempt to overcome the aggressively maneuvering funky cloud.

ATTRACTION No.1 - The National Gallery of Australia.
An excellent venue with a very engaging tour guy who did a fantastic job of involving the kids in the artistic process. He was of course impressed by the perception and MASSIVE intelligence of our children. Always like visiting the National Gallery, if only to stand in front of Blue Poles making sarcastic comments questioning the artists ability as an artist, suggesting that 'I could paint that pissed and with both my eyes shut' and suggesting that anyone willing to pay the HUGE amount of cash for it that we in fact did must have been pissed.....and had both their eyes shut.

Clear evidence of total devotion to the layering technique vis a vis cold weather clothing - When loaded up with all the coats, jumpers, vests, hats and gloves discarded by the students immediately upon entering the toasty warm Gallery building I needed assistance from one of my fellow parents to navigate the stairs to the cloak room on account of I could not see s**t.

ATTRACTION No.2 - The Australian National Museum (aka That Place With Bits Of Phar Lap In It).
Completely lacking in Dinosaur bones, this attraction was a bit of a disappointment. Mind you, even if there had been dinosaur bones, I would not have got to see them as I was tasked with the supervision of four 8 and 9 year old horse obsessed girls (a description that seems to describe all 8 and 9 year old girls) who would not countenance any activity until Phar Lap had been seen. To my quiet satisfaction, the only bit of Phar Lap in the Museum was his (her?) preserved heart. Never mind. Hey! Check out that big tractor over there!

ATTRACTION No.3 - Parliament House.
Pissing down freezing rain and nearly dark by the time we reached the seat of all power in this wonderful country. We moved inside for bottled water and a snack before briefly chatting to Senator Kate Lundy and our local MP Joel Fitzgibben (who seemed a bit concerned Senator Lundy was stealing his future constituants). We were then put into the hands of a Danishly accented Parliament House Guide who was, um, fairly directive in his manner. Very knowledgable of course. But almost comically directive. 'Ve will now go THIS WAY. My accent is Danish. Yes it is very funny. HAHAHAHA!NOWLETUSGO! Mr Teacher! You will be responsible for one OR POSSIBLY TWO ROPES! IF YOU FAIL......YOU VILL PAY ZE PRICE!'. Educational genius or certifiable lunatic.....I am not yet decided.

With 3 National Attractions under our belt we moved with all pace to the Bush Capital Lodge at.....I have no idea 'cause it was dark and raining. Once fed (a chicken 'curry' entirely lacking in curry like attributes save for being yellow in colour) and inserted into our not all that spacious rooms, we rugged up and popped out for a short but invigorating stroll through the streets. A somewhat controversial decision amongst some of the parents as it had not really stopped raining and some of that rain seemed to be bouncing off things in a manner quite reminiscent of ice. Good for self-discipline and morale in my opinion.

Next: Scrambled eggs! War Memorials! Laser Tag!

54. CAN YOU DIG IT?

It's stereotyping is what it is.

See, at some point or another, if you ride your bike enough, you end up having to replace the rubber bits that go round and round on the outside of your wheels. And I think it's a sad indicator of the preconceptions of some bike shop proprietors that a man of my age and, cough, dimensions, fronts up for some new tyres and the default response is - 'That'll be for cross country right?'

Nice and safe that cross country riding. Maybe you'd like some extra gears so you can your fat arse up those nasty hills.

I'm being too harsh.

As scenic as the views frequently are, I have found that there is a limit to how many times I can ride up and down the local fire trails without it becoming a whole bucket load of boring. The whole reason I went for a mountain bike (as opposed to a road bike) was that long hours in the saddle grinding out the kilometres was not particularly attractive to me. Apart from anything else my arse just won't tolerate more than about 30kms before expressing it's displeasure in very colorful language indeed.

Which is why I've started throwing the bike in the back of the car and driving down to Ourimbah where some very nice people have spent what must have been a shit load of time and money building trails specifically to make things more interesting.

And why I've started digging these...

