Fuck it’s May already!

The Fuji never made it. A keen guy offered me $650 for it and I couldn’t resist. SOLD! Packed up and ready to go.

Massive milage/tank. Even after a flogging with 3 people in the car to the dirtworks and back. The Jazz continues to impress!

And the SE’s finally finished (yeah right!).

The official Dirtworks results are up!

I did it in 2hours 50 minutes 25seconds

96th out of 203 in veteran class.
253rd overall out of 625 riders in the 50km race (109 people DNF).
233rd overall in Mens.

Today a few of the BMU crew and I did the Dirt Works Classic, 105km North West of Sydney in the St Albans Region. Regarded as one of Australia’s most challenging mountain bike endurance races although we only did the 50km, not the 100km race, having said that, even the 50km race totally destroyed me.

Andy and Clifton got to my place at 5AM. I only got afew hours sleep as last night was Suga and my engagement party with her girl friends. I didn’t drink much though (I tried to only have one glass of champagne, one cocktail and one glass of wine). The girls went out partying afterwards but I managed to sneak off home, and got to bed by 11PM. Christina woke me up when she got home at 4AM though, so I just got up, had a coffee, bananna and started getting ready.

BMU RPRSNT!

The drive there was spectacular. The fog on the highway was awesome, think Speilberg meets Lynch.

The Jazz had a hard time over some of the terrain as it was so low, which made for some giggles.

Andy pre-race. Damn it was chilly.

Registration was super fast. I can’t believe I’m a veteran! :/

Almost ready!

The Start line. The ride from the car to the start line was sooo cold. Warm in the sun, freezing in the shade.

The Finish – Clifton, Ben and crew.

Me at the finish line. 2hrs and 50 minutes later!

Felix, every entrant got a cold beer on crossing the finish line.

Andy.

The beer went straight to my head. I had a Pizza, that didn’t make me feel any better at all. I was destroyed. The last 10km’s really killed me and I had to dig deep. All in all it was a great ride, the Fizik Gobi XM saddle hurt for the 1st kew km’s but it just got so comfy as I went along (or was my ass numb from the pain?!). The SPD’s helped me a lot on the climbs, where I managed to overtake a lot of people. The downhills, which I usually love the most, were super sketchy on my Anthem. I had to use a lot of brake, and just didn’t feel at all confident in the bike when pointed down hill. I bonked at about 30km’s and just generally struggled from there until the finish where a lot of people I overtook earlier got me back (mentally crushing I tell you).

I wish I was better prepared, but ever since the flu I got a month ago, and all that wet weather where I didn’t ride I just neve managed to get back to the state I was in pre-flu. Having said that: I’m not so fussed about my time (for reference young Clifton beat my by 25 minutes and finished 11 in his class! So awesome) and I’m happy I finished.

How those guys do the 100km race is beyond me, way beyond me. Massive respect to every single one of them.

The constant banging doesn’t hurt as much as it did for the first few weeks, but it’s still driving me up the wall. So much so that I find myself going out for longer lunches, and even hanging out at MCC.

It’s all happening though, scary thing is nothing is finished, but more and more stuff gets destroyed!

Kitchen. The whole thing will come down. I’m busy, in Photoshop (hey it’s all I know!), designing what the new kitchen will look like.

The deck!

The guest bathroom.

We had last night’s JDMST EOMM at Fox Studios again, dinner at the Fox and Lion too.

The drift boys rocked up last night, their cars are so hardcore. I loved every single one of them. Stripped interiors, roll cages, zip ties to hold bumpers on and drift decals galore. I’m in awe that they get away with driving them on the streets.

I got so sick of the feeling of being pulled over and defected every time I saw a cop car when I used to drive my GT-R. So much so I got over driving it on the streets, but seeing the boys last night got me so excited about getting the GT-R back out and running. I’m inspired!

More pics from last night’s meet here.

Every now and then someone comes along and just changes everything because they’re so good at what they do. He’s a modern genius. Yes it’s all over the net. I saw it a week ago, but I just felt like watching it again today. It’s how I feel right now :)

My new top cap on the Fuji fixie.

Asaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhi.

And this nifty tool which mounts to the bottle cage mounts on the downtube. It also doubles as a bottle opener (see a theme here?!).

