1st Adventure ride with Hugh & Rick

Another weekend neglecting my pushbikes - well I did get the fixie out and ride to the mail box.

With the arrival of new Yamaha, Sunday afternoon was a quick jaunt from Hawea Flat up the Eastern side of Lake Hawea to the Dingle Station -well as far as the locked gate would let us.

Photos here

Hugh couldn't wait to find a track that was off the main gravel road...in the trees, blasting through a Ford at warp factor ten and filling his boots with water....
- and then he sees a guy in moto gear walking towards him who has run out of gas -"hop on mate, we'll sort you out"
Hugh's tail was thumping so hard at the prospect of helping someone there was a dust cloud.
Got him sorted and we're on our way again.
Had a play at Timaru Creek - crossing a few braids and not dropping it luckily. Hugh might need a snorkel to curb his enthusiasm.

Then home for a bbq with the neighbours, welcome summer, welcome.

Oh, My God..

I had a cup of instant coffee.

Yeah I know.

What was I thinking?

It's possible I wasn't.

In my defence I was wrestling between luke and darth.

This was the temptation:

Since then I have given up on my boyhood dreams of becoming a Fireman, Space astronaut, Policeman, etc.

My favourites file is full of search phrases such as:

Australian Rally Safari

Dakar Rally

KTM 640 ralle bike rebuild

Oh, dear. I may need a lot of post it notes left around the house with cute messages like "I fed the kids- see at 6pm tonight" and "Wow, you're the best Keighley see you Sunday avo"

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update: 11/10/2008

Um, I got my own instead of dribbling over

pictures on the www.... ......................................................exhibit A:

Had a spin on Saturday morning, rode it home from Alexandra that afternoon.

Left at about 4.45, got home about 8pm.

It's only 100km by road....

My post it notes seemed to have worked pretty well.

Lucky for me I didn't need to ring home as the cell b8atry was flat, the snow was deep and it was getting low on available light. Oh and gas level was unknown......

Lucky I was on an adventure bike :-)

Pictures to follow.

A nice drive in the country

Under the pretence of staff training, Alastair (my boss) and I spent last Saturday here
Basically we got to drive 3 wicked - well ok, two wicked and one chicks car in the snow and ice all day under the supervision of this guy: Hunter Edwards; apparentley he doesn't google (WTF?)

Check this link for Hunter's gallery
We were the group dated 16/08/2008 and yes, that is me behind the wheel of the Golf in pictures 3-15.
Yes, the car did nearly a full 360 spin and yes, Alastair did grab the hand brake moments prior!
And that's me again reversing out of the snow bank in the same car a bit later on as well.

Here's some data gathered from the GPS gizmo in the BMW from the morning session:
STUDENT - rick - alastair
LAP 1 - 70.5 - 72.3
LAP 2 - 72.4 - 72.4
LAP 3 - 74.5 - 72.7
AVG.SPEED - 30.4 - 29.4
MAXSPEED - 45.7 - 44.1
STDEV - 2.00 - 0.21

And because the boss has only heard of a blog, but never read one I'm fairly safe to mention that I did post a faster lap than him and did I also mention he hopped out of the Beemer leaving it in drive ? Lucky the Golf was parked in front to halt it's travels...... :-)

Whilst freaking expensive, it was a great time and a good one to tick off the list.

Oh & here's a link to Shaun Summerfield doing the very thing but at the tax payers expense.
(It takes an age to load, but it is the best way to show what happended)

Momma & Poppa Redwood go ridin'

After much confusion on Saturday morning Hugh turned up with a very pregnant Jess (due that day), who looked after the nippers while we went out riding.

This was a big thing for myself and Keighley as the littlies pretty much put the kybosh on going "hey, let's just go out for a bike ride" In fact it's the first time since we moved here a year ago that we've been out into the Sticky Forest together.

Hugh wasn't even like a third wheel ! More like a studly version of myself - he was wearing my vest which I purchased from Big Bear Bikes - wait for it - in Big Bear Lake, California...............they even have Tinker Juarez's Etto Helmet in the window.

This is officially the middle of winter - the rest of the country is getting slammed with less than ideal bike riding weather.

We however had dust coming off our tires.

Not that I'm bragging.

The Boys in Blue

Nah, not the cops - a couple of bikes I own.

One is broke.

& the other one is it for off road at the mo - what's that you say?

No Foes ? Yep it's sold, 1st time in 8 years without a Foes

I've even been de-Kleined !

Indeed the '98 Attitude comp has gone too.

Clark Kent: used to belong to Stephen Swart when he was racing for the Coors Light team in the USA, prior to the team switching to Serottas the next year.

It has unceremoniously been sitting in a bike box for the last 12 months waiting and waiting and waiting......finally after a wiff of cafeine inspiration from http://rewiretrorides.blogspot.com/ I'm into it.

The paint is stuffed and there is a hairline crack in the gusset under the down tube.

So it's off to http://www.kiwibikes.co.nz/ for some love with the welding torch and then down to Wellington to get some new paint and decals from Ross Bee.

The 8 speed down tube shifter Dura Ace groupset complete with "Coors Light" marker pen on the rims will be re-instated.

It's definitely winter in Wanaka

9am, Saturday - soon to be father; Callum rings and says we're going for a spin in the snow.

This entails a 4 minute spin down to Trish & Callums for a warm up coffee then a further kilometre to the dirt.

We've put together a small loop that doesn't even get us into the forest, which is only 20 mins by bike.......oh I miss the driving. (Tui ad)

We spent our time on a bunch of tracks that drop from the sidle track down to the Clutha River and some thoughtful individuals have built a new (easier) track to take you back up to the top to pick another way down.....

Potential for getting it wrong rises considerably with speed, or supposed familiarity of the trail...so far nothing but a few scuffed rear derailleurs due to errant tree roots.

The snow didn't stay for long - the sun came out later on.

Callum showing his usual style for the camera:

Quality time in the Garage......

The family is up north, so I've had a great couple of days in the garage here in Wanaka.

Drawing inspiration from Ebay where I found a great Raleigh Panasonic sloping TT bike, I spent the afternoon re-creating my own.
**Footnote** This frame used to belong to Mark Rendell who rode it in the team time trial in the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Australia. NZ came home with a bronze medal for the 100km event in a shade under 2 hours.
Sounds like a world of hurt for two hours.........
The 28 spoke wheels were my time trial specials from when I was 15:
Sansin sealed bearing hubs
Suntour new winner freewheel 13-19 straight
Bladed spokes
Mavic GP 4 rims
Currently wearing Wolber Strada 80 tires that dad bought home from the UK in the late 80's
All the Campag was on hand and looking for an excuse to get out off the shelf.
I think the frame might have originally sported a 26 inch front wheel, but it came with these forks, so that'll do for now.