....up behind the chook sheds.

I figure if I twist and turn enough there's enough room up here to build a track for at least a couple of hundred metres. More, if I decide to get stupid and run it down to the main driveway. More still if it goes down to the dam and up the other side.

As a bonus - I'll save a lot on petrol when compared to the 60 km trip to Ourimbah and digging up dirt provides for a shockingly effective cardio session. Hell of a lot easier getting it all to hang together since the rain we got a few weeks ago made the dirt a bit more pliable as well.

Might hold off on throwing in too many jumps just yet. It's still a long way to the nearest hospital.

53. UPGRADES!

What is it? 4 weeks and bits are already falling off?

Pfft to the very suggestion. This is in fact my recently removed front chainring which, after several rides (and then a few more just to make sure....and then a couple after that while I waited for the new chainring to arrive in the mail) I decided to swap for one with 2 more teeth.

What does that get me exactly (besides an excuse to get another package in the mail)? It gets me slightly more speed when combined with the smallest ring on the back wheel (generally on downhill or flattish bits) with a corresponding hit to the Granniness of my Granny gear (the really low gear that is being employed by the rider you see going up a hill very slowly while spinning his or her legs very quickly).

The new one looks like this....

It's a Renthal....which is just massively credible....trust me. So far I'm liking the change and haven't yet felt the need for a gear lower than that still available to me with this set-up, though I have been studiously avoiding some of the more ridiculous hills available to me in the local area (hills mind you, I couldn't grind up with any of the 21 gears available to me on the Mongoose so just DON'T JUDGE ME ALRIGHT!).

Also - It is significantly harder to keep the front wheel on the deck when climbing up steep hills due to the shorter backend and higher front end aaaaand it came to my attention that I had not routed the front brake cable correctly...

....running the cable on the outside of the fork (picture A) is incorrect. Snaking it around the back (picture B) is in fact the correct method.

Which is why I changed it.

You should all take note of this for reference in the construction of your own bicycles.

Carry on.

52. ONE BIKE. MOUNTAIN IN SHAPE. ENTIRELY OPERABLE.

Looking back through my emails I notice that the one from Dan at Stanton Bikes (excellent man - fantastic service - what a bunch of legends) notifying me of the shipping of the frame (described by him as a 'pink little girls bike') around which this is built, is dated April 18.

Now, 5 months later, give or take few days - here is the finished item (barring possible future additions and/or adjustments to handlebars, saddle, suspension travel, grocery basket etc).

I'm not one to big note myself in any way but seriously, how smart am I.

I'm even fairly confident, having gone for a couple of rides on the thing, that all the bits that are supposed to be on it are 1. Actually on it and 2. Won't be falling off it.

See. Very attractive.

From the other side - still bloody attractive. Note the state of the art, hand carved, black wattle side stand - fashionable as, that is.

Here's a few observations.

FULL SUSPENSION?
This doesn't have it. Full suspension is pretty much standard for bikes of a certain price point/component level into which I would have say this bike fits. I stand by my decision on the grounds that there is a lot less to go wrong with this, I was able to put the extra dollars into other components and frankly I like the clean look of this bike, which I may have previously described as 'bloody attractive'.

ONLY 10 GEARS? REALLY?
I was a bit nervous about this decision as most of the online discussion about 1x10 drivetrains inevitably include a suggestion that you must be a high performance athlete with legs of steel and the aerobic capacity of a marathon running Kenyan tribesman to deprive yourself of all the super low gears made available to you by the inclusion of 2 or 3 chainrings up front.

Anyone who has seen more of my body than that revealed by my Facebook profile shot will be aware I am neither high performance or Kenyan. I do have quite strong legs however and from my experience so far I've got to say I haven't felt the need for a gear lower than the ones provided by this set-up. I am even thinking I might need a bigger ring on the front to give me more speed at the other end of the range. That might make a difference at the granny gear end I guess.

Worse case scenario - I get subject matter for another post a few weeks down the track lamenting my poor hill climbing ability related to disastrous component choice in which case - everyone's a WINNER!

