Pav on a bike

How else do we get the pavlova to Turk's place for Xmas lunch?

Dont drink wine and teach Mum how to Skype

The Ortlieb Esky

So we're going to Turk's Xmas party, naturally we are going to ride our bikes but what to do with the drinks.  We all know that Ortlieb panniers are the best panniers for keeping water 'out' so why wouldn't they be able to keep water 'in'?

My pannier had 12 beers and half a bag of ice, Sandy's two bottles of bubbly and the rest of the ice.  We parked the bikes under the house, leaving the panniers on.  There was still ice in them at the end of the night.

My first loaded ride on the Thorn Raven

This morning a filled my panniers with stuff to roughly equate to a normal touring load.  Headed off for a couple of hours to test the bike and it was supurb.  Handling was predictable and it tracked straight.

The action shot is of the Rohloff hub , it is a thing of beauty.

The best political cartoon I've seen for a while

I couldnt help but steal this from Copenhagenize.com

by Joel Pett.

My commute

Todays cycle to work was something from a literary classic.  I stopped to have tea with my mother, who is staying at my brothers house, and then continued on my way to work in no hurry and yet with no impediment. I imagined, and it wasnt hard to do, that I was cycling a century ago and instead of an IceBreaker t-shirt I was wearing tweed.  I felt sympathy for those driving their cars this morning.

New cockpit

The handlebars on the new Thorns are risers which while comfortable dont leave much room for bling. Problem solved with an accessory bar.

Luckily I hadn't cut the fork steerer yet so I had plenty of room to mount it. Now as you can see I have the Ortlieb handlebar bag mount, GPS, and speedo.

This is cycle touring bling :)

Handlebar Mirror

While planning the big cycle tour we hear lots about the benefits of having a mirror on your bike so get a bit of warning of vehicle approaching from behind. Being the ex-roadie that would never think of putting a mirror on a bike because they are just too un-cool I scoffed.

Anyway we thought we better try one out so Sandy ordere one and I used it on the way to work this morning.....

Dont tell any of the guys on the Saturday group ride but I love it!!!!!! It took a bit of getting used to but by half and hour into my ride this morning I was glancing at it like I do when driving a car.

We just sold our house......let the adventures begin :)

The new bikes have arrived

Not the best photos (in the lounge room) but here they are:

From The Thorns

From The Thorns

We've replaced our Cannondale T1 and Vivente World Randonneur with two Thorn Raven Tours equipped with Rohloff hubs.  The reason.....well I've always wanted a Rohloff bike and if I have one then Sandy should have one, isnt that reason enough

Cannondales

You can never have enough Cannondales :)

We need a bigger shed

With two more bikes on the way we're not going to have room in our shed.

Looks like the Thorns will have to go in the Lounge Room :)

Sandys back from Tassie

Sandy got back on Sunday. Pretty knackered but had a great time.

Cradle Mountain

I'm alone

Sandy is off in Tasmania walking Cradle Mountain with Charlie her best friend from school. Charlie has two little ones who are home with Dan her main man. Sandy and Charlie have been talking about going on a hike together for ages so they booked tickets last in an attempt to 'make it happen' I'm so jealous as Tassie is one of my favourite places. Sandy will be back next Sunday night....I cant wait.

Sold our boat

What!!!! you may ask, why did you do that?!?!?!

Well to be honest we love sailing but we also love cycling and the two activities collided often enough to stop us getting value from both of them.

The good news is this is how we funded the purchase of the new touring bikes

We already own touring bikes, why do we need new ones?

Well after spending many dollars and many hours trying to get my Cannondale T1 to my liking I have given up. I think it was too small for me from the start. Combine that with the gearing that was too high and too hard to change as it uses road shifters that aren t compatible with mountain bike cranks and I was reaching the end of my nerves.

I have always oggled over Rohloff hubs which are 14 speed internal geared hubs. Big advantages are, big strong chain, no external bits to get broken, looks neat because there are no external bits. The gears are all evenly spaced etc etc etc etc.. OK they are just a fabulous piece of German engineering. Anyway I was looking at the Thorn website and just love the Raven Tour. Anyway to cut a long story short Sandy and I have ordered one each.

My MTB racing career is over

I've sold my mountain bike to a guy in Melbourne. I had no great desire to do any local MTB racing and it was worth too much sitting in the shed.

Tour de Timor: The First Day Is Over But Why Do I Feel Like This?

