Singing The Bottleneck Blues...

Got sent these rad shots from the Beauty STXC the other week....thanks to Rod Clarke for capturing the chaos that was the first lap....

Twenty Three Candles.

The timing couldn't have been better yesterday with the labour day holiday falling on my birthday. Day off teaching, sunshine and and an Eva led ride dubbed the "Harden' the f*ck up ride 2007 ". This time for a special birthday treat I thought I'd order a side dish of grilled pain mixed with stupidity sauce and take the singlespeed out. And what a ripper of a day it was too, leaving from Powelltown in order to keep things from hovering around the 7hr mark like the last time that left me pretty well cross eyed for the next few days.

Coming in from the otherside I didn't really know what to expect, only motivated by the hell schweet singletrack round' the big ole' tree itself up around the top. Sometimes some of the best rides morph into more than just pedalling in the sunshine, into a full blown exploration adventure and potential mayhem. So when we hit the 10km or so section of completely overgrown singletrack and stopping every 15m or so for fallen branches, saplings, logs or walking across massive trees and taking some h-core hike-a-bike detours things definitely made it to that next level. Enjoy the pics....

Eva was pretty stoked with this little effort...


D-Mac took the award for the most amount of bark in a wheel ever..holy smoke it was unreal I swear there was metres of the stuff..even in the brake caliper.

Post ride the scheduled afternoon "meeting" with the supercoach turned out to be a full blown birthday BBQ with the whole crew so I was well stoked..thanks heaps to everyone it was rad and couldn't think of a better way to spend the day other than hittin' the trail and hanging out...over n' out..cw.

Soapbox Time.

I think I read somewhere that racing bikes is like eating chocolate, you start off feeling pretty good and then the more you eat you start to hit struggletown population you. Last weekend pretty much that was me when the engine warning lights came on at the fourth state round indicating right now the engine is cooked from the last couple of months of solid travel work and racing. And that's cool, absolutely, one thing I've learned that having shit races or whatever doesn't mean all of them will be in the future.

Bouncing outta the weekend training has gone pretty damn well so far this week..or maybe because I'm getting motivated that I've only 3 and half weeks left of teaching left in this term and I can stop training in peak hour traffic! Seriously no wonder the majority of accidents between cars and cyclists happen in the afternoon and unfortunately this week already there have been a few close calls. I finding incredibly frustrating that there are certain drivers on the road who think we are there to be played with cause they obviously don't realise the deadly weapon in their hands and the stark reality behind the consequences of their so called 'playful' intentions. Screw you guys.

Over n' out, cw.

Roll Up, Roll On..

The National Series concluded last weekend up at Mt Beauty. Was a crazy drive after the school bell rang fri arvo with the ole red rocket wipers struggling to keep up with the torrential downpour coming over Rosewhite Gap, not to mention the hell wicked lightening storm that was going on...would have love to have gotten some schweet photos but I think thats a little too professional like for this cat.

Racing wise it was always going to interesting seeing what was in the tank and well for the first few laps things were looking pretty good sitting inside the top ten. With all the over night rain the course was a pretty decent sludge-fest and I was down with that for sure..bout time we had a muddy race instead of a dust bowl. Coming into the end of the third lap I over cooked at the top of a steep little drop in with a nasty metal cheese grate at the bottom. Those who were standing around would have witnessed some pretty rad acrobatics as I managed to step off and slide down on both feet onto this flesh slicing machine. Needless to say I'm now missing a few plastic lugs on my shoes but it is a small price to pay! From then on in the lights went out pretty badly, dropping outta the top ten to finish a pretty lousy 13th. Short track was the next day after after a quick tire change from wets to dry's it was game on. Lining up second row I was ready to have a crack at not only getting on the box but trying to break my record of three post race spews from last time. Coming into the tightest corner of the course first lap it all went pear shaped and all of a sudden I was over the bars and scrambling to pick up the rig and get going again. With 30 odd guys pinning it into a coupla metres wide corner with a large sized rut and tree root you don't have to be a rocket surgeon to know shit is going to go down. Unfortunately that was me. Ah well to quote Days of Thunder "Rubbin's Racin" and thats the way she goes sometimes. Battling away for the next 20 odd minutes was pretty painful and enjoyable at the same time, having a small battle with Jose H (SA.com) and Hendo (Mongoose). Being on the dually I could rail the bumpy middle grassy section pretty well, so coming into the last lap I attacked on the main straight and held of for 10th place and no spews...damn..out,cw.