BETTER OR WORSE THAN THE MONGOOSE?
Just riding down the driveway I can't help but notice several things..

1. A distinct lack of rattling noises.
2. A distinct lack of bone jarring impacts.
3. A really quite amazing ability to steer in a straight line over ground I would have rated as quite challenging 3 weeks ago.

...add to this the fact that when I operate the gear or brake lever the function controlled by that lever occurs instantly and with almost no effort on my part PLUS a riding position that is not unlike cruising around in an armchair compared to that of the Mongoose and I would have to say - Yes. This IS a better bike than the Mongoose.

More pictures? Certainly...

This is what I am talking about when I say 'drivetrain'. So neat. So entirely unclogged up with 17 years of filthy greasy mess....

And this is one of the reasons I went with less gears. In my early 'just bloody buy a bike from the shop you idiot' phase I looked at one or two that had 6 or 7 cables running off their bars (what with the front mech, remote shock lock out, remote seat dropper)....I have 3. So much neater. So much more stylish. So much more space for a nice cane basket I can put the shopping in....

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.

44. INSERT CUP A INTO STEM B

Well it’s raining again. Mind you it’s been raining all week and then some in the big city (Sydney not Cessnock) so for a change they’re all up to their necks in water and I get to look confused when I hear about it instead of the other way around. So I can’t complain too much right?

Does mean I haven’t been able to get out for a ride as much as I would like to, and by that I mean absolutely bloody well need to, lest all the good work I've done turning my soft and spindly legs into storehouses of barely contained raw power just waiting to be unleashed in athletic endeavour, go to tragic waste. 

I suspect this enforced inactivity may have contributed to my criminal lack of motivation in the whole ride a bike, blog about riding a bike sphere. I realise I haven’t written anything on this blog since my rather random ranting of last week so shame on me for letting down my loyal readership........all 7 or 8 of you.

In an effort to kick my arse out of this shameful slackness I bit the bullet and actually put some stuff on the bike today.

To be more precise I used the thingy marked ‘A’ instead of the considerably more expensive thingy marked ‘B’....

 to put these thingy’s (which when put all together are known as a 'headset')..

...by means of the process pictured on the left in the picture below to end up with an installed headset as pictured on the right in the picture below...

All clear?

And besides one or two dodgy moments when I thought I had jammed the silly thing in sideways and would have to cut it all out with a hacksaw or something (remedied via the judicial application of the my state of the art wacking hammer), it all went very smoothly.

Brilliant.

43. IN DEFENCE OF OPTIMISM.

Be honest with yourself. Doesn't it make it just a little bit easier to sit around in comfort when you hold the opinion that nothing you do will make any difference anyway.

Is it a co-incidence that the societies that tend to think this way, which is to say any culture that has successfully invented the talk back radio show, are also the ones that have it pretty good right where they are?

It's no use coming up with alternate forms of energy - those other bastards won't do anything and we'll all get done over.

No point paying taxes - our dirtbag politicians will just waste it all anyway.

Screw doing anything about the ongoing obscenity that is large chunks of Africa - THEIR dirtbag politicians will just steal it all, turn it into bombs and send it back to us strapped to some boat person.

Do you reckon the farmer who gets up every day in some country where they wouldn't know what to do with a triple soy latte if one landed in their laps, to tend the 13 cows that are the life of not just him but his or her entire family, can afford to think like that?

For that matter, do you think those struggling up the Kokoda Track, or carving a living out of the Australian bush or insert whatever other noble endeavor you like at this point, had the luxury of thinking 'Ah f**k it all, what's the point it's all going to end up being wrecked by some other incompetent anyway'.

The hell they could.

We can of course. Because if we do nothing we still get to have our TV's and our cars and our lattes (yes I am aware that the use of the latte to illustrate 1st world hubris is a tired and much beaten about cliche) and our 2 thousand dollar mountain bikes. 

At least until the guy with 13 cows notices we have all this stuff and seem to be taking no action whatsoever to try and maybe cut him and his family in on the action and decides maybe he and his mates should do something about that....