As I stood over the little hedge and vomited I was confused. I had ridden this far before, quite recently in fact. I had ridden in the heat. Why do I feel so sick? Another rider, I didn't know, came over to offer me water and asked if I needed anything. I tried to let him know I was alright in between wretches and thanked him for his water to at least rinse my mouth. I found a weird humour in that one of my main concerns was not that I was sick but I needed fluids and food to ride the next day. Deep down though I knew I was in a bit of trouble.

I think my mistake was made a few hours ago at the start of the race. Thousands of people lined the streets and it was easy to get caught up in the moment and, even if only in my mind, feel little of what Lance must feel. At one stage I saw up the road four blue jerseys that I thought I could latch on to so I dug a little deeper. When I caught them they turned out to be one of the UN teams, all very cut and tanned. It was right there that I had my chance to say ‘Easy, you cant ride with these guys, you’ll blow up’. Did I heed my advice….of course not, I sat on the wheel at 37kph and tried to find a rhythm. A few k’s down the road my legs told me I was doing the wrong thing so I dropped off.

Keeping me occupied was the need to avoid, jump, or ride through the countless potholes, no ‘pothole’ is not the right word, ‘missing pieces of road’ is more accurate. In a road race you spend your time either working on the front of a group in the wind or trying to avoid the wind by hiding behind someone’s wheel. This race was on the road but as there were so many hazards it was not the kind of terrain that allowed a rider to blindly follow a wheel. I was about eighth wheel and had no view ahead when I saw the lead rider ‘bunny hop’. Like a mexican wave the bunny hop approached me down the line of riders and all I could do was use the approaching wave to time my own hop to avoid the hazard that was not visible to me. As I lifted my wheels I saw the foot wide gap running the width of the road, I cleared it. That escape lifted my spirits even more as a crowd of children roared with delight at the manoeuvre.

Then not far from the start the first ‘hill’ appears. It’s a 300m vertical climb over about 5km and I ground my way to the top thinking ‘I may regret my choice of rear cassette’

After the ‘hill’ a catch another group and we ride really well together, calling out hazards “hole!!”….”big hole!!!”…….”goat!!!!!” etc. I am feeling great and during my turn on the front I am resting my elbows on the bars in time trail mode and feeling like I could ride like this all day. Wind forward four hours and I’m starting to feel some problems developing. The hills are starting to hurt and I’m thinking ‘I may regret my choice of rear cassette’. I stop at a stall and buy water and plug on. At about the 100km mark the real climb begins and I’m already knackered. This is a 500m (vertical) climb over 10km and it hurt alot. At one stage I just felt like it was a nice day for a walk. Actually I felt cramps in the calves coming on so I tried to stop them getting worse.

Some photos:

Tour de Timor

Where else would you keep your new MTB

But your lounge room :)

My new mountain bike is here

How exciting my new MTB (Giant XTC Advanced) is here. I pick it up tomorrow. Pity I have just done 137km on my roadie so I wont be going for too big of a test ride as my legs are a bit wobbly.

Tour de Timor

A few months ago someone told me about this event the Tour de Timor ....it's huge and I said that would be great...if I was fit. Anyway it's now three weeks out from the event and I've just ordered a new MTB a Giant XTC Advanced and booked some flights. I cant believe I'm doing this but it'll be a hoot. My only goal is to not be swept up by the sag wagon each day.

Tennent Creek Tour - The Outcome

As I said, if one keeps one's expectations low then one is never disappointed. So we drive for 11 hours to get there on the Friday. We swap drivers every hour or so and had some great laughs. We get there with the usual stiffness and lazy feeling when Andy bounds out of his van and says "What time for a ride?" We all look at each other and sigh. Anyway about a half hour later we're on the road checking out the course. It's a 20 something km out and back on some of the roughest road surface I've ridden on.

So the next day we have a 3.1km time trial which determines what grade you race in for the road race and the crit. I, not having ever been a time trialist am not worried about anything and confident of riding the 'C' grade road race of 40km in the afternoon. We race the race, I put in all I could and go back to the unit happy with my mediocre performance. The thing that was a bit weird was we didnt get to find out what grade you were in until the road race starts.

Aaron and I ride to the start of the road race and decide to take the back streets. Now Tennent Creek has had it's share of media attention regarding alcohol problems and as we went down the first back street we could see the whole street shimmer with broken glass. A quick 'yikes!!!' and we turn around and went on the main roads (very thin race tires and glass dont mix).