I’d been planning this for so long, and me having such a big mouth made it so hard to keep this under wraps but I’m glad to say I pulled it off!

For the past few months I’ve been screwing with Chrstina’s brain into thinking that there might be some doubt in our relationship, mean, I know, but I just wanted this to be a big surprise!

I first told Mum that I’d like to propose to Christina, she went ape. I then worked up the courage to ask Christinas parents. I think Christina’s Mum wears the pants in the family so I called her Mum about a month ago and told her I was in her area and would like to drop in for a chat in regards to Christina moving in to my place. Christina’s parents are traditional, and weren’t happy with the idea of her moving out so soon. I’m sure Rosemary was ready to let me know how she felt about it, but I admitted that I wasn’t really in the area at all. I lied (white lie! I’m sorry!) and that I wanted to ask her for her daughters hand in marriage. I was super nervous, she was teary and so happy :). The week after I had lunch with Rosemary and Tony and I got Tony’s blessing too. The only thing he had to say was that I should try to be more Chinese (!) which cracked me up.

They were both so happy that I was proposing, and more than happy for Christina to move in with me. That kinda fired me up a little. I made it really clear to them both that I was doing this for Christina and I, and not for them. Asking for Christina’s hand in marriage had nothing at all to make them happy about her moving in. They were cool with that though and it all works out great :)

That blue box.

Mum and Jamie helped me pick out a ring. Tiffany’s. I knew that already, but choosing a stone wasn’t as easy as I thought. Best thing was that Jamie was there to help me by being a ring model. In the end “internally flawless” sounded perfect to me. The smaller diamond looked great, proportionally to the ring but I had to get the bigger one. I just bit the bullet and went with it. :)

I wanted to propose on Christina’s B’day (27th April) and getting everyone to keep it quiet for the past month was always going to be the hardest part. My Mum was already telling relos overseas. Jamie and Richie were super cool, Rosemary and Tony had to keep it a secret from Christina’s younger sister Jess, that’s what I was most worried about!

We booked in to Altitude at the Shangri-La hotel for dinner. What I didn’t tell Christina was that I also booked in a hotel room with crazy harbour views (that was her pressie!). Yesterday I had butterflies in my stomach. I hardly slept the night before too. I think I took a one hour shower, then headed in to check-in and plan everything.

The view from the hotel room.

I put the ring in the hotel room safe. Spent some time looking out over the harbour and getting my nerves together then headed in to pick Christina up from work.

We had a cocktail, then dinner, which wasn’t as great as the view or service. I was trying my best to confuse Christina into thinking strange things about where we were going to go next, or what her B’day pressie was going to be. She was guessing a Ghost Tour, or absailing off the building (?!). I had her totally confused. After dinner I got her to close her eyes in the lift and when the doors opened we weren’t on the ground floor, but on the 15th :) I’d set up the room earlier that day with mood nighting (hehe) and wished her a Happy B’day.

Soon after I got down on one knee, presented the box and proposed. Chrstina’s eyes were popping out of her head and her jaw was on the floor (a funny face actually). Lots of laughter and she spent the next 20 minutes calling everyone, telling them off for not remembering her B’day, then telling them to sit down then dropping the news. I counted at least 50 “Oh My God’s”!

The ring.

The sun’s up!

So I was up late the other night and thought I’d screw around on Pedal ID. This is what I got to, a mock-up for the Fuji (see a few posts below). I love it! All I’d need is the green saddle and green grips as I already have a lot of riser bars to choose from. The green grips aren’t a problem as MC Cyclery stock them, but tracking down a green saddle of the same shape is going to be near impossible. I can settle for a green velo saddle in the meantime though.

Speaking of the awesome Pedal ID, these guys have basically ripped off the idea, though instead of bettering it, they’ve made it worse (less parts, less flexible, what’s the point?).

I had a few things planned today but once I started looking for bathroom fittings the whole day went out the window. Driving around from shop to shop wears me out pretty damn fast, staring at walls of toilet paper roll holders and trying your best to imagine them in your new bathroom/s (I have 2 to do), which is nothing more than an empty raw concrete room… it’s nearly impossible!

The bath tub above was the only thing that jumped out at me today. I liked it straight away. Especially the corner joints. I had a look at the price and almost fell over when I saw the $15,000 tag. Sigh, why do I have to like such nice things?