Or...

Maybe we stop making the excuse that someone else is going to put all our good work to the sword and demand that they don't. Instead of asking our Politicians over and OVER what the price of a litre of milk is or whether they got pissed in university or whatever. Instead of demanding they adopt position B instead of position A over and OVER and then calling them back flippers entirely lacking a moral backbone when they do exactly that. Instead of that, maybe we could make the assumption that most of them didn't get into politics with the specific aim of screwing us all over and get them to accomplish a few things. 

Maybe we adopt the attitude of all those people from our past that we profess to worship and make the decision that a bit of sacrifice today is a small price to pay for the entirely self serving opportunity to look back in 30 years and say as a generation....

'We built that. Now say nice things about us on your radio show.'

42. GEEZ. WHERE DID THAT WEEK GO?

Oops.

Skip one blog and then another and all of a sudden it's next week. Crap.

Ok then. I'm probably going to back off on the 3 times a week posting for a little bit while I continue to churn through the award winning, intellectually invigorating and massively entertaining 100 Days of Drawing Challenge. 

Looking at the number of times each of my recent posts has been viewed, even if I get a 100% hit rate on self harming directly related to this news that shouldn't keep our health system jammed up for longer than a few minutes...even better if a couple of those people are in another country (though if you're in the States please make sure your insurance is all paid up).

......just to be sure - please don't self harm. It's not funny or clever.

Might take a break for this post from the whole cycling thing just to raise a couple of things I wish happened last week that didn't.

1. I wish Julia Gillard had smacked Howard Sattler in the face. For that matter, she could do a lot worse electorally speaking than book herself onto all of the programs that choose to operate with his particular style (I'm thinking Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt, possibly Ray Hadley if he still has a show...) and haul off on all of them. I'm sure she wouldn't have to wait long for what most courts in the land would consider just cause. Probably wouldn't even have to sit down in the case of Alan Jones before he'd something ludicrous.

2. I wish Joel Madden had fronted the media to bring to their attention the absurdity of running the news that he - the heavily tattooed rock star famous for being a....heavily tattooed rock star - had been caught with grass in his hotel room.

This reminds me of the time that snowboarder at the Olympics got  caught with marijuana in his urine. Ooh. A snowboarder. That smokes grass. Shocking.

I also wish I'd stubbed my toe on a huge gold nugget while feeding the chooks. But that's probably pushing it.

41. ATTACHING SOME BITS

Behold the attached whirly bits.

If you could use your mind to stick some pedals on the end of those cranks that would be good (I left them off on account of it being more convenient that way when I go to add all the other stuff I'm ordering next). Take my word for it - everything went into the holes they were supposed to and everything spins, or alternatively does not spin, as it is designed to.

So I'm pretty happy with myself. Of course I haven't actually done anything remotely bike like on it yet due to the fact that it, well, isn't remotely bike like, but I am confident.

and here's another view...

I decided to go for just the top part of the chain guide (which is almost certainly going to need some further adjustment once I get around to running a chain through it) on the grounds that 1. I am not a World Cup winning downhill race lunatic and 2. As previously mentioned - I can always attach it later on if I need to.

Next up is quite the shipment. Wheels, forks, headsets, stem and handlebars. Or if you want to be technical about it - the round rolly things and the steering whatsits. Preliminary YouTube research suggested I would need to invest in some fairly complicated and not exactly inexpensive tools to go along with those purchases in order to fit them in a manner considered safe and professional. Secondary YouTube research however suggests I can do the same job with some plastic pipe, threaded rod, two nuts and some blocks of wood.

So I'm going to go with the cheap option for starters, at least to the point where I'm absolutely certain carrying on in that manner will entirely fuck my nice new bicycle. It's all about the confidence right? As I'm sure I will find out when I finally get to the point where I have to cut a chunk of the steerer off my new $400 forks with a hacksaw (or possibly a pipe cutter). 

Measure 16 times. Cut once.