At the start the officials pin the results of the time trial and the subsequent gradings on the trailer and I am confused that I cant find my name in the 'C' grade list. Much to my horror I find myself in 'B' grade riding instead of a 40km race a 80km race!!!! This is not good news and thankfully Aaron made me put four Gu's in my pocket.

So I immediately went into defensive mode with the sole aim of not getting dropped and having to ride 80km on my own because: a) it's embarrassing and b) it's hard. We rode out and I took my turns on the front and Trevor (from Kunnunurra and riding for Darwin) and I noticed that no one wanted to do any work......it's going to be one of thoses races :)

Anyway I made sure I was on the front on the hills and the turn arounds but sheltered in the head wind and about half way I'm starting to feel that maybe if I hang on that if I'm in the bunch at the finish I might be able to give the sprint a nudge.

To cut a long story short I was about 10th wheel in the last km, Trevor and some bloke from Alice Springs were off the front by about 20m and I got boxed in but then about 200m to go a gap opened up and I thought 'go for it'. I rode past all riders and was gaining on Trevor but the line was too close and I got 3rd. I could not believe it!!!

I was very very excited about that and if you ever meet Aaron and Andy (who I shared the unit with) they will tell you that I didnt shutup about it :)

My crit was bloody terrible but I dont care I got a podium in the road race in 'B' grade!!!!

Top weekend and everyone was already planning next year.

Tennent Creek Barckly Agencies Tour

So I race twice at the new TDZ 20km handicap (replaces the old Secrett Rd event so popular for so long in Darwin) and get talked into going down to Tennent Ck to race a two day tour!!! Andy Barcroft is taking his work van down with the bikes and the rest in a few cars will go down on the Friday. There's a small prologue on Saturday morning followed by a road race in the afternoon. Sunday morning there is a criterium then BBQ lunch and we drive home.

What does this mean to me? Well I have 4 weeks to get some serious training miles in :) My motto for this event will be "If you keep your expectations low you will always succeed"

It was back to Plan 'A', The Kuranda Range

In a mad panic Mum rings me to tell me that there is some big festival up at Port Douglas on the day we were supposed to ride up to Port Douglas/Mossman and that 20,000 people are expected there on the Friday night. So it's back to riding up the Kuranda Range. Famous for it's traffic and lack of shoulders on the side of the road so we were a little nervous and as it turns out rightfully so.....it was crazy. We got off and walked a couple of times when we heard trucks approaching but it was so bad that there was hardly any room for that. Anyway the point of this post is, if you every get the urge to ride the Kuranda Range, dont do it at lunch time, maybe a dawn but not lunch time.

To make things a little more exciting Sandy had a bit of a tummy bug going on on the day we flew over. The sort of problem that makes you nervous if you are too far from 'facilities' if you know what I mean. She had tummy cramps, had no food and also dehydrated and put in a stoic effort to climb the range. She's a trooper.

At the top of the range with a big sigh of relief we found a caravan/camp park that was absolutely beautiful in the rain forest.

The cycle tour of Cairns and the Tablelands

We got back last night a great week. We got sick, got scared, laughed, caught up with family, ate lots of food, saw some magnificent scenery and will need to write more words later. But for now we attach the photos.

Turnbull Bay

As part of my Inshore Skippers course I went on an overnight sail to Turn

bull Bay, 32nm from Darwin. The next group of students were going on the 8th May and Jenny (runs the course and owns Zanibar the Farr 38 training yacht) suggested that anyone with a boat can tag along. Judith (co-student) and her hubby just bought a brand new Catalina 309 and asked if Sandy and I would like to join her on the Turnbull trip. Naturally we said yes. Funny thing was Judith's hubby was in France and Judith was not too familiar with her new boat, this sort of put me in charge a bit and it was a great learning experience.

Morning at Turnbull Bay looking at Zanibar.

We left the marina at 1900 (7pm to you landlubbers) and as there was no breeze we motored out toward Charles Point. At Charles Point we turn south toward Bynoe Harbour. When we were about 3 nm from Charles Point a bit of breeze picked up so We decided that we should be sailing and not listening to a diesel hum. So imagine this: New boat, to me and the owner, it has in-mast furling so the main sail just rolls out of the mast all very leisurely. This is when my nerves start unwinding, as the sail is almost out it jams and we can not get it out or roll it back in. This makes me a bit stressed as the next day is a forecast Coastal Wind Warning and I've got 9/10th of the mainsail up unable to reduce it!!!!. Anyway a bit of tacking to put wind pressure on the sail eventually freed it up and we unrolled all main and head sails and had a delightful sail down to Turnbull.

