Last Day of Winter

Tomorrow is the official last day of winter. The days have been starting to be really nice but now the dry strong spring winds will be getting up and then the fires start. This week, being the last before permit season, has been bad and the next few days will be much worse. Riding will start to need the increase in winds usual for this time of year and the sunscreen will need to be packed on long rides. That is if i get to do any :( bloody old age.

I have been lucky this year no bombardments. Even though there are a family of 6 magpies in the yard! Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.

Double Cudgera without pain

This arvo, Peter and Rick wanted to ride up Cudgera Creek Road. But they decided to drive to the Reserve Creek Intersection so they could get in a Norm watching the footy on TV after. I rode down Kanes against the moderate SE and arrived at the spot but no-one was there. So I rode off slowly towards Wabba on my own. As it turned out made it to the top and did a U-Turn and enjoted the descent. As i hit the bitumen the other two turned up riding their bikes. Still feeling fresh I choose to ride back up. They raced and I cruised no worries again. The fish oil and glucosamine seem to be doing the job, to the point of feeling more pains in my good knee than the bad one.

Any way turned again at the top and raced down meeting a car near the bottom and just avoiding the ditch on the side of the road. Still feeling pretty good I decided to say no thanks to the the ride in the combi home and chose to instead to take advantage of the Sou'Easterly and do a push along the freeway to Clothiers Creek, not droping below 30kms/hr on the Cypress hybrid. But the turn down Watty Bishop put an end to the speed. So decided to enjoy a dawdle home to finish with a 20km/hr average over the ride. Not bad when you include the 5 km of climbing on gravel and the Kanes Road undulations.

Anyway 40kms all up and one of the longest rides I have been able to go on without pain for a very long time.

I must be bored

This week i decided to "register... for the 2010 Bicycle Commuter Challenge!" with Bicycle NSW, not sure why at all. Got all the crap provided including an e_logbook in the form of an excel spreadsheet, which looks to have been created by a high school student. It required inclusion of few functions to actually make it at least a little automated.  FGS the sum() fn has got to be the most basic spreadsheet function and yet the sheet required the user to actually manually sum a column. For an organisation that is funded and where employees are paid and are not volunteers  it is a little amaturish. This may seem a bit contrite and petty but hey It's just an opinion

woops

Just read this Amazing insight ...

"Death happens outside the car. Safety resides within. What happens outside is an abstraction from the reality of this modern mobile living room on wheels. Outside has become the virtual reality of a video game. Somehow, if something goes wrong, the game will reset and they can pick up a new life; take on new ammunition and an extra dose of health"

Sun-day

Rode with Mark and Peter up to the top of cudgera creek rd on Sunday arvo. It was ok the knee was ok until right on the last short rise over th turf farm hill.. but it was at times a quick ride. We returned alomg the freeway untill the Round Mt overpass and then scrambled up the real steep rocks under the overpass. glad it wasn't wet it would of been really slippery. Anyway it was good to stop thinking about the bloody election. Cudgera Creek was also not much different to the way it presented a couple of weeks ago when I rode it. Smooth with little loose gravel -- having been only re graded and rolled last month. A couple of the corners were starting to show corrigations but they were avoidable in nearly all situations.

Also rode a rough track through the Cudgera Reserve throught to creek street and around back to Round Mountain Rd on Saturday when I rode down to Bogangar Public School to cast my vote.

Have bought a new bike computer from Caba Cycles to replace the rubbish Aldi one on the Shogun commuter. I bought it for $18 last year and as it needed new batteries at $15 it didn't seem worth it as it was only really working as  a speedo with a pretty erratic accuracy the odometer was way out with it recording 99km/hr often when it picked up interference. Not that I expect much better results with the echo only costing $70.

And I have bought a set of lights from Cell online and they should turn up soon so I will be able to restart night rides again soon.

pre election federals

Well riding to work may become a used to do exercise after this weekend. Having a job that is one of the political footballs at the moment will see my continued employment being decided by the voters of Australia. So continued commuting all depends on the election outcome.  I'm no stanger to this. I was a trainer during the 90's in the Labor LEAP program running in the local area. Labor lost that election to the Howard slashers waking up on the following Monday to no job. Now I will be facing a very similar fate if Abbott the mad monk gets in. I will see next week...

Still here, Just...

Boring update. Still riding not as often as my mind wants but my knees are very thankful. Gettimg in 3x30 kms rides a week. Mostly on the commuter riding home from work. But still getting on the simple mtb and even managed a quiet cruise to the top of Cudgera Creek Road, all without my knees more than twitching. I was surprised with the clean and smoth surface of the road, although the wheel tracks of the Rollers were still visible on the edges of the gravel road...