Back on the bike! I’ve had a couple of outings to centennial park with Christina lately and whilst I wasn’t feeling up for Loftus just yet I managed to somehow not come up with an excuse to pull out and at 10AM I was at Loftus car park with Maisey, who’s MCC‘s new mechanic.

I pretty much died half way through but still managed to do the whole BMU loop and some more. I cleared all the technical sections with ease so I’ve still got it but I just lack pace. Maisey was on a 29’er single speed and he was faster than me going up and down. Top guy though, will try to keep these Monday rides up from now on!

Mothers Day was at Longrain (AGAIN?!). That makes it the 4th time I’ve eaten here this year. Perhaps 3 times too many but hey, the food was great, better than usual actually and this wine was so nice. Try it, you like it.

Dogs, heaps of them, all left alone at Bondi Westfields carpark. I can only assume they were minding these dogs but I’d be furious if I knew my dog minder was leaving my dog in the back of a ute at the shopping mall.

Organic Nachos on Crown St. Surry Hills.

Caught up with an old friend (and ex-flatmate) Liz today. We had heaps to catch up on, both of us are very much in the same place at the moment with work and getting what we want out of work/life.

Liz founded Embody many years ago and has only just gotten back on the horse with it (like I have with INfront). After lunch (check above, yup it was good) I dropped in to her place and met her guy Daniel who runs Scientifik his own skateboard company. We had heaps in common (I used to skate, he still does!) so hit it off straight away.

Be sure to check out their sites, real people doing their own thing, got to love that!

Embody: http://embodyspa.com.au
Scientifik: http://www.scientifikskateboards.com.au

Despite the freezing cold a fair few VWGolf.net.au members came out for Pizza night which is held on the 1st Wednesday of every month in Pyrmont. Great people, great conversations. Our little community is solidifying, found it’s roots and we can only grow from here.

More pics HERE.

I’ve just uploaded a feature on Matt’s MX5 over at JDMST. Matt’s a guy I’ve known for more than a few years through the car scene. His car diary on JDMST is a true inspiration to me. Unlike myself, he’s not the kind of guy who obsesses over modifications or the perfect ride height or wheel offset, instead he’s just genuinely into driving and finding epic b-roads I’ve never seen or heard of before.

You can view his feature HERE

Now in stock in the JDMST SHOP.

When I got back from overseas I had a funky package waiting for me from Charles Kha. I knew it was going to be Issue 85, Auto Salon Magazine’s final issue.

I opened the package to find three perfect non-creased (thanks to the packaging!) copies, one standard issue which will soon be found all over Australian Newsagents and 2 Limited Edition magazines featuring alternate covers.

Christina and I got straight into reading the magazines. We both consider the ASM staff as good friends (Christina even did a stint as a graphic designer with ASM) and it was bitter sweet, fun and sad to read their last words.

You can read on-going comments on Issue #85 here.

Thanks to my new partners Damien and Zann The Australian INfront is back, hard.

This week we’re covering the Rosemount Australian Fashion Week – What’s next? The sky’s the limit with these guys!

This morning I got an email from a mate Tendy who sent me a photo of a carbon bonnet. The email message was: “You want?”.

I replied and the phone rang very soon after. It was Tendy, he said he would be happy to let me have his new bonnet now and I can order him another one from Rennenhaus later (he was going to paint it white then fit it to his white GTI).

He’s a champ and I wasn’t one to refuse! He was already at Top One so Suga and I jumped into the car and in 20 minutes we were borrowing Dedy’s tools (I felt pretty bad about that and would have preferred to bring my own tools) and installing the bonnet.

Quality is perfect and fitment is bang on. I’m super impressed at how easy it was to install. This OSIR bonnet weighs 6kg and the stock one weighed in at 12kg. A decent saving of 6kg which brings my savings so far to -48.38kg.