Judith cooking breakfast in the morning

The sail back in the morning was fabulous, a close reach in about 10 knots, if you know anything about sailing you know that that is a happy place in any boat but on a brand new $200K yacht it's not too shabby.

Sandy and I enjoying the conditions

Now I mentioned that there was a coastal wind warning due the next day so I knew what to expect when we hit Charles POint and came out of the lee of the land. Essentially the wind picked up to 20-25knots coming directly from Darwin (where we wanted to go). So the seas built and we had to bash our way on an offshore tack to get room to try and make Darwin on the next tack. Lots of fun and we reduced sail twice with spray coming over the whole boat as we pushed into the short but step swell.

Charles Point before the conditions got worse.

As we continued once we got on the close hauled point of sail, Zanibar, which is a race boat, took off and we couldnt keep up. We ended up rolling up the headsail completely and starting the motor so we could point a little higher as we all were very tired and didnt want to be getting back to Darwin in the dark.

A huge weekend and a great time was had by all!!!

Oh my Gawd, have you looked at the countdown

Sandy and I bobbing along doing what we do and having a great time suddenly realise that we have about two weeks until we are supposed to riding around the Atherton Tablelands!!!!

Quickly last weekend we load up the bikes with front and rear panniers filled with stuff to simulate a load and go for a 40km ride. The result was not too bad, could've kept going so we feel a bit better. Having said that there are no mountain ranges in Darwin :)

Gary's new dynamo hub

Now I cant have Sandy having a dynamo hub and me not :) So I ordered a groovy Schmidt hub and spokes and I built the wheel myself.

Gary's first Inshore Skippers practical session

I enrolled in the Inshore Skipper Certificate course. The course is a sailing based course accredited with Yachting Australia and run by the Winter School of Sailing here in Darwin. It's an intensive 10 week course with theory session one to three times per week and four practical session on John and Jenny's Farr 38.

Last Sunday we hit the harbour for our navigation practical and what a nice day it was. Overcast so not too hot but enough breeze to get some decent sailing in.

The aim of today was to plot a course to sail allowing for the tidal current. For those who dont know Darwin harbou

r we have BIG tides and of course Sunday was a spring tide so we had plenty of current to allow for. During my turn at plotting the chart tidal data said we would have 2.5 knots of tide pushing us out of the harbour and the wind was on the port quarter. Naturally as soon as I gave the helmsman/person the course

the wind change and we could hold my course so they then gave me what they could steer and I then determined where that would take us and a point at which we would need to gybe to get to our mark 10 nautical miles away. It wasnt long and the helmsman gave me more bad news on the course they could steer as the wind shifted.

Little did I know that they guys up on deck had a GPS had having quite a good chuckle at my use of the charted 2.5 knots of current that was actually 3.5knots. Sailing at 5-6knots that tidal stream made a huge difference.

Jenny had a big smile on her face as we each battled Darwin's big tide.

Fighting our way back to the pontoon was fun with the tide and the wind eased. We were making 1.5 knots over the ground while the log showed us sailing at 4.5 through the water.

The action at the chart table.

Click here to see these photos in full on Picasa

New Autopilot for the boat

The dry season is getting closer so Sandy and I are starting to get the boat ready for a new season of sailing. I went out and bought a new Autopilot (Raymarine ST1000+) so we dont have to hand steer all the time. For those that dont know, steering a boat is fun for about 10 minutes :)

Will be fitting it this weekend.

Sandy's new flat bar tourer

Sandy's Vivente has low handlebars, this combined with the not so efficient brakes made us think about converting her bike to flat bars and putting a set of v-brakes on the front.

Wow!!! What a difference. The bars are higher so she's more comfortable and the brakes are fantastic. We trialed it with the gear of my mountain bike but then bought her shiny new LX shifter and brakes levers and a set of v-brakes for the front. Fitted it all and she loves it.

Will post photos later.

Sandy's Beetles are finally finished

I guess it's technically not an adventure but Sandy put heaps of work into these little guys so I wanted to share them.

Sandy started work on these a couple of years ago.  It's 'stumpwork' which is like 3D embroidery.

(click the image to get the supersize version)

Gary's new front racks have arrived.

My new Tubus Duo racks for the Cannondale are here and I fitted them last night.

Sandy ordered the rest of our Ortlieb panniers yesterday so we're nearly ready.....well the equipment is nearly ready.